The Curse-Maker

CHAPTER TWELVE

The shock was starting to wash over me, but I didn’t have time to feel it. Much. Secundus was staring at me, slack-jawed and stupid. Pompeius tried to quiet Crescentia. Materna’s eyes glittered, darting, the show better than she’d hoped. Faro lay stretched on the couch. Time to break the fucking trance.

I grabbed his tunic and lifted him off the floor. “Mumius! Hold this man. I want him in custody.”

Secundus started to speak. “We-that is, I-”

I turned to him. The look on my face was enough. “Get your sword out, Mumius.”

“But-I don’t-I don’t have author-”

I lowered Faro to the ground suddenly, hard enough to make his knees buckle. “You do now. I’m a senior officer.”

His gladius was shaking, but he pointed it in the right direction. I stared down at Secundus.

“He’ll stay here tonight. You’ll all stay here tonight, except for Pompeius and Crescentia.” They were still holding each other, and I nodded at them. “You’ve had enough. Go home.”

I threw Faro back into the couch and watched it skid a few feet across the mosaic floor. Then I turned to leave. Materna rose from her seat like the Minotaur.

“Just who gave you the right to come into my home and-”

I spun around from the doorway.

“Who gave you the right to do what you’ve done to my wife? Or them?”

I pointed at Pompeius and Crescentia, who were gathering their cloaks, and my finger was shaking with anger. I stared at her glistening eyes, the fat, yellowed face.

“Keep your mouth shut, lady. Or I’ll shut it for you.”

I shoved two slaves aside on the way out, tried to find the litter bearers. They were nowhere in sight, and neither was Gwyna.

“Gwyna!” I didn’t give a fuck who heard me. “Gwyna!”

Still no answer. I started walking.

I called her name intermittently, as I wound down a low hill to the outskirts of the city street. Calm night, not too cold. She’d be all right. She had to be all right. Goddamn it, Arcturus. You should have known. You’re a doctor-you’ve seen it often enough. You should have fucking known.

“Gwyna!”

No answer. I stepped on rocks and didn’t feel them, and the toga-the toga she bought me-was turning brown. She wouldn’t like that. I held my breath and screwed up my face tight. No time for it. No time for panic. No goddamn time.

“Gwyna! Where are you?”

Rocking back and forth, back and forth. Keep walking. Not the goddamn time, not now. Not now. The drops fell on my hands, and I rubbed my cheeks and jaw viciously. Keep it in, goddamn it, Arcturus, find your wife. Find your wife.

“Gwyna! Gwyna! Please answer!”

I was almost at the villa. The door was there, and I pushed it in and was running into the triclinium when Lineus appeared.

“Where is she?”

“Your-your wife isn’t here, sir. The litter bearers returned, but she wasn’t with them. I assumed you both decided to walk back.”

“She’s not here-are you sure? She’s got to be-Gwyna! Gwyna!” I ran through the house bellowing her name. Lineus and a trail of slaves followed me.

“Gwyna? Gwyna!”

They looked in every corner-outside in the garden, the barn. Lineus mobilized them like an army, staying with me while I threw open every door in the house. No Gwyna.

I turned to Lineus. “I’m going to look in town. If she comes in the meantime-”

“I’ll hold her here for you, sir. Don’t worry.”

Aquae Sulis was a pale cream in the moonlight. The fountain by Natta’s shop sputtered its uneven drops, my footsteps echoing, a hurried, urgent shuffling in the desolate market square.

What did she say about Diana? A special goddess? And the Isis-it made sense now. Diana and Isis. Both goddesses for childbirth.

Don’t think, Arcturus. Don’t feel. Just walk.

“Gwyna! Gwyna!”

No answer but my own voice bouncing against the yellow limestone. Maybe-maybe a goddess-it was a chance. A hope. A prayer.

I found her looking over the edge of the spring. The square was empty, and the temple was just a rectangular building, but the spring still bubbled.

She was holding the Diana stone I’d bought for her, face pale. She couldn’t do it here-it’s not easy in six and a half feet of water. But she was thinking about it.

Her shoulders were bare and cold to my touch, the skin flat and dead. As dead as the child we’d made together.

“I’m … I’m sorry I failed you. I should’ve known-should’ve realized … and-and I’m sorry we lost a child.”

Her face was emotionless. Empty, like Faro’s eyes. I shook her, her hair tumbling.

“Goddamn it, I love you! I don’t care if we never have children! I love you! Do you understand? You! Not your goddamn womb!”

She looked at me. Her hand crept to my face.

“You don’t want-you don’t want…”

“Of course I’d like to make a family-with you. Because I’d like to leave the world a better place when I’m gone, and the only way I know how is to make sure there’s a little bit of you still on it. But you … when I thought you might-please, God, please-please don’t…”

I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I clung to her, holding her so tight against my chest that I could feel her heart beat, even through the sobs that were shaking my body.

We stood like that for a long time. And the spring bubbled.

* * *

The look of relief on Lineus’s face endeared him to me.

“I see you’ve found her, Dominus.”

“Yes, and I’m never going to misplace her again, I promise you.”

I looked down into Gwyna’s eyes. “Lineus, please tell the litter bearers we won’t need them tomorow. Give them the day off. Could you make sure that for the rest of the night, we are not disturbed-I mean, complete privacy. Is that clear?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

He beckoned the door slave away and handed me a lamp. By the time we reached the bath, there was no one else in the entire wing.

She told me everything.

How she kept it from me because of Gnaeus’s death. She wanted to surprise me, give me life again. Give me a son.

She told me how she was doing some cleaning and bent down and started to bleed. It wouldn’t stop, and the pain kept growing. All she thought of was the baby-how to save the baby. I felt like I was bleeding myself, hearing how she fled to our room, holding a pillow to her abdomen, trying not to scream. She didn’t want Hefin to know.

She told me how she sent Coir for Stricta. Thank God she knew what to do. Stricta thought of Gwyna. She saved her life. The baby-the baby was four months along.

Stricta kept Gwyna’s secret. Even from Bilicho-because she knew Bilicho would tell me, and Gwyna … Gwyna didn’t want me to know.

Then she told me how Coir had seen the bloodstains, realized what happened. How she used the knowledge to keep Gwyna in the palm of her hand.

Despair gave way to anger. Anger at Coir, even a little anger at Stricta, but especially at myself. Gwyna didn’t tell me she was pregnant because she wanted to surprise me, bring me out of my guilt and depression. She didn’t want to interfere with my-duties. But the only goddamn duty that mattered was the one I failed her in.

She was still dressed in her purple gown, shivering. She needed the warm water. I did, too. I brought some towels and the oil and started to undress her, as carefully and gently as my shaking hands would allow.

“Ardur-what are you-”

“Shh. You did this for me once, when I came home dirty and sore and miserable. Now it’s my turn.”

She looked up at me, her mouth trembling. I was unpinning her tunic. When I started to unwrap her breast band, she tried to push my hands away.

“N-no, Ardur, I-I’m not-”

I held her hands in mine and raised them to my lips.

“I don’t know what you see, Gwyna. I see a woman with a beautiful, miraculous body, as desirable as the day I first saw it. More so, if possible. You don’t have anything to hide, and nothing-nothing-to be ashamed of.”

She stared at me for what seemed like forever. I unraveled her breast band and looked at her.

Her breasts were fuller, just as lovely. But all she could remember was the milk that had started to flow in them, and the baby that would never suckle.

I held her eyes up with my own. “You take my breath away.”

My hands cupped them, and she shuddered while I used my tongue.

“Ardur-Ardur, not-not now…”

“Now is the best time. No more waiting. No more running away. For either of us.”

After a few minutes, I gave my attention to the small briefs, as my hands molded the line of her hips down to her legs. She shuddered again when I slid them off. It was the first time I’d seen her naked since I’d left home, so long ago.

Her abdomen was gently swollen, and she hadn’t lost all the extra weight of the pregnancy. The telltale signs others had noticed, but not her blind husband.

I led her into the tepidarium and gently washed her with a sponge. I touched every part of her, made it mine again. She stopped shaking so much every time she felt my hands. Then I rubbed her back and buttocks with oil and massaged her legs, stomach, and breasts until her nipples were ready to burst.

We climbed out of the pool together, and I dried her with a towel. She reached a hand up to my face and kissed me, softly first, but with a growing need to blot out the night. While our mouths were still intertwined, I picked her up in my arms and stumbled toward the bedroom.

We kept kissing while I kicked the door and laid her gently on the bed. Then my mouth traveled lower down her breasts to below her belly, until she objected.

“Ardur-what-no-”

“Shhh. Trust me, my love. Trust me.”

The happiness I felt when she gasped with pleasure, and gave herself over to it, helped cleanse some of the guilt and washed away a little of the pain. It was equaled later when we were both crying out, not with sorrow, but with a love that was our whole life. Toward morning, we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

* * *

I woke up before dawn. Gwyna nestled in the crook of my arm, hair tousled and curling on my chest. She groaned and stretched and opened an eye.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning to you. How do you feel?”

She blushed. “Like a loose woman.”

Some anemic moonlight filtered in from the small window. She sat up and stretched again, making a shadow on the wall.

I yawned. “You feel nothing like a loose woman. I’ve had a few.”

She threw her pillow on my face, and I reached up and pulled her down on my chest again.

“Ardur.”

“Yes, love?”

“What-what do you think happened last night?”

I sat up in bed, set her in front of me. “A fraud, Gwyna. Someone put Faro up to it. Someone’s trying to hurt us.”

Her face held doubt as if she were reluctant to let it go. That was the problem with cons like Faro’s. That’s what made them so evil.

“Darling-listen to me. None of that-none-was real or true. Please believe me.”

She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “All-all right, Ardur, but who-who knew about me?”

“Philo, for one. Sulpicia, for another.”

“Sulpicia? Philo, I can understand-I-I asked him about it-said a friend of mine-”

“He would’ve guessed it was you, and Sulpicia may’ve had-I don’t know-some similar experiences. Maybe she recognized how you felt. She seemed to-well, be sorry.”

Gwyna looked over at me with a little of her normal spirit. “When I want her pity I’ll ask for it.”

“The point is that they knew, and maybe other people-women-could guess. Everybody except your doctor husband, of course. Too busy sticking his head up-”

Her fingers brushed my lips. “Shhh. I don’t want to hear it. It’s over.”

“It’ll be over when I’m done with Faro. I’m sorry, but I think I ruined all the rest of our social life in Aquae Sulis.”

“What did you do?”

“I told Materna to shut her face before I shut it for her.”

She shook her head. “We can’t forsake appearances. That might be exactly what they want us to do. Give up going to the baths, give up Aquae Sulis. We can’t, Ardur. Or we’ll let them win.”

“That’s fine. We’ll go to the baths. I’ll wear a toga. But I’m still going to handle it in my own way.”

My jaw hurt. Gwyna ran a finger down my cheek. “Ardur-don’t put yourself in danger. I know you want to hurt Faro.”

“I don’t want to hurt him. I want to kill him.”

She lay stomach down on the pillow and propped herself up with her elbows. The view of her cleavage distracted me.

“What about Bibax? Where does he fit in?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t-goddamn it. Shit!”

“What is it?”

“I was supposed to meet Calpurnius last night at the spring. At the fifth hour.”

“You were busy at the fifth hour.” She gave me a half-smile.

My tongue was slow. “We were both a little-busy-last night.”

I set her in my lap. She wove her arms around my neck, and started to make a few noises when I buried my face in her breasts. Then a knock sounded at the door.

I looked at Gwyna, and she smiled. I was breathing hard.

“What?! What the hell is it?”

A thin voice came through the wood. “So sorry, sir-but there’s someone here-very important-need you.”

That’s all I got. Lineus was too well bred to be any louder. A lesson in deportment I never quite mastered.

“Just wait a goddamn minute!”

Gwyna climbed off of me and put her feet on the floor. “Go on, Ardur. It must be something serious. We have”-she leaned over and brushed her lips against my neck-“we have the rest of our lives.”

It felt almost as good to hear it as it would to prove it. I still grumbled when I threw on a dirty tunic and laced some sandals halfway on my feet. She was getting dressed more carefully.

“Go on. I’ll meet you in the dining room.”

I kissed her cheek, then opened the door with unnecessary violence. It made me feel better.

Lineus was hovering in the background. “Please, sir-it’s very important.”

“It better be. Who’s here?”

“A gentleman, sir. A Philo. He said you’d know him by that name.”

Philo? At my house? This early?

“What time is it?” I asked Lineus abruptly.

“Not even the first hour of morning, sir. He arrived just a few minutes ago.”

I grunted and strode into the dining room. Philo was sitting in a chair, looking immaculate as ever. Did he go to sleep like that?

The expression on his face was the kind you saved for the cases you couldn’t help.

“Arcturus-I’m sorry to wake you-”

“What is it?”

“It’s-it’s a priest.”

My stomach knotted up, and I knew what he was going to say before the words started to form, and then I saw them come out with a terrible kind of slowness, as if he were speaking underwater.

“They found him-just half an hour ago-in the drain. He’s been murdered.”

Calpurnius. Goddamn it. Cui fucking bono.