Free Black Salamander by Marilyn Todd Page B

second night passed.

IX
    ‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t good enough!’
    Maria’s voice punctured Claudia’s sleep, the first few decent hours she’d been able to snatch. She resisted the urge to reach out and strangle the old bat. We each cope with pressure in different ways, she reminded herself. For once, let’s be charitable, eh?
    ‘What’s your problem this time, ma’am?’ Theo sighed, scraping his razor over his stubble.
    ‘Less of your sauce, young man.’ Maria snatched the mirror out of his hand. ‘The problem, as you well know, Theodorus, is food. Goddammit, the horses are eating better than we are. Why can’t you organize a hunting party, bring us back a stag or something?’
    Give me strength. Claudia flung off the cloak which doubled as a blanket and staggered down to the riverbed. Fancy being woken up for that! Maria knew the score, same as everybody else. With the rain on the run and the sun breaking through, the valley was turning into a cauldron. Already Nestor had been wrapped in canvas and lugged well clear of the camp, the stench was appalling, and they daren’t risk leaving the other bodies too long. Hunting was low priority in comparison and Theo was explaining this for probably the fortieth time.
    ‘That’s another thing,’ Maria said. ‘It’s starting to look like a gypsy encampment round here. There are women, Theodorus, who have hung out their washing on bushes to dry, the place is turning into a slum. Kindly have a word with them, will you.’
    Peace, unfortunately, didn’t last long. The scrum of men working out today’s rescue strategy had decided that, since the rushing river could not be forded, being both too wide and too dangerous, their best chance would be to climb over the rubble which had so disastrously trapped them down in this valley. Every available hand was conscripted.
    ‘Dexter? Certainly not!’ Maria had heard the news through some other wives and blanched. ‘Let the drivers go, Theodorus, and that sour-faced Gaul, but my husband will not be part of a labouring gang.’
    ‘For heaven’s sake,’ snapped a tall redhead. ‘They’re not working the salt mines. My husband’s proud to be part of the detail.’
    ‘That’s as may be,’ Maria sniffed, ‘but your husband is an artisan.’
    ‘And what do you think bookbinders are?’ The glass-blower’s wife laughed, leaving Maria puce in the face.
    ‘I can’t go,’ Dexter whined, when Theo appraised him of the rule. ‘I’m experiencing palpitations since my liver pills ran out,’ but nobody listened and off they trooped, every man jack of them, and the sun was still low in the sky.
    ‘Volso seems much better today,’ Claudia remarked to Iliona as the two of them decided they’d set about catching some fish. Neither had tried this lark before, and they were working on the principle that if they made a large enough bag of light linen, sooner or later something would be stupid enough to swim inside and investigate.
    ‘Nothing wrong with him yesterday.’ The Cretan girl laughed. ‘Except fear. Scared of heights is our Volso, you should have seen him crossing the pass in the Alps. Green as a grasshopper he was, if not greener, when we worked our way down the mountain.’
    Hmm. Would a man with vertigo engineer a landslide on the very part of the trip which terrified him the most? It was possible—perfect cover for any strange behaviour on his part—but what worried Claudia was that she had almost accepted that the sabotage came from within.
    Which could only mean the killings and this trap were linked.
    Why?
    ‘Look.’ Iliona pointed to where an eel was investigating the neck of their weighted linen hood. ‘Oh, no.’
    It swam away again, and after an hour of lying on their stomachs, the two girls decided to bait their trap, and after another hour, they wondered if maybe they ought to change tactics. Then, suddenly, there was a flash of silver underwater, and as one they jerked on the cord to