Stone Cold

'You have not thanked me for saving your life,' Tarbel said.

'Funny. I wasn't aware that you'd saved it.'

His rough-hewn features almost smiled. 'I didn't. But most people wet themselves in such situations and then, when the crisis is over, fall over themselves to thank me. Especially the ladies.'

If he expected her to ask how these ladies thanked him, he was in for a long wait. 'You make it sound as though such situations are commonplace.'

'I wouldn't say it's a weekly occurrence,' the Basc rumbled, his hand nevertheless covering his dagger, 'but, si. The Mistress has made a lot of enemies, doing what she does.'

'Which is what, exactly?'

Marcia had never said what had earned her so much wealth. Only that there was no embarrassing way to stockpile it.

'You must ask her that,' he said, scanning the crowd. 'Gossiping about the Mistress behind her back is the surest way for a man to get himself fired.'

Claudia glanced round to where Marcia was busy inspecting, prodding and poking her way along the platform, surrounded by the usual bunch of quacks, charlatans and liveried slaves. He might wear a green tunic beneath his cuirass, but whatever faults he might have, she reflected, Tarbel was by no means a toady.

'Posts for mercenaries hard to come by these days?' she breezed.

'I'm a soldier,' he growled.

'You kill for a living. That's a mercenary in my book.'

'I fight,' he said. 'There's a difference.'

'Really'

Dark chestnut eyes locked into hers and held them for a count of perhaps ten. 'Are you looking to fight me?' he asked quietly.

'Isn't it strange how you men always think in terms of waging war.'

'Maybe it's because I spent the last fifteen years serving your army in the auxiliaries.'

'Another ten and you would have received automatic citizenship.'

'Another ten and I'd have been just as broke when I quit, only with rheumatics in my bones and a bad case of haemorrhoids.'

'So you resigned and sold yourself to the highest bidder. Or have we had this conversation before?'

'Then I'm a whore,' he snapped. 'Is that worse than women who marry old men for their money?'

Claudia adjusted the strap on her shoe to cover the sudden rush of colour to her cheeks. He couldn't know. Tarbel couldn't possibly know

… Then she realized that his sharp eyes were no longer scanning the crowd for danger, but were centred on his employer.

'Marcia's finished her bidding,' he said. 'I must go.'

'One question.'

An expression crossed his chiselled face, though it was far too fleeting for her to identify. ' Si?'

'Are you happy in your job?'

There was a momentary pause. 'If you're asking what I think you're asking, you're on the wrong track,' he said slowly. 'Not every bodyguard lusts after his mistress the way your pretty boy does, and what makes you think I wouldn't enjoy what I do? Protection work pays a hell of a lot better than your Roman army, that's for sure.'

Yes, it does. She watched as he slipped into place at Marcia's shoulder. But it was odd that he hadn't actually answered her question. (Plus any idiot with half an eye could see that Junius was the sulky type, not a yearner!) Wrestling her way through hordes of children entranced by the exploits of the Arabian fire-eater, between stalls packed with bargain hunters and past fortune-tellers bent over their charts, Claudia fought her way to the north end of the Forum. They were an ugly bunch of villains on display and no mistake. She scoured the notices that had been nailed to the platform, and saw that tonight they would be paying the price for a suitably ugly list of crimes, too.

Murderer. Double Murderer. Child killer. Rapist. The list just went on and on, though, looking at them now, naked and in chains, vilified and spat on, she wondered how much those few seconds of pleasure were worth. One or two of the cockier prisoners made an attempt at bravado, but the bluster did not extend to their eyes, and the overwhelming impression was of a group of men wracked with self-pity and not a shred of remorse for their victims.

'Will you be staying for the executions, Claudia Seferius?' a voice drawled in her ear. 'Your Emperor has sent a team of gladiators all the way from Rome to despatch them.'

'I have no great desire to watch unarmed criminals being pitched against professional killers, thank you, Vincentrix.'

'Come back in six months, when the amphitheatre's finished,' the Druid replied smoothly. 'Then you'll be able to watch them being pitched against bears and tigers instead.'

'I meant, I prefer engagements where the combatants are equal.'

'Yes, I'd noticed,' he murmured, and she smelled the peppery tang of his skin. 'Did you enjoy the dessert course last night, by the way? Personally, I found the stuffed apples a little on the cold side, but then maybe that was simply because they'd cooled by the time I'd settled into my new seat.'

'Your chivalry was much appreciated.'

Still no priestly robes, then. At the banquet he'd blended in by wearing a white belted tunic over his pantaloons, just as he had merged with the landscape on his private island. Today, wearing a pale blue-grey tunic over flint-coloured breeches tucked into high, soft, black boots, he could be any Gaul. They all wore the same amulets round their wrists for protection against evil spirits, draped the same gold torcs round their necks and restrained their long hair with the same soft kidskin headbands. Was the most powerful Gaul in Aquitania really quite without ego? she wondered. Or was he so powerful that everybody recognized him, whatever he wore? There was, of course, a third alternative…

She looked at the way he'd whitened his hair with lime this morning. At the reddish-brown stubble that darkened his jaw. By disguising himself as Everyman, Vincentrix became invisible among subjects who were so in awe of the Head of the Druid Guild that they would never imagine such an exalted personage would lower himself to mingle among them! She pictured him, able to quote even the tiniest detail of their life back to them. A snippet of conversation overheard in the market. The recollection of a purchase. A meeting. A sale. For a man trained to retain information in his head, it was nothing — but to his people, his reading of minds demonstrated the supernatural powers associated with Druids. Manipulation again, not magic. And this Druid had just met his match.

'Fancy your chances?' she asked, tilting her head towards the one-eyed Syrian who was challenging the crowd to Find the Pea.

'Claudia Seferius, I never play any game I can't win,' Vincentrix said solemnly. 'Find the Pea relies purely on chance.'

'Hand me your torc'

'This?' The Druid fingered the band round his neck. 'It's solid gold!'

'I should bloody well hope so,' she said, pulling it free. 'Otherwise I wouldn't be gambling it.'

'Just a moment.' Vincentrix grabbed it back and placed his lips gently against the central boss before returning it to her outstretched hand.

'One for luck?'

'Actually, I was kissing an old friend goodbye.'

Claudia moved across to where the Syrian was playing his crowd. He made it look easy, as he placed his wizened pea beneath one of three identical walnut shells then shuffled them around. Zip, zip, zip — where's the pea? Several punters thought it was easy, as well. Strangely, they were the same punters who went away penniless.

'Bad luck, sir, oh, jolly bad luck.' The Syrian smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. 'Anyone else fancy their chances at guessing which shell the pea's under?'