The Curse-Maker

CHAPTER THREE

Ninth hour of day, and Londinium. Home.

I took Nimbus to the stables and thanked her for the ten-day journey, patting her down myself. She gave me a stern look, tucking her nose under my arm before shoving me with her head. She knew how scared I was.

The door was imposing. I took a deep breath, put in the key. Half expected Brutius to come running and fling it open. No one heard me.

A chill ran up my arm and down my neck. It was quiet, too quiet, with a thick layer of dust on the hall floor. I threw open the door to my examination room. Nothing disturbed, but again, dust.

I backed out, walking straight into the triclinium. Gwyna should be sitting in front of a brazier, knitting or carding wool or something, Hefin should be quietly reading Greek, and one of the dogs should be lying at their feet.

No one was there. My breath was coming fast and shallow. What about the slaves-Coir was supposed to be cleaning the house, Brutius minding the animals, Venutius cooking, and Draco standing near by, looking strong. Where the hell was everyone?

I sniffed, and caught a whiff of sauce. Venutius. I rounded the corner of the triclinium into the kitchen and ran smack into my cook.

He somehow managed to perform a leap and a twist in midair, which prevented the honeyed coriander sauce from spilling on the floor. He set it down carefully on the counter and allowed himself a gracious smile in my direction.

“Welcome home, Dominus. Dinner will be served in approximately fifteen minutes.”

“Where is everyone? Where’s my wife? Hefin? The other servants?”

A guarded look crept into Venutius’s aristocratic face. “The mistress-I’m not sure. I expect in her bedroom. Her brother-the young master-is with Dominus Bilicho.”

“Bilicho? Why? And why is Gwyna in her room? She’s not ill-”

He shook his head. “No-no, I don’t think so.”

I grabbed Venutius by the shoulder, and he gave me a distasteful look.

“What do you mean you don’t think so? What’s wrong with her?”

He lowered his head. “I don’t like to speculate, sir. For the last six weeks, she hasn’t taken supper in the dining room. She won’t direct the servants and has stopped telling me what to buy. Master Bilicho came over, saw the state of things, and took the little boy back with him. His woman has come by to check on the mistress. I usually see her in the morning, and if I don’t, I leave the food out. Sometimes I find her in the middle of the night, in the bath chambers, or roaming the house.”

My mouth was dry, and I needed to sit down. “Anything else I should know, Venutius?”

He thought for a moment, considering.

“Yes, there is, Dominus. Brutius has been staying outside with the animals most of the day and night, because of Coir. She’s impossible, sir. Since the mistress started to-since she stopped giving orders, Coir has refused to clean the house, or do any work at all. Draco is very unhappy-he’s lost weight. She seems to have him and everybody else-even the mistress, if you pardon me, sir-under her thumb. I’ve kept up the food accounts, and make meals at the regular times, whether I’m told to or no. But not her, sir. That’s why the house is in the state it’s in.”

The edge of the kitchen counter steadied me. My legs were too strong to buckle, but I felt like I was going to vomit. Venutius put down the sauce and poured me some wine.

I threw it down my throat. The ripe red taste of the Tuscan flushed some color back into my cheeks.

“Where is she?”

“The mistress? Most likely-”

“No. Coir. I want this dealt with before I see my wife.”

“I believe she’s out, sir, with Draco. Perhaps at the baths.” He took a step backward from the look on my face.

“Are they usually home when you serve a meal?”

“For the evening meal, yes, Dominus.”

“Very well. I’ll wait.”

Venutius nodded and went back to his duties as if everything were normal. I pulled myself together from the pieces lying about on the floor and walked outside into the courtyard. The kitchen and herb gardens were tended, the well covered, even the altar dusted off. I figured I’d find Brutius sleeping in the kennel.

Pyxis heard my approach before she smelled me, and came out of the little building with the hair on her neck standing up, growling.

I murmured: “Not you, too.”

She sniffed and wagged, and three large dogs ran up the front of their fenced yard, barking like Cerberus with a headache. The puppies were grown up. A bushy-haired man crept out, squinted in my direction, and suddenly grinned. He ran up with a sidewise gait and grabbed the top of the fence in excitement.

“Dominus! You’re home!”

“You’ve been sleeping with the dogs, Brutius?”

He turned his head away, looking down. “Coir’s bad, sir,” he said flatly. “I won’t have nothin’ to do with her. I took care of the courtyard as best I could, and me and Venutius made sure the garden was all right. But with Coir actin’ like the mistress, and the mistress not actin’ like herself, beggin’ your pardon, sir, I was safer out here with the animals and they was safer with me.”

I rubbed my chin. “Thanks, Brutius. Get cleaned up, then come in and eat.”

He grinned again. “No need, sir. I’m not hungry. I had a bit of cheese before I laid down with the dogs.”

“Well, get cleaned up anyway. You’ll be sleeping inside tonight.”

I left, wondering if Brutius felt like he was being punished. Doubtless he enjoyed sleeping with the dogs, but I was determined to treat my slaves well even if they didn’t like it. Ah, and look where that policy led …

Something heavy leaned against my legs. Fera purred when I bent down to pet her. Her kittens-now cats-were nowhere to be seen. Seems everything grew up while I was gone.

Voices rose from the triclinium. Venutius wouldn’t have mentioned that I was home.

I entered the kitchen, peeking through the curtain. Coir was reclining on the couch, eating the trout and coriander sauce. Draco stood, his huge shoulders tense, his massive neck hanging low. He looked shrunken, his eyes hopeless and helpless, fixed on Coir. He kept his voice down. They were arguing.

“It’s wrong, Coir. It’s just wrong. I don’t see how you can go on, day after day. The master will find out-”

“And what have I done wrong? Tell me that! Were I given an order by anyone? Do I disobey an order by anyone? No. If I’m not told to clean, I don’t clean. It’s not my fault the mistress don’t care. I’ve not done nothing wrong.”

“You should have been the slave of a lawyer, Coir. You’ve got a real gift for argument.”

The knife in her hand fell to the floor with a loud clank, splattering some yellow-green sauce on the couch. Draco was as white as a spring lamb, if not quite as fluffy. He backed up and shrank against the wall.

Coir stared at me. Her brown skin was browner, and she’d grown her hair long. No fear in her eyes, but a kind of gloating triumph, like a general who knows he’s beaten the better man.

“Leave us, Draco.”

He bowed so low his head nearly scraped the floor, then retreated into the kitchen.

I walked over to her and raised my hand to strike her. I had never hit a slave. I’d slapped a woman once. She looked like she didn’t give a damn whether I did or didn’t. She’d already won. I lowered my arm and swallowed the bad taste in my mouth.

“You’re free, Coir. I’ll be going out of town again in a few days, and I’ll make it official when I return. Leave tomorrow.”

She’d expected-maybe even wanted-me to hit her, but this she hadn’t counted on. She’d asked me to free her before I married Gwyna, and a combination of cajolery and kindness persuaded her to stay. I thought that was enough. I’d never understand women.

She looked up, eyes flat and cold.

“What about Draco?”

I stared at her for a long moment.

“Draco!”

He ran in, bowing all the way.

“I’ve just freed Coir. She’s leaving tomorrow. You’re free as well, if you want to join her.”

The big man looked more shocked than he had before. His eyes darted back and forth between us.

“I-I don’t want freedom, sir, but-Coir, I-”

“Well, you have it anyway. You can either go or not go. It’s up to you.”

I looked down at her. Her cheeks were red, her head held high.

I said softly: “You’ll both have your freedom, even if I have to proclaim it to the governor himself. Now get out of my sight.”

She walked, in not too great a hurry, to her room. I heard the door clack shut.

“Dominus-I-”

“No explanations necessary, Draco. You’re welcome to stay on in the house as a freedman. If you follow her, though … be careful. Be very careful.”

He nodded with a dim recognition.

“Go on and eat.”

He nodded again and backed into the kitchen. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and sucked in my gut. Time to meet my wife.

* * *

I reached my-our-bedroom door. I waited, unsure of whether to open it and fling myself at her or knock. I knocked.

A small voice said: “Come in.”

My eyes traced the line of her face and body, from her blond hair to the delicately formed feet. After the initial shock I always felt on seeing her, I noticed some details: She’d lost weight. Her cheeks were pale, thinner, more drawn. Her hair was askew, not neatly tied up in back. Her face was etched with pain. God help me if I made her feel like that.

She sat up and smiled weakly. “Hello, Arcturus.”

I sat down and took her hand. Clammy, cold, almost lifeless. I squeezed it. She smiled again, not unfriendly, not unwelcome, but distant, as if she and I and the room and my hand and her hand were not really there, not really connected.

“I-are you surprised?”

“No. I heard voices earlier, and saw you were talking to Coir.”

“Gwyna, I’m-I’m sorry.” So trite, so meaningless, so little. Some blood stirred in her hand, and she pulled it away, then very tentatively reached fingertips to brush my cheek.

“You shaved?” She was a little surprised. “You always come home in a state. I thought I’d-well, no bother.”

“I stopped by the baths before I came home. I wanted to be clean-for you.”

She smiled again, and the blue of her eyes was misty and covered over with something I didn’t recognize. Something was very, very wrong with my wife. She saw the look on my face and changed the subject.

“How was the trip? Any rain?”

I stared at her. “No. No rain. Gwyna, what’s happened? How did Coir-my God, what happened?”

For a moment I saw the old Gwyna. Then the blue was swallowed up by the same misty miasma, and she turned her face to the wall.

“Nothing, Arcturus. I’m just tired. I didn’t feel like ordering anyone about. I suppose Coir just took advantage.”

“Took advantage? She refused to do anything!”

She shrugged as if it took a great deal of effort.

“She’s never liked me. She was always jealous of you. It was-it was easier this way.”

“Was it easier to let Bilicho take care of Hefin?”

Her body jerked up as if it had been stung by a jellyfish. The eyes glinted a little, but any anger was trapped by the fog.

“No. I told you I was tired. Bilicho and Stricta did it as a favor to me.”

I didn’t say anything. I took her hand again and noted her pulse was faster. She was frightened of something.

I took her face and turned it to mine. “Gwyna, what is it?”

Once more, I thought I saw her. Then she put the smile back on.

“Nothing, Arcturus. I’ll be fine. You won’t have to divorce me.”

I bent over and kissed her cheek. She let me, but that was all.

“I’m sorry. Sorry for hiding in my own world, sorry I left you, in body and spirit. Sorry for letting my weakness hurt you. I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you, Gwyna, and I will do everything I can to make up for it. I love you more than anything in this world or any other. Please give me a chance to show it.”

I kissed her lips, gently. She lay back on the bed.

“I’m-tired, Arcturus. If you don’t mind…”

I nodded. She avoided my eyes, turning toward the wall.

Somewhere beneath this drawn, apathetic woman was my Gwyna-and she was screaming.

* * *

Coir and Draco left before breakfast. I’d miss Draco. Hell, I’d even miss Coir. I was sorry it ended like it did. Freeing people is generally a happier event. Draco was practically in tears, but I didn’t know my own way and could hardly tell him his. I told him he was welcome in my home anytime-as long as she wasn’t with him.

I asked Venutius to find another house slave, preferably an old woman. That was all the thought I could give to domestic arrangements. It was time to talk to Bilicho.

Typically generous gesture of Gwyna’s, to give them her father’s house to live in. I stood and looked down the street where I’d walked last December, trying to find the beautiful blond woman who needed my help. The neighborhood looked the same, the house better than I remembered it.

I knocked on the door, finally getting the kind of welcome I hoped for.

“Arcturus!”

He hugged me hard enough to fuse my lungs, then held me at arm’s length.

“You’re thinner.”

“I am not-I’m fatter.”

“No, you’re not. You’re thin and troubled, and I know why.”

We walked into the surprising center of the house: a round-house triclinium, the Roman exterior hiding the native interior. I smelled food in the kitchen, like the first time. Except this wasn’t chickpeas and pork, it was lentils and bread.

“Stricta! Look who’s back!”

A dark, wraithlike woman emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel tied around her waist. She held out her hands toward me.

“Arcturus! It is so good of you to come by! When did you get home?”

Her Latin was stronger, less inflected with an Egyptian accent, and she’d finally gained some weight. She insisted that we all keep using her old slave name, even with the dark memories. Bilicho told me with a blush that she wouldn’t change it because that’s how he first knew her.

“Yesterday. Where’s Hefin?”

Bilicho whistled, and a small blond missile flew out of what used to be Gwyna’s room and struck him in the stomach. He started to laugh and almost fell down, as Stricta tousled the boy’s hair and straightened out his tunic.

Hefin stared, then recognized me, putting on his best haughty look, so much like his father. “Hello, Arcturus.”

“Hello, Hefin. How are the studies?”

He shrugged. “Stricta’s teaching me some Greek. I want to learn to read the old Egyptian writing, though. She’s promised to teach me that if I can get through Aeschylus.”

His eyes bored into mine, trying to command me. “I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here.”

He was exactly like his father. A lot like his sister, too. Or like his sister when I left her in May. The words hurt more than I thought they could. Stricta noticed the look on my face.

“Go on now, Hefin, back to your room. Arcturus and Bilicho and I have to talk.”

He shrugged again and walked to the corridor.

My mouth was dry, and the words felt heavy when they came out. “I’m sorry. I’m interrupting your meal.”

Bilicho drew his eyebrows together. “This is me, Bilicho, your freedman and assistant. The man who helps you think. Actually, the man who does your thinking for you, as I’ve been telling you for years. Don’t be such a goddamn stranger!”

The tension deflated. Thank God for Bilicho. He always made it easier on me than I deserved. Stricta left and came out again with a plate of soft-boiled eggs, cheese, and a lentil-chestnut stew. She joined us, and I relaxed a little. So this is what it felt like. A family.

“You get rid of Coir?” Bilicho asked.

Stricta was reproving. “Let Arcturus eat. And do not speak with your mouthful, Bil-i-cho.” He swallowed and grinned at her.

“Yes. Why didn’t you write me?”

They looked at each other. Bilicho gave me the worried mouth, the one I used to see every time he woke me from a nightmare. No one could shake me out of this one.

“Well, it was a gradual thing. Started back in July. Gwyna-Gwyna started acting strange. Coir did less and less. It got worse, but by then we knew you’d be home.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Stricta stared at him for a few moments, then looked away. He picked at a tooth, and his eyes flickered.

“I-I don’t know. Wish I did. She started to get distant, kind of lost, like, in July. Acting like she didn’t care where she was. Not dressing, eating just enough to keep skin and bone together, but not … enjoying it. Not enjoying anything, from what I could tell. Never unkind, of course, but just-not caring. Real sad, sometimes. Hefin said he heard her crying all the time, and that’s when I took him home. He’s been here about a month.”

He shook his head, his wrinkled face drooped in pity. “I’m sorry, Arcturus. We both are. She’s just not herself.” He looked over at Stricta and said, in a soft voice I’d never heard before, “Reminds me a bit of you, love, when I was first looking after you.”

Stricta reddened a little, looked away, and squeezed Bilicho’s hand.

“It’s my fault. I left her in May. I left her when Agricola’s boy died.”

They both understood and were quiet. I coughed, but it sounded more like a sob, even to me. Bilicho turned his head, and Stricta hurried to the kitchen. I wiped my eyes and looked at Bilicho, who was studying a spider on the wall. I cleared my throat to let him know it was safe.

“So what are you going to do?”

I told him about leaving Agricola, the army-about what it would mean for both of us. First, there was Aquae Sulis, and a chance to help Gwyna. Maybe it would let her see again. Let her find herself again.

“Best thing for her. Don’t worry about Hefin, we’ll keep him for you. I’ll make sure he’s schooled. One thing at a time for you-Gwyna comes first.”

He didn’t want to let the boy go. The thought hit me like a bathhouse brick. He wanted a family. Maybe Stricta couldn’t have children-not surprising, considering her background. And Bilicho, my own stubborn, protective, bashful Bilicho, wanted a family.

“There’s no one I’d want to look after the boy more than you. However long I’ll be-however long it takes-consider Hefin your son. I know she feels the same.”

His brown, weather-beaten face flushed with purple. We looked at each other, shuffled our feet, cleared our throats. Stricta recognized male emotion and walked in from the kitchen to save us.

“Arc-tur-us. You will need another housekeeper, yes?”

“Venutius is out looking for another slave this morning.”

“Sioned’s husband died three months ago. She is not a slave, of course, but she would work for very little-especially for Gwyna.” She smiled at me, and the smile lit the spareness of her face and made her beautiful.

“That would be perfect. Do you know where she is?”

“She lives not far from here. I will ask her to see you.”

I stood up. “I’ll send word when we reach Agricola’s villa. Thank you both. For everything.”

Bilicho slapped me on the back, and Stricta said: “I’ll get my cloak and find Sioned.”

We stepped outside together. Then she turned to me, urgency on her face.

“Arcturus. Please be patient with Gwyna. This is not your fault. Do not blame yourself.”

I stared at her. “Do you know something? Something that would help?”

She hesitated. She came to see Gwyna, Venutius said so. What did she know?

The brown-green eyes were deep. They wouldn’t lie to me, but neither would they give up their secrets. Or my wife’s.

“She will let you know what will help. But give her time. Make her live again, taste life again.” She squeezed my hand. “You did so for me, once.”

With those words, the former slave, the woman who’d been kept as a whore in the lowest of whorehouses, moved off with the grace of a dancer in the imperial court.

* * *

I hired a gentle black gelding for Gwyna. When I came home and told her we were leaving for Aquae Sulis in the morning, she raised her eyebrows.

“You must have a positive obsession with bathing, Arcturus. First you take a bath before you come home, and now we’re traveling halfway across the country to take more.”

When I asked her if she felt physically able to travel, she got a little sharper: “I’m tired, not a cripple. I can keep up, if it’s so important to you.”

“It is important to me, Gwyna. To us. I think a change of air would do you good.”

She shrugged. “Air is air. But, as I said, if it’s important to you…” She let it trail off with the understanding that she was merely doing her duty.

When Sioned came by later in the afternoon, a look of pain-and strangely, of fear-crossed Gwyna’s face. She greeted the old woman and turned to me.

“Arcturus, do you mind if I take a warm bath? I’d like one before we travel, and you can make arrangements with Sioned.”

The old lady squinted hard at Gwyna, her broad, plain face severe with worry. “What’s the matter with the young mistress?”

More demand than question. I gave her a truncated version of nothing. There was nothing I could tell her-she could see the obvious for herself. She agreed to stay on out of loyalty to Gwyna, and probably a desire to find out if I was beating her. I gave her Coir’s old room.

The next morning Gwyna was up before I was. I dreamed she was sitting beside me, her hand stroking my face like she used to. When I opened my eyes, she was dressed in traveling clothes and heading out the door.

A sardonic smile when she saw the gelding. Nimbus didn’t think much of him, either, but he was a plucky little horse, maybe down on his luck. That made him part of the family.

The trip was uneventful. We kept a steady pace through the main road, taking a less traveled path through the Great Plain. She ate the food Venutius packed without complaint, just as she ate the plainer food we found at farms and inns, too.

Pluto, the little black gelding, was steady. Nimbus gradually grew to like him. I caught her giving him a nuzzle once, when we stopped for a rest in a meadow.

Gwyna showed emotion only once. There was a place on the Great Plain I wanted her to see. Not many farms around it, though plenty ringed the downland, with wheat and barley and flax growing like the buttercups. She could see it from a distance, and I knew she was curious.

“Arcturus-what is that? Those stones-”

“No one knows, Gwyna. They are the oldest of the Old Ones.”

She looked at me then, almost like herself. She was excited. “Can we see them?”

A light rain fell, and the green downland hummed with crickets. Wild hares dug in the soil, making large warrens, some of them older than the Romans in Britannia. Dark birds flew overhead, lighting on the giant rocks that rose up from the Earth like fingers, grasping at the sky.

Gwyna dismounted, walking up to one of the large blue stones, taller than any man. Silent, reverent touch. She walked the circle, in and out, laying her hand on each one in turn. There were tears in her eyes.

“Thank you, Ardur,” she whispered.

When we left the Plain that evening, her mask was firmly in place. But I could see it was a mask, hiding something ugly. Something she didn’t want me to know.