Marilyn Todd - Dark Horse

'As long as everyones iss enjoying themselves.' Llagos laughed, and even Silvia's lips almost succumbed to a smile.

Impossible to give credence to Orbilio's theory, Claudia mused, as the sound of banter filled the night air. Impossible to believe that one of these people is a vicious, cold-blooded killer. I mean who — who? — milling around helping themselves from this platter or that and drifting from couch to couch to follow the wit and conversation, could possibly be capable of running Leo through with a spear and leaving him to (maybe even watching him?) die.

'Don't forget,' a voice whispered in her ear. The voice was soft and sibilant and made goosebumps rise on her skin. 'Beware the Trojan Horse.'

All right, who apart from Shamshi?

But come on. Shamshi might be many things. A fraud, who made a living from listening at keyholes and using whatever he picked up to utter prophecies which were then almost guaranteed to come true. A crank, who genuinely believed what some dead animal's dripping liver told him. Hell, he might even have a gift! Sure, it would be a gift, which he played for all it was worth with his creepy demeanour and obscenely glinting bands of gold at his ears. But what would have been the advantage in killing his meal ticket?

Motive. That was the thing. Nobody kills without motive.

Nanai’ was a strange and unlikeable woman with the narrowest of vision, who would have no qualms in killing to protect Snowdrop and the others, but Nanai's blood ran hot.

With a longed-for baby on the way and a man who adored her, Lydia had no reason to kill her ex-husband, Magnus even less! His skills as a sculptor had made him wealthy, far richer than the debt-ridden Leo, and to suggest Magnus would go to the trouble of staging two other murderous attempts to cover up his crime was risible in the extreme.

The Ice Queen? She had motive enough, Claudia supposed. Disgraced from society and with Leo squandering what little money she had left, Silvia had tried to blackmail him into marriage and had been soundly thrashed. Who knows what steps a scorned and bitter woman might take? But if Silvia killed Leo, who tried to strangle her in her sleep?

Volcar couldn't run a fork into Leo, much less a spear, and surely Qus would have contrived for his master to meet with an accident when they were alone on the estate, if the issue over the crystal had become non-negotiable.

Like snowflakes in a blizzard, problems kept swirling around in Claudia's head. Passions ran high at the Villa Arcadia, higher than most, and in an isolated island community they were bound to be hotter, wilder, more likely to run out of control. Was that what happened? Had Little Things become Big Things until eventually they became Insurmountable Things? Could something which started out as nothing more than a slight really mutate into a grievance which could only be assuaged by full-blown tragedy?

Was the sad truth of it that Leo had died for the simple lack of a release valve?

Nowhere else in the world would Corinth's most famous son pick a fight with his patron over a dolphin. Then again, nowhere else would a crystal be considered capable of scaring a woman into miscarriage! But those were hardly motives for murder.

Yes, Nikias was Corinthian and Corinthians worship Apollo in the form of a dolphin and, yes, Leo intended to spear the poor devil because the locals churned up his land. But for gods' sake, no one commits murder over a dolphin! Yet how adamant Nikias had been, she reflected, that Leo should not destroy the creature, which brought such healing and happiness to the island. How far would the taciturn artist go to protect his god? Claudia looked at him, engaged in debate with Saunio over whether the best celadonite to create pale green came from the hills of northern Italy or from the island of Cyprus, and realized that if he had killed Leo, then Bulis's death must have also been deliberate. (The young apprentice would hardly have allowed the Empire's finest portrait painter to tie him up and half kill him and then fail to mention it.) Dolphins might be divine, but dammit, even the most devoted of Apollo's followers would not sacrifice two innocent lives along the way!

In any case, there was no point to killing Leo. He hadn't had a chance to spear the wretched dolphin; Claudia had sabotaged the Medea to make sure of that. Which reminded her. In Leo's office when he was talking to Qus, hadn't he mentioned renaming his ship? What were the odds that she had previously been called the Lydia, but that wasn't the point. Leo said that someone had talked him into calling her the Medea, but why Medea? Medea was a murderess without conscience or compassion, who planned her crimes to the last meticulous detail, even down to the dismembering of her own brother and children. Who in their right mind would suggest naming a ship after that treacherous bitch?

'Would someone mind giving me a hand getting this old buzzard to bed?' Magnus asked, indicating Volcar, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

'Here, I'll take him.' When Jason scooped the frail old frame into his arms, Volcar didn't even stir.

Sipping her fine, vintage red, Claudia watched Jason convey his burden along the marble portico. No directions required. The crafty sonofabitch knew exactly which was Volcar's bedroom. Just like he 'd known which was Claudia's on the night of the fire. It had been too dark and too smoky to identify the tussling figures on the granary steps, but it was Geta who had locked her in the bear hug, and Jason who had carried her back to bed. Cinnamon. She had smelled it just before Geta knocked her senseless. Not you again, Jason had said when he found her locked and tied in the shepherd's hut. Not you again.

Leo might not have been Mr Popular when he died, but it takes a certain mentality to kill so barbarically. Hatred on an unimaginable scale, for instance. Or the warrior son of an Amazon, for whom human suffering has a different meaning?

As the Scythian returned and topped up his goblet, she thought, why the Odyssey? Why hadn't the killer recreated scenes from Jason and the Argonauts, which Magnus had also depicted in graphic detail on the frieze? Jason. The single thread running through.

Jason and the Argo.

Jason and the Moth.

Jason and his lover, Medea.

Medea. Like a pall of smoke above a forest fire, Medea's legacy clung to this island. Stifling, claustrophobic, malignant, it impregnated every stone and rock face. There was no other word for it, she thought. Pure, unadulterated evil. And maybe that was the connection? Both Odysseus and Jason called in at Cressia. The Argonaut had simply been passing through with his treacherous lover, but Odysseus made this paradise island his home. For seven summers he shared the bed of Circe the enchantress, and nuts to the idea that he got lost on his way home from the Trojan War. Circe had supplied him with a navigational chart, for gods' sake! No, no, no. Homer might be happy to portray him as a swashbuckling adventurer, but popular opinion had always had Odysseus pegged as a pirate.

All of which leads back to this Jason.

The chive bread in Claudia's mouth turned to bile. Leo didn't die for the simple lack of a release valve, any more than Bulis's death was an accident and Silvia's narrow escape had been planned. The Odyssey had been recreated, because someone — someone here now — believes ancient heroic blood runs in their veins. Odysseus sired several sons with Circe, but let's not forget that Medea was Circe's niece. Medea. That was the key.

Jason, goddammit, hadn't collected his war scalp for one simple reason. In his twisted recreation of his ancestor's adventures, there was no room for Scythian customs. The Jason who killed Bulis, Leo and then tried for Silvia was living an Odyssean fantasy. What Claudia needed to establish, and fast, was Jason's connection with the Villa Arcadia.