Free Jail Bait by Marilyn Todd Page A

north?’
    Dorcan, whose ancestry could only be guessed at, exhibited a row of perfect white teeth and it was only when he tipped his head back and roared, like he did now, that you could see they were someone else’s, held together by strands of gold wire. ‘Remember my instant cure for hangover?’
    ‘Not personally.’ Claudia ran her finger over a thin plait billed as the original thread from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. ‘Although if I recall, it was a gruesome mix of goat dung and rennet, was it not?’
    ‘That’s the one. Got me into a real spot of bother, I tell you.’ His was not so much a laugh, more the bellow of a bull. ‘See, I never expected the silly sods to eat the ruddy stuff, they was supposed to rub it on their foreheads.’
    Claudia picked up a dried snake purporting to be a clipping of Medusa the Gorgon’s hair. ‘Is that why you had to grow the beard?’
    ‘That come about after a misunderstanding over my fertility ointment when it appears I was somewhat heavy-handed with the mustard.’ Dorcan leaned over the counter and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Made their dicks glow like embers, it did.’
    Claudia’s eyes were beginning to stream. ‘How many times have you been run out of town?’
    The giant counted them off on his fingers. ‘Well, there was that incident over the toothache cure, which I sold as black chameleon and they caught me grinding chicken bones. My ointment for nappy rash went down none too well, owing to the fact it made their little bums go green—’
    ‘Stop,’ she wailed, fearing she might stay permanently doubled up, when a child ran over, making such a screech on a whistle made of wood that she was forced to stick her fingers in her ears.
    ‘Put it away, lad, until you’ve learned how to play it,’ Dorcan chided, but the child’s mother did not see the jest.
    ‘I say,’ she asked stiffly, ‘do you have a cure for moths?’
    Claudia, who had no idea moths got sick, stuffed her fist into her mouth when Dorcan smoothly knocked over the sign which read ‘Reduces Fever’ and handed over the small clay pot it rested against. The woman counted out three bronze coins and she and her unmusical offspring moved on.
    ‘So then, my lovely,’ the burly bear pocketed the money and propped the sign against a thin blue phial, ‘I presume you haven’t travelled one hundred miles of metalled road just to sample my world-famous remedies. What brings you to Atlantis?’
    Claudia ignored the question. ‘You’re a chap who hears things, Dorcan. I’m looking for a man.’
    Another day aren’t-we-all would have tripped off his tongue, but suddenly he scowled and dragged her underneath his scarlet awning. ‘Don’t have no truck with them,’ he growled, and for a second she was bewildered.
    ‘No, Dorcan,’ she patted his arm, ‘I appreciate your concern, but it’s not an abortionist I’m after.’
    His face dropped back into its amiable position. ‘That’s a bloody relief,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe what them backstreet quacks gets up to. Now that, ma’am—’ he turned to address an elderly matron—“is a string from the lyre of Orpheus himself, the only one in existence and a snip at three gold pieces.’
    ‘Ooh, I don’t know—’
    ‘Strum on this, you’ll charm the feathers off a bird and have creditors eating out of your hand.’ He gave a wicked wink. ‘Works a treat on daughters-in-law, too. Why, thank you, ma’am, and may the gods smile upon you.’ Stashing the gold, he brought another lyre string out from under the counter and beamed at Claudia. ‘What man are you after, my lovely?’
    Claudia described the Spaniard and Dorcan said, yes, he knew the bloke, though not to speak to, mind. Tarraco his name was. Not what you’d call social, keeps himself very much to himself, steering clear of the drinking dens and that, and he never takes parts in the local athletics, the discus, foot races and the like, although whether he’ll attend