Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

Claudia’s room was simply but adequately furnished, and at least boasted a beautiful balcony bedecked with roses and martagon lilies which, if you hung over the side and stretched your neck like a giraffe, almost afforded you a glimpse of the river. Voices filtered up from the wine room two floors below from those keen to make up for a regimen of nothing more civilized than beer and water. Clearly the drinking was hard, judging from the strong smell of wine which drifted upwards as well.

‘This is an utter disgrace,’ fumed the distinctive mournful tones of the astrologer. ‘I shall make a formal complaint to the governor about this.’

‘Why?’ Titus said. ‘Because we were destined to reappear as ignominiously as we vanished?’

‘Bet that wasn’t in his scientific calculations,’ sneered the glass-blower.

‘Come on, a week late?’ Volso screeched. ‘You’d think they’d send some kind of committee.’

‘I need to make my report,’ Theo muttered.

‘I’ll take payment now,’ Arcas said.

Sluicing water over her body, Claudia smiled to herself.

Funny how they were never happier, this group, than when they were bickering! Drying herself on a towel, she pulled on a fresh cotton gown smelling of peach blossom and thyme and dabbed perfume liberally round her neck and wrists. Apollo’s celestial light flashed out her reflection in the mirror and while the new frock she’d picked up that afternoon hung well and accentuated all the right curves, there was no disguising the thousand curls which tumbled round her shoulders. Dammit, she ought to have hired a maid, a girl capable of dealing with a tangle like this, but time was too tight and thus Claudia delegated the task of defying gravity to a dozen ivory hairpins. Satisfied with the result, she slipped on a pair of gold earrings shaped like leaping dolphins and reached for the satchel which, no matter what these past few days, had never left her side.

‘Scuse me.’ The door creaked open and a dumpling of a girl shouldered her way into the room, a leather bucket in one hand, a sponge and a heather broom in the other.

‘Out!’ Claudia ordered. For what she was about to do, she needed to be entirely alone.

Water sloshed out of the leather bucket in the servant’s red, chapped hands. ‘Can’t,’ she said, kicking shut the door with a fat clog of a foot. ‘My orders are to scrub this chamber.’ She gave a combative sniff. ‘Thoroughly.’

Claudia followed the girl’s narrowed eyes to the newly delivered crate beside the bed. ‘And my orders are for you to skedaddle.’

‘Sorry.’ She wasn’t. Not a bit. ‘The landlord insists. No cats in this inn, he says.’ Her gaze settled on the counterpane, still warm and hollow and furry from Drusilla’s recent sleep. ‘They moult, bring in fleas and scratch up the furniture, and the landlord says to tell you he’s very sorry’- he wasn’t; not a bit-‘but you can’t stay here. Not with cats.’

Claudia knew that if Drusilla was around, there’d be no question of any collision course with the management. One glance at that blue-eyed, cross-eyed Egyptian form advancing sideways across the floor, spitting like a cobra and yowling like a sphinx-dear me, not only mine host, but every member of his staff and distant family would be tumbling over themselves to extend the invitation. However, Drusilla wasn’t here. She had accepted without complaint the rigours of the journey, the company of strangers, even the smell of roses from the balcony. But the instant that carpenter delivered a new crate, she had made her feelings very plain indeed.

You can tame my spirit, her arched back screamed, but you can never cage it. And off she’d gone, no doubt stalking in the kitchens in a huff. A roasted quail here, a stuffed sardine there, she’d show them who was boss, and in fact any second Claudia half-expected to hear a terrified wail from the cook.

But that didn’t solve the problem of Miss Zealous Brush here.

In the street below, Arcas glanced left and right, then headed off towards the river like a man who knew his way around this town, but not, Claudia noted, like a man weighed down with several thousand silver coins.

‘Very well, you scrub the room. I’ll pack,’ she said cheerfully, waiting until the girl had set down her broom and bucket before adding, ‘only mind that satchel, won’t you?’ She timed her pause carefully. ‘Not that snakes are particularly active in the late afternoon.’

‘S-snakes?’ The servant eyed the satchel warily.

‘Only two,’ Claudia breezed. ‘And being pythons, they’re not very fast-oh, I say,’ she called after her, ‘you left your sponge behind!’

Down in the street, the Silver Fox was nowhere to be seen. Three youths, still drunk from their lunchtime binge, wove a zigzag path, their arms clamped round one another’s shoulders as they sang a loud and vulgar song. All right for them, Claudia thought. Rich fathers, you could tell by the cut of their clothes, the rings and the boots they were wearing. Probably taking the scenic loop home from university in Massilia, their futures all mapped out for them, jobs, wives, the lot. But when you’re born to the slums and orphaned young, it’s a different game you play, requiring skills no teacher in Massilia can ever impart or pupils would be jammed in to the rafters. Claudia ran the deerskin pouch lightly between her fingers, felt its velvety softness in her hand, inhaled the rich, warm smell of leather.

Now she knew that it was part of a treasure map she held, it seemed so much heavier somehow. She rattled it again, listened to the familiar chink. He was one smart squeeze, the Salamander Rat-a-tat-tat.

‘Go away.’

She was in no mood for come-and-join-us. What she had to do next required total concentration and no small degree of privacy.

Rat-a-tat-tat, tat, tat, tat, tat.

Hardly Iliona’s style. It must be that bloody landlord! Try to evict Claudia Seferius from the premises, would he? Ha! Well, next time his wife sees him, he’ll be wearing ears where his kidneys once sat The latch lifted. ‘Room service,’ carolled a familiar baritone, the scent of sandalwood preceding him into the chamber. His firm grip held a silver tray containing two stem goblets and a decent-sized jug of wine, together with a heap of steaming pastries.

Shit! Claudia dropped the pouch, kicked it under the bed and leaned against the door frame, as though too busy enjoying the roses on the balcony to notice tavern slaves. ‘Leave it on the table,’ she said haughtily, flicking her wrist.

‘House rule,’ he said. ‘New guests have to take a drink with the staff. Here.’ A glass of fragrant vintage red appeared in front of her. Strange, she’d never noticed that little scar on the inside of his wrist, white and old, but… ‘Now, now, don’t snatch,’ he chided. ‘Or I’ll suspect I have an alcoholic on my hands.’

‘Orbilio, I am about to go out for the evening. Kindly get the hell out of my bedroom.’

‘Anywhere special?’ He leaned his weight against the door frame opposite, their shoulders nearly touching.

‘Frankly,’ she said, ‘I don’t give a hoot where you go.’

‘I’-he focused on the building opposite, a warehouse, newly built and partly empty-‘was referring to you, actually.’

She didn’t need to look at him to know he was grinning. She took a sip of the wine, then another, then another. It was far too good a plonk to be sold in a smoky dive like this, and the pastries seemed somewhat superior, too. Especially that cinnamon bun…

‘Me?’ she replied. That bun had almonds in it, she could smell them, along with raisins and just a hint of apple. ‘Ooh, just out. See if I can’t find a decent place to eat.’ Since the better lodgings had been snatched up by the main body of the delegation days ago, he could hardly pick holes in that argument.