Marilyn Todd - Scorpion Rising

Brushing against banks of wild mint as she strolled by the river, Claudia's hems released clouds of its invigorating fragrance. The Hundred-Handed weren't cruel to their male captives in the physical sense — indeed, Beth would be outraged at the very suggestion. But their behaviour flew in the face of every convention as these 'prime specimens' were kept not only locked up, but under the control of women who used them for work and sex and then, when they'd outlived their usefulness in the eyes of the priestesses, sold them on like redundant cookpots. If that wasn't cruelty, Claudia didn't know what was, the only surprise was that more hadn't snapped. The question was, would that rage extend to taking it out on a twelve-year-old child?

Maybe this magnificent, chained and powerless male believed that, in killing a novice, it was the start to sparing future generations from becoming like him? That if the Hundred-Handed were eliminated — cut off at the root, as it were — the plant would wither and die?

If so, that put three little flaxen-haired beauties in the path of some very real danger.

'What happened to you, Clytie?' she whispered. 'Were you the victim of a sick, twisted mind who looked to an executed butcher as some kind of hero?'

Beth clearly thought so.

'Or is Dora right? Were you the tragic result of a warrior's trial run, or is my theory closer to the mark? That you were sacrificed on an altar of despairing male principles?'

Quite literally, given the shape of the rock, and maybe that in itself was important. But tempting as it was to seek logic in murder, Claudia's notion of putting an end to the sect by killing novices would only work if every priestess was beyond child-bearing age. Dora and several others certainly were, and although Beth, Fearn and Ailm were fast approaching that stage, there were still plenty of nubile Initiates on hand to do their duty. If Clytie's killer hoped to eradicate the Hundred-Handed, his object was self-defeating. The College would probably double in numbers overnight.

Watching a grass snake slither through the thyme, another theory began to take shape.

Orbilio had called the Hundred-Handed idealists, but idealists came in many forms. Suppose someone believed that by killing Clytie they were setting her little soul free? Once again, Claudia's eyes were drawn to the cave with two mouths. One for humans to pass through, decked with honeysuckle and rose. The other garlanded with yew that was reserved for the spirits, and which led straight down to the Underworld.

It's our holy obligation to learn Natures lore and store the knowledge inside our hearts, Vanessia had said.

It's our purpose for this reincarnation.

This reincarnation, that was the point. Suggesting the Hundred-Handed were not reborn into their own cult and thus begging the question, if not back here, where did their saintly souls go? As a flock of finches swooped down to drink from the shallows, she remembered Dora remarking that, in her view, the painting and arranging of Clytie's body was a clumsy attempt to imitate the previous murders.

Until now, Claudia had assumed the killer was male, but as both Gabali and the Oak Priestess had taken pains to point out, no sexual assault had taken place and was that what the Hundred-Handed were hiding? That they knew — or suspected — she'd been killed by a woman? One, in fact, of their own…?

I know, the note by her bedside had read and despite the heat of midsummer, Claudia shivered.

She couldn't see them. She couldn't hear them. But around the dark side of the cave, spirits hovered like bees.

Waiting to lead another soul down to be judged.

To be shunned was to be voted invisible, and once invisible the outcast was forbidden to speak, wash, even worship within his own community.

The length of expulsion was determined by a number of factors, though obviously it was influenced by the proportion of black pebbles over white in the voting jar. As a rule, the higher the number, the longer the exile and though a unanimous vote could result in a lifetime ban, such cases were rare. Shunning was intended as a deterrent. A hope that, by being forced to live on the edge of society for anything from a few weeks to a couple of years, with the penitent obliged to fend for himself and unable to communicate with friends and family — even drink water upstream from them for fear of polluting them with his guilt — he (and it was always a he) would return home humble, contrite, but most of all an example to others that rules were laid down for a reason.

Murder and rape were capital crimes, but there was no room in society for the likes of assault, theft or the sabotage of another man's crops, nor would extortion, slander, cowardice or arson be tolerated, either. For moving his neighbour's boundary stones, a farmer might expect to be shunned for three years, since he had callously planned to enrich his own life at the expense of another's and used deceit under the guise of friendship. However, falsely accusing one's sister-in-law of adultery might result in a couple of months, while stealing livestock or grain fell somewhere in between.

No one ever expected small communities to live in close proximity without flare-ups of temper and temperament, the Whisperer reflected. It was a question of weighing the damage.

If accusations of adultery went ignored, what level of malicious lies might then follow? If one man moved his boundary by five yards and wasn't punished, why not claim fifteen yards? Fifty? In the eyes of the tribes, shunning was simply a piece of legal machinery. When your harvester starts bending the corn instead of cutting it, don't you dismantle the box and sharpen the metal teeth back to points? It was the same with recalcitrant tribe members. Unscrew them from the community, clean them up and then, once they're in a fit state to resume their original purpose, connect them back up to the machine.

The young patriot barely heard the chatter of jays in the branches or the distant thwack of an axe. He heard only the words of the Chieftains inside his head, declaring him guilty of treason against his own tribe and sentencing him to a lifetime of shunning. Even now, he wondered they could face themselves, hypocritical bastards that they were.

'It's you who've sold the people out, not me!'

They were the ones who advocated a laying down of arms before the Roman advance. They were the ones who insisted the tribes kowtowed to Roman rules and paid Roman bloody taxes. Taxes? Lenus almighty, we work our own soil, grow our own grain, cut our own timber, raise our own beasts and then have to pay ten per cent for the privilege?

'What right do these oppressors have, tramping in here, riding roughshod over good, honest people then telling them how to live their own lives?' he'd demanded. 'Are they gods? Superheroes? Tell me, are they monsters? Demons? Supernatural beings who cannot be slain?'

He'd challenged the Chieftains to deny it, but all he got back was the usual crap about how the Roman militia protected the Nation far better than they'd defended themselves, how ten per cent tax was a trifle compared to the profits Aquitania was reaping thanks to the new trade links and how the tribes were stronger, healthier, better educated under the eagle. Surely, they asked, he could see this?

'Fuck, no! All I see are cowards who cover themselves in metal and tell you it's glory. Bullies who oppress you and tell you it's freedom. What I see,' he'd told them, 'are jackals who feed off your flesh while telling you they're cuddly puppies, and by Lenus, you cretins believe them.'

'Do not talk to us of bullying,' the Chieftains had countered. 'We have seen for ourselves the weals you left on your wife.'

Women again, and which one of those bitches in the village had been telling tales this time? he wondered. Cooking up mischief, when they should have been cooking a decent meal for their family. Spreading rumours, when they should have been spreading their legs for their husbands. Too much time on their hands, that's the trouble.