Marilyn Todd - Scorpion Rising

Tears flowed. Candles snuffed. Thunder echoed along the tunnels.

The gods were enjoying their retribution.

If there was any bright spot in this terrible mess, she supposed it was that the Scorpion's deputy had not lived to gloat over the bloodbath. She had at least done that much for the Hundred-Handed, for Gaul, for herself, for Rome. But they would all be like him, that was the trouble. Embittered rabble who'd been shunned by society because their own people couldn't stand their whingeing and whines. Scum too lazy to put in an honest day's work, they wanted everything on a plate. They were bullies and boors, dim-witted and craven, soured by everything except their selfimportance.

And the bastards were armed to the teeth.

Time passed. More flames died. Then finally she heard a moan.

'Beth?'

The silver heap stirred. A chestnut head lifted. 'Claudia?'

'Beth, are you all right?'

'I… think so.' She wriggled herself into an upright position and licked the trickle of blood that ran down a cheek that was swollen and red. 'What happened? Where did Ptian go?'

'Straight to hell.'

Beth followed the direction of her finger and groaned. 'Holy mother, what has become of us? What are we come to,' she whispered.

Claudia stared. These women! They never ceased to amaze her. A monster lies dead and Beth feels sorry for him?

'What time is it,' she asked, 'can you see?'

'Time?'

'Is it midnight yet?'

Sensing the urgency, Beth shuffled over to one of the tall marker candles. 'Very close, why? He can't give the battle cry now.'

Claudia tossed down the knife she'd strapped to her thigh. It was her back-up plan, had the lid missed its target. And while Beth sliced through the rope that bound her wrists, she explained about the signal that would ignite Gaul. It would be lit by Manion, not by Ptian.

'I'll try to stop it,' she said, as Beth dragged the ladder against the ledge. 'But there's a chance I won't be able to, that it's already too late, you must run and round up the women. Take them into the woods then make for Santonum. Rome is not as unprepared as they think.'

That was a lie, she had no idea how prepared the legions might or might not be. But once again, if Aquitania was on the brink of insurgency, Marcus Cornelius Orbilio would not have left his post.

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio was not a gambling man.

Scrambling down the ladder, she gagged at the mangled mess beneath the giant stone lid. She had seen him around the place many times. One of the volunteers who patrolled the men's palisade, but without the bandana, of course, which would have drawn attention to himself. It was why he'd been able to kill Sarra so easily. An opportunist thug, who thought himself clever. The name still made her spit.

'You need tighter security checks in the future,' she began, but Beth was removing the silver ring from his finger and tears flowed down her face. 'Save your sympathy,' she snapped. 'The bastard didn't deserve it.'

The ring was a phoenix, she saw in the lamplight. The bird that rose triumphant from the ashes. Ptian had taken this as his emblem. How ironic that it was ashes that finally killed him.

'That's not the point,' Beth sobbed, closing the lids on his sightless eyes. 'Whatever his faults, you see-'

She broke up and looked up at her.

'Ptian is still my son.'

In the centre of the world, between earth, sky and sea, at the point where the realms of the universe meet, Rumour greeted old friends. The news they brought to the halls of echoing brass was sad. One of their most frequent tellers-of-tales would visit no more. The man who whispered into the ears of the Druids was dead.

Together, they mourned his passing in murmurs.

Countless doors and numerous windows carried the murmurs away.

Where they faded and died on the wind.

Flying down the path to meet Manion, Claudia thought it was not death spirits that hovered like bees, it was tragedy that danced in the air.

The Hundred-Handed are slaves to their system every bit as much as we are, Swarbric had said.

For three centuries, the Hundred-Handed have provided spiritual guidance for small, isolated communities who rely on this forest for their very survival This time the words were Orbilio's. In leading by example, the priestesses set high moral standards Poor Beth.

I am not against love, how could I be? Love is the pivot upon which the world turns.

Claudia had been thinking in terms of marriage, of couples, of men kicked out at forty to start afresh, when Beth had been referring to an altogether different kind of love. That of a mother for her own child.

The Hundred-Handed do care, she realized. But they were born into a society that valued others higher than themselves, and Swarbric was wrong. They weren't in thrall to their own system. They selflessly dedicated themselves to those who looked to them for spiritual guidance.

Our system is far from ideal, Beth had said, adding that she would lay down her life to preserve it, flaws and all, in order to retain the respect of the people they served. We cannot teach them that nature is constant if the very College that serves it keeps changing.

Except Beth had had to sacrifice more than her life. She'd had to sell her own son and endure the worst pain any woman could suffer. Every day, she would wake, fearing for his welfare. Was he eating enough? Was he sick? Did his new family love him like she would have done? Did they beat him? Every single day, she'd have lived with this ache in her heart.

Only to have her worst fears realized.

Bitter at being abandoned, Ptian grew up hating women and she was responsible for making him the monster he was, at least that's the guilt that she carried. And at last Claudia understood why Beth allowed Gurdo to keep Pod. Pod symbolized the son she'd been forced to sell and by letting the Guardian of the Spring keep his mysterious foundling, she might, in some small way, make reparation. It was the same reason that she'd kept Clytie's death secret 'Right on time,' a voice said from the darkness, and Claudia smelled nutmeg even through the torrential rain, and twin points of lightning flashed in eyes that were neither blue nor green.

'For what?' she retorted. 'Rebellion?'

'No,' he corrected, with a broad grin. 'Victory.'

He stepped out from the shelter of an overhang of rock. 'How well do you know your own history, Claudia?'

So calm, she thought. So bloody confident. And that was the thing. The Scorpion trusted his own confidence and success. Big mistake.

'Me,' he said, 'I've read a lot about Rome and its conquests lately. There was so much to learn, too.' His smile widened. 'How three generations of civil war ripped it apart, yet through all that scheming and backbiting, Julius Caesar still managed to conquer most of Gaul.'

She said nothing.

'Then, after his assassination when the rifts ran even deeper, I read how Rome went on to conquer Egypt.'

'And Spain, and Galatia, and Raetia.'

'My point exactly,' he said evenly. 'Which is why I want what is best for my people.'

'Oh, you'll feel victory, Manion. You'll feel it slice through your belly in the form of cold steel, slow, agonizing, it'll take you three days to die.'

He moved closer, and his seascape eyes danced. 'Surely, after all the confidences we've shared,' he whispered, 'you wouldn't allow that to happen?'

'No.' Claudia's smile was as cold as the Arctic. 'I have herbs that'll stretch it to four.'

Without hesitation, her knife plunged into his heart.

The track to the pit was slippery from mud and hazardous with stones loosened by rain. Claudia noticed none of these things. All she could think was, He'll be all right. Manion was dead, his battle cry died with him, and with neither leader nor deputy, rebellion stood no chance. The monster was nothing without its head.