The Curse-Maker

CHAPTER FIVE

I woke up before she did. She was on her side, turned toward me. A small metal disk on a leather strap spilled out of her tunic. It was an Isis medallion, with the goddess on one side and Isis and Horus on the other. Gwyna had never shown much interest in foreign cults. Maybe Stricta gave it to her.

She stretched and groaned and opened her eyes. Then she smiled, and the sun came out. “Hurry up and get dressed. We have work to do.”

“Aren’t you getting up?”

She stretched again, like a temple cat on a warm stone step. “In a few minutes. You get dressed first.”

Stalling so that we didn’t dress together. Just like last night. I swallowed my worry and asked: “What should I wear?”

A game she enjoyed. After wrapping up in a cloak and clucking over the few clothes I’d brought, she pulled out a white undertunic, a dark brown outer tunic with gold trim, a studded military belt, and a green cloak-my only fashionable lacerna.

“I’ll have to buy you a few more things. You didn’t bring your toga, did you?”

“Why the hell would I drag that moth-eaten old-”

“It isn’t moth-eaten, and you look very dignified in it.” She sighed. “Well, if you didn’t bring it, I’ll have to buy you a new one. Although a ready-made toga with a senatorial stripe will be hard to find.”

“Why do I need it? Why should I wear it?”

She looked at me as if I were a child. “Because, Arcturus. This is a society town, remember? If you’re going to fit in and get people to talk to you, you need to look the part.”

She glanced at her own clothes, which almost filled the chest in the corner. “I’m just glad I brought my red palla. I wish I’d thought to bring some more jewelry, though.”

I kept forgetting that we weren’t really on vacation. This was work-as foul a job as cleaning the Cloaca Maxima. Rome’s biggest sewer bore a striking resemblance to Grattius’s mouth. I told Gwyna I’d see her in the triclinium. She was busy choosing a bracelet but held her cheek up to be kissed.

The household was so efficient I thought maybe one of the slaves could figure out who murdered Bibax. They bustled around, serving a perfect breakfast of oats, figs, honey, hard-boiled eggs, and cream, all at just the right temperature.

Mine rose when Gwyna walked in. A gleaming underdress flashed from beneath a marigold tunic, fastened with a violet belt under her breasts. Her hair was piled in soft curls, and a gold bracelet of native design shone at her wrist.

“You’re-you-”

She waited patiently until I regained the power of speech.

“Yes, Ardur?”

I swallowed. “You’re beautiful.”

The smile nearly blinded me. “Why, thank you.”

She reached for an egg. To distract myself, I stood up to look at Agricola’s calendar.

“Kalends of October already. Fides’s Day.”

“Does that mean it’s a holiday?”

“No. We’re just supposed to pay honor to Fidelity.” I gave her a dark look. “In that outfit, I don’t think it could hurt.”

She swallowed the egg she was eating and burst out laughing.

* * *

After breakfast, I found one of the slaves-how many were there?-to take messages to the fort. A military courier would deliver them to Agricola and Bilicho. I scrawled a few lines on a couple of sheets of papyrus while Gwyna told Ligur and Quilla to get our bath things ready.

If the Aquae Sulis thermae were like every other bath in the province, there would be separate hours for men and women to bathe-women in the morning, from daylight until the sixth or seventh hour, and men from then until sundown. I thought we’d walk down the hill into town, but Gwyna shook her head at me.

“Arcturus, think. You were invited to dinner by one of the duoviri. You’re famous-and you’re investigating a murder. You must do what is socially expected, if you want to get anywhere. We’ll take the litter.”

She said it so decisively I couldn’t argue. “But Grattius-”

She raised her eyebrows. “Grattius? What does he have to do-oh, I see. No, silly, Agricola has a litter here, and two litter bearers. They’re much bigger and better looking, too.”

I knew I’d hate the goddamn thing.

I grumbled, but somehow we were able to fit bathing shoes, bathing clothes, towels, ointment boxes, strigils, an exercise ball, a perfume case, and makeup equipment. There was no room for Ligur and Quilla; there was barely room for us. They walked. I wished we could.

Gwyna planned everything. “I’ll stay all morning, and catch the latest gossip. That’s the best way I can help, I think.” She looked at me to make sure I was listening. She smelled like lavender and sandalwood. “Then I’ll do some shopping-find you a toga-and perhaps another mantle for me-and then I’ll meet you at home when you’re done.”

“Done with what?”

“Arcturus, aren’t you paying attention? The baths. That’s where we’ll find out everything. Isn’t that part of your plan?”

I tried to look as though I had a plan. “Well-yes. I was going to talk to Philo first. I can do that while you’re bathing. Then take a look around.”

I tore my eyes from Gwyna, and felt my mind grind into gear like a millstone. “I-I mean, we-need to find out about Rufus Bibax. That Ultor curse was used to leave a message, for someone still in Aquae Sulis. And the spring … convenience? Or a warning to the temple? And what about-”

Gwyna was smiling at me. “We’re here, Ardur. Now, don’t forget to put some oil on your hair. I know you don’t like it, but-”

“I know. It’s expected.”

“And watch your language. Don’t use that street Latin you like so much, and not too many British words.”

“Anything else?”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Be careful.”

Then she stepped out of the litter, which had been so carefully lowered by Agricola’s strapping bearers that I barely noticed it. I watched her blend into the swirl of colors of the open forum, heading for the entrance to the baths.

So much for a holiday. Time to work.

* * *

It wasn’t the kind of town I’d want to die in.

The yellow stone was pretty, especially in a dim dawn or failing twilight, like a woman who picks up sailors at a wharf-side bar. The closer you got, the more you wanted to run for the next ship out of port.

The noise made you wish you were deaf if you weren’t already, and even a morning breeze couldn’t waft away the stench of decay. It lingered sensuously, the choice perfume of the marketplace.

The scent fanned from the potions hawked by a shrill old woman, who promised life just short of immortality. She didn’t tell you she was twenty-six. It kissed the sweaty little men in sweaty little tents selling spells for a toothache. They’d knock it out with a hammer for only two asses more. It touched the bored wood-carvers, chiseling shapeless blocks into breasts or legs, whatever it was that needed a prayer. It even followed you to the spring, where you’d mumble an imprecation, and throw something in. Maybe you’d live another week. Maybe Sulis would take care of you.

A one-eyed woman could tell your future, and see if you were still in it. A pockmarked youth with a perpetual itch sold Egyptian lotions. Amulets for every disease ever known and a few that someone made up dangled from the neck of a large woman with a growth under her chin. She’d let you touch it-for a price.

Retired soldiers hobbled by, one-legged, while women with festering breasts started to cry because they couldn’t nurse, their babies shrunken from illness or hunger. They bought potions made of cow piss and olive oil, and Babylonian unguent that was local beeswax dyed purple. The sellers mixed in shit from the public shithouse, of course. Everyone knew it was a phony if it didn’t smell bad. But what the hell-put it on, rub it in. Sulis will take care of you.

There were other faces in the crowd, sharper and quick-eyed, recognizing opportunity and holding open the door. Old people in chairs were carted this way and that by hopeful relatives who weren’t hoping for recovery. Stepmothers eyed their stepsons carefully and fingered certain concoctions with an appreciative gleam. Then there were the parents with the baby keeping them up at nights. They were looking for a potion-soaked rag, and they leaned on the counter and you could see in their eyes they weren’t overly particular about what was on it.

I looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless. Maybe for the rich, the pretenders like Grattius, all this was invisible. They could drift in and out of the waters, indulge their vices, enjoy being blind. But I couldn’t shut my eyes fast enough. I walked around to the east side of the temple to find Philo.

* * *

The house was about five years old and expensive. Sculptures of naked goddesses lined the way, and the floor mosaic was a sea scene, complete with frolicking nymphs. Expensive-but I expected his taste to be better.

I was shown in by a pretty young slave girl. She looked like she was on her way to the baths. Philo must be a kind master-maybe especially to the young and pretty ones. He was ushering out an old man hobbling on a stick, with an impossibly twisted and atrophied knee.

“Just keep it wrapped and soak it in the waters, Sulinus. It will feel better eventually.”

The old man looked at Philo as if the town were called Aquae Philonis. Must be nice to inspire that kind of faith. I wondered if I could. I wondered if I should.

I looked around for somewhere to throw the thought, but there was nothing but pricey furniture for it to land on. A beautiful room, beautifully and expensively furnished. My half-broken basket chair with the saggy bottom and the unfinished back wall by the kitchen flashed in front of my eyes.

“Arcturus! Glad to see you-I was hoping you’d come. How do you like Aquae Sulis so far?” Philo turned the full force of his charm on me, and I felt like I was under a waterfall.

“I don’t.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, you haven’t really seen the best part of it yet-”

“I think I have. I don’t hold much hope for the baths.”

He stared at me, then nodded.

“Ah. I see. You’ve come through the main marketplace, where every toenail collector in Britannia congregates to sell cure-alls. It is a bit ugly.”

“A bit? It makes a battlefield look like a fresco by Fabullus.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s difficult, I admit. Eventually, though, you come to understand that you can’t save everyone. Surely as a doctor you realize that.”

I looked up sharply. A recent lesson, and still too painful to hear from Philo’s mouth.

“I do realize that. But giving them false hope-”

“Any hope is better than no hope, Arcturus. People can live a few days longer on a lie. Does it matter so much who gives it to them? You, or I, or Faro Magnus, who claims to talk to the dead?”

His voice was strong, and his good-looking, aristocratic face gleamed with vitality. Or was it almond oil? Philo couldn’t have lived near the marketplace for long without a little of it rubbing off. He was probably close to sixty, looked twenty years younger if you didn’t look too hard. The gray temples weren’t just affectation. The lines were fine and the body still lean, but the age was there.

“Who was Rufus Bibax?”

The abruptness of the question took him by surprise. Probably an affront to his gentility. His smile said he was willing to make allowances for me.

“Bibax was a scribe, one of the professional curse-writers who surround the temple area. Beyond that, I’m afraid I don’t know anything else.”

“You didn’t know him?”

He laughed. “Heavens no, Arcturus. You saw what it’s like out there. I may tolerate it, but I don’t wade in it.”

“Do you know how long he’s been in Aquae Sulis?”

He shook his head regretfully. “I’m afraid I can’t be of much assistance to you there, either. The town has grown remarkably over the last few years. I’ve only lived here for six years myself. The other sellers and scribes might know. I don’t think he has any relatives-none have come forward, anyway.”

I looked at him. “Tell me, Philo-if you don’t know anything about Bibax, why the hell did you want me to talk to you?”

He laughed his easy laugh again. I couldn’t see any cracks in the clay, and I was looking.

“I appreciate your directness. It’s a welcome break from what I put up with on the council. First, I wanted you to come because I like you. You’re a talented, intelligent man, a fellow professional. Second, I wanted you to know that we buried Bibax, and I didn’t find anything else on his body. He dyed his hair, probably an effort to appear exotic. Several of the scribes claim to hail from Egypt.”

Egypt. Every two-as hustler selling goat gonads claimed to be from Egypt. That explained Rufus’s lack of red hair.

“Finally, I thought you might want to find out how things work around here, especially since Bibax’s murderer sent such a vivid message.”

I leaned forward. “Any guesses as to whom?”

Philo shrugged. “The temple or the priests who run it, perhaps. It’s the most obvious choice. Though I can’t see Papirius or anyone else strangling some poor scribe. That’s how the temple collects its money.”

“From the hustlers?”

“Yes, Arcturus. Every hustler-and every legitimate practioner, myself included-who has a stall or a space or a house around the center of the town, pays a tax to the temple. The temple owns the baths. Oh, I know, it’s all public, but the profits go to the temple, which cycles them-or is supposed to-back to the community. They collect the paltry entrance fee-collect taxes from all the freelance bath attendants, masseuses, depilators, et cetera. Even the towel rental.”

“Must be a complex operation. Accounting-wise, especially.”

“It is. It’s a separate city, really. Octavio is the head of the daily operations, but he has many centurions of a sort underneath him.”

“So all the bogus ointment-makers out there-”

“Pay the temple. As did Bibax.”

I shook my head. “Ultor. I just don’t get it. If it was revenge on the temple, why choose such a minuscule player? Why him?”

“It doesn’t make sense, I know. But listen. I wanted you to be aware of how important you solving this murder is to the community. We don’t want the legion involved-in fact, they’ve just reduced the number of soldiers stationed at the fort, so I don’t know that there’s anyone there to help. We want to handle this independently, as a municipium.”

“Why? Why not involve the army?”

“Because the baths and the temple are the heart of Aquae Sulis. Look out there. People from all over the empire have heard about these waters, and they come here looking for rest, for a cure, for health.”

“Go on.”

“Right now we’re in the middle of development plans for another complex. There are two more springs to the northwest of town, and we’d like to build a temple to Aesculapius, along with more baths. The council is hoping to make a deal with a mine consortium-you know, free baths for the miners thrown in. This sort of thing could jeopardize the entire proposal.”

Not to mention tourism. Murder at a health spa is bad for business. I stood up.

“I understand, Philo. I’ll do my best to find out what’s wrong with Aquae Sulis.” I wondered if he caught the sarcasm.

He looked at me. “You know, we help a lot of people-and not just through false hope or phony promises. These waters truly are gifts from the gods.”

“I’ll get a report on them later from my wife.”

He smiled. “How is your wife today?” He asked it softly.

“Fine, thanks.” I held his eyes a little longer than was customary. Turned to go, then turned back. “About that warning-”

“Ultor?”

“Yes. Maybe it’s a message to the other curse-writers-to the charlatans-to the quacks.” I laid particular emphasis on the last word.

He grunted. “Maybe. There are quite a few. Everyone from Tiberius Julianus and his eye cream to Faro the Great.”

“The one that talks to dead people?”

Philo nodded.

“Ask him to find out from Bibax who killed him.”

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder again. “Arcturus, you’re a hell of a man. I really wished you liked me more.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled stupidly and walked out. Philo always seemed to get the last word. Damn him.