The Curse-Maker (22 page)

“I'm surprised you're here. Don't you find this all—distasteful?”

So she'd heard about the dinner party. Gwyna wove her arm into mine, smiled.

“Actually, yes—but I'm devoted to my husband. You know how it is.”

Sulpicia reddened. I changed the subject to something other than husbands and corpses.

“Where's Vitellius?”

“I'm not sure. I was on my way to the baths when—”

“Sulpicia? Sulpicia!”

Not Vitellius. The young stonecutter shoved his way through the mob, his eyes bent on Sulpicia's red hair.

“I thought I saw—”

He suddenly realized he was in a small clearing with four people. The growing crowd was packing in closer. Drusius flushed a becoming shade of rose, and Sulpicia's mouth curled suggestively at the corners.

“
Salve,
Drusius.” She could say a lot in two words.

Drusius nodded to me, bowed to Gwyna. She smiled, and Sulpicia immediately started brushing stone dust off his old tunic as if it were a candidate's toga. He turned his head, finally seeing the body.

“Goddamn—Faro Magnus. Was he killed? Here?”

“He was killed, where I'm not sure. He was left on my doorstep. Thought I'd share the news.”

He stared at me. “I suppose you know what you're doing.”

“Faro was murdered because of a dead lead mine haunted by live miners. Except it wasn't lead, it was silver.”

Excited hum from the seventy-strong herd pressing in around us. Faro was more popular dead, but so was everybody in Aquae Sulis.

Drusius stepped forward excitedly. “Does this mean you found out something about my friend—Aufidio?”

“I think he was murdered. Because of the mine. Like Faro.”

He nodded. “Let me know if I can help. Who are you waiting for?”

“Priests. Council members.”

Drusius moved over to stand beside me, lowered his voice. “By the way—something I wanted to tell you. Remember I said there was something odd about Dewi—you know, the simpleton boy? When he died?”

“Yes?”

“Well, he kept saying there were ants crawling on him. Over and over. That's what he said. Thought you'd want to know.”

More squeals and grunts, and an occasional thwack. Sulpicia clutched Drusius's arm. Papirius was using a willow whisk to clear his way. Following him were Octavio and Philo.

Philo's eyes were moist and concerned, mostly on Gwyna. Papirius wore his usual frown, more severe as the occasion warranted. Octavio gave Faro a quick glance and shudder, and spoke first.

“I don't understand what this is about. Papirius said something about the mine. What does that have to do with—him?”

A sound that could curdle mother's milk stabbed the humid air. An angry keening. Gloating in it, satisfied malice. A younger voice ululated in harmony.

“Mur-der-er! Mur-der-er!”

The crowd divided. She didn't need a whip.

Materna hauled her beetle-eyed bulk with surprising grace into the center of the circle. She wailed again, a long, shrill cry, and tottered over to Faro. Then she slowly knelt and laid herself on top of his body. Secunda echoed her mother. The bearers were helpless. They didn't want to touch the women.

I shoved Papirius aside. “Get up.”

She lifted her yellow jowls to the sky and shrieked again. The crowd was stunned and silenced. Then she pointed a fat, shaking finger at me.

“Murderer!”

Collective gasp. Whispers rose like moths to lamplight. I was about to get my fingers dirty and pull her up by the hair when someone else pushed passed me.

“Rise, you miserable old bitch. Rise and get off him. Or I swear before Sulis and Diana—I'll rip your eyes out of your skull here and now.”

Gwyna's voice didn't quaver. All sound ceased. Slowly, Materna picked herself up from Faro's dead body. Secunda was already standing by the outer fringe of the crowd.

I looked at Materna. It wasn't easy. “Where's Secundus?”

Someone shoved him forward from where he was hiding. Eager hands joined in, pushing him sideways until he almost fell. He finally reached the circle and crawled over to stand in Materna's shadow. He couldn't look up.

“Here's your latest entertainment, Secundus.” I turned to the head priest.

“Where's Grattius?”

Papirius's lips were thin. “He—he wouldn't open the door.”

“What do you mean, he wouldn't open the door?”

“He won't come out. He's barricaded himself inside.”

I chewed over the latest bit of information. It tasted as rotten as the town itself.

“I'll find him later. We've got one
duovir
here.”

I pointed to Faro and raised my voice. “Something nasty was left at my door. Maybe it was so this—lady—could make a dramatic entrance.” I pointed to Materna, who swallowed like a poisonous toad.

Secundus couldn't speak. More whispers and nervous giggles popped and gurgled like the bubbles in the spring.

“This is a sort of town meeting place, and this is a sort of town meeting. I'm here to tell you a few things. One: Faro here was a part-time necromancer and full-time fraud.”

A gasp this time. Some angry hisses. Still, they were eager for more.

“He confessed to me that he'd been hired to spread gossip about a haunted mine. A mine owned by some sort of syndicate—and members of your own town council.” I had to wait for the shouts to die down.

“Faro also confessed to other crimes, even more cruel and malicious.” I looked at Materna. Philo and Sulpicia both glanced at Gwyna. “I traveled down to the mine itself yesterday, based on what Faro told me. When I got there…”

I paused, waiting for the crowd to quiet down again.

“When I got there—I was attacked. Because I found that the mine was actually working, actually running, and hauling out more silver than lead.”

A few people toward the rear melted away. I wondered if it was something I said. The mob got loud again. Some refused to believe it; some said they knew it all the time.

Drusius was still standing next to me, and murmured: “So that's why they killed Aufidio.” Sulpicia disappeared into the crowd, after handing the stonecutter a note. Papirius and Octavio tried to look shocked.

“That's not all.” I had to shout it. “I returned home in the middle of the night. This morning, one of the slaves found the dead body of Faro Magnus—whom I'd last seen at the
duovir
's house.” I pointed to Secundus. Then I looked around the crowd and raised my voice as loud as I could.

“If anyone knows anything or saw anything to do with Faro, particularly last night—please come forward. There is a substantial reward.”

Someone shouted, “How much?” above the excited cacophony.

“
Denarii,
not
sestertii
. Depends on the information.”

Materna came to play a scene. She began with another inhuman shriek so shrill that the people in the front row held their ears. Words and spit flew with equal venom.

“I say it again: Murderer! You hit him! You threatened him! And he's found at your house! Murderer!”

Gwyna took a step forward. I held her back with difficulty.

“Now, Materna—Arcturus wasn't even home when this murder took place, and he's here by authority of the governor, as you know. He's helping us investigate. He didn't kill Faro.”

She looked at Philo appraisingly. His voice carried weight with the crowd, but I didn't want or need his help.

“Secundus! Did you or did you not witness my interrogation of Faro Magnus?”

The genial horseman of a couple of days ago was nowhere to be seen. He cringed under the malignant
auctoritas
of his wife and stepped forward like a man at his own crucifixion.

“Yes. I did.”

“Did he admit the haunted mine was a hoax?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell your wife what he said?”

“Y—I—no. No, I didn't.”

His wife ignored him. She stared at me and said it softly.

“But you had all the motive. You wanted to punish him. You wanted to kill him. Because he revealed the truth about—”

Philo slapped her. She held a hand up to the red mark on her yellow cheek, her mouth open. I wasn't sure whether to shake his hand or punch him in the teeth. Defending my wife was not a job I shared with anyone. Other than my wife.

Papirius cleared his throat. “Are you through? Can we—dispose of—”

“Go ahead. Do you recognize the mask?”

Papirius eyed it as though it were a poisonous snake. “No. It isn't a temple mask.”

Secunda answered, surprising everyone. She whispered: “It was the ghost-raising mask. The metal part. He—he used to wear—”

She broke down and threw herself on what begot her. Materna seized the opportunity to make motherly noises, clucking and muttering, and finally withdrew, leaving a slimy trail in her wake.

I watched her leave, then said: “Bury the bastard.”

The crowd disbursed, reluctantly, Faro's magnetism still irresistible. Drusius hurried off to find Sulpicia.

“Philo—thanks.”

He stopped smiling at Gwyna long enough to turn toward me. “Of course, Arcturus. Only thing to be done. What's next?”

“Rome will want to know who's been cheating her. My guess is everybody. First I'll find Grattius. Then I'll talk to Secundus. If he manages to survive tonight with his wife.”

He shook his head. “What an utterly wretched, ugly woman. I had no idea.”

“The goddamn town is bathed in ugly. Materna's just the prime example.”

He laid a hand on my arm. “I'd like you both to come to dinner. Not tonight, obviously, but—well—Aquae Sulis being what it is, I thought—”

“You thought it would help recuperate our ailing reputations and calm gossip. I appreciate it. Though what the crooked bastards that run this town think of me isn't the foremost thing on my mind.”

He smiled. “
Valete,
Arcturus, Gwyna.” He turned and left, walking quickly toward the baths.

Gwyna took my arm and stood on tiptoe to get a better look into my eyes. “Come on, Ardur. Let's go home.”

I signaled the bearers. We walked alongside the empty litter, through the dusty, crowded streets, people staring at us. We passed the edge of the sacred spring, and I felt a gentle drop on my head. I looked up, said a prayer of thanks to the thick gray clouds.

The rain came down. But it couldn't wash the dirt away from Aquae Sulis.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was late afternoon before I woke up. Disoriented, alone. The impression of Gwyna's body next to me was already cold. Meager light from the window said it was probably about the tenth or eleventh hour of day—just an hour or two before sundown. I stretched and sat up. Still pain, but not the delirious kind. I threw on an old tunic and found Gwyna in the
triclinium.

She was writing something and set it aside. Her face was a little less frail. “Come sit, Ardur. I was just writing to Bilicho and Stricta.”

“Don't tell him about the shovel. I'll never hear the end of it.”

Her face fell into lines of worry. “Aren't you sending a message to Agricola? About the mine?”

“I want to talk to Grattius first. Once I tell the governor, the legion moves in. We lose our chance.”

She leaned forward. “Do you feel well enough to talk about it?”

“I don't feel well enough not to talk about it. Did I leave my medical kit in here?”

She nodded in the direction of one of the side tables. “On top.”

“I need to make an ointment for the donkey. You go first—tell me what you did yesterday when I was getting my head bashed in.”

She got the kit for me and bent down and kissed my cheek. I reached up and kissed her, long and slow, before she pulled away reluctantly and sat across from me. I checked the box. Mortar and pestle, willow, but no sage, and no ointment base.

“Hold on a minute, I've got to go to the kitchen.”

Priscus was supervising the evening meal, directing an understaff of two on the proper way to braise a rabbit. He looked surprised, then irritated. “Yes?”

“Do you have any sage?”

“Sir, the rabbit will taste much better—”

“It's not for dinner. I need it for the donkey.”

He raised his eyebrows until they touched his hair. Clearly the governor's taste in houseguests had declined. He opened a wooden cabinet built into the huge kitchen wall, took down a sprig of hanging sage, and handed it to me wordlessly.

“Thanks. How about some melted meat fat?”

This drew a stare from the undercooks as well. Priscus swallowed. “Do you—do you want it flavored—”

“No. It's also for the donkey.”

He clicked his mouth shut and dragged out a cheap pot with a floral pattern on it. “I keep extra meat grease in this, for the candles and soap.”

I turned to go and sniffed the air appraisingly. “Priscus—”

“Yes,
Dominus
?”

“Too much savory in that seasoning. Reduce it by half.”

His jaw went slack before it clenched together and ground like a pepper mill. “Yes—
Dominus.
”

Gwyna was waiting. “Did you get everything you need?”

“Yes. Not without the impression that I was born with no culinary taste.”

She looked amused. “That's their job. The more expensive the cook, the worse sort of snob he is.”

I started grinding the willow bark into a dry pulp. “Seems like a long time since we got here.”

“Doesn't it? And it's only four days before the
Nones.
”

“So what happened yesterday?”

“You left for the mines—”

“—and you were heartbroken.”

“Ardur, it's hard enough to talk without you—”