Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique

Several seconds passed.

'Honestly?' he asked. 'You thought the mask was silly?'

'Wake up, Orbilio. You've been manipulated every bit as much as I have-'

'Can you hear that?' He pretended to crane his neck. 'The sound of tables turning? Tell me, Claudia, does it hurt very much, being on the receiving end for once?'

'At least you accept that I've been manipulated.'

'Only by me, I'm afraid, and I'm sorry about the moon mask. It was just that I wanted to gauge how happy you were-'

'Well, now you know. I'm absolutely delirious, because in the six short days that I've been on this island I've fallen down a flight of stone steps, witnessed a murder that's been swept under the rug, almost got myself raped and now, thanks entirely to you, I'm also a prisoner on this wretched island.'

'Par for the course, then?'

But his voice was a rasp and the laughter in his eyes had been replaced by something resembling anguish.

'Claudia…'He cleared his throat and started again. 'Claudia, were you really just one step away from being… I mean, Pavan said those men last night-'

'Pavan's exaggerating,' she retorted. She swallowed the guilt of betraying Pavan and fixed her eyes on the horizon.

'He's just making himself more of a hero, by telling everyone how he stepped forward in the nick of time to save the honour of the King's bride.'

'So, those bruises on your arm appeared out of nowhere?'

'A pregnant sow whose sty is on fire can turn pretty nasty, believe me.'

'Well, that's rather the point, isn't it?' He tugged at his earlobe. 'I don't.'

No wonder this man was top of his bloody profession. He had the tenacity of a limpet in a hurricane.

Claudia smiled.

'You forget how protective Histrian men are when it comes to their womenfolk.'

Teeth, teeth, show more teeth.

'They hear a few louts crashing about, then two and two makes five.'

She didn't want him to know.

She didn't want him to know that she'd bawled like a baby for two solid hours. That she'd curled into a ball, shaking with emotions she couldn't identify. That she'd spent the night scrubbing her skin with a sponge until she'd scrubbed herself raw…

'You were the one who said you almost got yourself raped.'

'And you are the one who's not grasped what's going on here.'

She squared her shoulders and threw back her head.

'Orbilio, so many people have been taking premature ferry boats across the River Styx that Hades is nailing up "Full" signs. You don't realize it, but you've walked straight into a cold-blooded and extremely well-planned campaign to eliminate the King and, trust me, your being here is not coincidence.'

'No. My being here is not coincidence.'

'Nor is your attending the trial of the men who tried to raze Salome's farm to the ground, either. Mazares needs a witness who can confirm to the authorities that justice has been done.'

Oh, Mazares, you're even cleverer than I thought. Not only did you arrange to have Claudia Seferius out here as your bait, you lured the Security Police's most ethical member, so that he could testify to Rome that whatever tragedy befell her and the King, it had truly been an accident!

'He staged that raid last night,' she said.

That's why the soldiers got out there in record time. He wasn't watching. He was waiting…

'Mazares planted destruction in those men's minds, stirring up their Histrian prejudices and-'

'Claudia.' The baritone brooked no argument. 'Claudia, I know Mazares. He wouldn't topple a hay cart, much less this government, and, since you ask, I have no intention of being a witness at those men's trial. This is a local issue and Rome would do best to keep its nose out.'

'Bollocks. Salome's a Roman citizen. By attacking her farm, they're effectively attacking Rome.'

'Agreed, but that was not their intent.'

She saw his argument for the dispensing of local justice, but, hell, for the Security Police not to even take notes on the sidelines

…? No, no. Orbilio was too shrewd to have been conned completely. There had to be more to this. Something he wasn't telling.

'What is it, piracy?'

'Sorry to disappoint you, but Mazares keeps these coasts pretty damn safe.'

'Same thing,' she sniffed. 'By policing these waters, it's just another way of following the ancestral vocation.'

'I warned you,' he said, and was that a muscle that twitched at the side of his mouth? 'I warned you the Histri were cunning and sneaky and that they were all double-dealers. They've had to be, to survive. The King walks a fine line with his people, but only because he knows them for what they are.'

'We've had this conversation before. Five generations under the eagle, butchers under the skin.'

'Let's just agree that negotiation isn't their instinctive choice.'

He leaned back on the rock, folded his hands under his head and closed his eyes. High in the pines that were shading the cove, flycatchers trilled, brown butterflies danced and squirrels scurried from branch to branch.

'Also, it's not helped by their ignorance,' he continued. 'Histria is a wealthy kingdom in comparison, but virtually all its communities are isolated either by virtue of the sea or by the mountainous terrain of the interior. The coastal communities have a better grasp of the political situation, but for those living in the landlocked villages, they have no comprehension of what the world's like beyond this peninsula.'

Claudia was beginning to understand.

'Specifically, the size of the Empire?'

'Exactly.' He splashed his feet languorously in the water. All they know is that it's bigger than, say, Illyria, but they can't accept — or perhaps won't — that it's a hundred, a thousand, times more powerful. It's completely beyond the scope of their imagination.'

Explaining why rumblings of sedition were suddenly rearing their head. Pula! While it was still a glorified trading post, nobody minded. No doubt when it was razed to the ground for backing Mark Antony, half of Histria rose up and cheered, but when the city came to be rebuilt, and on such a grand scale, the enormity of the situation sunk in.

'That's why the late King, Dol, moved the seat of justice to Gora,' she said, as much to herself as to Marcus. 'So his people could acclimatize slowly.'

'Histria has never built cities,' he added. 'But the King's seen Rome and he liked what he saw, the running water, paved streets, marble temples, the libraries, bathhouses and gymnasia. You only have to look around Rovin to see his influence, and all of it's good.'

The islanders were approving of these developments, too, but deep in the interior, where villages were merely clusters of single-roomed homesteads, the concept of thousands of people living together in one settlement was incomprehensible. Boiling it down to one basic principle: what you don't understand you either hide from — or you fight it head on.

'Now you tell me what any civilized individual has to gain by inciting his own people to rebel,' Marcus said, 'knowing it will result in Rome crushing this kingdom once and for all.'

Damn.

Claudia chewed her lip as warblers sang, and an adder slithered out from its nest amidst the thick layer of pine needles to bask in the sun. Across the lagoons, fishermen hauled in their nets, emptied their catches into their baskets and cast them again.

'So if it's not piracy or sedition, why did you come here?'

'Me?' He plucked a blade of grass and chewed on it. 'I'm looking for a runaway slave.'

And I'm the Queen of Sheba.'

He closed his eyes again. 'My workload's quiet at the moment.'

'Yes, I can hear it snoring all three hundred miles from Rome.'

He honestly expected her to believe the Security Police were reduced to chasing runaways, the preserve of professional slave catchers, moreover a matter for the civil courts, not the judiciary? It was the equivalent of assigning the architect of a temple to Jupiter to tour the building site picking up litter!