Steven Saylor - A Mist of Prophecies

"Cassandra-" I said.

"Shut up and drink!" yelled Caelius. In a flash, as if he'd dropped a mask, his face changed completely. One moment he was the charming, unflappable orator, and the next, a vicious, desperate fugitive easily capable of murder or of crimes much worse. I had been afraid of Milo; it was Caelius I should have feared more.

The daggers pressed harder against my flesh. Caelius and Milo stepped closer.

"You don't want to die by daggers," growled Milo. "Think of it! The metal slicing into your flesh, pulling out, cutting into you again. The blood spurting out of you. The cold seeping into your limbs. The long, agonizing wait to die. Drink, you fool!"

He gripped my wrist and forced me to raise the cup. Wine sloshed against my lips, but I kept my mouth shut.

"Never mind the daggers. Grab his arms!" shouted Milo, taking the cup from me. The men behind me twisted my arms behind my back. Caelius pinched my jaw and forced it open. Wine poured into my mouth and down my throat. The taste was bitter. I swallowed to keep from sucking it into my lungs.

"All of it!" whispered Milo. "Every drop!" I coughed and sputtered. Wine trickled over my chin and cheeks, but most of it went into my belly. He poured until the cup was empty.

Caelius and Milo stepped back. Their henchmen released me. I staggered forward, feeling dizzy. I dropped to my knees. Caelius and Milo spun above me, going in and out of focus each time I blinked. The room became dark, as if night fell.

Their voices echoed strangely and seemed to come from a great distance. "We should have put hemlock in the wine instead of that other stuff," said Milo. "We should lop his head off, here and now."

"No!" said Caelius. "I gave her my word. I promised, and you agreed-"

"A promise made to a witch!"

"Call her that if you want, since you're not worthy to utter her name! I gave her my word, and my word still means something, Milo. Does yours?"

"Don't bait me, Caelius."

"Then don't speak of killing him!"

"It was your crazy idea to try to win him over."

"For a moment, I thought I had. The fool! No matter. By the time he wakes…"

Caelius's voice faded away. The floor rushed up to my face. The room turned black.

As if in a dream, I saw Cassandra standing on a distant horizon. Her lips formed words I could not hear. She stretched out her arms, beckoning to me even as she receded farther and farther beyond my grasp, until she vanished altogether.

I opened my eyes.

My head pounded. My body was stiff. The least movement caused me to groan. My mouth had a strange, unpleasant taste. My bladder was uncomfortably full. My stomach growled.

I lay on the hard, bare floor. I stirred and managed to sit upright. Judging from the angle of the sunlight that entered the window, no time at all had passed since I fell to the floor. Indeed, the light seemed to indicate that time had regressed by an hour or two. I blinked in befuddlement.

One of the chairs had been pushed against the wall. The other lay on its side on the floor. The cupboard doors stood open. From where I sat, I could see that its shelves had been emptied.

I stared at the pocket vase on the wall. The rose drooped. Half its petals had fallen to the floor below.

I had been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours.

I managed to stand. For a moment I thought I was all right, then I felt light-headed. I staggered and clutched the cupboard to stay upright. Oily spots swam before my eyes. The dizziness slowly passed.

I turned toward the doorway and gave a start. I was not alone in the room.

A man was lying face down on the floor just inside the doorway, before the curtain that was closed for privacy. He was a large fellow, with massive limbs and a neck like a tree trunk. From the way he was lying, with his neck unnaturally bent, I was almost certain he was dead.

Even so, I approached him cautiously, taking unsteady steps. I reached down and lifted his head by a handful of hair. I heard a sickening crack. His neck was broken.

I looked at his face. He wasn't one of the men who had held me while Caelius and Milo forced the drugged wine down my throat.

Who was he? Who had killed him and left me alive?

I stepped over the body and pushed aside the curtain. The hallway was empty. I made my way to the head of the stairs and carefully descended, taking unsteady steps. I reached the bottom, negotiated the hallway, and came to the curtain that hung over Cassandra's doorway.

I whispered her name. My voice was hoarse and feeble. I spoke her name again, louder. There was no answer.

I pushed aside the curtain. The room was completely bare. Not even the pallet remained.

I stood for a long time, feeling nothing, waiting for my head to clear. Suddenly I was desperately thirsty. I moved to the doorway. As I was stepping through, my foot struck something concealed amid the folds of the curtain. I stopped to pick it up. It was Cassandra's leather biting stick.

Had she left in great haste? Or had someone else cleared out the room? Cassandra had so few possessions, it seemed hardly possible she could have forgotten such a personal object. If she had over looked it somehow, surely she would have missed it and come back for it.

Where was Cassandra?

I left the building and walked down the street, shielding my eyes against the sunshine. I felt that sense of unreality that comes from having slept a very long time and waking at an odd hour of the day. I walked down the Street of Copper Pots, wincing at the clanging of metal against metal. I found a public toilet and emptied my bladder. I found a public fountain and splashed my face, then drank until my thirst was quenched. I was famished, but that could wait.

I took the shortest route toward my house, cutting across the Forum. Amid the formal squares and ornate temples, my sense of unreality only deepened. I seemed to be walking in a dream.

"Gordianus!"

I turned around and confronted one-armed Canininus. The rest of the chin-waggers stood in a group nearby. One by one they looked up from some heated discussion to stare at me.

"So you are alive," said Canininus, "even if you look half-dead."

Mild-mannered Manlius stepped closer, followed by the others. "Gordianus! Your family is worried sick about you. Your son-in-law and that crazy Massilian have been scouring the city for you. They say you went off somewhere on your own yesterday and never showed up for dinner. They were here not an hour ago, along with those two little mischief makers, asking if anyone's seen you. Where have you been?"

Volcatius, the old Pompeian, flashed a lecherous grin. "I'll bet I can guess. You know the old Etruscan proverb: when a man's gone missing, it's because of a miss. Am I right, Gordianus? Was she worth the trouble you'll face when you get back home?" He tittered.

"Meanwhile, you've missed the best gossip in ages," said Canininus. "Milo and Caelius were both spotted right here in the city, together, only this morning."

"It's a fact!" said Manlius. "Someone saw them heading from the Subura toward the Capena Gate with an entourage of very rough-looking fellows-some of Milo's notorious gladiators, most likely. They were posing as master and slave-"

"Caelius playing the master, of course, since he's the one with the brains," said Canininus. "As soon as they were outside the gate, they mounted horses that were waiting for them and sped like lightning toward the south. What do you make of that?"

I shrugged. "Another wild rumor?" I managed to say. Despite the water I had drunk, my mouth was as dry as chalk.

"Never mind Caelius and Milo," said Volcatius. "Gordianus never answered my question. Who was she, Gordianus? Some cheap whore in the Subura? Or one of those great ladies you occasionally call upon in your line of work? She must have put you through quite a marathon if you're just now staggering home."