Nox Dormienda

CHAPTER NINE

Draco and I watched him go. He blended into the wattle-and-daub houses like a politician at a resort town. Interesting. And irritating.

He’d been trying to protect someone. I could feel it. Who? And how the hell did he know about the murder? Was Rhodri guilty? Was he protecting Rhodri? I shook my head. Always more goddamn questions.

So the Druid blames another cult. One-he says-that hates Romans and the Old Believers. The only group I knew of who worshipped one god, in secret, were Christians. An offshoot from the Jews. A one-god belief, and if there was one god above all others in Rome, he was squatting in a palace on the Palatine Hill. So they kept quiet, if they wanted to keep alive.

Mithras was more reasonable. His temples could be a little damp, but he didn’t care how many other gods you went out with as long as he got his share of the sacrifice. He was a normal kind of deity. Not like the jealous gods of Judea.

I scratched my chin with my thumbnail, and thought it over. There’d been no trouble from that part of the world since Titus stamped out the rebellion of another faction. The Jews were supposedly embarrassed by the whole affair.

Of course, the Christians embarrassed them, too. The Jews had spent generations adjusting the careful balance between Rome and their god, between what they owed the Empire and what they owed their priests. Then a clique decides to commit suicide by not paying taxes and not giving allegiance to the Emperor. It was insane.

When I was a boy in Rome, I saw some, once, queue up in the amphitheater to be killed by Nero. Then I threw up on a shriveled old senator and Classicianus took me back home. I couldn’t understand it then, and I couldn’t understand it now. Because if reports were true, they were doing the same thing for Domitian, and happy about it because they got to meet their god sooner. I could wait a lifetime to see mine, and I had a few to choose from. And none of them was worth dying for.

Debating the behavior of a strange cult brought me no closer to a solution or to Gwyna’s house. I was hungry, and it was time to find some food. Draco’s stomach already sounded like a dog fight. We continued down the road to find Bilicho’s bakery closed. We’d have to depend on our hosts for lunch, but at least we wouldn’t need a dentist.

Across from the baker and a little further down stood a Roman-style house. It was old and hunched over, and probably built when Londinium was founded. It had managed to escape Boudicca’s fury, but not the more patient malice of time. I turned to Draco.

“Stay outside the door. Whistle if someone wants in.”

He nodded, while his belly groaned in privation.

“I’ll ask them to bring you some food.” I tried to brush off as much mud as I could, and told him to do the same. After readjusting my toga, I was ready.

“Knock on the door.”

He was about to try again when I heard a shuffling noise. The door opened with a squeak, swinging precariously on two hinges. A blue eye, topped by bristling red eyebrows, peered belligerently through the crack at Draco. I stepped closer, so that it could see me.

I said: “I’m here to pay a call on Claudia Catussa.”

The eye scrutinized me carefully. The door opened a bit wider.

“That your slave?” a voice growled.

“Yes.”

It examined me again, afraid it had missed something the first time. The door opened a little wider, and I could see a face. A full red beard hid most of the craggy, cantankerous features of a man in his fifties or sixties. His beard was stained with wine and food, and he was clearly missing most of his teeth. I remembered Bilicho’s warning.

With a final groan, the tortured door opened wide enough to let me in. He had to prop it open at an angle, due to the missing hinge. Both eyes crawled over Draco from head to toe, hoping to find something objectionable. Finally, he nodded once.

“Enter.”

“My slave will wait on the doorstep. We don’t wish to be any trouble.”

He snorted, as if that were unlikely. With another abrupt head movement, he motioned me inside. I caught the odor of chickpeas and pork, and so did Draco. He sniffed the air like a Molossian hound, and longingly peered through the opening. Red-Beard seemed to take delight in closing the door in his face, but was hampered by the fact that it was a slow process.

The interior surprised me. From the outside, it looked like a modest Roman house with an atrium. Everything was squared that wasn’t warped or broken. The inside, however, was that of a native round house.

A circular room, supported by wooden pillars, seemed to be the main eating and living area. Constructed around a large hearth, it was too warm and too dark. A small opening in the roof let in a little sun, while a hallway surrounded the center room and led to several other doors. Branches of mistletoe hung in the traditional places. The chickpea smell was drifting from behind the hearth.

Red-Beard stumped ahead of me toward the fireplace. He walked with a limp-one leg looked shorter than the other. I followed him.

Sitting near the fire, on a hefty couch covered in furs, was an old man. His long, stringy hair had once been blond; it was now a faded straw, tinged with silver and white. His beard was neatly trimmed, and he was sitting up and staring at me.

The clothes he wore had been young once, too: a Roman tunic, trimmed with molted rabbit fur, and old-style leg wraps. A torque and a set of gold phalerae hung on his withered body like old cronies swapping war stories.

His sharp, beaked nose jutted between two milky eyes that had once been the same blue as his daughter’s. He reminded me of an eagle who could no longer hunt for itself. There was pain in his face, and rage, made all the worse because of its helplessness.

He looked me over with pride, since that was all he had left. I kept a respectful distance, and nodded my head. Red-Beard grunted.

The old man’s voice said he was dying, and it said it wouldn’t be long. But it was still a voice that commanded, not questioned.

“Who are you? Why do you wish to see my daughter?”

“Julius Alpinus Classicianus Favonianus. I’m usually known as Arcturus. I’m the governor’s physician.” I let him take that in before adding more.

“I’m here because your daughter’s sponsus was murdered last night.”

His impassive face flickered a moment. “Sit down”.

He gestured to an old, well-made chair that wore some battle scars of its own. He tried to sit up straighter, and the effort tired him. It also infuriated him. He turned to Red-Beard, who waited with the devotion of a favorite dog.

“Leave us, Meuric. And tell Sioned that we will have one”-he looked at me questioningly. “Did you come alone?”

“I have a slave outside.”

“-two guests for the midday meal.” Meuric-Red-Beard-lowered his head and backed out through a door by the hearth. The old man studied me for a few moments.

“I am Urien. I am Gwyna’s father.”

I nodded again. I knew what the name meant. But I’d already figured he’d been an important man among his people-probably a local chief.

He leaned forward. “I have always-always-been a friend to Rome. You see these?” He gestured with a long, graceful hand to the bronze torque and the phalerae.

“The Emperor Claudius himself gave these to me. I was an ally of Verica, the Atrebate King. I led many of my people, the Trinovantians, into battle for the Romans against the Catuvellauni. But that was many years before your birth,” he muttered. “No one remembers.”

“Your length of service and devotion to Rome must be honored by all who see you.”

His face twisted into a bitter smile. “No one sees me. I cannot stir from this bed; my legs are useless. All, all have forgotten me. Even Agricola, who could use my wisdom to help heal deep wounds. No, I am forgotten, even before I am fully dead.”

I pitied him. That was my first mistake.

“I will ask the governor to visit you.”

A flash of anger passed through the milk of his eyes and curdled any remaining softness.

“I do not need or invite your patronage. If he wished my advice, he would have come already. But I am not valued. I am not remembered.”

His shoulders twisted with pain. “But you didn’t come here to hear the laments of an old, dying man. You are here because Vibius Maecenas is dead.”

“Murdered.”

He looked at me, his face more interested than before. “How do you know it was murder?”

“I’m a medicus. It’s my job to know. I saw the corpse, and he’d been killed.”

“How?” Urien sounded more like he wanted confirmation than answers. I gave him the obvious.

“His throat was slit.”

“Ah.” For an old, dying man who couldn’t get out of bed, not much surprised him.

“Did he have money with him?” He shot the question suddenly, and surprised me. My second mistake.

“Yes. No. I-I don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything. He folded his fingers together and stared at me hard, as if he were waiting for something. I was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t blind at all. And I tried to remember I was supposed to ask the questions.

“Did he owe you money?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course. Surely you knew that he was to marry Gwyna. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

A parry and a jab. I was bleeding on the floor. I tried again. “Maecenas was a foreigner-how did you meet him? Why betroth your daughter at all?”

He smiled and spun it around like a praetorian on parade. He was enjoying himself. “You’ve seen my daughter, no doubt. Do you find it hard to believe that the stories of her beauty traveled to Rome?”

I shook my head.

“I thought not. Vibius Maecenas is-was-a friend of a friend’s. Marcus Caelius Prato. I’m sure you know of him-he is the owner of the brothel and tavern in which Maecenas, unfortunately, spent his last evening. Maecenas had written him to find out if there were any beautiful women of good birth in Britannia. It is an unfortunate but indisputable fact that our family’s fortunes have been in decline since Gwyna’s first husband was killed. I had several subsequent offers for my daughter’s hand, and Maecenas’ was the most lucrative. That was all.” He waved off any objection with a dismissive gesture.

But that wasn’t all. He’d told me too much. A man of his birth, his pride, should not so easily admit to needing money. And what was that bastard Caelius doing with this dying old man?

Urien was watching me again. Amusement animated his face, and made him look more alive.

“What happens to you now that Maecenas is dead?”

He shrugged. “Someone else-with money-will wish to marry Gwyna. Maybe you.” His laugh was as dry and mirthless as a leaf from last autumn. It chilled me. The old man was still dangerous.

“Is that why you won’t give her to Rhodri?”

I hit a nerve. “What do you know about Rhodri?”

Now I took my time. I was worn out, sore and hungry, and couldn’t afford to make the wrong move. Urien, even crippled and nearly blind, was too skilled an opponent.

“I know that he wants to marry your daughter. And I know that he was at Lupo’s last night. Rhodri may’ve been the last man to see Maecenas alive.”

He smiled at me sardonically. “Then he’d better be careful. I told you, no one marries my daughter without paying a very large dowry. Rhodri is not penniless, but he is far below Gwyna’s worth.”

“Was the marriage the only reason Maecenas was here?”

He shrugged again. The gesture was painful and unnecessarily elaborate. “Who knows? One hears rumors. There was a rumor circulating that he was a bearer of bad news for Agricola.”

I leaned forward. “What kind of news?”

A fit of coughing-real or not-racked Urien’s thin body. At the sound of his gasps, a middle-aged woman-I assumed Sioned-entered from the kitchen, bearing two large bowls and a plate of bread.

She was short, doughy, and grey-haired, and hovered over him, glaring at me each time his chest gurgled. When he could breathe again, he motioned for her to leave.

“Sioned and Meuric are the only servants we have left. They are my people. Meuric served under me in the war. Unfortunately, Sioned and he are childless, and so are dependent on me.”

Too much information again. Why was he telling me this? To emphasize no one in the house had any reason to kill Maecenas? No one, that is, except the woman who was sold to him.

He gestured toward a bowl. It smelled good. Small pieces of roasted pork swam in the chickpea mixture. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sioned creeping toward the front door with another helping. Draco would be fed.

We ate for a few minutes without talking. It gave me time to think. He obviously didn’t know about Gwyna’s trip to see Maecenas last night. He’d have already offered an explanation.

I cleared my throat. “I wish only health and fortune to you and your daughter. The unexpected death of her sponsus must grieve you both. If you have any information that would help me find his killer, I’d be grateful.”

He sat down his bowl, and wiped his lips punctiliously with a napkin.

“Yes. I thank you for your good wishes. They do not buy food for the table, however. We will sorely miss Maecenas’ money. Be that as it may, I can only think of one person who would wish him dead.”

“Who?” My arms tightened.

He gazed at me steadily with a faint-very faint-twitch of his lips.

“Our governor. Agricola.”

I jumped up, knocking my bowl to the ground.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t have fed you if I’d known you were going to waste it,” he growled. “What I have heard-and this is just the gossip that comes to a shut-in old man-is that Vibius was carrying papers to Agricola from Domitian. The papers were orders, telling Agricola to relinquish the governorship. Everyone knew they were coming, there’ve been rumors going about for months. Unfortunately, they seem to have arrived in the person of Maecenas and he appears to have borne the brunt of the bad news.”

His face twitched again into a bitter imitation of a smile. “So you see, young pup, however unlikely it is, our governor has the best motive for killing him.”

Urien basked in my confusion, rolled around in it like a cat in a sunbeam. While he called Sioned to clean up the mess and refill my bowl, I fell into the chair. I felt as clumsy as a retiarius caught in his own net. The old man was right.

Rumors had been flying for months that it might be the governor’s last year. Agricola and his supporters had the best motive for murdering the messenger and destroying the documents. Provided they knew Maecenas was carrying them. And from what Urien said, that wasn’t exactly a secret.

Killing Maecenas was risky, but the only way to keep Agricola in power. Once those orders were delivered, read and accepted, any delay in following them would guarantee a civil war.

Sioned handed me a full bowl with a look that suggested she’d put in some poisonous mushrooms. I barely noticed. Too many goddamned questions again. Why didn’t Maecenas go to the palace right away? Why stay at Caelius’, and not be lodged like a normal imperial messenger? And the money-the question of the money gnawed at my mind like a ship rat with a rope.

Urien‘s opaque eyes glinted with malice, and for once I knew what he was thinking. Maybe I had a motive. Maybe even two motives. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect myself.

I finished the meal in one long gulp, and stood up.

“Thank you. I’ll keep you informed of our progress.”

His sunken chest wheezed with satisfaction. “I assume you wish to speak to my daughter?”

“Yes. Is she here?”

“I believe she is in her room. You may go to her.” I could see him calculating how much my clothes were worth. The lines on his face carved out the imitation smile again. “I trust your intentions.”

I bowed. He clapped his hands, and Sioned emerged from the kitchen. He told her to take me to Gwyna. She wasn’t happy, but gestured for me to follow. I left Urien in front of his cold fire. I wondered what I’d find behind his daughter’s door.