Scorpion Rising

From the corner of his eye, he caught two hands wind milling above the heads of the crowd. That something appeared to be Claudia. He waved back.

There was only one explanation Marcus could think of to explain the Scorpion's presence. Rebellion.

'Gorse!' she yelled out. 'Gorse!'

'Thanks,' he mouthed back, holding up his bow, though he was surprised at such eager support. 'But you know me. Fearn's arrow today, Cupid's arrow tomorrow. Fancy pinning your colours to that?'

Forget the campaigning season, he thought. This was a man who'd been shunned by his tribe for speaking out against Rome but who didn't roll over under the shame. He went out and built up an army.

In Rome's eyes, it was nothing but a raggle-taggle bunch of boozers and losers, but at their head were two clever men. Together, Manion and his deputy, Ptian, had used crime to build up a rich seam of funds, and the money must have gone somewhere. Weapons, armour, food and supplies, they had to be as well organized as the crimes they set up and as smart as the false intelligence they'd sent back to Rome. However, with limited numbers, these so-called Saviours of Gaul couldn't possibly charge the legions head on. Orbilio's guess was that they'd use guerrilla tactics, striking when the enemy expected it least, and in ways it would not imagine.

'Not gorse, horse!' Claudia was making galloping actions. 'You need a horse,' she was shouting.

'I'm Taurus, not Sagittarius,' he laughed back, but it only served to deepen the scowl on her face.

Was it any wonder men did not understand women?

'Bit late, I'm afraid,' Manion puffed in his ear. 'Couple of things to sort out and time kind of ran away on me.' He made an intricate gesture with his bow in Claudia's direction. 'Have I missed much?'

Marcus doubted the Scorpion missed anything. 'Not so you'd notice,' he assured him with a smile.

'Hurry it along, you two, this isn't a mothers' meeting, you know.' Gurdo's temper wasn't improved by murder, it seemed. 'We fire at midday not bloody midnight.'

'Whoops.'

Manion jumped forward to collect the arrow tipped with

Fearn's gorse-coloured feathers. Orbilio took Luisa's red favours behind.

'These are the wrong way round,' he said.

'Does it matter?' Manion had already notched the shaft in its rest.

'Superstition among the Hundred-Handed says that to accept an arrow out of its allotted order brings bad luck.'

Though it didn't specify whether that bad luck befell the archer, the priestess or the aspect of nature that she protected.

'Want to swap back, Pretty Boy?'

'I'm not superstitious,' Marcus said, holding his gaze.

From the dais, Dora's voice boomed across the field as they turned round to take their positions to fire.

'Now, with the year at its zenith, we, the Hundred-Handed, give ourselves back to the earth that we came from, and with each favour, send out an arrow of peace. Are the archers ready?'

Fifty heads nodded, and at Gurdo's signal, fifty bowstrings were drawn back to their chests.

'Then let a simultaneous loosing of fifty arrows demonstrate the harmony of nature and of this order…'

A trumpet blew. Gurdo's hand came down. A rainbow of feathers flew into the sky. The crowd roared. It was over. The midsummer celebrations had come to an end. All boded well for the future.

Then a scream filled the air.

Piercing and protracted, it was a scream filled with agony. The whole field fell silent at once. Then a girl came rushing over, her face drained of colour, and Orbilio recognized her as the novice who'd won the dew competition. The crowd parted as Vanessia came forward.

'What on earth is it, child?' Dora asked, but with every step the girl took, the crowd drew back in horror.

Then he saw it.

In Vanessia's hands hung a bloodied black raven, from which one of the arrows protruded. Dora gasped. Beth gasped. All the priestesses and initiates gasped.

So did Marcus.

Mother of Tarquin, everyone in the Gaulish world knew that the souls of the priestesses were reborn as ravens. To kill one of these birds, no matter how, meant certain death, execution in the Pit of Reflection. He swallowed.

'Whose arrow is it?' someone rasped in his ear.

Orbilio couldn't answer.

He simply stared at its bright rowan-red feathers, sick in the knowledge that the arrow was his.

Twenty-Five

The very mention of the word June conjures up bright sun-kissed days and extended warm evenings, stars twinkling brightly and poppies nodding at the end of long velvety stems. It's when aubretia and thyme tumble down hills in thick purple cascades, when kingfishers dart, buzzards ride the thermals and mew, when brimstone butterflies vie with buttercups and flag irises for the honour of the brightest yellow. Midsummer is when leaves are at their greenest, grass at its lushest and skylarks are warbling over the meadows to take spirits soaring up there alongside them.

Now, it seemed, June was the season of death.

Or at least the condemning to death. July was when it would take place.

By the time dehydration and starvation finally claimed the pit's victim, the roses would be over, fairy rings would appear.

Marcus Cornelius would not be alive to see them.

There were no tears left. Her throat was raw from pleading, from threatening, she'd tried every tactic that she could think of, from bullying, hitting, scratching and biting to begging, bribing and blackmail.

Nothing penetrated the wall the Hundred-Handed put up. These were their grounds, these were their rules and they brooked no intervention.

Negotiation was not part of the deal.

'Listen, lady.' Gurdo sat by the empty shell that was Claudia Seferius in the cave and filled a stone grail with water. 'It doesn't matter if he's the Roman bloody Emperor, your friend killed a raven and the penalty for killing ravens is death.'

There was something about the smell of the water that made Claudia push it away.

'Drink it,' he insisted. 'It's black hellebore, which has already served Pod well today. It'll do you no harm to sleep deep at the moment.'

'I can't. I need to be there-'

'No, you don't,' Gurdo snapped. 'That's why I had you brought down here! You didn't want to watch while they threw him-'

'Yes, I did,' she wailed, hurling the grail at the wall. 'Don't you understand? It was me that brought him here in the first place, me that got him bloody well killed!'

'It was an accident, Lofty Legs, and accidents happen. You can't blame yourself any more than you can blame the raven for flying across that glade. There's nothing you can do about fate.'

Oh, Marcus, why didn't you listen to me? Why didn't you take that bloody horse from the stables and ride? Ride down and catch up with Swarbric?

Gurdo bent down to retrieve the vessel and filled it with water from the spring. 'You won't like what I'm going to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.' He let the trickle run over his hand. 'The best thing you can do for your friend is keep away from that place, do you hear me?'

'But-'

'But nothing, lady.' His mouth turned down in an inverted U. 'There's no trial, no appeal, you know that already. Nothing can change those priestesses' minds, and it doesn't matter whether they think the Pit is barbaric or not, this is one of the few issues on which there's no going back.' He paused and took a deep breath. 'Not that it matters. By now, they'll have thrown your friend down the cliff and that's why I say stay away.'

He knelt in front of her and placed his hands on her quivering shoulders.