CHAPTER ELEVEN

The walk home was drier but more uncomfortable. Calpurnius and his cui goddamn bono. Sulpicia, who made me feel like the new girl at the discount whorehouse. Then there was the small matter of strangers telling me what was wrong with my wife. Or, more specifically, not telling me.

I looked up and found myself at the door to the villa. I wasn’t in the mood to discover anyone else fawning over Gwyna, and I banged the door extra loudly.

Well-trained slaves appeared, as they always did in this house. Ligor melted back into them while a shepherd detached himself from the flock and ushered me into the triclinium. Gwyna wasn’t there.

“Where’s my wife?”

“In the bedroom, sir. I believe she is dressing for dinner.”

He gave me a look like I should be dressing for dinner, too, and wasn’t I just a wee bit embarrassed to be running around Aquae Sulis with a mud-spattered tunic and my hair unpomaded?

I grinned at him. “Thanks. What’s your name again?”

“Lineus, sir.”

“Well, Lineus, I will now go into my bedroom, with my wife, and change for dinner. Is that right?”

He bowed stiffly. “If you are going out to dinner, Dominus.”

I murmured, “Remind me when I don’t use the right knife with the appetizer.”

He raised his eyebrows, bowed, and withdrew. Damn good servant. I bet he knew what was wrong with Gwyna.

I walked down the corridor and softly tapped on the bedroom door.

“Is it you, Ardur?”

I said yes and heard some whispers, rustling, and a drawer being shut. The kinds of noises you always hear whenever a woman is behind a locked door and wants to make an entrance.

The door opened, and one of the other slaves skittered out. She looked at me and smiled. Thin woman, carried herself with a certain Gallic fashion. Probably a dressmaker.

“Come in, Ardur. I’m ready.”

No lutes, but the Muses were doing a group chorale somewhere in the garden. She was taller, wearing some sort of high-heeled cork sandals. Her hair swept up from her neck and was piled high in gently falling ringlets of golden blond.

The silk tunic showed off her collarbone and draped very low in the front. The purple glowed against her skin, and a red mantle clung tightly to her bare shoulders. Clusters of pearls were hanging at her ears. My mouth was hanging open.

She smiled at me. “I’ve done a bit of shopping. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shook my head and dug around in my tunic for the necklace I’d bought her.

“For me? Why, thank you Ardur!” She sat on the bed and started to open the small pouch. “Why don’t you get dressed? I found a toga for you—nothing special. At least it’s one of the shorter ones you like better—not as many folds. It’s on the other side of the bed.”

Still mute, I skirted around her, to where a gleaming white toga was lying on the blanket. It was stiff and uncomfortable. That made two of us.

Arms wrapped around my neck and lips showered the back of my head with kisses.

“I love it! It’s beautiful—thank you, Ardur, my love, my husband, my—”

I turned around and kissed her long and hard. She ran out of breath before I did. I didn’t need to breathe.

“Ar … dur. We—I missed you, too, and I’m glad you don’t object to the shopping. I got the prices down, but it was still a little expensive.”

I looked at the toga. My togas usually got dirty in proportion to how white they were when we started out together. This one was very white.

“It’s nice, as togas go.”

“Well, hurry and put it on. We don’t have much time.”

She watched as I took off my tunic and shoes. It was nice to be stared at by my own wife for a change.

“I love the emerald necklace—and the Diana. She’s a special goddess to me, did you—did you know that?”

“No. I’m glad I bought the right thing.”

She was quiet while I wrestled with the toga. Then her voice came out small.

“Ardur—you didn’t buy this out of—of guilt, did you? You saw Sulpicia today…”

The toga was half on, and I had to yell through the cloth.

“Of course not! I bought it this morning, I’ll have you know! What the hell does Sulpicia have to do with anything? Come here and help me with this thing, and bring some fibulae.”

I finally got my face out of the cloth and was starting to wrap it around myself when she came over with two pins.

“Well—I want to hear everything that happened today. Especially with Sulpicia.”

“I’ll be happy to tell you. After the dinner party. I want to know what you did, too—Philo said you’d come by.”

She nodded, a satisfied look on her face. “That was a test. I wanted to see if he’d be more loyal to you or to me.”

“I’m not sure it was such a good idea to tell him about our ideas.”

“Why not? If he’s involved, then it might make him do something rash. If he isn’t, then he can help.”

She stood on tiptoe and started to pin my shoulder. I yelped.

“Sorry. I hope he’s not tangled up in this. I rather like Philo.”

I looked down at her darkly. “Don’t.”

“Now, Ardur. Don’t be jealous.”

“Look who’s talking! When poor Sulpicia—”

“Poor Sulpicia? Poor Sulpicia?! ‘Poor’ Sulpicia as good as murdered her husband. Just because she makes you feel like a satyr in rut—”

“I am not a satyr in rut!” I protested.

The wicked smile came back. She raised her lips to brush my cheek.

“Yes, you are,” she murmured, “but we have a murder—several murders, in fact—to bring to justice. If Sulpicia doesn’t quit trying to scratch her itch on you, there’ll be another—and you’ll know who did it.”

I was beginning to like togas. A lot.

*   *   *

The host greeted us with disappointment when he saw the litter bearers.

“No mare? But Arcturus—”

“She’s not in heat, Secundus. If she goes into heat, we’ll talk.”

He grumbled a bit and led us in. His wife, a great hulking toothy woman who seemed to fill the room to capacity by herself, greeted us with a ferocious smile.

“Welcome, welcome. Glad to have you both. ’Course, I know the little wife.”

She chucked Gwyna under the chin, and Gwyna flinched, her eyes narrowed. Materna cleared her throat and dragged forward a pretty young girl, obviously bored.

“Secunda. My daughter.”

Her tone implied that Secundus had very little to do with it.

Secunda nodded, showing some interest in looking over Gwyna’s clothes and jewelry. When the survey was over, she closed her eyelids and slumped into the dining room. The other guests were already assembled.

Secundus offered me the so-called position of honor on the couches: imus in medio. I was glad for once. From the position on the low corner of the traditional square C, I could see everyone else’s reactions, the reason why this was supposed to be an honor. Maybe the bad food and worse society would be worth it.

Gwyna was below me and to the right. Below her was Big Belly, the councilman I’d met on our first day in Aquae Sulis. He was introduced as Quintus Pompeius—the town tax collector, a frequent dinner guest at every rich table in town. He nodded at us and scooted over. His wife was stuck in the bottom on the far right, in the lowest-of-the-low seat.

Above and next to me, middle on the middle couch, was a soldier, a middle-aged legionary with the unfortunate name of Marcus Mumius Modestus. He was the kind of man who never got beyond the middle, even at a dinner party.

The young Secunda was immediately above him, and mama Materna was keeping a beady eye on both of them. Her daughter might want to play “sheathe the gladius” out of sheer ennui.

Materna took up most of the room on the highest couch. To the right and above her, Secundus tried not to disappear. Their most interesting guest held on to the far right summus in summus position with his fingernails.

“Arcturus—this is Faro Magnus. You’ve probably heard of him.”

Faro the Great. The one who could raise the dead. Sounded easier than raising any life in this place.

I nodded at Faro while Secundus talked about him like one of his horses.

“I told you the wife and I are keen on theatricals. Well, Faro has agreed to do something special for us tonight. He’s quite a little find, Faro is.” He winked broadly. “Right after we eat—can’t keep the cook waiting!”

The food was as stale and tasteless as the party. We gummed our way through a watery oyster and anchovy appetizer, gnawed an overcooked capon stuffed with cold chestnuts and tasteless truffles, and glued our lips together trying to eat the honeyed dates. I proceeded to ruin another set of napkins. They weren’t cheap. We couldn’t afford any more free dinners.

Faro, at least, was interesting. Slight man, well groomed, with black hair, thick and curly. His skin was startlingly white, his eyes an eerie, penetrating gray. He looked the part. Like the rest of us, he ate without much appetite.

Materna watched everyone, her eyes shining like a beetle’s back. A frightening woman. If I looked in her hand, I’d probably find some strings tied to Secundus’s back. Somehow I didn’t think she liked us. Especially Gwyna.

Our eyes met, and she bared her teeth at me. I smiled and accidentally swallowed a date pit. For relief, I turned to Mumius.

“So, Mumius—what legion are you with?”

He was picking date off his teeth. “II Augusta.”

“Oh—so you’re at Isca Silurum?”

He nodded. “Right now I have a message for the fortlet outside Aquae Sulis, and then I’m to report for Household service in Londinium. Hurt my leg, so they transferred me.”

“How’d you injure it?”

He turned red and stared at his dates. “Tripped on a picket.”

I changed the subject.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a wheelwright.”

I was hoping for more fascinating conversation from this unexpected new source, but Secundus made a noise in his throat, and everyone except Materna looked at him expectantly. She was gazing at Faro, with a suggestion she hoped he would raise more than the dead. Poor bastard. That would be a real miracle.

Two slaves cleared the tray in front of the necromancer, and he sat up, moving as deliberately as a tightrope walker. His eyes stared across the room, unfocused and blank.

“Well, as I say, the wife and I—we’re interested in things. Entertainments, and whatnot. And, if I may speak for you, dear”—Materna nodded her massive head at him graciously—“I—that is to say, we—think there’s much to be said for certain talents.”

He cleared his throat again and looked around nervously, as if he were afraid we’d all take the chance to yawn and leave the party.

“Faro here, for example. Now, I’m sure you’ve all read about people raising ghosts, but Faro here can really do it. He can talk to the dead. Gets ’em to talk back. So I thought—that is to say, we thought—why not give him a go at the party?”

Secundus sat down and smiled at his wife like a dog waiting for instructions.

I glanced sideways at Gwyna. She’d been talking with Crescentia, Big Belly’s wife, for most of the night. Now her eyes were enormous, and riveted on Faro. The black hair, the pale face, the expressive eyes—which seemed lifeless and dull, as if he had to empty his own soul to make contact with others. The mask was just about perfect. I couldn’t tell if it was comic or tragic.

The Entertainment waited a decent interval for the Host to be patted on the head by the Hostess. Then he looked around the room as if he’d just noticed it. His mouth opened, and the voice was sonorous and commanding.

“Dark. We must have dark.”

Secunda giggled and arched her back toward Faro as if to say, “Take me now.” Big Belly and his wife squirmed a little. Gwyna’s eyes were still on the necromancer. I was beginning to dislike him. He was like a smell that started out tolerable and got rank the more you inhaled. I didn’t object to a con man. Just an oily, good-looking one.

Secundus clapped his hands and told the slaves to put out the lamps. One by one, the room started to become dim, then gray, then nearly dark. It was always dull.

Magic didn’t mean much to me. People like Faro had to make a living, too, and I could usually spot the tricks they pulled on rubes like Secundus. Most necromancers were small, starved-looking men, with lean eyes and furtive mouths, who looked like they not only spoke to the dead but borrowed their clothes. Their palms would be sticky with sweat and anything else that could help them deliver a trick or two. Faro’s hands were dry and steady, more like a doctor’s than a magician’s. I couldn’t see anything on them but skin. Not yet.

When all but one of the lamps were extinguished, a slave brought out a small table with three vases and set it in front of Faro. He picked up the first one and held it up so we could make out its shape in the darkened room.

“A sacrifice of milk—pure milk, mother’s milk, suckled from the breast of the earth—”

Secunda stifled another giggle, choking it down when her mother turned a baleful look on her. He poured it into a shallow dish reverently, then held up another vase in the same way.

“A sacrifice of wine—pure wine, god’s seed, spent from the body of Bacchus, intermediary of the dead, savior of man, intercessor with Proserpine—”

An Orphic touch. Nice work. Showed Faro was educated, maybe even a member of one of the more exclusive religious cults.

He poured the wine into the same dish, just a few drops. No one made any sound. I stifled a yawn. I hoped it wasn’t the old water-to-wine trick. That was hackneyed fifty years ago.

Finally, he picked up the smallest vase. “A sacrifice of honey—pure honey, the moisture of the goddess, the life-giving Proserpine, the wife of Pluto, and mother of the dead.”

The honey drizzled very slowly. Materna leaned forward, waiting for it to drop from the vase, as if she believed the royal couple of Hades would suddenly materialize in the dish. Even Secunda was awake and not picking at her fingernails.

When enough honey oozed out, Faro shook his head three times, shook the plate three times, and started to chant.

“Amoun aunantou laimoutau riptou mantaui mantou Apollo, hear me, Apollo, God of prophecy and oracles, Amoun, Aunantou laimoutau riptou mantaui mantou, hear me, oh goddess Minerva, goddess that is Sulis, send your fallen, send your secrets, amoun aunantuou laimoutau!”

The chant got louder and more emphatic with every name. Faro’s eyes were rolled back—I could see the white catch in the dim light. A breeze wafted through the room, and the last lamp flickered and died out.

“Amoun aunantuou laimoutau! Sulis—your secrets—the dead—lately or past—who is here who wants to speak? Who is here who misses? Who is here that yearns? Amoun—”

He was yelling, building to a crescendo that was almost a scream. The hair on my arms was standing on edge. Faro was good. Too good for Aquae Sulis.

“—aunantou—laimoutau! Sulis—let them speak! Let them hear! Let them see!”

Silence fell like a gravestone. Ragged breathing was the only thing I could hear. Then Faro’s voice … but it didn’t sound like Faro’s voice. It sounded like a child’s.

“Mommy—Daddy—we—we love you.”

Crescentia was sitting rigidly upright, her body trembling in the darkness. Big Belly—Pompeius—was beside her, his arm around her shoulders.

“P-Pompeia? Is—is it you?”

The voice came again. It didn’t seem to be coming from Faro.

“Yes, Daddy. Sextus is here, too. We miss you, Daddy.”

Crescentia turned to Pompeius. “Oh—God—”

They clung to each other. Faro’s mouth was open, but I couldn’t see it move.

“We—we love you, too, children. Please—please see us—come to us—if you can.”

“Yes, Daddy—we will see you and Mommy soon. We will come to you.”

The voice was fading. Crescentia was sobbing in Pompeius’s arms, and her husband was a grayer shade of gray. My muscles were sore from tension. What the hell was going on here? Who the hell was Faro, and what was he getting out of causing people pain?

I was halfway off the couch when a different voice pierced the darkness. This one was deep and authoritative.

“Another one waits. One who cannot talk.”

It was Materna, this time. She thrust her neck out like a turtle, eager for more.

“Someone else? Who?”

The voice was silent for so long I thought it was finally over and we could turn on the lights and get some answers. Mumius grumbled and said something about “not what he expected.” I agreed with him. Then the voice started again.

“One is waiting. He … he cannot talk. He is … too young. He was—never born.”

I heard some shuffling next to me and felt sorry for Crescentia. Would the bastard never stop?

“He—he does not blame her … it is not her fault—for what happened. He says … he says he wishes he could have been—he would have been—a good son … for his mother. And his father.”

One of the tables crashed to the floor, and I could see a figure below me rush off the couch and out of the room, sobbing uncontrollably. Poor Crescentia. I was off the couch and standing. I’d settle the bastard. No one should have to go through something like that.

Secundus called for a light, and a slave lit a lamp to my right. The table was on the floor, and wine was spilled everywhere. Pompeius was sitting, staring down, clutching his wife in his arms. Crescentia was still on the couch. It was Gwyna who’d run out.