Marilyn Todd - Scorpion Rising

'What do you want?' she asked bluntly.

Seascape eyes held hers for eternity. 'What I want is my life back,' he said, rising to his feet in one fluid gesture.

She had no idea what he meant, but it didn't involve refusing to help.

'Come back at midnight,' he said in a way that suggested he was accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. 'By then I shall have a strategy prepared and we will discuss terms, but in the meantime you will speak to no one of this.'

It wasn't much, but it was the only lifeline she had. Claudia nodded numbly and wondered, what terms?

'Midnight,' she echoed.

'Midnight,' he agreed. 'Oh, and catch!'

As he loped off up the hill, he tossed her the piece that he had been carving.

A scorpion, ready to strike.

They say things come in threes.

They were wrong.

She thought the situation was as bad as it could possibly get.

She was wrong.

It wasn't enough that Sarra had been slashed to ribbons this morning, or that no matter how hard the girl had fought back, her attacker was determined that she should die.

It wasn't enough that Claudia had personally helped Sarra's killer escape. Dammit, she'd even given the bastard her blessing.

And now, it seemed, it wasn't enough that Marcus Cornelius lay with god-knew-what injuries at the foot of a ravine from which there was no way out.

As Claudia made her way back to the precinct, she thought on the most dangerous man in the whole of Aquitania who had engineered his revenge on the woman who double-crossed him and was delighted for her to know it.

She rubbed at the throbbing behind her eyes. Sweet Janus, no wonder there was something familiar about Manion. Average height, average build, nondescript features, these were the very qualities that he turned to advantage, disguising himself beyond recognition. But a gesture here, a tilt of the head there, those things had lodged in her memory and explained why he'd refused to show her his ring yesterday. Why he'd removed it before his approach with the honeycomb. Manion planned to reveal his identity on his terms, not hers.

As cunning as he is ruthless, no one betrays him and lives.

Silly bitch. You even asked yourself while you ate honeycombs together, Why me? Why seek me out? But then once he was gone, you barely gave him a thought. Not one of her better decisions, she reflected, and dammit, even when Gabali stepped out of the shadows to ask how her investigations were going, she didn't suspect they were in league with each other.

Do not worry about the Scorpion, Merchant Seferius. You will be perfectly safe in Aquitania.

She'd simply taken this — the man who threw victims into the Pit, for gods' sake! — at face value. Concern for the daughter he loved.

Do not worry about the Scorpion, Merchant Seferius. You will be perfectly safe in Aquitania.

Was Clytie his daughter? The hell she was. Gabali went to Rome with the express purpose of luring Claudia back here so Manion could take his revenge and enjoy it I make it my business to know what goes on around me.

At the gatepost, she reeled and had to hang on for support. He was thorough, she'd give him that. Having found out about her past, he played on it in such a way that it twisted the knife even deeper. Using Clytie as his weapon, he forced Claudia to relive the most painful memories a child can experience. Her father's leaving. Her mother's death. The fact that neither parent had said goodbye. Fine. Painful as it was, all this she could have dealt with. As she said at the outset, Claudia Seferius played rough and she played dirty.

But to take it out on Orbilio…

Do you really prefer being on your own? She could almost hear his whisper in the late afternoon stillness. Or are you just frightened of letting a man in? The right man, perhaps?

He knew! He knew about her history with Marcus Cornelius. He knew about her crimes, her brushes with the Security Police, the chemistry that exploded between them.

Trust is when the same man is always behind you, to catch no matter how often you fall.

Who could have done this? she wondered bleakly. Who could have betrayed her innermost secrets?

Loyalty is a supple commodity.

Yes, of course, the bastard had openly bragged about it. She sighed. Junius would take a sword thrust for her, his loyalty went without question. But he'd travelled the world with her and shared several adventures and scrapes. It was only natural he'd make certain deductions. And if the Scorpion could fool her, when she was already vigilant, how simple it would be to manipulate the young Gaul. Same language, same culture, same subjugated background, he'd quickly pass himself off as a friend. Leaving Junius believing he'd done his mistress a favour by imparting her secrets!

For every problem, there is a solution. They were the Scorpion's very own words. For every problem, there is a solution.

Now it was a question of playing him at his own game and turning the tables in a way that would trap him. But how? Dear Diana, how he must have laughed when she came crawling to him for help. That's why he'd revealed himself with that carving. To let her know that Orbilio was doomed in that Pit and torture her even more. Bastard! He was perfectly happy to let Marcus die, simply because it would hurt her. No, wait Across the valley, a streak of white lightning flashed in a sky that had darkened to the colour of lead. The Scorpion knew that Marcus was Roman, and that he was a patrician to boot. He was also aware of the history between Claudia and him.

Was it really a twist of fate that had Orbilio's shot killing the raven? That business of Manion pushing in front at the last minute. Suppose he was late because he'd shot the bird earlier with a red-feathered arrow, tossed it in the clearing at the last moment, then jumped in to take Orbilio's place in the queue? Who would accept this as anything other than bloody bad luck? She pictured the glade. Fifty rainbow thorns in the ground. Fifty priestesses giving a piece of themselves back to nature. Some would lie embedded deeper than others, some flat on the grass where their force had been spent, with others at odd angles, perhaps flapping in the hot sticky breeze. But even if Claudia could prove there were fifty arrows in the clearing, not forty-nine, it was still too little, too late. The Hundred-Handed would argue that she'd planted the evidence; who could blame her, they'd murmur. It would not change their decision, and the very fact that the Pit was sited some distance from the College meant out of sight, out of mind.

The bitches were expert at closing their minds.

Somehow, though, there was a way out of this. Somehow there had to be a way to take whatever trickery the Scorpion was planning and turn it back on himself.

What I want is my life back, he'd said.

Revenge wouldn't give an outcast his life back, so what would? Rebellion was the obvious answer, and though she had no idea what manner of double-cross he was planning for midnight, two things were clear in her mind.

One. She could not rely on her bodyguard for assistance, the Scorpion would already have brainwashed the boy, and since she could not hope to save Marcus Cornelius by herself, she remained reliant on the very man who put him in there in the first place.

And two, once this was over she would personally send Manion to hell.

As it happened, in the false bottom of Claudia's clothes chest was a blade so long and so thin that Manion could search her and still not find it. Which did not make the weapon any less deadly. Tossing the carved scorpion up in the air, she caught it in her left hand.

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.