The Skystone

XXIII

The arrival of Equus and Plautus and their group seemed to be the signal for our wedding guests to begin arriving daily in ever greater numbers. The majority of them were strangers to me, old friends of Caius and Luceiia, although I did find a few familiar and welcome faces scattered among them. All of them, however, wanted to meet me, to evaluate the man who had won Luceiia Britannicus.

I was with Luceiia constantly for the whole three-week period leading up to the wedding, but such was the press of people and duties that I can remember spending no time alone with her. Equus and Plautus I neglected completely. In all of the mounting excitement and the constant round of meeting new people, I was unable to take them out to my skystone valley. I knew Plautus was indifferent to that, but I felt occasional pangs of guilt over Equus's disappointment, even though he gave no sign of it.

Tonius Cicero and Bishop Alaric arrived fifteen days after the original Colchester party, seven days in advance of the marriage ceremonies, and they were immediately absorbed into the throng of guests who had by then spilled out of the villa and were encamped by the score throughout the grounds. I missed their arrival completely. They came in late in the day while I was away hunting deer in the open woodlands to the south-west, Luceiia having belatedly begun to fear that we might not, after all, have laid in sufficient provisions for the crowd that was still arriving. The sight of the two of them with Equus and Plautus was a welcome surprise when I got back the following day with half a wagonload of freshly butchered venison, but we had no opportunity to exchange much more than casual pleasantries. Only late in the evening, in response to a direct request from Alaric, did I lead them away from the revelry around a crowded campfire and conduct them to Caius's day-room, which was brightly lit with a profusion of oil lamps and a blazing brazier. Once there, with the doors closed against intruders, I threw myself down onto a couch in mock exhaustion.

"Now then, " I asked with a grin, "what is so important that you must make me run the risk of my love's anger for abandoning our guests before they all pass out? Or is it simply that the two of you have missed me so greatly that you are jealous of the throng and must have me to yourselves alone?"

They glanced at each other with looks of such unmistakable apprehension that my own good humour disappeared at once, to be replaced by a clammy chill of fear that seemed to suck away even the heat from the brazier. I sat upright, bracing myself for evil tidings, even though I had no idea where they might come from. Tonius had seated himself across from me. Alaric remained standing close by the fire-basket.

"In God's name, Alaric, " I asked him, "what is wrong?"

"Varrus. " It was Tonius who answered, and my eyes swung to his frowning face. "We have bad news for you. News that has no place at a wedding feast. "

"Then damn your news, " I flashed back at him. "I will not hear it. " My mind had immediately thrown up the spectre of Seneca, but I could visualize no possibility of threat from him now. Tonius made to say something more, but I cut him off with an upraised hand.

"No, Tonius, my friend. Hear what I have to say. My mind is clear. All of my friends are here — every person in the world who is dear to me. There is no threat to any of them, and so I am content. Therefore any evil tidings you bring from beyond this district can have no effect on me between now and my wedding feast. Surely you can see that? That's why I'll have none of your news. Not, at least, until I am wed. "

Tonius grimaced with discomfort at this and looked to Alaric for support. So did I, but I found none.

"Publius, " the Bishop said, "Tonius and I think, no, we believe that Phoebe has been killed. Murdered. We believe she was abducted and killed in an attempt to find you. "

For a moment my mind was unable to grasp what he had said, so unexpected was his suggestion. Phoebe? Dead? Murdered for me? The idea was preposterous. I knew it to be preposterous because no one could connect Phoebe with me! Not even Equus, her brother. The only other person who knew of our brief association was Plautus, and he would never breathe a word of it. I finally found my tongue.

"That is impossible, " I said, hearing the strangeness in my own voice.

"You must be mistaken. Phoebe could not be affected by me, she does not even know where I am. You are mistaken. You must be. "

"I pray to Our Saviour that we are, Publius, but I cannot find it in my soul to believe that she lives. " Alaric's voice was low and troubled. "There is too much evidence to the contrary, and it has been collected by two unimpeachable sources — myself and Tonius. "

"What... " I had to clear my throat before I could go on. "What is this... evidence? Tell me. "

Alaric told me without embellishment. Equus had left a letter with him for delivery to Phoebe on her return to Verulamium. The following day, one of Alaric's own congregation had made a confession that troubled the Bishop. The penitent admitted having accepted money from some strangers in return for information about a young woman. He had thought himself lucky at the time, because the woman was widely known to be no saint and the men would have found her anyway, red-haired and pretty as she was.

Then, weeks later, he had heard that the woman had been found dead, stabbed and mutilated, the day after he had sold the information. His conscience had troubled him ever since, and now he sought absolution. Alaric had absolved him, even though there was no sin on the man's part, but the Bishop knew that Phoebe was red-haired and pleasant to look at, and began to worry. He questioned the man closely and learned to his relief that the woman in question was not Phoebe. Nevertheless, he decided to visit Phoebe's old haunts and speak to anyone who had known her.

At the bath house where she worked, they told him they had not seen her in more than a month. Not since the evening of the Calends, the first day, of February. The toothless crone who owned the building where she had stayed told him only that Phoebe had disappeared — run off without paying her rent. The rooms she had occupied now housed someone else. Dissatisfied, and growing more alarmed, Alaric paid the old woman her delinquent rent. He assumed that Phoebe was too intelligent and responsible to have intentionally disappeared so casually, leaving no word of her whereabouts for her brother or her friends. He told himself he was being too suspicious, but he set his own people to find out what had happened in the case of the woman "sold" by his penitent. What he discovered was far from pleasant. Two women had been found dead on the morning in question, and both had been red-haired and good-looking. Both had disappeared the previous night, on the Calends of February, the same night that Phoebe, who answered the same description, had vanished. Immediate inquiries with the Roman military police had established that the second woman was not Phoebe, either. But apart from being able to tell him that the two — and now, with Phoebe's disappearance three — women had been abducted for reasons unknown, they had been able to tell him nothing more. That had been just over two weeks before he left Verulamium to come to the west.

At this point he stopped, appeared to hesitate, and then said that Tonius would continue the chronicle. I did not speak; I merely waited for Tonius. He was deep in thought, and I suspected that he was looking for a suitable starting point for his contribution. At last, he started with a question.

"Did Plautus tell you about the dinner he attended with Seneca?" I nodded and he continued. "Did he mention Seneca's outburst about you?"

"Yes. He also told me that Seneca turned the rough edge of his tongue on another of your guests, one who walked with a limp. "

"Scala. Yes, he did. Poor Scala started him off again. Seneca must have ranted and raved for more than an hour after the unfortunate man had departed in disgrace, unaware of what he had done to give offence. It was typical Claudius Seneca behaviour — drunken madness and nonsense. He insulted everybody, myself included, and sent his own cronies off in humiliation. And that left me. And him. " His face twisted. "A great honour I could have done without. "

"Well, " I said, "I presume you were well insulated. You must have been very drunk by that time. "

Tonius shook his head. "He was. I was not. I drank enough, but I think my fear of the man's potential for causing grief and chaos kept me sober. " I wondered what he was moving towards. "So?"

He twisted his face again, registering distaste and disgust. "Malice, " he said. "That is the only word I seem able to think of when that man crosses my mind. Malice. Aye, but worse than that, Publius. Malevolence. The man's malevolence is boundless. He is still actively hunting you. At least, he is hunting the man he perceives you to be. His wretched relative Nesca has had his bullies on the watch for crippled grey-beards ever since this happened. "

I jerked my head in a nod. "I know. "

"From what I have heard, for you know I never laid eyes on him before you did, he was physically quite remarkable before you destroyed his beauty. " I nodded an unnecessary assent, and he went on. "Well, he isn't any longer. He will never forgive you for that. The fact that he doesn't know who did it only makes it worse. "

I grunted. "He wasn't beautiful. Not really. He was warped even then, long before I met him. He may have thought he was beautiful, but he was far from it. "

"Very well, I'll accept that. He thought he was beautiful. But that's all that's necessary. For a man of his... tastes, physical beauty is all-important. You marred him, Varrus, permanently and incontrovertibly. If he ever finds you, he'll kill you. Unpleasantly. "

"I know. " It was getting late, and I stirred, feeling that I should be moving. "What has this to do with Phoebe?"

He shook his head in a way that conveyed extreme impatience. "I don't know. Perhaps I am just being a pessimist. But our noble Procurator let slip a reference in his cups that night to at least one woman who died under interrogation in the matter of a limping, grey-haired man. "

"Phoebe?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. As I said, he let the reference slip out and then covered it. It wasn't mentioned again. I knew nothing of Phoebe at that time, and I did not want to bring the matter up again openly. Nor did I want to arouse either his anger or his suspicion by attempting to question him subtly. I let the matter rest, but it worried me. As Military Governor, my job is difficult enough. I have no desire to become involved in the actions of our inestimable Procurator. Had I obtained any more information, I would have been forced to initiate inquiries, without knowing where to start or what to look for. "

Outraged, ' I glanced at Alaric. He was listening attentively, his face devoid of any emotion. My own emotions were more volatile.

"Damnation, Tonius, that's abominable! What did he say?"

"I didn't catch all of it. I had been drinking heavily myself, remember. I heard him muttering something about almost having had the whoreson. Had had his whore, but the bitch was stubborn. Died without saying a word. It was the mumbling of a drunken man I heard, Publius. By the time I had begun to hear what I was hearing, if you know what I mean, it was almost over. I thought about it for a few seconds and decided I didn't want to hear any more. But it stayed with me. I could not get it out of my head."

"I'm not surprised. Murder is against the Roman law, Legate. "

"Perhaps. But was he really talking of murder? I don't know that, Varrus. And even if I had known for certain, there was nothing much I could have done about it. My only informant would hardly have been likely to repeat his self-condemnation when-sober, would he?" I was seething with impatience. "Well? Was that all he said?" Tonius nodded. I made no effort to keep the anger out of my voice. "So what makes you think this has anything to do with Phoebe, in God's name? A drunken man's hint about some woman who died, and may have been deliberately killed, in a hunt for a crippled man. That doesn't say 'Phoebe'

to me!"

Tonius stood erect. "It does to me, Publius. Be serious. The crippled man we're talking about is you! And the woman was from Verulamium. That much I heard. I didn't think about Phoebe because I didn't know of her existence. It was only when Alaric told me of his own concerns for her that I made the connection. "

Though I was angry, it was not at Tonius, but at this situation. I knew it had to be coincidence. In my frustration, I rose to my feet and held my open palms towards the fire.

"Damn it, Tonius, nobody in Verulamium except Alaric knows who I am, let alone that I knew Phoebe! What you two are suggesting just isn't possible! There is no way, absolutely no... " but I stopped in mid sentence, and my flesh crawled with cold bumps as I saw a face in my mind — the face of the cutpurse in the crowd leaving the amphitheatre in Verulamium, the face of the man I had handed over to the army for execution in Alchester. He had been holding a bare blade in his hand, coming towards me. Someone had been robbed and had shouted, and I had looked and seen the man I supposed to be the thief. That had been coincidence. But there all coincidence ended. He had already singled me out. He had been watching me. And that meant he had seen Phoebe with me. He had died in Alchester, but he had been travelling with seven companions on the road, two of whom were still alive. One, or both of them, might have been with him in that crowd. Or he might have spoken to them about recognizing me for the first time that evening, when I was at the theatre with a woman. And he would have described the woman. My stomach heaved with sickness. That would have been all that was necessary. A recollection by one of the two surviving assassins that I had been seen in the company of a pretty woman with red hair. Verulamium was not a big town, and I had made no effort to be secretive while I was there with Phoebe. A hundred people could have remembered seeing us together, and any number of them might have recognized Phoebe. All of this flashed through my mind in an instant, and I knew beyond any doubt that Tonius and Alaric were right, and she was dead, and the burden of guilt crashed down and physically buckled my knees.

Alaric caught me before I fell against the brazier, and he and Tonius almost carried me between them back to my couch, where I sat like a man in a swoon for many minutes before they could get any response out of me. I have no recollection of any of that. I can remember only the realization that I had killed Phoebe with my lust. Had I not gone to see her on my way through Verulamium that day, she would still be alive. After that, I have only blankness in my memory until I became aware of Alaric sitting across from me. leaning forward and staring intently into my eyes, his face drawn with lines of worry.

Later, much later, I accepted the fact that my guilt was futile and unjustifiable, but that made the pain no easier to bear. I also accepted the fact that Claudius Caesarius Seneca and I were fated to the death. One of us would kill the other, and I was determined that I would survive the outcome.

That same night, I told Luceiia what had happened, and she mourned with me for the unfortunate young woman who had died simply because I had befriended her. In the endless time of a sleepless night, I decided to conceal my grief from the wedding guests and swore to mourn Phoebe later, when there would be time for mourning. I swore to avenge her death, and I fantasized about what I would do to Seneca when next I faced him.