Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

Through the window, Claudia could see the prisoner, hanging limply from the manacles, whimpering for pity. The door in the wicker man was shut, the ladder removed. Round the base, two men stood, legs planted heavily apart, holding burning brands.

Claudia threw her hands wide and prayed. Jupiter, if you can hear me over this poor man’s wife’s screams, tell me it’s nothing more than the Spider trying to frighten me. I beg you, let this be a ruse.

The torch bearers glanced at their leader, who stood foursquare at the feet of the sacrificial offering, and muttered something in Sequani.

A sparrow swooped down and flew off with one of the straws which poked through the limbs of the wicker man.

Jupiter, are you listening, you bastard? Don’t let them light it. I beg you, don’t let them light it. Don’t let them Too late. At a signal from the Spider, the henchmen stepped forward, simultaneously placing their torches to the great wicker legs.

Flames shot up the figure, higher and higher. Crackling, burning. Igniting the straw, sending out clouds of smoke. The prisoner screamed. A pitiful wail. The effigy’s outstretched arms flickered alight. Black smoke swirled high in the air. Flames licked round the basketweave body. The traitor screamed louder. The thatch packed into the squat, square box of a head started to crackle and hiss. Stray straws floated down, blackened, on to the cobbles. Slowly the fire took hold of the wickerwork frame, still not yet touching the figure inside.

Then the prisoner’s scream changed.

Became bestial.

It was a sound straight from hell, as the flames took a hold of his clothes.

As long as she lived, Claudia would never forget the harrowing screams of that man burning alive inside the wickerwork effigy.

The sight of his long hair, catching fire.

His moustache.

The frantic dance to break free of the manacles.

Sobbing through the poisonous black smoke, Claudia cursed the Spider with every fibre of her being. Whatever crime the prisoner had committed, whatever treachery, no man deserved being charred alive in front of his children. Sinking to the floor, Claudia hugged her arms round her body and rocked back and forth. What satisfaction did the Spider gain, watching a man burn to death while around him thugs actually cheered at every twist, every writhe made by the traitor in his manacled prison?

More surely than she had known anything in her life, Claudia knew that regardless of what torture he might inflict on her, the barbarian who called himself a leader of men would never piece the treasure map together.

Not out of bravery. Not out of spirit. Not even out of spite. Claudia would deny him out of sheer bloody stubbornness.

‘Quick!’ The crouched shadow which fell over her made her jump.

Dazed, bewildered, in shock, Claudia couldn’t think straight. Theo? Theo’s head was talking? I’m going mad. Then her nostrils picked up a smell. Mushrooms. Dried ceps. ‘Arcas?’

His silver hair shone white in the shaft of sunlight from the hole he’d made in the tiles. ‘This way.’

‘Did-’ Her voice was thick, and not from the swirling black smoke. ‘Do you see that, Arcas? They’re burning him…alive.’

‘Druid law,’ Arcas said gruffly, his mouth turning downwards as he glanced through the window to where the figure inside the wicker man twitched in its death throes. ‘Now, unless you want to remain in this place, there’s no better time to make our excuses and leave.’

He peeled off his own woollen tunic and stuffed it over her head. It was warm and heavy and smelled of gentian liqueur and ceps, and was soft and came to her knees. ‘I-I don’t think I can make it through the roof.’ Her legs had turned to aspic, she was quivering, nauseous and weak.

‘No?’ Suddenly she was swept up in his arms and, with a low-crouching run to avoid being seen through the open windows, Arcas carried her to the back of the house. Claudia could feel the thickness of his roped gold torque, the softness of the silver mane tied in a queue at the back. He set her down by the back door and, biting into his lower lip, he tried lifting the bar. It was huge. Oak and a ton weight. Grunting, he tried a second, a third time. On the fourth attempt the oak lever lifted, and the sweat poured down his muscular chest. ‘While they’re enjoying the show out the front,’ he growled, glancing round, ‘we should escape under this blanket of smoke.’

‘How?’ The valley’s sides were precipitous, its wooded flanks prohibitive.

‘The river,’ he said. ‘My canoe’s a half mile downstream, the water was too shallow to paddle further.’ Up close, she could see how startlingly blue his eyes were. Like forget-me-nots. ‘But I can’t carry you that far,’ he warned. ‘To have any chance of escape, you’ll have to run.’

Claudia swallowed hard. ‘I can run.’

‘Sure?’

No. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Then let’s hightail it out of this place!’ Arcas slipped round the door, his dagger drawn. ‘Shit.’

Like an eel, he was back inside the house, panting as he leaned against the frame. The heavy tread of a guard marched slowly past. Claudia felt a trickle of sweat run down the inside of her borrowed shirt. Through a crack in the open doorway, she saw the guard pause, then saunter down to the stream where he proceeded to pee into the water.

‘How did you know where to find me?’ she whispered.

‘Junius,’ he hissed back. ‘He was barely alive when he crawled back to the Forum, but he raised the alarm. Your patrician friend put two and two together and sent for me. He thought,’ Arcas shot her a keen glance, ‘that I might know where to find our friend the Spider.’

Junius? Alive? At least the Spider had been denied that notch on his scabbard.

The guard must have been bursting. ‘How did you know?’

‘I’m Sequani for one thing, a hunter for another.’ He gave a tight, lopsided grin. ‘Because I’ve been shunned doesn’t make me an imbecile.’

‘Druid law?’

‘Druid law.’

Her breathing was shallow and fast. ‘It was Theo, you know. The traitor in our camp.’

‘I saw his head-’ Arcas’s lips flashed into a pout.

‘But you’re not surprised?’

‘How many times must I tell you, Claudia? Trust nobody and you cannot go wrong.’ He squinted at the guard, at last fastening his pantaloons.

‘Didn’t it bother you,’ she asked, ‘that one among us was a killer?’

‘If you Romans want to pick each other off, that’s fine by me, although you forget I didn’t know you were harbouring a murderer until I saw the couple underneath the waterfall. That was when I realized. I saw bruising to both bodies which should not have been there and as for the soldier boy, no. I never trusted his baby face, not for a moment.’

So that’s why he’d taunted him? Pricked the lad? To see what he was dealing with? The Spider’s guard turned the corner of the building.

‘From the outset, I wanted Theo up front with me.’ Arcas’s mouth hardened into a thin line. ‘Where I could see him. Now,’ he said, ‘whatever happens, stay close. You might be rid of a killer, but we’re still very much in the Spider’s sticky web.’

*

Prophetic words. No sooner had they dashed twenty paces than the guard retraced his steps. Up went the alarm. Bloodcurdling yells filled the valley, high-pitched and ululating, and any doubts Claudia might have regarding her physical capability were dispelled the instant she saw the war band thundering behind, long hair flapping on their shoulders, moustaches whirling, brandishing their weapons as they ran. Great, heavy killing machines. Like rhinoceroses. Deadly, but without sophistication. And suddenly she was running for her life The set of Arcas’s face told her that he would not let them take her alive. ‘Faster,’ he panted, the distance between them growing larger.