Marilyn Todd - Widow's Pique

Maybe. Maybe not. That wasn't the point.

'You obviously know that Mazares is a widower,' she said, slipping on a pair of pale grey leather sandals. 'Now, whether you believe he's a cold-blooded murdering bastard or not, my advice is not to stand too close to him, Orbilio.'

She marched off up the springy path towards the town. 'People around him have a habit of dying, and that's not an overactive imagination, my investigative friend. That is fact.'

The folk on the mainland had no truck with building houses out of stone. What was the point, with so much timber at their fingertips and the climate so benign? Instead, they built cosy homesteads out of wood, weaving sacred hazel between the structural supports and thatching their roofs with rain-repellent straw. In true Histrian tradition, pine was used for the flooring, from which one trunk was carved into a bear's head, though sometimes a boar or a wolf, from which rose the pedestal for the family table, usually protected by a shaggy, woollen cloth.

Bowl-shaped ovens covered by a terracotta lid sat on grids over the charcoals. Inside, rich stews of hare, boar or pheasant simmered away in metal pots, or maybe a lamb roasted, with little flour cakes baking alongside. Invariably, part of the family pig would end up hanging over the hearth as a smoked ham, rubbing shoulders with lovely, round, village-churned cheeses. Not much taken with fripperies, Histrian homes would still boast a variety of terracotta plaques nailed to their timbers, sometimes painted, sometimes embossed, sometimes both, and rows of fine red beakers, reflective of the Histrian soil, dangled from hooks on the walls.

It was one such longhouse, belonging to the senior village elder, as it happened, that had been converted into a courthouse for the day. Seated in one of the wicker chairs arranged around the yard, Nosferatu followed the proceedings with indifference.

In the olden days, soothsayers dispensed justice with bundles of willow rods, interpreting the fall of their willows to determine a man's innocence or guilt. Nowadays, the three soothsayers had been replaced by three elders, who would each form an independent opinion then lay their bundles north to south (guilty) or east to west (not) on the ground. It worked on a majority verdict and, for extreme offences, either the King or his representative would preside. Although serious, these crimes were not considered extreme — the way treason, for example, would be, or indeed any other crimes that impacted upon the kingdom as a whole, such as smuggling, tax evasion and fraud — although the elders felt they'd got the best of both worlds today in inviting officialdom to observe proceedings from the sidelines. Especially since the crime had been perpetrated on Roman soil!

On the other hand, they were enormously relieved that the investigator attached to the Security Police had declined to attend. They'd fully expected this member of their distant, absent and arrogant ruling class to come poking his nose where it didn't belong, and the fact that he hadn't was, the elders felt, entirely of the King's making. Who else could have persuaded Rome to let them get on with it?

'Long live the King!' the senior elder shouted. Quickly remembering to add, And long live the Emperor Augustus!' as his gaze alighted on Salome's red locks.

Through the open door of the longhouse, Nosferatu could see beds covered with bright woollen blankets woven by the womenfolk during the long, dark days of winter, and a variety of baskets plaited with multi-coloured withies swung from the ceiling beams. One type was for collecting fruit and berries. Another for winnowing the grain. Yet another for transporting faggots on their backs.

The wicker chair creaked as Nosferatu fought cramp, but people were too engrossed in the trial to notice.

Caught red-handed, the prisoners could only hang their heads in shame as bundle after bundle went down north to south. Their opinions on Amazonia cut no ice with the spectators or the judges. For a farming community, the destruction of another man's harvests and the killing of his livestock was an abomination where neither youth nor drunkenness was accepted as a legitimate excuse, and as their mothers sobbed and their fathers stood white-lipped in silence, sentence was passed upon the arsonists.

'It grieves me to pronounce this particular punishment,' the senior elder said solemnly. 'But the men who stand before us today have been castigated before by this court. They were fined and they were shamed, but clearly they did not learn their lesson, and therefore we, the judges, have no option.'

Silence descended on the yard.

'It is our conclusion that you, sir' — he pointed to the only prisoner who had sneered consistently at the proceedings — 'you are the ringleader in this latest outrage. Your bigoted views have inflamed those with weak characters, influenced their judgement and incited them to commit acts they would previously have held back from. For this, and to set an example that we will not tolerate anarchy, we have no choice but to sentence you to beheading. The execution will take place at midnight. May you make your peace with Perun while you prepare.'

He turned his hard gaze on the others.

'This village does not condone corruption nor will it tolerate the corruptible. I sentence each of you to four years of shunning…'

Shunned? A collective gasp rang through the crowd. Thrown out of the village, their names never spoken, for four years it would be as though they'd ceased to exist!

'Four years of shunning,' the senior elder repeated, 'in the hope that you use this time wisely to reflect and repent.'

And how. With no recourse to justice if things went wrong, and banned from sacrifices that would purify their wretched souls, the perpetrators would also be forced to live with the knowledge that anyone caught speaking to them during this time would be cripplingly fined. That meant their wives, their children, their mothers, their brothers, and, with the loss of their breadwinner, at least two families faced penury, resulting in the women being forced to divorce in favour of a husband who could provide and their children being passed to him for adoption.

Nosferatu blotted out the sobbing. Bastards should have bloody well considered the consequences before they started torching everything in sight, not snivelling afterwards, throwing themselves on the court's mercy and begging forgiveness like a bunch of craven cowards. Weren't giving a lot of thought to the word mercy last night, were they? Personally, Nosferatu would have upped the sentence to six years, not four, and beheaded a couple more prisoners, (a) to set an example and (b) to weed out spineless bullies from Histrian society.

When the time for the New Order came — and it was not that far away — there would be none of this are-we-Histri-are-we-Roman bollocks. The New Order would have a strictly no-vacillating policy, and yes, of course it was regrettable that innocent people died in the struggle, but they were sacrificed out of purpose, not mindless, wanton destruction, and let's face it, for most of the victims, the first they knew of what had happened was when they found themselves knocking on the Gates of the Blessed.

Raspor? Well, there was always an exception to every rule, but Raspor brought that on himself, the little blabbermouth, so in that respect his death was not quite so regrettable — and as for that pansy boat builder! All one can say on that subject is that blackmailers get what they deserve. The Nosferatu of legend might kill for pleasure, but not the person whose shadow little Broda had seen. Which was not to say there wasn't a sense of satisfaction in a job well done!

The judges had moved on to trying the rapists, but since four strapping representatives of the King's Bodyguard had taken a great deal of satisfaction in beating a confession out of them earlier, the trial was little more than a formality. Nosferatu tried to look interested as the rhetoric droned on and on.