Marilyn Todd - Second Act

Cotta ripped away the cloth from Claudia’s shoulder.

‘Master, please. I beg you.’ Tears coursed down Erinna’s cheek. ‘She’s done nothing, let her go.’

‘If you give me the formula, you have my word, Erinna, that Claudia will go free.’

Meeting Erinna’s terrified eye, Claudia shook her head as far as Cotta’s grip would allow. His word meant nothing. He was going to kill them both anyway. No point in letting him take three hundred more lives. Or rather, three hundred and one.

‘No?’ Cotta sighed. ‘That is a pity, Erinna. A real pity.’

At first, Claudia felt nothing but the heat from the flame. Then an excruciating pain shot up her neck and she heard someone screaming. There was an acrid smell in her nostrils. A combination of burned linen and charred skin, and she thought she was going to be sick.

‘For gods’ sake, woman, do you think this gives me pleasure?’ Cotta rasped. ‘Erinna, I am going to get my formula in the end, so I beg you, the quicker you tell me, the easier it will be for her.’

In front of her, Erinna opened her mouth to speak.

‘The only thing you will tell him,’ Claudia said, amazed that there was no sign of fear in her voice, ‘is to go to hell. Understood?’

Tearful and terrified, Erinna didn’t know what to do. Claudia skewered her with her eyes. Finally, Erinna nodded. Turned her face up to Cotta. ‘No matter what you do, I will not give you the secret,’ she said sadly.

‘No?’ The Arch-Hawk wasn’t convinced. One burn was merely a start. There were the hands, yet, the soles of the feet, the breasts, the face, ah yes, the face. When Erinna saw Claudia’s pretty features melt like beeswax, she would talk.

He applied the candle to another part of her shoulder, and was surprised at how hard he had to grip the girl to keep her upright. Poor bitch, she didn’t deserve this. Too much pain for just one woman’s stubbornness. But his heart was hardened. One girl suffers, but millions of people gain. All the same. Cotta swallowed. It did not have to be like this ‘For heaven’s sake, Erinna, have you no pity?’

The only reply was an animal whimper from deep in Erinna’s throat.

With her skin on fire, Claudia prayed. She didn’t know who to pray to in times like this, so she prayed to them all. To Diana the huntress, that she would strike Cotta dead with her arrows. To armoured, striding, strident Minerva, that she would smite him with her dagger to avenge her sisters. And, in desperation, to Lua, who wards off calamity.

‘Don’t make me do this, Erinna,’ Cotta growled, but there was no shake to the candle flame as he held it high to show her Claudia’s burns.

That was his mistake. In lifting the tallow, he revealed what Erinna had not been able to see before. That he was holding them prisoner on the upper floor of a warehouse. In the circle of light cast by the yellow flame, she saw the brown stone walls, an array of pulleys, winches, cogs and handles, hooks and ropes. More importantly she could see the edge of the platform on which the fleeces were stacked. Dropping away into nothingness Claudia watched the change on her face. Erinna’s beauty became suffused with a peace and radiance she had not seen before and in that terrible, heart-stopping instant, she realized what Erinna was planning.

*

By jumping, Erinna could not hope to save Claudia’s life, but she could save her from prolonged and hideous torment, and the Assembly and the Emperor would be safe. Death was the one thing Erinna did not fear. Every night and every day, she relived the moment when she rolled the bloodied corpse into its unmarked shallow grave. Now, with one final lurch, she could find the release that she craved.

Her expression was calm, her lips almost smiling, as she turned glistening eyes upon Claudia. She mouthed one word. ‘Sorry.’ Then launched herself over the side.

*

‘NO-O-O-O-O-O!’

The scream which followed was primal and shocking. Visceral in its intensity, deafening in its volume, the sound chilled Claudia to her marrow. It filled the warehouse, reverberated its wooden floorboards, jerked the winches into motion. She had never known a sound so animal, so gut-wrenching in its agony, that it could move machinery, but beside her, the rope was definitely swinging.

‘No-o-o-o-o-o-o!’

But screams can’t turn cogs, however primitive they might be. The only way machinery moves is when someone operates it, and Claudia’s second surprise was that the scream wasn’t coming from Cotta’s throat.

When Erinna threw herself off the edge, he had raced to the side of the platform and he, too, had been disorientated by the echoing yells. The Hades effect, Claudia realized. Just as she had expected the sound to have come from him, furious at having his plans thwarted, so Cotta had interpreted the scream to have been Erinna’s soul being wrenched from her body. In that moment of shock, he hadn’t understood that the reverberations were footsteps. That the pulleys were being operated by two strong hands.

That the scream was only the start of one man’s outpourings of grief.

Kneeling on the edge of the platform peering into the dark, he didn’t hear the swing of the winch. Only when he heard a hiss and a whoosh did the Arch-Hawk look round. Too late. The giant hook caught him square on the jaw. His neck snapped like a twig.

Claudia blinked. It had happened in seconds. Literally. Seconds. She couldn’t believe it.

One minute, Erinna was alive. The next And Cotta. A heartbeat ago he was burning her flesh with a flame. Now his handsome, blond head lay at an angle hideously out of line with the rest of his body.

How quickly human life could be extinguished. How precious that which had been spared…

Above, the hook ceased to swing.

Creak, creak, creak. Slowly the cranking of the machinery died away. Then finally, nothing.

Nothing, save a primeval howl.

Skyles. No one else would mourn Erinna like that.

Shaking uncontrollably, Claudia fell back against the fleeces, her face wet with tears. She was safe now. No more pain. It was finished. Over. Her life was spared. She could go home. Why, then, lying on this soft, fluffy cloud, did she feel no relief? Oh my god. She sat up.

‘Skyles! Skyles, quick.’

‘I’m coming,’ he sniffed. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘Not me, you big oaf. Erinna!’

For heaven’s sake, this was a wool warehouse. Up here was where the fleeces were stacked. Which meant downstairs was where they stored the wool. No wonder Cotta hadn’t roared with frustration. No wonder he had simply knelt at the edge of the platform, peering into the darkness below. He was the Arch-Hawk, the Arch-Tactician of military campaigns, for heaven’s sake. He would have planned for every contingency.

As if to confirm it, a low moan filtered up from below.

Skyles’ scream was no less loud than before. But this time it was a yelp of pure joy.

‘It occurs to me,’ a melodious baritone murmured, ‘that you should forget all about theatrical productions and turn this place into a hospital.’

Claudia opened her eyes. She expected to be torn apart by the pain. Instead she felt only a lightness, as though she was floating outside of her body.

‘What happened?’ she asked. This was her own room. Her own bed. Even her own cat stood on the table, tail bushy, hackles raised, growling at everyone and everything, but refusing point blank to leave.

‘Ah-’ Skyles began.

‘You passed out,’ a face with receding red hair cut in cheerfully.

This was the herbalist, Claudia presumed, noting that his left hand bore four bright-red parallel scratch marks. Good old Drusilla. Orbilio she could (just about) tolerate in the house. But a stranger in her mistress’s room?