The Curse-Maker (31 page)

Crassa smiled graciously at Gwyna. She was covered in ancient baubles, and the diadem on her wig was crooked. She turned her attention to me, unrolling me like a scroll. I suddenly remembered the time my Aunt Pervinca slapped my hands for stealing food from the kitchen.

“Arcturus, Gwyna—you're here. In the place of honor.”

The couch was plush. I tried not to sink. Philo had the taste—and self-control—not to seat himself next to Gwyna. Or maybe that punch was a little harder than I thought. Crassa was next to her, and they were already deep in conversation.

The host placed himself on the next couch, with Octavio beside him. Prunella was calling the wine boy for more. To her right was Vitellius, who also noticed the wine boy but wasn't drinking.

My eyes met Sulpicia's. All offers were still open. I grinned at her. Must be the hair oil Gwyna put on me. She was finally forced to turn toward Regilla, who kept plucking her arm. Regilla's husband was waiting for the food to come out as if it might escape.

Gwyna craned her head to whisper to me. “Is that cow still trying to seduce you with her eyes?”

“I hope you mean Sulpicia.”

She shook with repressed laughter, giving my leg a vicious pinch. I leaned forward to breathe in her ear. “You can't see where you're pinching, so be careful.”

“You be careful with Sulpicia, or I'll know exactly where to pinch.”

The wine boy came by with wet towels for our hands and finally poured the drinks. I looked up to find Philo watching me. “Do you like the wine, Arcturus?” he said softly.

“Thurine, isn't it?”

“Yes. Last of the vintage.”

There was something melancholy about Philo tonight, something out of reach. And I wondered. I wondered who Philo really was. He stood up to make the traditional speech, his eyes still haunted.

“Friends and guests. Welcome to my home. What is mine is yours.”

Sorry I can't say the same, old boy. I took another sip of Thurine.

“Relax—enjoy the food and the company. As our Horace said, ‘
Carpe diem.
' So please—
carpe vinum
.”

Everyone clapped their right hands at his wit, and he sat down amid the applause. His face was red. He was certainly following his own advice.

Three slaves came out of the kitchen bearing simple black platters of lentils and chestnuts. My mouth was too full and my stomach too empty to think any more about Philo or anything else.

The suckling pig was tender and exquisitely cooked. When we were finished with the honeyed millet cakes, I wiped my hands for the third time on my new napkin, unrooted a piece of meat with my tongue, and finally gave my attention to the party. I felt someone staring at me. Gwyna was talking to Crassa and fortunately couldn't see that Sulpicia was using more than her eyes.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

Vitellius was nearly asleep. I lowered my voice. “You managed to pry him away from the bath boy? What's wrong, is Drusius not—”

The almond eyes narrowed into slits. “Kindly keep your mouth shut.”

I feigned surprise. “But I have a question for your boyfriend—Vitellius—hey, Vitellius!”

He looked around, taking a few minutes to find me. “Oh—hello, Arcturus.”

“Hello. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Me? You wanted to ask me something?”

There was an echo in the room, and I was looking at it. “Yes. How long have you known Titus Ulpius Sestius?”

His expression got a little less bored and a lot less stupid. “Let me see—about two years or so. Why do you ask?”

“Because he claims you're the one who gave him some information. Information that—well, let's say it helped make him the man he is today.”

Sulpicia's skin was now a pale shade of green. She whispered something to him through her teeth. When he looked back up at me, he wasn't alone. Octavio was staring at me, his face twisted with hate. God, I was good at parties.

Crassa's voice trailed off. One of those unexpected silences stood in the middle of the room and screamed. I took a drink. “Sad thing—about his aunt dying. Especially since she came out here for a cure.”

Prunella hiccupped. “Lo's of people come here f'r a cure—an' they never leave.”

She started laughing, out of control, and Octavio shook her. Regilla never met a pause she liked. Her chatter helped cover for Prunella.

“You never know, do you? You just never know. Why, we met a soldier who told us the governor himself lost his only son. So sad, don't you think? I mean, his wife's not getting any younger.” She giggled and held her hands up to her face—“well, none of us are—and I'm sure she won't be able to have any more children, and the soldier told me it was just a cold, and it just took him like that.”

She snapped her fingers and then lowered her voice. Gwyna put a hand on my leg I could barely feel.

“The soldier said it was the doctor's fault. The governor has some expensive doctor, you know, they all do, and he said that doctor just let the little boy die, same as if he upped and killed him. I always say, you can never…”

Gwyna made a noise in the back of her throat. Philo reacted first. He almost shouted.

“Doctors—are human—why people—why they want to talk, to gossip…” He shook his head in disgust.

The eyes changed direction, from Regilla—and me—back to him. My stomach was desperately hanging on to the food while the rest of me wanted to throw it back up. Somebody, somewhere—maybe Quatio—maybe someone just like him. I took another drink.

Regilla gaped at Philo, the kind of fish you threw back. Flushed up to her mouse-brown eyebrows. “Oh … oh—you—you're a doctor, aren't you—I … I didn't mean—”

“Your mouth outran the rest of you. Like always.” Simio still looked bored and even a trifle hungry. He scratched the thick hair on his hand. “Always happens.”

She covered her face with her napkin in embarrassment. Unfortunately, she'd forgotten there was pork sauce on it. Philo spoke again.

His voice was in a dream, his eyes unfocused. Sadness was there, too, a pain so sharp I could reach out and prick my finger on it. I recognized it. Guilt was an old friend of mine.

“You can't save all of them, you know. Come to you with hope in their faces, wanting another day—even another hour. Unfinished business. It's all unfinished.” He took a long draft of wine. Everybody knew there was more.

“What did Ovid write? ‘The wave, once gone, can never be called back—nor can the hour ever return.' Something like that. But you want it back. You call it, cry for it, over and over again. What if I'd done something else—would she be alive? Could I have saved her? Could I?” He looked around, his face impassioned. Nobody answered. Nobody could.

He shook his head. “It doesn't matter, in the end. You can't. I know. I tried.” Philo was staring at something none of us could see. “And still—the guilt will grow in a man's soul like weeds in a garden.” He jerked his wineglass up and drained it. His eyes landed on Gwyna and his voice bcame tender. “She looked like you. So very much like you.”

Everyone was holding their breath, wondering how the story would end. Except me. I knew the outcome. Philo's guilt was an old habit, a way to warm his cheeks with tears when they felt the winter chill. Remorse and a jug of wine, an old doctor's best friends. After a few years, even they weren't real anymore. Oh, yes—I understood Philo now. I was watching what I could've become in another twenty years.

I looked down at my wife. Her eyes were full of tears. She murmured: “Who was she?”

He turned around to face her, cradling his wine cup against his chest. “Long time ago. In Hispania. I was a temple doctor—the Temple of Endovelicus. Native Aesculapius, but a—a god for fertility. Women spend the night at the temple trying to become pregnant.”

He stared into the cup and was still for so long that Simio was able to find another millet cake. I'd seen those temples—it didn't matter what they called the god. Women, desperate for children, sometimes desperate for other things, came for help. The priest gave them a drug to eat—
strychnos,
maybe, or a mushroom. Then they'd see the god, and sometimes even feel him. It depended, often, on what the women looked like—and who was playing the god that night.

“They believed—believed that the god would come—make love to them—give them children.” He shook the wine around and suddenly shuddered. Then he drained it in a gulp, and his eyes, when he opened them, were sober again.

“She stayed at the temple. Became pregnant. And—and died in childbirth. I couldn't—I couldn't save her.”

He looked back at Regilla. She'd taken off the napkin, but not the scrape of fig on her chin. His voice came out as a harsh croak. “Don't abuse my hospitality.”

He stood up abruptly and walked into another room. Gwyna and I both followed him. He was staring at a painting on the wall. A little too much
veritas
with his
vino
tonight.

He glanced up when we came in, his voice still sharp. “I'm all right. Go back to dinner.”

“Philo—that's twice you've stepped in front of us.”

He averted his eyes. “Gossip is a terrible thing. Can hound you like the Furies.”

We watched his hand shake while he poured himself more wine. I owed him something.

“I want to tell you what happened tonight—why were were late.”

Little by little, he rebuilt his face. Shocked by the visit, angered by the threat to Gwyna. And afraid. Maybe because he should've known about the mine all along. Maybe because he had. Disappointment settled in and stayed around longer than anything else.

“It's—it's too bad, in a way. Truly. The temple—it could've helped people. More and more come each season, and a temple to Aesculapius…” He threw a final drink down his throat. “Well—no matter. Maybe we can find someone else.”

“Someone cleaner, I hope.”

“Of course—someone legal, too.”

Gwyna's voice was gentle. “You own a lot of the property down there, don't you?”

Not his evening for surprises. He set the wine jug down. His charm was reaching out to us—palpable—pleading.

“Yes—I do. It's not common knowledge, though. I've purchased land from Octavio. My—my plan, as you know, was to build a temple and then turn it over to the city. The best way to do it is to get control of the property and build—we can't really ‘buy' the land, you know, because we're a province of Rome, but it amounts to the same thing. Otherwise, nothing will ever get done. Too much bureaucracy.”

Too much explanation. Wrapped up in honey so it was easy to swallow. I still wasn't sure. About Philo, or anything else. He wasn't exactly himself tonight. Or was he?

He was smiling at Gwyna. I wondered who he saw. His eyes drew downward to her necklace, and he held out a finger to touch it. “This is beautiful. Is it from Baetica?”

“It's not from Hispania at all. It's Egyptian. Ardur bought me a ring to match, see?”

She extended her hand and he took it in his own and admired it, while pretending to admire the ring. He was shaking again. I put my arm around my wife. “I think it's time the host and the guests of honor attended the party, don't you think?”

He bowed at me, a dash of sarcasm peppering the motion. “At once, Arcturus. Lead on.”

When we walked back into the dining room, the slaves were eating our leftovers, Sulpicia was studying her fingernails, and Crassa was lecturing Octavio. She'd taken it upon herself to rule in Philo's absence. He'd have a hard time getting the crown back.

“Good for you, Philo, never let one mistake ruin a good dinner. As for you, young man”—I looked around, but she was addressing me—“I hope you've thanked him properly. Exposing himself like that to help you. Not that anyone should ever listen to what comes out of
their
mouths.” She gave a withering look in the direction of Simio and Regilla and pulled Gwyna back down on the couch.

Philo was still standing. “Why don't we play a game? How about
kottabos
?” He looked down at Gwyna's puzzled face. “A Greek game. We set up a target—something like this little saucer. Then we stand it up, and we aim the last bit of our wine at it—we throw our cups so the wine hits it, and it falls over. If you make it fall, you win a prize.”

“What kind of prize?” Simio was all business. He'd been fed, and his time was valuable.

Philo shrugged. “Raisins. Dates. Sometimes women offer kisses.” His eyes almost reluctantly fell on my wife, who was smiling at me. The throaty voice of experience answered the challenge.

“I'll give one—to the first man who knocks it over.” What you'd have to knock over was left open to interpretation. From the look on her face she was betting on me. I guess there were no hard feelings between us. Much to Sulpicia's regret.

Octavio nearly drooled on his tunic, but not over her offer. “Can we play for money?” His small eyes were darting back and forth, trying to figure the odds.

Philo shrugged again. “Why not?”

Crassa sat upright to announce that protocol was being deflowered under protest. “Philo—are you sure—”

“Quite, Crassa.”

While the slaves set the game up, I coaxed the conversation back to my own corner. “So, Octavio—I understand you're a medical man.”

“Who told you?”

“I really don't remem—”

“Never mind. Doesn't matter.” He brooded over something other than a gambler's luck. “I understood what Philo was talking about. Even with my own small experience. Makes me a more effective bathmaster. I have an instinct for when someone comes in who shouldn't take a chance—and they always want to.”

Prunella was snoring, and she woke up with a start. “They wan' what?”