The Curse-Maker

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Senicio came out from below the Sacred Spring, smelling like wet earth. He heard my foot fidgeting on the stone before he saw me. He looked up, turning white beneath the layer of pipe sludge he was wearing as a cloak.

I tried to smile. “Senicio. Salve. They told me you were cleaning the pipes. I thought I’d wait.”

He scratched his hair, spreading some of the slimy green algae through it. Picked at the wart on his left cheek. “I-I told you everything that morning-”

“I know. You were very helpful.”

He looked at me doubtfully, as if no one had ever said that before, and he didn’t quite believe it, either. “So-so what do you want? Why’dya want to see me?”

I leaned back and held up the wall.

“Because I figured a man like you-a man serving the goddess-a man with-uh-powers, powers of observation-a man like you probably saw more than he realized at first. You’re important, Senicio.”

His mouth turned downward, and he looked around nervously. That line should’ve had him puffing and preening by now. Something smelled funny. Something more than him.

I backed off a little. Time to try another tactic.

“I need your help. I’m-this close.”

I should’ve known altruism wouldn’t work in Aquae Sulis. He looked away, picking his nose. I was running out of patience, so I got tough.

“Look, goddamn it, answer some questions and I’m through. I’ll give you money for a decent meal-like your old friend Calpurnius.”

The name of the dead man scared him. He looked around, making sure no one could hear. “All-all right. What do you-whaddya want to know?”

The curse was a tendril, reaching out to dark corners and unlikely throats, strangling any goodness out of them. It was green and rank, and sticky to the touch-and it was all over Senicio.

“The night you saw Calpurnius-you said he was celebrating. Why?”

His neck started to itch. “Because-because he was drinking-eating-spending money-”

“So? Maybe he felt like it. Sometimes men will do that even when they’re miserable. He said something to you, didn’t he? What was it?”

The itched moved to his collarbone. “Uh-I can’t really remem-”

“You remember. Tell me, goddamn it, or-”

A small squeal whistled between his teeth. I didn’t have to touch him-luckily for me. He looked both ways down the path and spoke in a whisper.

“I-I don’t know how you knew, but-but he did say something. Said he’d moved up in the world, and was celebrating-celebrating a new-a new business.”

“Did he say what kind?”

Senicio shook his head, and some mud splattered on my tunic.

“N-no. At least-”

“What? What else?”

“He said-he said something funny. That’s why-that’s why I remembered it. He said it was the oldest business in the world-and he was taking it over.”

He looked behind me toward the temple. “Can I go now?” he whined.

I dug for my pouch and gave him a few sestertii.

* * *

I had a lot to think about on the way to Bibax’s place. I tried to shove it aside, but it kept coming up in my mouth like vomit.

So Calpurnius turned nasty. Maybe he always was. He was greedy and smart and poor-and the Aquae Sulis curse whispered a lot of promises.

There were at least three possibilities about what he meant. Which one made all the difference in the world. But I didn’t want to think about Calpurnius-not right now. It was time to focus on the man who dragged me into this.

Bibax always knew about the lead. Easy enough to figure-Materna got word to him, or his confederate, as partial payment for services rendered. A couple of years ago she pulled a string and left a message for Grattius. Grattius gave the order to Bibax, and Bibax made sure Aufidio would never be back in town to ask any more questions about boundaries.

The other crimes-Sulpicia’s husband, Sestius’s aunt, and maybe more-had nothing to do with the mine. They seemed like a private arrangement, a kind of retirement benefit for murderers. Kill a relative, blackmail the survivors. Forever. I wiped my forehead. Maybe it was getting warm.

Grattius never got touched for money. Because Bibax-and maybe his unknown helper-knew Materna was behind it all.

Materna knew who the partner was. That’s who she left the note for.

I nodded to myself, my feet in a hurry to get to his insula. Bibax and partner were in business for themselves. Then Materna-always hungry for pain-Materna figured out the scam. She twitched her web, and the other little spiders came running. She liked it like that.

She used Bibax and the other killer to help her keep the mine under control. Just like she used Faro. Just like she used poor, foolish, overblown Grattius. She rooted out every crooked scheme, every twisted motive, every tainted man in Aquae Sulis. So she could own them. Own their souls. If they had any left.

The bad taste in my mouth wouldn’t go away. I was staring at a dingy insula, the yellow stone native to the town looking like the too-thin skin of a too-thin man with liver problems.

I started on the ground floor, but the only person home was a woman busy with a colicky baby. Her eyes kept straying back toward the crib. No, I don’t remember. Probably the upper floor. The door slammed.

I tried the second floor, found more success. An old man, his skin falling off in flakes, slept on a cot in the corner while his son-unemployed, just temporary-drank cheap wine, and hit his wife for spilling the chamber pot on the way out the door. No, can’t say I remember him. Try the third. The door slammed again.

I walked the narrow stairs, which groaned and creaked like an aging whore going for one last throw. My foot nearly poked through the fifth step, where the wood was black. A door was facing me, and I could hear snoring behind it. Someone was home.

I knocked, and a raspy voice with years of coughing answered me.

“Who is it?”

“A man with money.”

The answer was enough to get him out of bed. He was a paunchy man, past middle age, wearing a towel around his waist and nothing else. The room smelled like sweat and cabbage.

He looked me up and down. I tried not to look at him. His chest and back were furry with matted hair, and he stank. I held out three sestertii in my palm.

“You know Bibax?”

“He ain’t here no more. He’s dead.”

He reached under the towel to scratch himself. I’d try one more time, so no one could ever call me a coward.

“I know he’s dead. I know he lived in this building. I’d like to see where.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Add two more, an’ I’ll tell you.”

I’d pay five times the amount if he backed away. I reached in and pulled out the pouch again. I added two more sestertii. He licked his lips at the money and then belched.

“Who tol’ you he lived here?”

“One of the market sellers.”

“Well, they was wrong.” He said it with a triumphant leer, as if he’d just scored a point. “He useta live here-still kept a room down the hall, but he moved into a-a”-he belched again-“a bigger place, small house, down by the new spring. Go there, if you wanna see.”

He snatched up the money, and I felt his fingernails scratch my palm. I rubbed my hand down my tunic.

“Anyone in his old room up here?”

“No. Nobody. Three down, on the left.” He turned to shut the door.

“One more thing-”

“Yeah?”

“Who owns this building? Who do you pay rent to?”

He shrugged. “Bibax always collected it for everybody. Still did, even when he moved. I never seen the guy.”

“How do you pay it now?”

“I ain’t paid it.” His smile showed three teeth that were yellow and black. “If I did-Bibax said pay at the baths, if he ain’t here. And he ain’t.”

The door slammed this time and shook the walls. The baths again. Everything wound up at the baths. Except Furry Back.

I walked down the hall and opened the door. The room was small, empty, and clean. Someone had cleaned it. Not even a smell of Bibax remained.

I left the insula, careful to avoid the fifth step on the upper stairs. No one seemed to know Bibax, and no one seemed to care. I needed to find someone. Anyone. Someone to help me see.

I caught a glimpse of the other reservoir, even from here, and hurried to it. There was urgency in the sun, urgency in getting back to the main square so I could find Gwyna, make sure she was all right. Urgency in getting out of Aquae Sulis alive.

The spring was softer, less dramatic than the other one. But the same water. It danced and trembled, holding out the promise of something. I could see why Philo wanted to put another bath down here. It was a little bit of peace in a little corner of Aquae Sulis.

An old woman was limping down a dirt path from some woods up the small hill. She stopped at the spring and looked at me. Her eyes were sharp.

“Nothing here. It’s the other one, where you’ll find it.”

“How do you know what I’m looking for?”

She leaned on her stick, and set down the mushrooms she’d been picking.

“You’re not from here. Must be looking for the temple. That’s where they all go.”

In more ways than one.

I stared at her. “I’m looking for answers.”

Her cackly laugh braced me. “Everyone wants answers, boy. You need questions.”

“I’ve got those, too. I’m-I’m trying to help the goddess. Help the town.”

She tilted her head to the side, looking like an old thrush, and sighed, a deep sigh from the bottom of her wrinkled feet. Her blue eyes glinted.

“Help the goddess? What makes you think she needs help?”

“Maybe she doesn’t. I don’t know. There’s something wrong with this town. I’m trying to fix it.”

Her eyes pored over me. “So what are your questions?”

I stared at her. She was the first person to offer some help who didn’t have a motive for it. “They’re about Rufus Bibax. He used to-”

She spat on the ground. “I knew him. Knew all about him.”

I reached out a hand to her elbow and asked as humbly as I knew how.

“Could you-could you talk to me?”

We sat on the bank by the spring and watched the water bubble. Her eye and memory for detail amazed me. I felt like I’d met Bibax. Like I’d seen through him to the rot inside.

He knocked around the empire, traveling from Mauretania through Baetica in Hispania and past the Alps into Gaul. From there he’d crossed over into Britannia at some point, and, like the dead leaves and garbage from the marketplace, settled in a little corner called Aquae Sulis.

Bibax had a special gift. A memory. A memory so sharp, he could remember a face after years of wine or women or poverty or money corroded it into an unrecognizable mask. He’d play games with his memory for the people who lived here, recall a series of numbers or recite poetry he just heard. Bibax had a gift-and he used it.

Blackmail was part of how he traveled, part of how he thought. More profitable still when you could manufacture the crime. Supply death for a price-cover it up for a price. Everything, for Bibax, had a price.

Healing town to healing town, curing frustrated wives and wastrel nephews, freeing them, then holding them prisoner. Curse recoiled, mirrored back. Someone to help him-someone weak or desperate or greedy or wicked, someone who was all and more. Who it was she couldn’t say, but I knew Bibax now. He and Materna sharing one soul between them, animus maledictus.

Materna tried to use him, but nobody could use Bibax in the end. The Hydra heads sprouted wherever he traveled, and Bibax anchored them, kept them alive.

I was past ready to go. I thanked the old woman, tried to give her money, which insulted her, so I apologized, and thanked her again.

She stared at me. “So you have been given aid. You know the questions, and you will find the answers.”

I felt a strange sort of confidence, but looked at the sun and saw it was past the midpoint. The baths. “I will. But now-”

“Now you must hurry to your woman.”

I took her hand in mine and held it to my lips as if she were a senator’s wife. She picked up the mushrooms, watched me. I rushed up the path to the center of town.

About halfway up I realized I’d never mentioned Gwyna. I turned around.

“How did you-”

No one there. She moved quickly for an old lady. I shrugged and kept walking.