Lamia by Juliandes

clothes carefully from the wardrobe.  Mateo came to see me early, to reiterate what I had told him of the plan to depose him.  Clearly he had no idea about any of it and I was the hero of the hour, but the main thing was that he now spoke to me as an equal.  He still called me Lamia and when the rest of the household heard this and saw us talking as equals, there was no further need for an announcement to be made.  I was now the mistress of the house.”
    “But surely the servants must have been informed,” I said, amazed at her sudden transformation from captive to mistress.
    “Why?  Servants are there to follow orders.  At first I would give them orders when I was with Mateo.  Once they understood that Mateo was au fait with it, it then became the norm.  It was the same thing with the mountain-men.”
    “What about the five men who raped you,” I said , before a stare from Lamia made me correct myself.  “I mean the ones who raped Maria.”
    “Pablo, Cesar, Leandro and Luis Almero were tied up in the shed.  This was a strong wooden building used to keep captives prior to punishment.  Almero’s men had been shot and killed.  Guillermo had apparently run off in fear, so he was also assumed guilty.  He had stolen a Jeep which he had abandoned high in the mountains.  It didn’t take them long to find him.  In his fear an d haste he had blundered into an Andean bear which, instead of running away as they usually do, proceeded to dismember him.  As soon as the news was brought to Mateo, I simply announced in front of the servants that nobody escapes from the Lamia.  Mateo smiled; he knew that I knew exactly what I was doing.  Some of the servants crossed themselves and I knew that word would soon get around. ”
    “What about Alejo?”
    “Alejo tugged on my sleeve when I was in the corridor, just outside my room.  I took him inside where he dropped to his knees, distraught at what he had done, kissed my hand repeatedly and begged for forgiveness.  I told him that the incident would never again be mentioned but that I would use him as my personal servant , to do my bidding whenever I wanted.  He was so grateful and I had to order him to stop kissing my hand and to leave my room.
     
    CHAPTER 9
     
    The prisoners were kept locked up for a week, so that word of the Lamia could be spread.  Mateo sent word to Almero’s house that they must surrender all contracts with the drug barons, to secure his release; a release that would never happen.  Mateo could not afford to release someone who had tried to kill him.
    We spent some time deciding how the Lamia could be used to our advantage.  I bought a pair of snakeskin trousers, some wild makeup and jewellery and some ethnic tops to go with the Lamia legend.   Mateo and I plotted how we could quickly spread the word.  Once the legend took off, there would be no stopping it.   I always wore a scarf when we were out, so that nobody would remember me for my blond hair.  Mateo’s woman and the Lamia must be kept separate outside the house .
    We were almost like a couple as we shopped in the nearest large town.  We ate out and even stopped for drinks in one of the bars.  The people around us would never know anything about our lives.   We spent hours together, caught up in the excitement of our new venture.  There were talks about vast areas of land and I impressed him by my knowledge of the terrain and the culture.  The details of exactly how Mateo was going to take over Almero’s territory, I left to him.  He didn’t see any problem.  I was more inter ested in working out a strategy to control such a large area once we had secured it.
     
    We agreed to send spies roaming the villages and farms, picking up information both good and bad.  It took me some time to convince Mateo that love and fear together would gain us far more control than just fear alone.  Organised religion has been using those tactics for millennia.”
    I was shocked by her