Several seconds passed, in which she studied the change in his customary wolfishness which had given way to a thoughtfulness that was entirely new. A thoughtfulness that some people, she thought, might interpret as cunning 'You suspect Connal of killing Sarra?' she asked slowly.
Swarbric rubbed his hands over his face. 'Quite honestly, I don't know what to think,' he said at length. 'A girl's dead, he's missing, and so is the small canoe Gurdo keeps on the river for fishing.'
Claudia smoothed her robe and straightened her girdle. 'When was the last time you saw Elusa?' she asked.
'Foggoth Hillgund!' He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. 'Foggoth bloody Hillgund, those two idiots have used the festival to elope, haven't they?'
'You'll need to check on Elusa's whereabouts first, but yes, I agree. It's more than possible.'
Another stream of Teutonic swear words spilled out as he slammed his fist into his hand. 'Fools! They won't get five miles before somebody spots them,' he raged, 'then it's the Pit of Reflection for them both.' He spiked his hair with his hands. 'Shit, shit, shit, Connal. What the bloody hell have you done?'
He ground his teeth and swore at the heavens, then spun on his heel back to face her.
'I have no right to ask this,' Swarbric said, and his voice was now calm, his manner composed, as though he had taken a decision on which there was no going back, 'no right at all,' he stressed quietly, 'but you've seen the Pit, you know how unforgiving it is, and if you care anything at all for those stupid, stupid children, I beg you not to tell anyone.'
He drew a deep breath. 'I need to find them, Claudia. They'll need help to escape, because if the Gauls pick them up and report back to Beth, you know what will happen. Once any matter has become official, there's no going back.'
'But-' Claudia blinked. 'If you leave the grounds, what happens to you? Suppose the Gauls capture you?'
'You really think it matters what happens to me? I'm a slave, did you forget? There is no one in this place to grieve over my passing.'
'Oh, for gods' sake!' Claudia grabbed a fist of his shirt. 'You can't risk everything for two lovesick fatheads!'
Connal was passionate, impulsive, earnest and sincere, Elusa was genuine in her affection for him. But alone in the forest, living on berries and wits, whilst constantly having to glance over their shoulder, how long would love last?
'I give it a month, if they're lucky.'
'Better one month out there than twenty years stifled,' he growled, shaking himself free.
'Don't be a fool,' Claudia hissed. 'Out there, it's a case of two children playing grown-ups in the big wide world, and we both know they don't stand a chance. While in here, they're doomed the instant their first child is either swallowed up in the system or sold into slavery. For heaven's sakes, Swarbric, this is not a love that's going to stand the test of time.'
But he was already ducking the branches of alder and willow as his stride ate up the river bank.
'Just promise me,' he yelled over his shoulder, his reflection clear in the rippling stream. 'Promise you won't tell a soul about this. With luck I'll be back before the HundredHanded notice I've gone.'
Claudia stared up at the sheer grey rockface, where valerian danced in the sticky breeze and jackdaws made roosts on the ledge, and felt the shadow of fear crawl over her skin.
Do you know what they'll do to Elusa, if they find out what you 're planning?
The rest of his conversation with Connal flooded back.
Because they will, son. They always find out. These trees have ears, they have eyes, trust me, the Hundred-Handed know everything. They pool secrets the same way they pool their knowledge of nature, the same bloody way they pool us, and what the trees don't give away, pillow talk does. Now for gods' sakes, Connal, grow up.
And now here he was, a young man with the world at his feet, risking his privileges, his freedom, indeed his very life to save a couple ofteenagers whose future was doomed from the start. Claudia rubbed her face with the palms of her hands, and perhaps it was memories of Swarbric's dashing theatricals, maybe it was his well-honed disarming smile or the charm he'd worked so hard to perfect, but as she watched the seams of his pants (the ultimate livery of the performing bear) stretch to their limits as he bridged the stream with one bound, she found herself cupping her hands round her mouth.
'I promise,' she called, though he was running too fast and she knew that only the forest had heard.
While the shadow of fear grew heavier still.
Deep in the shade of a lightning-split yew, eyes followed Claudia Seferius as she made her way back down the path towards the Field of Celebration. When the battle cry rose to unite Gaul in its freedom and the cobblestones ran red with blood, how sweet would it be to make that one his whore, the eyes wondered.
She, who marches along with her chin held high and her shoulders squared back, as though she owns the bloody place?
What would it be like to take her, he wondered, have her beg for mercy at the point of his knife, simpering, whimpering, not so high and mighty then, he'd be willing to bet, and where would that famous Roman pride be then, eh? Grovelling in the dust of her own bloody arrogance, that's how fast her self-importance would fall. She'd be begging and pleading, praying to gods who didn't exist, and he saw her licking his boots with the length of her tongue, and then let's see how sharp it was, that wit of hers, with the dust of Gaul in her mouth!
He'd have her do it naked on the end of a chain.
See how it feels to be enslaved to another. Do this, do that, can't do this, don't do that. Now you'll dance to my tune, you bitch. I will have Rome writhing at my feet, washing them clean with its tears of self-pity, and pity you didn't think of anyone else except your own self-serving ends. Pity you didn't think of us before now.
Because you come marching in here, you seize our people, our soil, our traditions, our gods, ah, but you can't take our spirit, you bastards. Gaul is our homeland, Aquitani's our blood, and as we drive you out as we did once before, you will rue the day you set foot in this country.
And you, my pretty flashing-eyed Roman girl. What will you rue as I cut off your pretty Roman-style ringlets and hold a knife to your long Roman throat? Once your jewels and your clothes, your hair and your pride have been stripped bare at my feet, who will you call out to, I wonder?
Scorpion. Whisperer. What was a name?
But as I take you and take you and make you my whore, be sure of one thing, you bitch.
You will call me 'my lord'.
Twenty-Three
Claudia stopped in the path. Turned. And shivered. It was as though someone was watching, she thought. Boring eyes into the back of her head.
Ridiculous.
It's Sarra. Her murder was vicious and brutal, nerves were bound to be jangling, and besides fear is a normal reaction after death. Self-preservation always becomes more pronounced. With a toss of her head, and heedless of the hairpin that sprang loose from its moorings, Claudia marched down the woodland path and tried not to look at the trees that seemed to close in, or the shrubs that were suddenly pressing too close. In the aftermath of murder, it was too easy to get swept up in dark thoughts and see the ash as the tree that strangles its neighbours, rather than a good source of charcoal. Or forget about rowan's rich healing properties, and remember only its power to conjure up demons. It was too much, she thought. First this talk of spirits buzzing like bees, then this oppressive, gummy heat, and with death stalking the shadows, emotions that she might ordinarily have shrugged off were suddenly swirling on an eddy of grief.
Manion, probing her painful childhood rejections with a scalpel that pared to the bone.