'That's the beauty of the place.' He waved his short sword airily. 'You can't see it for the trees as you come down the hill. The gorge always catches visitors off guard.'
Her eyes transfixed on the arrow-shaped cliff that rose out of nowhere, a hundred almost vertical feet. This isn't a gorge, she wanted to say, a gorge rises on both sides, but before she could form the words, her attention was diverted to the rush of water that, like Minerva springing fully-armed from Jupiter's thigh, gushed directly from the foot of the cliff. She watched it bounce into a pool, white and foaming, before dancing its way through flower-filled meadows lined with willows until it disappeared round a bend and was swallowed up by the woods.
'The Hundred-Handed call it paradise,' the sentry said, following the direction of her gaze.
'I can see why,' she acknowledged, though a miss was as good as a mile. The valley radiated beauty, tranquillity and calm in bucketloads. But a child was killed here. Rebellion was swelling. Paradise this was certainly not. To the left of the spring she noticed two caves in the rock face. One had been decked with garlands of honeysuckle and wild roses, the other with garlands of yew.
'There you go, my lady Claudia,' Swarbric said, performing a dashing, some might say theatrical, bow at the edge of the small wooden footbridge. 'Ifyou need anything while you're here, anything at all, that hut's where you'll find me.'
He pointed to a small, round building whose thatched roof was barely visible through the trees.
'Night and day, I'm at your ladyship's service — and if you lot don't come down this instant,' he added in a loud voice, shooting a broad wink at Claudia, 'you're going to be in seriously big trouble.'
There was a scuffle from the branches in the oak tree behind, then three girls aged between ten and fourteen dropped to the floor, their skirts tucked into their knicker cloth to reveal muddy knees and badly scuffed sandals. Same flaxen hair, same pale complexions, same graceful deportment, the girls could have been sisters.
'I swear you have eyes in the top of your head, Swarbric.' The oldest shook her skirts loose before brushing the dust off the little one's shoulders.
'You won't tell on us, will you?' pleaded the middle one, whose face seemed comprised of nothing but blue eyes and dimples.
'There's nothing to tell,' the third member of the flaxenhaired trio sniffed, with a toss of her plaits. 'We were only climbing the branches to learn about squirrels.'
'Nuts,' Swarbric laughed. 'Now run along, all of you, before I chop off your thick bushy tails.'
At the swish of his sword, the girls raced down the path, squealing at the tops of their voices. He turned to Claudia.
'Don't forget, now.' With sparkling eyes, he tugged an imaginary forelock. 'If you need anything… '
'The hut. Yes.'
Claudia glanced back over her shoulder at the thatch peeping out through the woods and wondered if this dashing German was really offering what she thought he was offering, but by the time she'd turned, he was gone. Not a sign, not a sound, not even a girlish squeal cut through the stillness, and now even the gig had disappeared back up the hill, taking her bodyguard with it. It was just her, alone, in the valley…
She stared at the footbridge. It wasn't too late. She could turn round, right now, march back up the hill and hitch a lift on a cart to Santonum…
Slowly, her eyes followed the perpendicular precipice. Had this arrowhead of rock not been commandeered by the Hundred-Handed, it would have made an excellent fortress, and perhaps it was the military connection, or maybe it was the liveliness of that beautiful flaxen-haired trio, but as she walked slowly across the footbridge, Claudia imagined she was in very much the same frame of mind as Julius Caesar when he'd crossed the Rubicon a decade before she was born.
She hadn't known Clytie, those priestesses disturbed her, Gabali only said he'd protect her from the Scorpion's sting
— and where the hell in the Empire was any time a good time to be Roman?
But there was no turning back.
Clytie's lifeblood had been drained out of her like water from a jug, her body daubed with paint and arranged as though she was some outlandish exhibit to be analysed and studied at leisure. Uh-uh. Death demands respect, and to put a little girl on display was callous and demeaning. Dammit, no one deserves to be gawped at in death. Not you, not me, not even the son-of-a-bitch who killed without conscience, and most definitely not a twelve-year-old child who'd had her life and her future snatched from her.
Dignity was the only thing Clytie had left.
Now the bastard had stolen that too.
No town in the Roman Empire reflected progress quite like the capital of Aquitania. Here, timber roundhouses gave way to limestone where shops offered every luxury from parchment to onyx to rare aromatics. Instead of having to quench their thirst with a swill of cheap beer, shoppers were invited to cool off in the shade of elegant colonnades and appreciate the artwork of the frescoes while they refreshed themselves with fine wines and nibbled on delicacies such as fatted dormice and garlic-stuffed quail. In wide cobbled streets, richly caparisoned horses displaced the huge shaggy beasts that tried to pass themselves off as donkeys, and chariots rattled by on thin iron tyres, rather than heavy carts lumbering along on creaking timber wheels. Legionaries tramped, dispatch runners jogged and over it all, the incense from a dozen marble shrines mingled with barbers' exotic unguents and the scents of oils wafting out from the bathhouse.
In effect, Santonum was Rome's shop front. It advertised opulence and sophistication with the slogan This could be yours, if you work with us and backed up its claims with a rash of theatres, public sewers and hippodromes. Support us and aqueducts could be pumping sweet water to your door was the message, and the message was getting home. Through the twin transport links of road and river, the populace was growing richer by the day, and thus nobody noticed one more young merchant leaning against the wall of the basilica. Not handsome, not ugly, not short and not tall, his clothes neither flashy nor dull, the young man watched the bustle of lawyers and clerks, lackeys and scribes with a predator's eye, pausing from time to time to nod the occasional greeting as he stroked his neatly clipped beard. As he did so, the sun glanced off his seal ring, making it appear as though its scorpion engraving was scuttling.
As the herald called the third hour after noon, the crowd was too busy going about its own private business to notice that a second man had joined him. Slightly older with penetrating brown eyes, a thin pointed face and hair which could only be described as longer than a Roman's but shorter than a Gaul's, and with a shine you could kohl your eyes in.
'It is done.' The newcomer spoke with a faint Andalus accent.
'Any problems?'
'No, sir.'
'No — how shall we say? — complications that I need to be made aware of?'
'None whatsoever.'
The young merchant nodded. 'Excellent work, Gabali.' He untied the drawstring purse from his belt and it chinked as he tossed it across. 'I knew I could rely on you.'
'Appreciation is always appreciated.'
'Good, because there's one more thing.'
'Sir?'
'Now that you've lured Claudia Seferius to the College, I need you to smuggle me in as a slave. Is that possible?'
'There's a slave auction scheduled for tomorrow and the Hundred-Handed desperately need to augment their workforce.' He spread his hands. 'If you can furnish a set of forged transfer papers, I can have you in that line-up first thing in the morning.'
'Gabali, your sense of enterprise never ceases to amaze me.'
The young merchant blew on his scorpion ring then buffed the shine on his tunic.
'Now let's get the hell out of here, because I tell you, my friend,' he slanted the Spaniard an affectionate smile, 'the gum holding this beard on is really making my face itch.'