Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

‘Junius! I’ve told you before, never creep up on me like that.’

‘Creep up?’ he protested. ‘I’m wearing hobnailed boots!’

‘I may have my faults, Junius, but being wrong isn’t one of them. Now have you discovered whose cart Nestor was killed in?’

‘I have indeed.’ The young Gaul’s mouth twisted down at one side. ‘The rig’s Volso’s,’ he said.

Nobody disputed the importance of retrieving the dead. The problems seemed to revolve more around which method would prove the most effective considering the paltry equipment available, and it was getting on for midday before the squabbling subsided and the detail finally set off.

Claudia had no idea whether this mattered to Nestor’s killer or not, but on the pretext of wanting her horoscope cast, she made her way down the line to Volso’s rig, only to be disappointed. He’d had an appalling night, he said (crumbs, who hadn’t?), and today, he was very sorry, but he just didn’t feel up to it. Peering closely, Claudia was inclined to agree. Cadaverous to start with, even poor dead Nestor looked in better shape than the astrologer. As she turned away, she noticed Dexter approach from the opposite end of the cart, offering Volso some of his sulphur and garlic pastilles…

Six long hours later, the bedraggled party returned. Not with Hanno’s grandson or the two soldiers. Not with supplies retrieved from the pack mules. Not with any mule meat hanging from poles. Instead they were carrying two of their own!

The eventual consensus had been that the best way to recover the bodies was not to try and cross the ferocious rapids and work upwards, rather to backtrack up the gorge and work down, and in this the party had been successful only in that one of the drivers had broken his arm scrambling down the hillside and another had sprained his ankle coming to his aid, and it didn’t help there was no doctor in the convoy.

An awful lot of told-you-so’s rippled round the group.

With her knowledge of herbs and the aid of a few essentials packed in her trunk, Claudia dosed the injured men with henbane, which at least dulled their pain and made them sleepy, but morale had hit rock bottom. The dead still lay where they’d fallen, there had been no sign of the army, and without mule meat, where was their supper?

‘I know we’re short of horses,’ Theo said, washing the dust off his face, ‘but Hanno, you’ll have to sort out which one we can best afford to lose.’

However, the old muleteer didn’t hear. Wracked with sobs, his old bony body hugged itself, keening quietly in grief and despair, as he pictured his grandson’s corpse mouldering in this humid valley, being pecked by buzzards, gnawed by rats…

Theo did not press the point. No one had an appetite, anyway, and when one of the mares whinnied softly, she didn’t realize how lucky an escape she had had.

A camp fire was lit, for comfort more than for light.

And so a second night passed.

‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t good enough!’

Maria’s voice punctured Claudia’s sleep, the first few decent hours she’d been able to snatch. She resisted the urge to reach out and strangle the old bat. We each cope with pressure in different ways, she reminded herself. For once, let’s be charitable, eh?

‘What’s your problem this time, ma’am?’ Theo sighed, scraping his razor over his stubble.

‘Less of your sauce, young man.’ Maria snatched the mirror out of his hand. ‘The problem, as you well know, Theodorus, is food. Goddammit, the horses are eating better than we are. Why can’t you organize a hunting party, bring us back a stag or something?’

Give me strength. Claudia flung off the cloak which doubled as a blanket and staggered down to the riverbed. Fancy being woken up for that! Maria knew the score, same as everybody else. With the rain on the run and the sun breaking through, the valley was turning into a cauldron. Already Nestor had been wrapped in canvas and lugged well clear of the camp, the stench was appalling, and they daren’t risk leaving the other bodies too long. Hunting was low priority in comparison and Theo was explaining this for probably the fortieth time.

‘That’s another thing,’ Maria said. ‘It’s starting to look like a gypsy encampment round here. There are women, Theodorus, who have hung out their washing on bushes to dry, the place is turning into a slum. Kindly have a word with them, will you.’

Peace, unfortunately, didn’t last long. The scrum of men working out today’s rescue strategy had decided that, since the rushing river could not be forded, being both too wide and too dangerous, their best chance would be to climb over the rubble which had so disastrously trapped them down in this valley. Every available hand was conscripted.

‘Dexter? Certainly not!’ Maria had heard the news through some other wives and blanched. ‘Let the drivers go, Theodorus, and that sour-faced Gaul, but my husband will not be part of a labouring gang.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ snapped a tall redhead. ‘They’re not working the salt mines. My husband’s proud to be part of the detail.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Maria sniffed, ‘but your husband is an artisan.’

‘And what do you think bookbinders are?’ The glass-blower’s wife laughed, leaving Maria puce in the face.

‘I can’t go,’ Dexter whined, when Theo appraised him of the rule. ‘I’m experiencing palpitations since my liver pills ran out,’ but nobody listened and off they trooped, every man jack of them, and the sun was still low in the sky.

‘Volso seems much better today,’ Claudia remarked to Iliona as the two of them decided they’d set about catching some fish. Neither had tried this lark before, and they were working on the principle that if they made a large enough bag of light linen, sooner or later something would be stupid enough to swim inside and investigate.

‘Nothing wrong with him yesterday.’ The Cretan girl laughed. ‘Except fear. Scared of heights is our Volso, you should have seen him crossing the pass in the Alps. Green as a grasshopper he was, if not greener, when we worked our way down the mountain.’

Hmm. Would a man with vertigo engineer a landslide on the very part of the trip which terrified him the most? It was possible-perfect cover for any strange behaviour on his part-but what worried Claudia was that she had almost accepted that the sabotage came from within.

Which could only mean the killings and this trap were linked.

Why?

‘Look.’ Iliona pointed to where an eel was investigating the neck of their weighted linen hood. ‘Oh, no.’

It swam away again, and after an hour of lying on their stomachs, the two girls decided to bait their trap, and after another hour, they wondered if maybe they ought to change tactics. Then, suddenly, there was a flash of silver underwater, and as one they jerked on the cord to close the neck of the hood, groaning in unison when they discovered, on pulling up the dripping sack, that somewhere along the line their slippery cargo had wriggled free.

‘With all hunts, patience is the key,’ said Iliona, smoothing the lines of her long, divided skirt. ‘It’s just the same with the bull games, you have to match the beast, your wits against his.’

‘Do they still do that in Crete?’

The last of the low clouds had finally drifted away, leaving blue skies dotted with white cottonball puffs, with sunshine which made diamonds and pearls of the river. Rainbows danced as the water rushed over the rapids, and suddenly the hissing water sounded happy and alive, rather than a threat to whoever approached it. Warblers sang in the alders and the willows, and damselflies danced in formation, their wings iridescent in the sun.