Read Black Salamander for Free Online

we get are ramblings about some sodding treasure map.’
    The scroll tumbled out of Orbilio’s hand. ‘Treasure map?’ It was a credit to his upbringing, he thought, that he managed to keep the excitement out of his voice.
    ‘See what I mean?’ Big Buckle laughed. ‘They do it every damned time. Think they’re clever, they do, feeding us lines, setting us off on false trails in order to buy themselves time, but I’m wise to these scum. Trust me, we get to the truth in the end.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Orbilio said mildly, ‘it would be a good idea if I interviewed the prisoner myself?’
    Mother of Tarquin, this was the break he was waiting for! The tribes might want a share in the new order—but for the Treveri, historical enemies of the Helvetii, to unite, both sides would have to be bought, and the sum would not be small. (What price this new Republic?)
    ‘As you wish.’ It was no skin off Big Buckle’s nose whether the written confession was sufficient or not. His job was purely to make it available. ‘This way.’
    Following him down the smoky corridor, Orbilio was uncomfortably aware of what his father would have made of a high-born patrician mixing with what he’d undoubtedly call lowlife and scum. The old man had taken as fixed that his sons would follow law as their route to the Senate, and Marcus knew he’d have reacted none too kindly to the news that one of his boys had taken up with the Security Police instead of the judiciary. An emptiness washed over him, the same as it always did when he thought of his father and the broad gulf between them, a chasm which could never be bridged, thanks to his father’s premature death.
    So many issues unresolved. To explain, for instance, that by weeding out fraudsters, killers, assassins and thieves, Marcus was making the world safer, more stable. His mouth twitched at one corner. Never. the old man would have boomed. Prestige is what counts, lad. Prestige! And instead of letting him unburden himself by talking through his cases, he’d have questioned him about…well, the dinner to which Orbilio had been invited to tonight, for instance.
    Oh, his father would have approved of that! Dining with Senator Galba, the chap who’d organized that illustri ous delegation to Gaul? Word’s finally got out about your successes , he’d have said approvingly. Play your dice right, lad, and your career will be taking off big time! Galba’s a serious player in the political arena, keep him sweet, because with the senator in your corner…
    Perhaps it was as well the old man had gone early. Another flaming argument would have erupted, Marcus pitting ethics against self-interest, and the galling thing was, both father and son had the same ultimate goal. They both wanted Marcus to take his seat in the Senate—which would only have led to another contentious issue, of course. Marriage. His father citing Orbilio’s failure as a husband by letting his wife abscond with an impecunious sea captain to bring the shame of divorce on the family…instantly forgiven, of course, providing he married so-and-so, and off he’d go, the old man, trying to force his son into a second miserable alliance and riding, as always, roughshod over human emotions.
    The next time he took a wife, Orbilio resolved, it would be no business merger. And there was only one possible candidate.
    Yet no matter how many times their paths crossed, no matter how many adventures they shared, Claudia, goddammit, always pushed him away.
    He spiked his fingers through his hair. For all her abrasive temperament, her confident exterior, one thing that woman was scared of—maybe the only thing—was love. She avoided it like a whale avoids fresh water, and Marcus knew the reason.
    She’d been burned. An army orderly of a father, who walked out one morning and never came home. Death? Desertion? Only the father knew the truth, but the consequence was that the child who’d adored him had been left to care for a reckless,