The Curse-Maker (2 page)

The priest plastered a tight smile on his face. “I am Sextus Papirius Super. Head priest of the Temple of Sulis Minerva. I understand you're a doctor.”

I stared at him. “Julius Alpinius Classicianus Favonianus. I'm the governor's doctor, as a matter of fact.”

The murmur spread, growing progressively louder, until it broke against the edges of the crowd like a ripple on the water. He raised an eyebrow. “It's very good of you to, er, help us with this unfortunate—incident. As this is holy ground—”

“Not any more, it ain't!” Rough voice, croaking from the back. Laughter. The priest continued, his color rising. “As this is holy ground, we will have to remove the body at once and clean the spring.”

A tall man was making his way to the front. Almost exactly my height, handsome, distinguished. Maybe fifteen years older. The throng made way for him, some grabbing at him as though he were the featured gladiator. He exuded warmth and charisma. I didn't like him.

He stepped forward, glanced at the priest. Papirius nodded his head in my direction. “The governor's
medicus,
Philo. Julius Alpinius Classicianus Favonianus.”

His strong, lean faced creased with what looked like a genuine smile of welcome. “Favonianus. Of course, I've heard of you. You're also known as Arcturus, I believe. We're very lucky you're here.” He reached out and grasped my arm. “Philo—one of the many doctors in Aquae Sulis.”

Modest, too. Big Belly grumbled, “We asked him to wait for you, Lucius.”

Philo shook his head, the gray in his temples glistening in the sun. “You have a much better doctor here.”

“Are you here on business, Favonianus?” The priest asked it as if there wasn't a corpse between us.

“Actually, no. A holiday for my wife and me.”

I felt Sulpicia raise her eyebrows.

“Well, then perhaps you wouldn't mind if Philo…”

I looked at the dapper doctor. He seemed competent enough, if a little disgusting in his perfection. I shrugged. “Be my guest.”

The young stonecutter—Drusius—stared at me, his thick eyebrows furrowed. What the hell did he want me to do? Fight over the dead body of Rufus Bibax? I'd been asked very politely to mind my own goddamn business, and I intended to do just that.

Philo smiled apologetically. “Please come by and see me. We'll talk. Where are you staying?”

“The governor's villa.”

The murmur went around again. I didn't want to spoil it by asking where the hell the villa might be.

Papirius crooked a finger at two slaves, who ran up with a litter chair for the corpse, then started making priestly noises. “Please disperse, good people. The spring shall be emptied. Sulis will renew life, just as she has seen fit to take this one. Sulis will—”

I was heading out of the mob, and eyes—some friendly, some not, all curious—were following me. I turned around. “Sulis had nothing to do with it.”

Papirius and Philo looked at me, the priest irritated, the doctor curious.

“What did you say?” asked Papirius.

“I said Sulis had nothing to do with it. That man was strangled and thrown in your pool. Murdered—and the murderer left behind a little note.”

I held out my hand. In the palm was a small piece of lead, very thinly hammered and square cut. On it was inscribed one word:
Ultor.
The Avenger.

*   *   *

Gwyna looked disappointed, which dumbfounded me. I'd done what I thought would please her—avoided getting involved. I'd even avoided Sulpicia, which was no easy task because she kept getting in my way. I climbed back on Nimbus, looking around at the small-pored golden limestone of the buildings. It reminded me of Gwyna's hair, and was safer to look at than she was.

The wealthy owned long, low villas close to the temple and baths, or in the hills above, to the northwest of the town nearer the small fort. Somewhere among them was Agricola's. Gwyna asked me: “Did you find out where the villa is?”

I turned red and she gave me a pitying look. Another market square up ahead. I nudged Nimbus, who obligingly trotted forward—the one female in the family who tolerated me—and dismounted at the nearest shop, a
gemmarius
around the corner from the oversized temple area.

A tattered sign boasted that Tiberius Natta offered an assortment of carved gemstones, set and unset. He was a swarthy man with gray hair, short and stocky. Used a cane, though he couldn't have been sixty yet. An assistant, another dark man in his late thirties, came forward to answer my question.

Seems Agricola's villa was right up the street, on a little hill overlooking the temple area. I thanked them, and told Gwyna while I climbed back on Nimbus.

She nodded, avoiding my eyes. Once we could see the villa from the road, I pointed it out, and we started the climb up the path to where it perched, low and inviting, with a superb view of the temple and the river. The silence was broken by the morning song of birds and the sound of the horses' hooves stepping on the fragile rock.

We rounded a corner, and the house was in front of us. Large, with a detached stable, private bath, and a small attempt at a vineyard. The terraced gardens were full of lavender, Gwyna's favorite scent.

Suddenly, she asked: “Why didn't you stay?”

I must have looked as stupid as I felt, because she said it again.

“Why didn't you stay?”

“I don't understand. Stay where?”

“At the pool. Why didn't you stay with the body? Why did you let those other men take it away?”

I dismounted and came around and offered a hand, which she ignored, springing lightly to the ground herself.

“Gwyna, we're here to relax. And to take care of you, and—and to fix things. Why the hell should I have insisted?”

She stared at me, holding Pluto's reins as he tried to get a bite of hollyhock while Nimbus gave him a withering look.

“Because it was the right thing to do. It happened for a reason, that we came into town and you were there when that poor man was discovered. Besides, I don't need anybody to ‘take care of me.' ”

She flounced ahead, jerking Pluto's nose away from the flowers.

*   *   *

The slaves were the best kind: invisible, accommodating, unquestioning. Everything was ready for an extended holiday for the newlyweds. Except the newlyweds themselves.

Gwyna busied herself with the servants, a vast improvement from the apathy of home. I watched her moving around in her riding breeches, until she got tired of me blocking the way and ordered me into the
triclinium.
The cook served a delicious lunch of sheep's milk cheese—much creamier than we get in Londinium—figs, olives, and snails cooked in garlic.

Gwyna didn't eat, though she came in to make sure the wine was poured correctly. She said: “Why don't you bathe, Arcturus? You touched a dead man, didn't you?”

Clipped and chilly. I headed for the villa's bath and the warmth of Agricola's
caldarium.

After a good rubdown by a strapping Pannonian named Ligur, I started to relax in spite of myself. Ligur was shaving me when Gwyna walked in. She saw me, stopped, turned to leave.

“Wait—what—where are you going?”

The shrug was elaborate. “Your face needs a shave. I see you're already taken care of.”

She was dressed in a modest bathing tunic, different from the more revealing breast band and short skirt she normally wore, and left before I could say anything else. I wondered again what happened to the woman I married less than a year before.

I dressed for dinner. I could hear her in the
caldarium
and imagined the slave girl massaging her with oil. That should be my job.

Thinking about it meant either another trip to the
frigidarium
or a brisk walk, so I left for the garden, where I could breathe again. A breeze from the hills carried the sweet scent of roses, mixed with lavender, and ruffled my hair.

The governor's villa in Aquae Sulis. A goddamn beautiful spot to be miserable in.

CHAPTER TWO

The roses and the hollyhocks laughed, their petals shaking in the wind. She was right, of course. Normally I would've stayed with the murdered man, drawn by that gnawing hunger to know, the same feeling that used to earn me a few
sestertii
before I became old and complacent and the governor's
medicus
.

Goddamn hands. They got me in the goddamn business. What happened to the other doctor, the younger man who fought his own goddamn fights, who made his own goddamn way, who could, on occasion, discover the goddamn truth.

I leaned against a pear tree, staring out over the hazy yellow town, the past nine months washing over me like that foul, churning water from the not-so-Sacred Spring.

My eyes closed. Goddamn it. Thirty-four years old. I was thirty-four years old. I wasn't going to give up yet.

*   *   *

Nones
of September. Agricola's finest hour. Last hour for thousands of
Caledonii.

He conquered the island. Slaughtered the last army. Had gone farther than anyone ever expected—far enough to secure his fame and yet not far enough, maybe, to push the emperor to outright assassination. A delicate dance, with all the precision of a sacrifice.

A light flickered by the governor's quarters, officers darting in and out. Agricola was moving the men out this morning, heading south to establish forts. He'd work his way slowly to Londinium, where he'd wait for the inevitable order from Domitian to return to Rome. Term complete.

I squinted at the small hill squatting peacefully on the plain. I thought of the men with families, the women and children, loaded into carts and crawling like ants on the surface. Three days ago.

Their horses got tangled up in the wagon leads, the cavalry hunting down the ones who fled. Painted warriors, scars and tattoos proud on their bodies, long swords and short shields useless and clumsy, running, shouting into the path of trained soldiers. All gone, dead. Last wild men of Britannia.

I closed my eyes. I could still hear the cries of the children when the survivors killed them afterward. Better dead than slaves, they thought. For the love of their children, they murdered them. For the love of his son, Agricola slaughtered the Caledonians.

*   *   *

May.

I'd done everything I could to save his son, everything I'd ever learned, or felt, or knew, or guessed. Not enough.

What about the tonic? Just to make him sleep—sleep was his only chance. Too much? A little saffron, enough to make him drowsy. As drowsy as I was. Up for three days straight, tried everything else. The little boy weaker and weaker, restless, unable to sleep. He'd die without sleep. I gave him the right amount. As soon as the crying stopped, and I heard his breath, even, peaceful, I got what rest I could, so I'd be ready for when he woke up.

Except he never woke up.

Domitia's eyes, accusing, wild, asking the question, the same question I asked myself, over and over, every night. Could I have saved him if I'd been awake? My lullaby, my prayer, my reason. My excuse. Every night.

She screamed at me, beat my chest, called me a quack, a charlatan, broke down and locked herself in her room. Stayed there until the ship came.

Cleaner than the dazed look on her husband's face. Not a word against me. No questions. Focused on his strategy. Left for the North the next week. His household—his namesake and heir, the boy he'd wanted all his life—gone. Nothing to lose.

He never blamed me. He channeled his energy into his last, supreme battle as governor, his final chance for glory. Glory didn't die.

*   *   *

I watched the dawn shine over the plain. Four months of guilt? More like a lifetime.

It had gnawed my insides since I was ten. I thought I rid myself of it when I found Gywna. Thought I'd forgiven myself for not saving my mother. At the first real crisis, the first tragedy, I left my wife. Left her emotionally. Quit writing. Quit thinking. I withdrew from the woman I loved. My beautiful, oh, so beautiful wife. Gwyna.

I rode north with Agricola, sent a few pitiful scrawls with the governor's messenger. Her responses were full of hurt. She didn't know what the hell happened to me, what was devouring my gut every night, wanting to help and not knowing how. I didn't tell her, either—I ignored her, punishing both of us for my failure.

Her responses became spare and lean. Finally stopped altogether. I withdrew into my nightmares, familiar, safe. Watched my mother get murdered every night. I dreamed about Gwyna, too—dying in childbirth, while I stood by, unable to save her.

Bilicho kept writing, thank God. He did what he could to keep some part of me from drifting too far off the edges of the maps. I was already at the edge of them all, staring at a plain littered with corpses. I thought about my mother, and what she would have wanted. What she would have said.

She told me something that September morning, a whispered southern wind blowing clouds across the bloody sky. Forgive yourself, Arcturus. For not being able to save every life you come across. For not being able to save the child. For being alive.

Simple words. I took a breath and filled my lungs. I was done with war. As much as I was done with the guilt. Finished with stitching up butchered men who'd butchered other men who couldn't be stitched up. It was time for both of us, governor and doctor, to see what else Fortuna had in store.

Light was flooding the hills, and a fresh gust of wind blew down from the west.

*   *   *

I could hear Saturninus before I reached the tent. A loud roar rose from the governor's quarters, and the heavy cloth shook with the sound. The flap belched open like a fat man's mouth in a seaside bar. The tent fought to steady itself.

“Arcturus! Glad to see you're still among the living!”

Saturninus's expansive slap on my back rattled my teeth.