Black Salamander
Critical Acclaim for Marilyn Todd
Black Salamander
By Marilyn Todd
Copyright 2014 by Marilyn Todd
Cover Copyright 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover Design by Ginny Glass
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
Previously published in print, 2000.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Also by Marilyn Todd and Untreed Reads Publishing
I, Claudia
Virgin Territory
Man Eater
Wolf Whistle
Jail Bait
Critical Acclaim for Marilyn Todd
‘Claudia—a super-bitch who keeps us all on the edge where she loves to live… The Roman detail is deft, the pace as fast as a champion gladiator.’
Sunday Express
‘A timeless heroine for today—you’ll be hooked.’
Company
‘An endearing adventuress who regards mortal danger as just another bawdy challenge.’
She
‘Terrific read…thoroughly entertaining.’
The Bookseller
‘Marilyn Todd’s wonderful fictional creation—a bawdy superbitch with a talent for sleuthing—[is] an-enormous triumph.’
Ms London
‘Todd’s gorgeous rich bitch, Claudia, plotting and spying to survive adverse fortune in ancient Rome in the delectably enjoyable
Wolf Whistle.’
Frances Fyfield,
Daily Mail
‘A daring debut from a promising writer.’
Oxford Times
‘Feisty and fun.’
Yorkshire Post
‘I, Claudia
was one of the best and most amusing historical detective narratives of the last year, and
Virgin Territory
is a fine follow-up.’
Crime Time
‘Claudia lives life at the cutting edge, and has a way with the sword to prove it.’
Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle
‘If you’re looking for a romp through the streets of Rome in
13BC
then this is the book to buy!’
Books Magazine
‘As juiciest as the ripest grape, this is a vintage romp to savour.’
Northern Echo
‘Anyone who has yet to read a Marilyn Todd Roman mystery is in for a treat when they pick up her latest adventure,
Wolf Whistle.’ Ms London
‘Claudia and Marcus make a volatile, clever and strong couple…an excellent escapist fantasy.’
Historical Novel Review
Black Salamander
Marilyn Todd
For the Irrepressible Scamps
I
Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Claudia pulled her wrap tight to her shoulders, gritting her teeth as the trap bounced over yet another rut in the road. She’d been given this once-in-a-lifetime chance to join a prestigious trade delegation to Gaul (expenses paid, of course) at a time of year when Alpine meadows were at their very lushest. Yet here you are, twelve days into the trip and they hadn’t seen a single Alp. Not one, thanks to weather which was turning out more January than June. She grimaced. It was cold, it was wet, it was windy, and that isn’t the half of it.
She poked her head through the flap of the canvas. ‘Are we clear of the danger zone yet?’ The question was directed at the driver.
‘Dunno, miss.’ The driver shrugged. ‘Hope so.’
Not exactly reassuring. Claudia glanced round. Protected by the pines this mountainous terrain was perfect for a guerrilla attack, the delegation a sitting target as they skirted this deep-sided gorge. She shuddered. Wooded slopes fell two hundred feet to white waters swirling over jagged, black rocks. High above their granite-topped tips were obscured by the low, heavy clouds. Would a hostile clan attack an escorted convoy in broad daylight? One could never tell with the Helvetii.
For a hundred years, they’d been a thorn in Rome’s side and it was only last year, remember, that Augustus had finally persuaded them that resisting the might of the Roman Empire may not be entirely to their advantage—and even then his charm hadn’t been universally appreciated. A burned village here, a town sold into slavery there, his tactics hadn’t won all the Helvetians over and certainly Libo, the tile-maker travelling with the delegation, had paid a heavy enough price for their dissension.
A taciturn (some might say secretive) individual, Libo had done nothing more than wander off the path to relieve himself in the bushes.
The tile-maker had been found where he’d squatted. A stab wound straight to the heart…
A fat raindrop trickled cold down the back of her neck and Claudia withdrew to the shelter of the rig as rain began to hammer against the stretched canvas. Dammit, everything had started out so well, too.
She pictured the Forum. Banners and garlands draped over every temple, arch and statue. The smell of holy incense floating away on the breeze. With the sun glinting off the gold and bronze and marble and making a shimmering haze over red-tiled roofs, and with pavements lined with cheering, whooping, whistling crowds, the whole city had seemed to float upon air. To a fanfare of trumpets, the delegation set off across the Forum. Augurs in flowing white robes held up their hands to show that the auspices had been favourable, and dogs stood on their hind legs, barking at the commotion. Pickpockets sliced through purses and toddlers were hefted on to shoulders to watch the cavalcade pass by. Goldsmiths, sculptors, brick-makers, oculists, bookbinders, perfumers and wine merchants—
Ah, yes. Wine merchants! Claudia huddled down onto the seat and chewed at her nail. You’d think widowhood would come with a set of guidelines, wouldn’t you? A few decent instructions on how a girl’s supposed to manage when her fat, old buzzard of a husband pops off and she, at the tender age of twenty-four, discovers he’s nowhere near as rich as she imagined him to be. Actually. Claudia crossed one long leg over the other. To be fair, Gaius had died a very wealthy man—
on paper.
Unfortunately, you can’t buy gowns with the deed to a tenement or pay for your pleasures with a confectioner’s shop on the Via Latina.
Claudia’s fist punched a dent in her swan-feather cushion. The easy option would be to sell up, but goddammit, Gaius had worked all his life to put Seferius wine on the map—that reputation was part of her legacy. And besides. Claudia might baulk to admit it, but in truth she was
attached
to the company. The heady challenge of staying afloat. The cut and the thrust of negotiation and contract. The shipments, the payments, the management, and not simply on the trading side, there was also her Etruscan villa and the vineyard to oversee—and if a girl can’t live life on the edge, what’s the point? However, hanging on to her inheritance had been tough. Every hustler in town had been after a cheap deal and she’d been bombarded with offers to sell up, offers she’d knocked flat every time until suddenly the commercial flow had turned like a rip-tide.
Bastards! The cushion cut a swathe through the air, narrowly missing the crate in which her blue-eyed, cross-eyed, dark Egyptian cat was curled, trying to sleep. ‘Hrrrrow.’
‘Sorry, poppet.’ Claudia slipped her hand between the bars and stroked the hump which Drusilla would otherwise get. ‘But it just makes me so damned angry.’
Month after month, avaricious merchants had vied and fought with one another to get their hands on the young widow’s business, wheedling, coercing, bullying her to sell, but the instant they realized she was serious, what happened? The lowlife weasels banded together, the lot of them, to drive Claudia out of the trade—and it was so
easy,
that’s what made her blood boil. So goddamned easy, and she hadn’t even seen it coming.
With Greek being the language of commerce, they simply stopped communicating with her in Latin. No more concessions, they said, and while Claudia was picking up Greek from a tutor, she was nowhere near fluent enough to hold her own in wheelings and dealings on that scale, even through an interpreter—who in any case the merchants refused to accept on the grounds it meant dealing with minions.
Like it or not, Claudia had been forced to acknowledge that Seferius wine was commencing its death throes.
‘Hello, gorgeous.’ A shiny wet face poked its head under the awning. ‘Hard to credit yesterday was the midsummer solstice.’ He shook himself like a dog. ‘Thought you might be feeling the jitters, what with the road barely wide enough for a wagon. Ha!’ His eyes rolled upwards. ‘Did I say road? Not like Rome, eh? Anyway, I’ve brought a skin of wine to take your mind off the lumps and the bumps and the bruises.’
Without waiting for encouragement (which was probably as well, because the wait would have been lengthy indeed), Nestor leaped into the moving rig, securing
the canvas behind him. ‘According to Clemens,’ he said,
referring to the stumpy little priest who seemed to know everything, ‘this is the border between Helvetia and the land of the Sequani.’
Thank heavens! A Gaulish tribe, friends of the Empire! It was to their capital, Vesontio, the delegation was headed. So they’d arrive in what? Three days from now?
‘That river down there marks the boundary.’ Nestor edged a fraction closer as he unstoppered the wineskin and Claudia reminded herself of the promise she’d made yesterday. Namely that if this stocky little architect touched her up just one more time, she’d rip out his gizzard and feed it to the wolves she’d heard howling in the night.
Not that Nestor was poor company. Far from it. Relentlessly chirpy and a fount of tall tales garnered from travels that had taken him the length and breadth of the Empire, hours which would have otherwise dragged on this wet, miserable journey had spun past. When it came to spooky legends, Nestor had no match. He talked of Helvetian bear cults, of deep, sacred caves guarded by the skulls of seven bears arranged in a ring, and chilled the blood with tales of Druids, making human sacrifice by burning their victims alive in effigies made of wicker…
Nevertheless, it was quite astonishing the number of times he’d ‘accidentally’ brushed against her breasts, how often his hand had come to rest against her thigh, the regularity with which she’d felt his breath on the back of her neck. Take him to task, of course, and Nestor was quick to blame circumstances. The jolt of the wheels. A judicious pothole. But Claudia had given him clear warning yesterday. Keep your distance, or there’ll be a wolf out there licking its chops.
‘You’ve never been to Vesontio, have you?’ He didn’t
wait for an answer. ‘You’ll love it. Prettiest city in the whole of Gaul in my humble estimation. And commanding as it does a broad loop of the river and with a mountain rising behind, it’s not only beautiful and a natural citadel, it is quite impregnable. And you know how impregnable translates to an architect, don’t you?’ He chuckled knowingly. ‘Prosperous. That’s why I love Vesontio so much!’