Black Salamander by Marilyn Todd

Author:Marilyn Todd [Todd, Marilyn]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781611876901
Amazon: B00L4S7IUW
Publisher: Untreed Reads Publishing
Published: 2014-06-18T23:00:00+00:00

XIX

‘We must move through the woods,’ Arcas said, tightening the saddle strap on his stocky red and white horse. ‘It’s too dangerous to travel by road.’

‘How can it possibly be dangerous?’ Maria snorted. ‘The Helvetii are miles away, aren’t they?’ Behind her, Dexter whimpered that he thought he was getting a migraine.

‘Those ugly bastards know better than to set foot over the river.’ The Silver Fox passed the flat of his hand across his windpipe in a cut-throat gesture to emphasize his point. ‘It’s Sequani loyalists we want to avoid.’ He patted the stallion on its solid, rotund rump then turned his attention to his pair of pack horses.

‘Why should we want to do that?’ Titus looked up from where he was grinding laudanum in a mortar. ‘They’re—you’re our allies.’

‘You haven’t heard?’ Arcas continued to ram the hams, sausages and smoked tongues he’d cut down from his rafters into a hessian sack. ‘The Treveri are in rebellion. Fires, riots, sabotage, murder, ambush, you name it, they’re putting it in practice.’

‘Maybe so, but they’re doing it a hundred miles north of here.’ In the absence of wine, Titus stirred beer into the sticky sweet laudanum before measuring it into two cups to dose the injured drivers. Claudia noticed that the intervals between medication were growing increasingly shorter.

‘Seventy,’ the trapper corrected, stuffing a second sack with vegetables. ‘But word is, the legions are worried. Troops have been sent from Vesontio to crush the rebellion and, flying the colours of our ancient insignia, the Spider is crawling out of his web.’

‘I don’t like spiders,’ Dexter muttered. ‘Arachnophobia, y’know.’

‘You wouldn’t like this one, that’s for sure.’ Arcas snorted, knotting the sacks and throwing them over the first horse. ‘He gets his nickname from the web he casts, drawing in every dissident Sequani because, strange as it seems,’ he shot Theo a sharp glance, ‘not everyone adores their Roman tax collectors.’ He paused to check the knots. ‘When the Treveri started playing up, the Spider swung his underground army into action. You won’t mistake them when you see them. They fly the gold globe in a circle of red. Riches through blood, that’s their motto.’

Again Claudia noticed that Orbilio had contributed nothing, content, it seemed, to assist Hanno load the pack mules. Claudia caught his glance and with one raised eyebrow signalled have-you-heard-of-any-Spider? To which the reply was a subtle news-to-me facial twitch. But the keenness of his eye also said he didn’t disbelieve the Silver Fox.

‘Rebel, did you say?’ Maria asked. ‘I don’t believe a word of it! We’ve never heard of any revolutionaries terrorizing the area, have we, Theodorus?’

The soldier, buffing up his helmet with his sleeve, was forced to agree with her for once. ‘Military intelligence has never mentioned him,’ he said, though his voice made it plain that just because this was fresh, it wasn’t necessarily untrue.

‘I say we take our chances with the road,’ Maria said, leaving no doubt that she considered this backwoods route a ploy to justify the Silver Fox’s exorbitant fee.

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