Widow's Pique (16 page)

'To us.' Her voice was husky as she handed him the goblet.

'Th-thanks.' His was, too. Nerves do that. Though it was hard to say whose hand was shaking the most. 'Gosh, I . . . I—'

The goblet fell from his hands and he slithered to the floor in a heap of feathers. One more hangover among hundreds, and Claudia was already out of her rainbow gown and climbing into his pantaloons and shirt before the first snort emanated from his comatose lips. Grabbing his red felt hat, she pulled the beak low over her face and wrapped the feathered cloak tight about her shoulders. No one gave a second thought to another woodpecker snaking its way through the banquet.

The quay was quiet. Naturally. Who in their right mind would be out here, when the festivities were in full swing in the square? Maybe later a lover or two might escape to its solitude, but not before the feast was finished, and Claudia ran on light feet towards a small rowing boat moored at a ring. Relief swept over her. Whether the governor in Pula believed her story any more than she'd believed Raspor's didn't matter. What mattered was that the conspiracy would be aired. There could be no further 'accidents' now. The King, praise Juno, was safe!

With a gentle splash, the rope disappeared into the water and Claudia sent a brief prayer to Neptune to keep the breeze in her favour. She approached the ladder leading down to the

boat. With only a sliver of moon in the sky, precious little light was cast over the quay, so she was surprised when a shadow fell over the cobbles.

'You wouldn't be thinking of leaving us, would you?'

The voice was barely audible through the mask, but there was no mistaking the deer-skin boots as the Moon God stepped in front, blocking her way.

Nosferatu had never had so much fun.

The old man made his way slowly down the hillside, the torch casting unearthly shadows in his palsied hand, and every now and again his arthritic bones jolted painfully thanks to an unseen stone on the path, or maybe a tree root sticking up, or perhaps a fallen branch. He paused for breath. Every Zeltane he made this pilgrimage to the small spring in the valley, but with each passing year the task grew that much harder and took longer to accomplish. The old man was resigned to this, and on he pressed, his wooden clogs making little sound on the springy forest floor.

Once a huntsman with as keen an eye as any true-born Histrian, now it was left to his sons, his grandsons and his great-grandsons to bring home the venison and boar. The most his rheumy eyes could manage was the odd pheasant or hare, but more often than not these days his shot missed, and the leather jerkin that kept out the winter winds and summer rains when he was younger afforded scant protection to frozen bones and parchment-thin skin.

High in the canopy, a blackbird began to sing, always the first line of the chorus, its cadences quickly followed by a woodlark, then a wren. By the time he'd reached the bottom, the valley was a choir of songbirds, finches, tits and warblers, and the Sun God's youngest wife was already rising from her crimson bed. The old man cursed. He must set out earlier next Zeltane. He could not afford to miss the dawn. Dawn was why he came here.

Picking his way across to where a thin trickle of water

seeped from the hillside, he laid down the chaplet of flowers he'd taken such care to carry down, and found comfort on the seat of a soft, mossy rock. This tiny spring was where he and his wife had first plighted their troth. A holy place that was theirs and theirs alone, and for the twelve years since her death he had made this journey to leave flowers in her memory, and here he would sit and he would talk to her, telling her the news of their children, reminding her how much he was missing her, and this year he was able to add that it would not be too many years before he was joining her in the Blessed Realm of the West.

An hour passed, maybe two, until, stiff, he stood up and cast around for a stick to ease his return up the hill.

He recognized it for what it was at once.

His eyesight might be fading and his hands less than steady, but a huntsman still recognizes a kill when he encounters one, even though the kill might be a week or two old and the scavengers of the forest had taken their fill. He could also tell what animal it was, although in this case the kill was human.

Accidents were more common than people imagined. It wasn't just travellers - bead sellers, fortune-tellers, itinerant tradesmen - who lost their footing on a slippery path and fell to their deaths. Native-born Histri perhaps in too much of a hurry, perhaps drunk, fell victim to carelessness and quite often their mount would be found with them. Although not today.

Picking over the scattered remains, the old man searched for the amulet that all Histrians wore. Unique to the wearer, this would provide identification and allow the unburied soul to be claimed by their family and interred as was their right, but the huntsman wasn't prepared for the engravings on this amulet that still encircled the half-eaten bone. Burnishing the metal band with his shirt, his first surprise was that it was gold, and he held it close to his eyes to make certain. The second was the engraving. There was no disguising the woodpecker, or the rainbow that surrounded the bird, and on either

side of the totem, two snakes coiled round a staff - the unmistakable emblems of a healer.

The old man was looking at the corpse of the royal physician.

'My dear Claudia, you never cease to surprise me.'

Mazares was far too polished a statesman to let his expression slip when the Queen of Heaven returned to the table dressed as a woodpecker, but a range of emotions flickered in his catkin-green eyes, including, she could swear, admiration. Quite how much gaining the enemy's respect was important, she didn't know, but her new costume had sure drawn a crowd.

'Astonishing,' Pavan rumbled.

'Ravishing,' Kazan said.

'Refreshing,' said Vani.

'Dashing,' chorused Marek and Mir.

But it was the high priest who voiced the crowd's collective opinion.

'Inspirational, My Lady. Truly inspired.'

With one change of costume, he propounded loudly, the Lady Claudia had made public her loyalty to the King. Indeed, so effusive was he in his praise that, by the end of his speech, even
she
could almost believe that her perception had done her credit!

The royal emblem was, she had to admit, a lucky choice, but when you stack that against the masked stranger blocking her escape, it paled into insignificance.

Rovin was a beautiful island set in a paradise sea . . . but it was still her prison.

Mazares was as dashing and gracious as any man she'd ever met . . . yet he was still her jailer.

It crossed her mind that Mazares might be keeping her here for her own safety, but if that was the case, Raspor would still be alive. No, he was keeping her because she was the live goat in the pen. Doubtless it was his intention for the King and his new bride to die in some terrible accident, perhaps the ship taking them to Pula would be attacked by pirates, who knows? But come on. Claudia Seferius a goat? He's the one who had to be kidding!

Daylight had swamped the festivities, revealing just how many spirals of smoke were being carried out to sea on the breeze. Bones and mussel shells littered the pavements, along with battered plates, shattered goblets, and a score of lost or trampled hats, a few broken toys and a baby's painted red rattle. One or two figures slumped in drunken repose, but the party was not due to finish until dusk, and while the sun blazed down upon the token livestock driven through a line of bonfires in ritual purification for the entire herd, Claudia set to plotting a means to escape.

Brae be nimble, Brae be quick, Brae jump over the candlestick.

After the sheep, the goats, the pigs and the cattle, it was the turn of the children to hurdle candles in order to burn off evil spirits.

Brae jump long, Brae jump high, Or Brae fall into a fever and die.

She blocked their chants out, but still plan after plan was thwarted by geography, logistics and the spectre of the masked Moon God by her side. She had just ruled out setting the whole island ablaze on the grounds that it was too problematic, considering all the buildings had been constructed of stone, when Mazares reached for his Taurus mask, adjusted the balance using the gilded horns, and offered his elbow.

'It's our turn next.'

Hurdling a couple of wax candles? No problem. She may have encouraged the whole of Rovin to drink itself stupid, but very little wine had passed her own lips and her co-ordination

was—

'We leap the Fire of Life.'

Too late she noticed that the crowd had moved back from the Zeltane fire, which had been banked up since she last noticed, and Claudia knew she had no choice. She'd nailed her colours to the King's mast, there was no going back, she needed to keep the islanders on her side as much as she could.

'Don't be scared.'

'Who s-said I'm s-scared?'

Croesus, the flames were taller than she was!

'Ready?'

The crowd was stamping and cheering them on.

'No.'

By the edge of the fire, a veiled nymph dressed entirely in blue tossed bay leaves, verbena, lemon balm and hyssop into the heart of the flames with studied solemnity. Mazares stared at the nymph and her purifying concoction for what seemed like eternity, then dipped his horns, let out a bellow and pawed the ground with his boot. Everyone laughed, and only Claudia heard him say: 'Really? I rather had you pegged as the type who enjoyed getting her feathers singed.'

He took her hand in his and the grip was firm.

'When I say run, you run like the wind, and when I say jump, you don't jump high, you jump one-two and make the third jump as long as you can. Trust me.'

She wanted to say that she might as well put her head in a lion's mouth, but her tongue had stuck to her palate.

'Run!'

Hand in hand, they hurtled towards the flames.

'Jump!'

One . . . two . . . She had never made such a leap in her life - or found anything more exhilarating.

'Told you.' Panting, Mazares pulled off the bull mask and grinned. 'And only a handful of burnt feathers to show for it!'

To take on fire and win . . .

'Is a charred woodpecker the same as a cooked goose?' she

asked, but whatever retort he intended to make was overtaken by Marek (or was it Mir?).

'Hey! Mazares! Isn't it time you showed the pretty birdie your own wooden pecker?'

Pavan lifted a hand that would have swept him backwards off his feet, but Rosmerta stepped in front of her son.

'You will apologize at
once
for your vulgarity,' she boomed, her white face distorted with anger.

As he voiced his abject contrition, Claudia wondered whether Kazan wasn't the weak link after all, because he'd said nothing. Nothing at all.

'Good boy.'

Rosmerta glanced first to Claudia, then Mazares to establish that no harm had been done and, satisfied, said: 'Now then, who's going to escort me through this year's Fire of Life? Kazan?'

They made an incongruous couple, the Cat and the Sun God, and it struck Claudia how odd it was that, on his own, Kazan radiated confidence and strength, yet beside his wife he appeared weaker and somewhat diminished. Perspective, she mused. By her very size and nature, Rosmerta dominated every scene and Claudia's thoughts flittered back to her own wedding day. Also a marriage of convenience, but whereas Kazan and Rosmerta's was a political alliance, at least she and Gaius had thrashed out a pact for themselves. Did Kazan have any inkling of what he was taking on, when he accepted the Illyrian chieftain's daughter? Were there any hints in the young Rosmerta of the sourness and resentment that lay ahead? Or were those traits born of her husband's relentless profligacy? Neither Cat nor Sun God, Claudia concluded, deserved the other - and she meant it in the kindest sense.

In several places, makeshift bridges had been constructed across the Fires of Life to convey the sick, frail and elderly without risk, though for the majority of Zeltane's celebrants, the leaping was an important part of the ritual, with young couples jostling to race towards the flames. The masked stranger, she noticed, was among them. Hand in hand, he leapt

with Vani, their muscular legs scissoring effortlessly across the flames. Vani, dressed as Goddess of the Night. Whose lover was none other than the Moon himself . . .

To the sound of pan-pipes, drums and flutes, the food and wine just kept on coming, with a seemingly endless succession of earthenware pots being pulled out of the logs in which this season's lambs had been slow-roasted during the night. Out in the plaza, a human chain linked hands to weave in and out of the crackling bales, swaying and singing as they danced, their shadows casting a parallel ballet.

'Why do you suppose there are no Romans at this banquet?' the masked stranger murmured.

If Perun was truly God of Justice, he'd have him sweating like a pig under the weight of so much metal, the heat turning it into an oven inside, he'd make it cut into his flesh and rub his skin raw, leaving a rash.