Nox Dormienda

CHAPTER TEN

Sioned led me through the hallway on the right side of the round room, to the upper corner of the corridor. She turned her head, to make sure I was behind her, and gave me a look normally reserved for bill collectors. I don’t think she cared for my toga. She tapped lightly on the door three times.

“My lady? You have a guest. A Roman.”

She made it sound like a disease. I heard the rustle of frantic movement behind the doorway, and Gwyna thrust open the door. Her face still came as a shock.

The finery of yesterday was gone. She was dressed in a brown linen tunic, old and spotted with stains. No jewelry on her fingers, no furs caressing her body. But she took my breath away.

She looked at me like she’d never seen me before. She nodded at Sioned. “You may leave us.”

Sioned reluctantly bowed, and Gwyna motioned for me to come in. The room was simply decorated, with a small mattress, a writing desk, some shelves with scrolls and tablets, and a few scattered souvenirs of better times. There was also a blond boy, about ten, sitting at the desk and staring at me.

She blushed a little. “Hefin, go to your room. We’ll read more later.”

The boy jumped off his stool.

“Who are you?” he asked, reaching out a hand to feel my muddied cloak. “I saw your slave outside. He’s big.”

“Yes, he is. Bigger than me, even. My name is Arcturus. I’m a medicus.”

He nodded sagely. “I know what a medicus is. Are you here to marry my sister?”

It was my turn to blush. “I’m a friend of your sister’s.”

“Lots of men want to marry her. Rhodri wants to-”

“Hefin! Go to your room!”

He gave Gwyna a look of injured dignity. His head held high in an uncanny imitation of his father, he marched from the room and shut the door behind him. She paused for a moment, still looking toward the door. Her shoulders were tense. She turned to me, and met my eyes head on.

“I’m sorry. Hefin is-”

“A child. And your brother. You’re teaching him?”

“Yes. We can no longer afford a real tutor.”

“You don’t need one.”

She looked down, and reddened again, and plucked at a spot on her tunic. The room was hot and it was hard to breathe. The memory of how we said good-bye was crowding us out. She walked to the desk, her back to me.

She said: “Arcturus, I’m-sorry you’ve seen me. Seen my family.”

I followed her. Then I put a hand on her shoulder. She let it stay.

“Why? Because you’re not rich? Because you save your good clothes to make an impression? Do you think I care?”

She didn’t respond. Her eyes were dull today. The spark of urgency, of resistance, was gone. I turned her around to face me.

“Listen to me. Maecenas was murdered last night. I know you saw him.”

There was no surprise. She searched my face, but didn’t find what she was looking for. Despair hung on her beautiful body like a shroud.

“I’m so tired, Ardur. Tired of fighting. Tired of worrying.” She sank on the bed.

I sat beside her. I reached over and brushed a stray hair from her neck. She stiffened. A coolness crept between us, and froze me colder than a Vestal’s tit. We were two strangers sitting on a bed. And I was running out of patience.

“Do you want my help or not?”

She got a little sharper. “Of course I do. I-I told you so yesterday.”

“You said a lot of things yesterday. Were they all true?”

I expected her to get mad. But she answered as if she were really thinking about it.

She said slowly: “Yes. All of them.”

“Including the part about needing me?”

It was too hard and too easy to look at the face that turned toward me. Somehow I managed.

It was just one word. She said: “Yes.”

I was tasting her hair before I realized she was wrapped around me. I smelled lavender again, and the pressure of her nails in my back felt as good as anything could. We drank each other in, but the thirst wouldn’t go away.

After a while, she nestled under my arm. I knew the peace, the leisure of it would end, and I knew once it did I might be sorry. But I didn’t care.

“How did you know about me?”

“The women gossip. They wonder why you’re not married.”

“I’m not the only bachelor in Londinium.”

She reached a hand up to feel the growth of beard on my chin. “But you’re the best-looking. You should learn to trust women again.”

I looked down at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone knows you had a torrid love affair when you were young and in Rome, and then Agricola’s daughter fell in love with you but they married her off to someone more ambitious, and then you just stopped looking.”

I didn’t know whether to be outraged or amused. “What else do they know?”

She ticked off the points of my biography with her fingers.

“Your mother was killed in the War by Boudicca’s army, and your Roman father was already dead-stop it-and you were adopted by an important man-Nero’s procurator, I think. And then you studied-Ardur, no, I mean it-and decided to become a medicus, which most people find strange-will you stop?-but I don’t. And everyone knows you’ve been solving problems for a long time, too. They say you’ve saved innocent men and helped to punish the guilty. They say the gods favor you.”

I had my doubts. Sometimes I wished the goddamned innocent would save themselves. I reluctantly removed my arm and sat upright. I held her hands.

“We need to talk.”

She nodded. The spell was over. It was crawling back inside of us, where we’d try to forget about it but wouldn’t be able to. We had to be two strangers again.

She squeezed my hands and then let go.

“My-my father doesn’t know I saw Maecenas last night.”

“I didn’t think so. Don’t worry-I didn’t mention it.”

“He’ll find out eventually.” She rose from the bed, and walked to the small window. The light was getting darker. Her next question surprised me.

“How did he die?” The words blurted out as if she hadn’t meant to ask.

I couldn’t lie to her. But I also couldn’t tell her everything. So I told her what I told her father. “Somebody slit his throat. He was found in the mithraeum.”

Her quick blue eyes flashed. With-what? Relief?

“Thank you. That’s what we’d heard this morning.”

“ ‘We’? Who told you?”

The pointed question surprised her.

“Rhodri.” The dim light illuminated her body, wrapped in a cloth much too rough for its delicacy. Her face told me that she knew that I knew who Rhodri was. But I had to finish the game.

“Who is Rhodri?”

She turned and smiled down at me. It was her father’s smile.

“A man who desperately wants to marry me. A native. A trouble-maker.” There were other questions more pressing, but what the hell.

“And you? Do you want to marry him?”

She fidgeted, turned her back on me, and straightened a wax tablet that Hefin had been writing on.

“I-did. At one time.”

“And now?”

“No.” It was a simple word, just one, and it was whispered. But my lungs were working again, and this time I didn’t kiss her.

“Where is he now?”

I could hear the armor go back on. She wasn’t going to tell me everything, either.

“I don’t know. In hiding, I suppose.” She responded to my raised eyebrows.

“I know he’s a suspect. And for good reasons, which will soon be on everyone’s lips, if they aren’t already. He was here, last night. He threatened to kill the Syrian. And then he followed me-to the inn.”

She arched her back slightly, and rubbed her neck.

“Rhodri is innocent, I’m sure of it. I begged him not to go, and I didn’t see him follow me, or I would have stopped him. Somehow. He must’ve gone in after I’d left for home. He’s not a bad man. He talks more than he acts.”

“He acted last night; he started a fight at Lupo’s before he ran up to Maecenas’ room.”

She nodded with impatience. “Yes, I know. He told me. But he’s like a child. His anger flares and burns out and then it’s over. He wouldn’t-couldn’t-have killed the Syrian. Besides, he wouldn’t know where the mithraeum is or how to get into it.”

But he knew that Maecenas’ throat was cut. And he knew he was found there. That meant one of the soldiers talked, or somebody-possibly Rhodri himself-had been around last night to see it. Or it meant Rhodri was guilty. Either way, he was a man to see.

I wondered how many people knew the Syrian was dead. Madoc did, and Rhodri not only knew, but told Gwyna where the body was found and how-apparently-he’d been killed. There were too many people who knew too many things, and I wasn’t one of them.

“You still haven’t told me why you were on your way to see Maecenas. Without your father’s knowledge. I can guess why Rhodri wanted to kill him.”

She turned her back on me. A flat irony crept into her voice. She didn’t sound like the same woman from a few minutes before.

“It’s difficult to explain how hard poverty is-particularly on my father. He’s been depending on the-the marriage fee.” Her body shook a little, but the words were steady. I waited.

“Maecenas sent me a note yesterday. He arrived earlier than we expected, on the night before, from Dubris. Obviously, I hadn’t known he was already in Londinium when we spoke. He sent word to my father through Caelius. My father was-delaying the process as long as possible, and didn’t give me the message until I returned from my visit to you.”

Somehow, this didn’t seem like Urien. He struck me as a man who would do almost anything for money-and pride.

“After I left your house, I came home. The message was that the Syrian wanted to meet me at the inn. To make sure he was getting his money’s worth.” I could taste her bitterness.

“He also said that he’d release some of the marriage fee early, if he-if he-if I would sleep with him last night.”

I remembered the brief sense of elation I felt when I realized who the corpse was. Now I wouldn’t have to feel bad about it.

“Rhodri came to see me. My father told him what happened. Of course, he would never allow me to debase myself.”

He’d sold her to the bastard to begin with. I wasn’t sure Urien would’ve stuck at formalities. She turned to face me, and caught at the doubt in my eyes.

“He-would-never-accept that arrangement”, she insisted stubbornly. “But we have creditors. We owe money. I can’t sell my clothes, because they’re the illusion that feeds us. When people don’t think you’re in trouble, they’re more willing to help.”

An indisputable truth. Homo sine pecunia mortis imago. Maecenas was now a man without money, and he was most definitely the image of death.

“And so, unknown to your father, you left the house to go to Lupo’s and see Maecenas. You told Rhodri not to follow, and not to interfere-” She nodded. “And you-you-”

“I didn’t sleep with him.” Her smile was painful. “That had been my plan. But my courage failed me. I failed.” Exhausted, she sank on the bed again, holding her head in her hands.

I fought the urge to hold her. I fought the relief filling my chest like air to a drowning man. The words hurt, but I still said them. “Even if you had-there’s no guarantee he would’ve given you the money.”

She looked at my face but didn’t see it. Her eyes were muted, and somewhere else.

“There’s no time left. Within the week, my father will be called to court. Maecenas was our only hope, and now he’s dead.”

She spoke softly, flatly. I wondered at the difference between yesterday’s impassioned speech and the detached, regretful woman in front of me. She said she’d kill him if he touched her. But she’d apparently still planned on marrying him.

“Gwyna, you said yesterday that you’d kill the man before he-”

“I know what I said.” Her eyes snapped, angry and suddenly awake. “I meant it. But my father needs money. I’m all he has, the only one who can help him. And I must think of Hefin, too! I’d do anything-anything!-to save my family.”

She’d risen from the bed, her hands clenched into fists. The knuckles were white.

“Even murder?”

She stood frozen, her eyes locked into mine. Pain was there, a fresh, surprised pain, anger, fear and maybe a little admiration: she hadn’t thought I’d ask. I hadn’t thought so, either.

After a few moments she spoke. Her tongue moistened her dry lips. “Obviously not. How could his death benefit my family?”

I kept going. “What happened last night?”

She looked at me and didn’t waiver. “He was already drunk when I arrived. He was disgusting, a sweaty ox, not fit for even that horrid place. He stank of perfume, and played with me as a cat does a mouse.”

She shuddered, more in anger and disgust than fear.

“He-he refused to release any money unless he-he ‘approved’ me. So, first, he ordered me to take off my clothes, like a slave. Then, he said, he’d decide if I was worth-if I was worth bearing his seed.”

She didn’t seem to hear my teeth grinding.

“I refused, and he taunted me, pawed at me. I-I endured it as long as I could, the insults-his hands on my body, foul and filthy-even through my clothes, I felt them soiling me. He mocked my father, called him names, and boasted that none of us would see even a tenth of what had been agreed upon. I finally understood my debasement would accomplish nothing.”

Her jaw set in a grim line as sharp as her words.

“I even begged the bastard for a hundred sestertii, a fifth of what he’d promised, told him our honor depended on this money, and he laughed in my face.”

Tears of anger didn’t soften the hate in her eyes. She turned and looked straight at me, frank and direct.

“He said a pauper’s daughter was worth bedding, but not marrying, and he’d have to rethink the entire arrangement.”

She broke off for a moment, and wiped her face with her tunic, as if she were washing herself. I felt dirty hearing it. She took a deep breath.

“When I walked out the door, he was unfavorably comparing me to one of the whores he was about to use.”

I said: “Did he mention Agricola?”

“Once or twice. He thought he was being sly. Said something about having a new governor soon, one with whom he could do business.”

“How did you get the information you brought to me? About Domitian and Maecenas?”

She hesitated.

“Keeping something back won’t help your father.”

Her eyes flicked doubt and a little irritation at mine, but she continued.

“A few days ago, my father told me the Syrian was a spy. For Domitian. Word has been going about for months that the governor was to be replaced, so I wasn’t surprised. And it’s difficult to know what one means by “spy.” Some people might boast about an imperial connection but not really have the ear of the Emperor at all. That sort of thing. The betrothal itself was negotiated about four months ago, rather suddenly, and I assumed this was all bluff, or some gossip my father had heard from Caelius.”

“Marcus Caelius Prato? The real owner of Lupo’s?”

“Yes.” She pronounced it with distaste. “He-takes an interest in my father. It was he who suggested me to Maecenas.”

She locked eyes with me. “I knew what Maecenas was-I met him two or three years ago, when my husband was alive, at one of your Roman festivals. I think he had investments here. He leered at me even then, and Idwal-my husband-nearly throttled him. But now-”

“Now you needed money for your family.”

She looked away. “Yes. And anyway, I didn’t think anything sinister about it-everyone, after all-even Agricola-has spies. But the morning of the day I saw you-yesterday, I suppose, though it seems much longer-Caelius was visiting, and I-” She blushed. “I hid behind the hearth and tried to overhear their conversation.”

Throughout the entire humiliating story of Maecenas’ behavior, she hadn’t reddened. And now she was blushing at some eavesdropping. The woman amazed me.

“What did you hear?”

“Not much,” she admitted. “Bits and pieces. But I did catch something about-about a message. Later, after Caelius left, my father told me that Agricola was to be removed as governor and that the Syrian was going to help. How, he didn’t specify-he just gave the impression that Maecenas had a job to do, and would do it anyway he could.”

She tugged at her hands, over and over again. “I was upset. I’ll do whatever’s necessary for my family, but I won’t harm my own country. My father-” She hesitated again. “My father is dying, and he’s bitter. He feels cast aside. Ever since my mother died-in childbirth, delivering Hefin-he hasn’t been well. It’s been slow for him, and painful. Idwal gave him hope. And strength. He knew Hefin would be provided for, and have a father to teach him. But Idwal died, and since then, my family has died, too, a little more every day.”

Her hands, still now, dropped to her lap. Sadness lined her face deeper than age ever would. I took her hand in my own and held it.

She looked at me, her eyes warmer, and back down to earth. “My father has heard of you, and spoke of you once or twice. Someone told him you’re a friend to the Old Faith. But when I told him I wanted to speak with you, he became agitated, and absolutely forbade it. As soon as he fell asleep, I came to you, anyway.”

The old fox hadn’t shown any recognition when we talked. And didn’t he realize that forbidding his daughter from seeing me-especially when her freedom was about to end-was practically throwing her in my face?

“After I left you, I returned home to find that Maecenas was already here and had sent us his message.”

She moved closer. I could smell the skin-sweet dampness between her breasts. She grasped my arm.

“I-I thought I could love Rhodri. When I came to you, I only wanted to warn you. But-I can’t love Rhodri now.”

Her mouth opened underneath mine, probing and demanding and almost angry. I kissed her harder, and she pulled me down against her. After a few minutes, we drew apart. We both knew it wasn’t finished.

She adjusted her tunic and smoothed her hair. I said: “I can help your father.”

“How, Ardur? You can’t marry me, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’d be a suspect.”

“That isn’t actually what I had in mind.”

Two bright pink spots appeared in her cheeks, but she met my eyes.

“What, then?”

It was a simple question, and remarkably unemotional under the circumstances.

“Maecenas left money. A lot of it.”

“You found it?” She seemed surprised. “Was it a great deal?”

“Yes. Much more than five hundred sestertii. In a few days I’ll make sure some of this money makes its way to you and your father.”

She stared at me as if she were trying to solve a philosophical dilemma. I’d maybe expected a more earthy thank you.

“You can give your creditors my name-”

“No. That would be stupid. Then you’re linked to me again.” She thought for another moment.

“I’ll tell them the money was paid, but that it’s tied up in the investigation, waiting for the governor’s personal clearance. That should give us some time. Caelius will be able to do something, as well. Though I don’t like owing him anything.”

The only thing I owed Caelius was pain. I didn’t think he’d be as good at taking it as he was about handing it out. I wanted her far away from him. He was as rotten as a fat maggot.

“Say nothing to Caelius. Nothing about me, the money, nothing. No one knows about it except you-that means your father, too. And if you can, spy on him again, but only if it’s safe. He’s dangerous, especially when he’s got nowhere to run. How did he get so close to your father?”

“I’m not sure. But for the last year or so, he’s been visiting regularly, and my father treats him almost like a son. I suspect he’s been helping to keep creditors at bay, and he’s never been less than deferential and polite to me. But I’ve never liked him.”

The thought of Caelius looking at her made my temples hurt. I stood up to leave before I couldn’t. She stood up, too, and pressed herself into me, reassuring me with the weight of her body against mine. Her fingertips sank into the flesh of my arm.

“Be careful, Ardur. I don’t want to lose anyone else that I care for.”

The grinning skull of Vibius Maecenas was breathing down my neck. I held her at arm’s length.

“I have to find Rhodri.”

She stiffened, and backed away. It got chilly again.

“If he’s innocent I can help him! Running away won’t solve anything-I might be the only chance he has. Tell me where he is, Gwyna. I know you know something.”

She turned her back. “No. Get out.”

“What-”

“I said get out. And we don’t need your charity. I’ll manage-something else.”

“But-”

“Get-out!” She finally turned to look at me, her eyes flowing with tears, her face blurred with pain and anger.

“I thought you cared about me-I thought you loved me!”

“I do love you! I’m just trying to-”

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

She shoved me through the door, and when I stepped outside she shut it with a violent clang that I was sure rang through the shuttered house. From her room, I could hear the sounds of sobbing.