Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique
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- Название:Widow's Pique
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The lullabies faded. Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon set by Juno to guard her golden apples, slithered in and coiled himself round the trunk, breathing fire over the garden. Claudia could feel the heat of his ferocious breath. Cried out at the burning. But neither Atlas, nor Hercules, nor any of the other heroes, not even one attached to the Security Police, came to rescue her from the monster, and she remained trapped in the garden.
Shadows slunk in.
Wolves with human feet. Giants with thick, scaly tails. Then the shroud-eaters clustered round, empty-eyed and stinking of rotted flesh, with blood dripping from their open mouths, and among these shadows moved another, more menacing shape. It had a large, lolling head and hands ending in giant claws, and it answered to the name Nosferatu…
She woke bathed in sweat, but the sweat was cold and she was shivering. For a moment, she thought she was still trapped in the nightmare, since many objects in this house had a familiar ring, like the polished oak doors, the white marble floors and the fabulous gold candelabra. But then again, many things hadn't! The paintings on the wall had been exquisitely executed without doubt, but who — and what — did those strange swirls represent? Instead of a Roman-style couch, she was lying on a mattress set high on an intricately carved wooden frame, though the mattress had been stuffed sumptuously with swan's down and the linens scented with oils of jasmine and rose.
When she tried to sit up, daggers drove into her brain, so she lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, cursing a tantrum that had resulted in that stupid, headlong plunge down the steps. Well, all right, not headlong. Once she'd realized what was happening, she'd launched herself sideways, curling herself into a ball. Ignominious wasn't the word as she bumpity-bumped down the stairs one at a time, but learning how to minimize injury was just one of many tricks her army-orderly father had taught her.
For a moment, she swore she felt the brush of his stubble against her cheek as he whispered Good girl, you remembered in her ear. Impossible, of course. She was ten years old when he marched off to war and never came home, and suddenly she longed for Drusilla to be lying alongside her on the bed, her silky, soft fur and reassuring deep rattle a palliative to the throbbing and aches that didn't come from a physical source. But after two weeks' incarceration, Drusilla had sharpened her claws on the elegant bedpost before disappearing into the night to fly the flag for cats everywhere by tormenting the local rodent population.
As ever, Claudia Seferius was alone.
The lamps in the bedroom had been snuffed and no sounds came from the hall, suggesting the hour was late, very late, yet, after her nightmare, Claudia felt far from sleepy. Gradually, she became aware of a white linen compress over her forehead, and as she removed it, she noticed that it had been drenched in an infusion of healing hyssop. So, then. Not everything in that dream was imagined…
From under the open window she heard a sneeze, but for all that she'd got off lightly from her tumble, her head was pounding and her eyes felt like lead weights, and all she wanted to do was slide back into the comforting blackness. She reached for one of the sleep stones in the bowl by her pillow and rolled the oil-drenched pebble around in her hand. Lavender. Lavender, to calm and to soothe. Just like hyssop.
Atchoo!'
The sleep stone fell from Claudia's hand.
'Raspor?'
The very act of sitting up bombarded her with white-hot pokers encased in boiling oil, but when the pain and nausea eventually subsided, she crawled out of bed and staggered across to the window. Slowly — ridiculously slowly — her vision cleared to reveal the light from the waning moon reflecting off the billowing ocean like scales on a fish, silhouetting the islands in the distance. She squinted in concentration, but the only creature abroad at this hour was a night heron swooping silently in to land. She was halfway back to the sanctuary of her bed when the third sneeze floated up from below. There was no mistaking her overgrown cherub now. In the clear blue light of the retreating Moon God, his bald pate shone like a tiny silver platter as he hopped nervously from foot to foot.
'Psst.'
The ring of dark curls spun round at the call from the shadows further out along the shoreline.
'Claudia?' he hissed under his breath. 'Is you, yes?'
'Pssst. Raspor.'
Claudia couldn't see who was calling him, but it sure as hell wasn't her, and a weight inside her flipped over. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. But even before she'd opened her mouth to reply, a dark flash whisked through the air. Raspor jerked sideways as his hands flew to his neck.
'Hey!' she yelled. 'Stop!'
But her voice was a croak, and he clawed frantically at the ring round his throat.
'Help!' she cried. 'Somebody help!'
If anything, her croak was weaker and now Raspor's heels were drumming impotently against the rocks. Help him, she prayed to every god on Olympus. Strike his assailant with a thunderbolt, with blindness, with paralysis, with anything! Save him, she prayed. Please step in and save him — because, forgive me, I can't! Too weak to run, too weak to throw missiles, too weak to raise the alarm, she could only stare helplessly as the horror unfolded. With every wasted second, more of the little man's breath was being squeezed from his body.
But no thunderbolts flashed.
No divine trident intervened.
Not for the first time, Claudia Seferius had to rely on her own wits.
Picking up the bowl of sleep stones, she dashed it to the floor. Instantly, a stampede of slaves crashed into her bedroom, bringing lights that blinded her from every direction as a hundred voices demanded to know what was wrong.
'Help!' she cried. 'There's a man being murdered out there!'
'Where?' 'Who?' Everyone was shouting at once.
'Hurry!' she screamed. 'Hurry, before it's too-'
It was as far as she got. The oblivion that Claudia had so desperately craved a few minutes earlier was no respecter of changers-of-mind. It claimed her at a maidservant's feet.
The next light to be blinding her eyes didn't come from dozens of hastily lit oil lamps. It came from the sun, shining with inexorable brilliance into the room, and more specifically over Claudia's pillow. From a hundred miles away, she heard someone groan, and had a strange feeling that it might have been her.
'How are ye feeling?' a gravelly voice asked.
'Vile.'
But the cold, solid knot in her stomach had nothing to do with her fall.
'Aye.' Pavan nodded impassively. 'Ye would.'
He was sitting with one massive leg crossed over the other in a high-backed armchair upholstered in damask the colour of ripe Persian plums. His fingers were steepled patiently together.
She drew a deep breath. Willed the shuddering inside to subside.
'Is he dead?' she asked quietly.
Grey eyes stared without emotion for what seemed like an hour, but was probably no more than five seconds.
'When Mazares carried ye up here last night, ye were unconscious and bleeding.'
The seat was large and commodious, but the general made it look like a kid's chair.
'I very much regret, ma'am, that the closest we had to a physician last night was a… a mule doctor.'
How comforting.
'Meaning?'
He stroked his ponytail thoughtfully. 'The mule doctor fears his painkilling preparation may have had certain side effects.'
'Name one.'
'Physical weakness.'
'Name two.'
She had a pretty good idea where this was leading, but needed to hear it from Pavan's own lips.
He adjusted his belt. 'We put every available man on that beach-'
'What about Raspor?'
The chair creaked as he rose to his feet. 'D'you feel up to breakfast, ma'am? Would a honeycomb straight from the beehive tempt yer appetite?'
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