Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

His path through the river was swift and neat. Hers was lumbering. More splash than pace. Croesus, she couldn’t keep up.

‘You can do it,’ puffed the trapper. ‘You can do it.’ Hampered initially by the pall of grey smoke, the war band was now gaining ground, crashing through the shallow waters, their swords raised high. An arrow zinged through the air, twanging into the dark bark of an alder.

‘Careful,’ bawled the rebel chieftain. ‘I want that bitch alive!’

‘Not far,’ Arcas wheezed. ‘Nearly there.’

On the bend, high on the bank, she could see his canoe and in it-merciful Juno be praised-in it was a certain wooden crate. ‘Drusilla?’ she cried, and suddenly there was strength in her legs. ‘Drusilla!’

As though her ankles had wings just like Mercury, Claudia raced down the trickling stream. No boulder was capable of putting her off balance in this mood. No arrow could travel faster than she at the moment.

Arcas was pushing the canoe down to the water. Claudia flung herself in and laid low. Wily as ever, the Silver Fox paddled furiously, zigzagging down the river. Claudia heard the twang of an arrow, it thudded into the woodwork.

‘Are you all right?’ Wildly she looked round over her shoulder.

‘Keep your head down,’ he snapped.

‘Arcas, I don’t know how to thank you-’

‘Don’t.’ If anything, his voice was sharper. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet.’

‘Maybe not, but you thought to bring my cat.’

‘Your patrician friend said to see you safely to Bern. It was Junius who said you’d not leave without the wretched beast.’ Arcas grimaced at Drusilla who was howling like a banshee, her protest registering several decibels above the battle cries and the hail of arrows.

For a spy in the employ of the Parisii, Junius was not doing a bad job on the whole. ‘How is he?’

‘Junius?’ Arcas shrugged. ‘I reckon he’ll live.’

Claudia remembered old Hanno. Like an animal, he’d said of Arcas. Won’t find a trace of self-pity, but then, he had cackled, you won’t find compassion there, either. He was a hard man, Arcas, toughened by life as much as his surroundings, who wouldn’t thank being told he was kind with it. There’d be other ways to repay him, she thought.

With slower moving waters, the valley had opened out. Sunshine bounced off the maples and the birches, there was a vivid flash of kingfisher’s wings.

‘Ach.’ He spat. ‘Bastards!’

Claudia peered over the parapet, her blood turning to ice. Two dozen horsemen were dismounting, racing for boats moored along the bank. Large, fast craft, which could easily outrun a loaded canoe ‘They’ve cut us off,’ Arcas said, making for the bank. ‘We’ll have to travel overground. Can you make it?’

‘Damn right!’

Grabbing Drusilla’s cage, Claudia jumped out of the canoe and scrambled up the wooded slope after him.

‘I know a place we can hide,’ he puffed. ‘If we can lose them for just two precious minutes, I know where to head for. Quick.’

Grabbing her wrist, he jerked her sideways, crashing through the undergrowth. ‘We’re leaving a trail a blind hippo could follow,’ she said.

‘That’s the idea,’ he pointed out. ‘They come this way, then,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘no more trail. They’ll waste time looking, by then we’ll be home and dry. Right. Let’s play hide-and-seek with these bastards.’

They twisted left, hooked to the right, backtracked so many times that Claudia was breathless and dizzy.

‘See that?’ Arcas pushed her hard in the back. ‘That little overhang? You hide under there, flat on your belly, and for gods’ sake, keep that bloody cat quiet. I’ll rejoin you within a count of five hundred.’

Actually it was closer to eight hundred by the time he returned. Claudia had dragged Drusilla out of her crate, cradling her tight to Arcas’s shirt, where the cat sensed what to do and remained unaccustomedly still. By the time the Silver Fox returned to his lair, she was sitting upright in her cage, calmly washing her whiskers.

‘This way,’ he hissed, ‘and quietly. I’ve laid a false trail, there’s no reason for them not to fall for it, but we must lie low until nightfall, maybe even tomorrow night. This Spider,’ he shook his silver mane, ‘is not a forgiving man. His men are on the lookout for you.’

‘And for you now,’ Claudia said.

His pace barely faltered. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Now me.’

The Spider would clear a nice niche for Arcas’s head.

To all those who believed the city was a confusing place, Claudia blew a large and resounding raspberry. Never again did she want to clap eyes on hornbeams, oaks or aspens, and if she never saw another set of white, foaming rapids in her life, it would be too soon. You can stick your limestone schist where the sun doesn’t shine, she told the Sequani gods, your coniferous woodlands, your rushing rivers and your savage gorges. Praise be to Juno, we’re spared this at home. Ours are gentle rounded hills, whose lush valleys flow with wide, inviting rivers lined with proper things. Like vines! Our horses are not sulky red buggers, neither are our cows and sheep and goats pathetic little runts.

We don’t burn human beings alive either.

Or keep embalmed heads on our walls.

Reincarnation. She stopped to unhook her (Arcas’s!) shirt from where it had snagged on a thorn. Did they honestly believe that crap? That by taking the heads of ‘worthy’ enemies, they’d be reborn with their power? Can’t they see the flaw? That by now, the Sequani ought to be a race of super-beings?

‘We’re here,’ Arcas said.

Claudia looked around. ‘Where?’ There was nothing. Woods, woods and, excuse me, more woods.

The Silver Fox chuckled, and she thought it was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh. ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he said. ‘Follow me, only be careful. The going gets treacherous at times.’

Down they slithered, down and down and down, maybe another hundred feet, to the foot of yet another bloody valley. Except, wait. This was no valley, this was simply a bowl in the rock. A natural hollow, maybe eighty paces across. The air was thick and damp. Instead of the ground becoming lush and fertile, though, the soil grew thinner as they scrambled down, until soon there was only bare stone left in which to make a slippery foothold. Ferns draped the crevices. On the south side, a few hardy creepers put out tentative fingers, a straggly bush or two clung for dear life. Other than that, the hollow was given to ferns. And bare, unforgiving rock.

But the steam… Why so much white steam? There was no river down here. No water. Why this thick, humid air?

‘What is that?’ Her eyes, she felt sure, were on stalks.

A giant chasm loomed out of the mist. A gaping hole, which went backwards and down into the mountain. It was glistening white on the inside.

She slithered down the slippery rock face, dislodging ferns as she went.

‘I don’t believe it.’ Claudia rubbed at her eyes. She was seeing things. The strain had made her hallucinate. ‘That’s ice.’

‘It is,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and providing you don’t mind the cold, we can hide here in safety.’

Trotting after him, Drusilla’s crate joggling in her hand, Claudia muttered something about beggars and choosers and sent a silent prayer to the god of weavers for this handy woollen tunic.

The arch, so perfect many a Roman architect would wish to emulate its beauty, was at least twenty paces across and the same high. As far back as she could see, blue-white ice twinkled in the darkness of the cave.

‘How can it stay like this without melting?’ she gasped. For gods’ sake, this is July. ‘Is it a glacier?’