Marilyn Todd - Scorpion Rising

'What am I going to do?' she whispered into the hole. 'Marcus, tell me what I must do.'

Pain washed over him like he'd never known. 'There's only one thing you can do for me, Claudia.'

'Anything, darling, just name it.'

There was a tightness in his chest. Nausea rose up to engulf him. 'Go away,' he rasped. 'Please.' He was fighting for breath. 'Just, please… please go away.'

He thought he heard crying, the racking of sobs. 'People keep telling me to do that, but I can't. I can't leave you down there on your own.'

'Yes, you can. You're strong, Claudia, stronger than you think, and if you… if you — ' he bit into his knuckle — 'if you care anything for me, you'll go. Now. Before it gets dark.'

'I-'

'Please, darling, don't make this harder. Just… just promise me, swear on the life of your mother, that you'll walk away and never come back.'

An eternity passed before she answered. His head pounded like rocks in a storm.

'You have no idea what my mother's life means when you ask me to swear an oath on it,' she said slowly. 'You asked why I came back here to Gaul, and I'll tell you, it was to come to terms with her suicide.' A sigh multiplied with its own echoes. 'I saw her choosing death over me, her only child, as rejection. She didn't even leave me a note. And since it was only last autumn that I came here to find my father, it took precious little to open old wounds. The death of a twelve-year-old child with her lifeblood drained out was enough to trigger a quest. Justice for her, answers for me. Sweet Janus, I needed them both.'

He said nothing. Just waited. And the pain where his belt should have been doubled. It was the only time she'd ever talked of her past.

'But that wasn't the reason, my darling. I could have taken a different path, one that did not bring me back, and all right, it might have meant killing a man, but hell.' She tried for a joke. 'He was only a Spaniard and they don't count.'

He couldn't laugh if he'd wanted.

'I came back,' she said, 'because of you.'

Nausea washed over him. To think he'd left Rome because he thought she didn't care. He pressed his fingers over his eyes. 'Do… do you love me?'

'You know I do, dammit.' He could almost see her scowl.

'Good.' He pressed harder. 'Now swear on the life of your dead mother that you'll walk away from this Pit and never come back.'

There was a long pause, he thought he heard sobbing. 'If that's what you want,' her voice was unrecognizable, 'very well. I swear I will walk away on the count of ten, and I will… I will never come back.'

He thought she might be waiting for him to protest, but he didn't. He dared not. Drumming up every ounce of courage, Marcus began the countdown aloud and to his credit, his voice didn't shake. When he reached eight, he stopped to hear her call down, 'Eight and a quarter,' but only silence filled the space in between them. By the time he reached nine, he knew she would answer. This was Claudia, for heaven's sake! But she made no reply, even when he called ten, then he couldn't control himself any longer. Ashamed of his weakness, he called her name softly. And then he shouted it loud. But Claudia Seferius had kept to her oath.

And this time, Marcus didn't care if the whole world heard his heart break.

For every problem, my lady, there is always a solution,' Manion said, without lifting his eyes from the wood he was whittling. 'The only predicament comes when there's a choice.'

'Trust me, options are limited,' Claudia said.

They were beneath the point of the arrowhead rock, at the place where the tip was the sharpest. Above them, trees, mainly rowan and oak, clung for dear life to gaps in the stone, while holly and broom tumbled down in spiky profusion, but here at the bottom the boulders were mossy. For though the promontory faced the southern sun, in the dense shade of the forest, little daylight penetrated. And if Manion was surprised that she, a stranger, had found him in this secluded spot where he'd settled himself with back to the stone, that surprise did not show on his face. He simply continued to whittle the piece in his hand, blowing away the shavings with sensual care.

'What incentive are you offering?' he asked after a while, and she could smell his soft nutmeg scent.

'Freedom?'

If she was wrong about him placing himself in the auction, then bearing in mind that Swarbric had discovered a way out of here, between herself, her bodyguard and a few well-greased palms, escape shouldn't prove too much of a challenge. Once in Santonum, a change of clothing, a wig, and that average build, that nondescript face would instantly melt into a crowd. She would provide papers to say he was free.

'Freedom.' Manion rolled the word around on his tongue. 'Hm.'

He smoothed the wood on his soft deerskin pants. She couldn't imagine what he was carving.

'Much depends on your definition of the word,' he rumbled slowly. 'Considering that none of us can ever truly be free, it is only the degree of freedom that differs.' As he twisted the wood, light caught the ring that wrapped round his seal finger and bounced off in a bright silver shine. 'You think of slaves in terms of wanting their freedom, but talk to your bodyguard, Claudia. He could have bought himself out several times over, but has he?'

'You've spoken to Junius?"

'You sound surprised.' He stropped his knife with exaggerated care. 'I make it my business to know what goes on around me. That way, I know who my friends and my enemies are, as well as knowing who I can trust.'

Trust. The word ripped like a claw at her heart. You fear abandonment, which is why you will not — perhaps cannot — trust a man enough to let him into your heart. The pain intensified. Because of her, because she was stupid enough, selfish enough, not to admit how she felt, a man lay dying in the Pit of Reflection.

And after he'd died a lengthy, horrible, agonizing death, she'd be condemned to reflect for the rest of her life…

Die? Where did that defeatist notion spring from? Marcus wasn't going to die! She pursed her lips in determination. She'd put him in there and she would bloody well get him out!

'Back to freedom, however.' As the light caught his ring a second time, the engraving flashed. A serpent or something, she thought. 'Is a Roman wife free, simply because she was not bought at auction? Of course not. She is bought by a dowry and is the property of a man from the moment she's born to the moment she marries, and if she is widowed, passes like an heirloom to the nearest male relative which, with luck, is her son. The Hundred-Handed aren't free, they're enslaved to their order. You're not free, you're enslaved to your laws. But me.' He lifted his eyes to meet hers. They were as measureless as the seascape they resembled. 'I am free.'

He didn't even try to pretend, she thought. So what could it be in this College that he wanted so badly that he enslaved himself to them?

'Who are you?' she asked.

A soft snort of laughter escaped through his nose. 'Not so much who as what,' he replied, 'so I ask again. What incentive are you offering in return for my risking life and limb for a Roman patrician — oh, you didn't think I knew about that, either?' He tutted. 'Never underestimate a Gaul, not even your own bodyguard, Claudia. Junius has been very helpful to me.'

'He's here?' Dammit, she'd told him to wait in Santonum!

'Loyalty is a supple commodity,' Manion said. 'The boy is infatuated, I suppose you know that, he just could not keep away.' He indicated the woods with a vague gesture. 'Camped outside the grounds, to be close to his lady, it was easy enough to initiate contact.'

Amazed as she was that Junius had not only disobeyed orders, but had been hanging around the woods all this time, and as curious as she was about who might be the object of his affections (how could he possibly know any of these women?), there was no time for that at the moment.