Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

‘There is one solution,’ Claudia said. ‘If you ever catch him.’ She told him about the wicker man. ‘Leave him alone with the burning man’s widow…’ The hatred on that woman’s face would haunt Claudia for the rest of her days. That, and the screams of her husband.

‘Too many innocent people have died for my liking,’ Marcus said, twisting the figure-of-eight ring as his mind’s eye pictured two small flame-haired children running in the garden of their new foster home. ‘I’m glad it’s over. But one thing bothers me still. Where did you hide that map?’

Claudia smiled to herself. Her very first action, on arriving in Vesontio, had been to hire a carpenter to make a new cage for Drusilla. A good, solid piece of Roman craftsmanship. With the usual false bottom. Doesn’t every girl carry their secrets that way?

‘Map?’ she asked, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘What map might that be?’

Laughing loudly, Marcus rose to his feet and offered her his arm. ‘Going my way, milady?’

Claudia glanced up the precipitous sides of the bowl, then back to the tall patrician standing at her side.

‘Definitely,’ she quipped back. ‘After all, the only way is up, am I right?’

Because, when all’s said and done, there’s a lot to be said for a hero.