David Wishart - Old Bones

That felt eerie. Eerie as hell.

'Shit,' I whispered. Finally I remembered to close my mouth.

Arruns was standing beside the couch, perfectly at ease like he belonged there. He laid his hand on the man's head.

'Meet Lars Tarquin,' he said.

I swallowed, and the spittle tasted harsh. I could've murdered a cup of neat Setinian. There was probably wine in one of those jars, but even if it'd been drinkable I wouldn't've touched it for a Parthian satrapy.

'Family secret, right?' I said.

'From the beginning. He died at Cumae, a guest of the Greek Aristodemus. That was after Porsenna captured Rome and broke his promise to bring him back.'

Despite my other preoccupations I frowned. 'Hang on, pal. Porsenna never captured Rome. His army withdrew.'

'History's written by the winners, Corvinus. Forget Horatius and the bridge, that was a lie, it never happened. Lars Porsenna took Rome and set up a puppet government. It was only after the Latins and Cumaean Greeks joined together and killed his son Arruns at Aricia that your ancestor Publicola and his shower got to keep what they'd stolen. Forget the story of the rape, too. Lucretia never existed, or if she did Sextus Tarquin never touched her.'

Uh-oh. Did I detect a smidgin of fanaticism here? Sure, the guy might be right – I've always distrusted these stories of stiff-lipped squeaky-clean heroes and heroines renouncing evil and winning out against incredible odds – but what did it matter after five hundred years? Besides, I've made it a rule never to mix with religion or politics. Sex, sure, no problem, but not these two.

I backpedalled.

'So if he died in Cumae why's he buried here?'

'The family owned all the land round Vetuliscum. My property's all that's left, the bit we hung on to. He didn't want to be buried an exile, among Greeks, and Rome was obviously impossible. At the same time, Caere had rejected him. Clusium and the other cities of the League, too.' Arruns's hand still lay on the statue's head; it was almost a caress. 'So he chose to come home without anyone knowing, after he was dead. No big tomb, no ceremonies, no records. Only the family. He's been here ever since.'

'In that case how?' I began; which was as far as I got before the world erupted.

The bang came from directly overhead, and it nearly lifted me out of my skin. Both of us looked up towards the opening in the ceiling. A moment later water began pouring through it like someone had sawn through an aqueduct. My sandals were covered before I could even yell.

Shit. The rains. The storm had broken directly overhead. And of course with the capstone removed the tomb was acting like the outlet to Navius's drain. The difference being that there was no outlet hole…

I went for the rope and started to climb. The water slammed down in a solid mass, filling my eyes and ears and nostrils so that I couldn't see or hear, or even breathe. It was like trying to scale a waterfall. I felt my hands slipping. I opened my mouth to shout, only to have that filled too. I choked and let go of the rope altogether…

And there were shoulders under my feet, and someone gripped my ankles and pushed up. I reached through the water and grabbed blindly for anything I could get. My outstretched fingers met stone, scrabbled across it and hooked themselves over an edge.

I gripped it, pulled myself up and through the gap. I was still under water but the shaft was much wider than the hole, and the current was less. I stood. The shaft was full to waist depth and water was pouring in from above as fast as it flowed out, but at least there was air. I took in several long, shuddering breaths…

Arruns.

Sweet Jupiter; he was trapped! The rate water was flowing down into the tomb the place would be flooded to the ceiling in minutes. Sure, I could put the capstone on and it might block the base of the shaft, but the shaft itself would still fill up: Navius had done a good job, and most of the rain that fell on the hillslope above us was being channelled into it. The ground wouldn't absorb much either: after the baking it'd had over the summer months it was bone dry, and water ran off it like oil dropped on a hot skillet.

I took another deep breath and went under again with my eyes open. This time it was easier, because the current was with me. I found the hole and shoved my head and shoulders through, leaning sideways to where the jet thinned out and there was air.

I strained back against the pressure from above and shook the blindness out of my eyes. The place was a quarter full already. It looked like the blunt end of a shipwreck.

Arruns was standing next to the king's coffin, holding both the lamps, looking up at me.

'Grab the rope!' I yelled. 'I'll pull you out!'

He shook his head. 'No.'

'You stupid bugger! If you stay down here any longer you'll drown! Now grab the fucking rope!'

Another shake of the head. 'I'm staying here, Corvinus. Put on the capstone. At least that way we might save the tomb.'

'You can put the bloody capstone on yourself from up here! Arruns, for Jupiter's sake..!'

He smiled. 'That's why I'm doing this. The god sent the rain. He's punished me himself. It's a fair solution. I'd have to die anyway and I may as well do it here. Now put on the capstone and leave me in peace.'

Shit; that was all I needed: the bastard had gone religious on me. I gripped the rope and turned so my legs could clear the edge of the hole…

'No! Wait!'

I stopped and turned back. Arruns had put the lamps down beside the king's left elbow.

'That's more like it,' I said. 'Now come and get the fucking rope while I still have the strength to pull.'

'In a moment. I've something to do first.'

I should've realised there was something wrong with his voice, but I didn't. Not that it would've mattered because I couldn't've done anything anyway. He reached into his tunic, brought out a knife, put the point against his throat and shoved.

Blood spurted. He was dead before he hit the water.

I looked down, numbed. The king was still smiling. The party still went on forever in the lamplight. There was nothing I could do; not now. Nothing.

I hauled myself up out of the hole and put back the capstone, like he'd told me to.

It took me what felt like an age to climb back into the real world. The worst of the storm was over and the black clouds were moving away westwards, but water was still pouring like a river from the higher ground. With its outlet blocked the shaft was almost half full already, and there was more to come. Not that it mattered now, of course. I walked down through the terraces to the road and set off in the direction of home, dripping all the way, feeling shattered.

So that was that.

Well, maybe it was for the best. Arruns had been right: he'd had to die in any case, and at least he'd got to choose his own time and place. A propos of which, I wondered about the knife. He'd been carrying it inside his tunic, not stuck through his belt, so he'd wanted to keep it hidden. The obvious explanation was that the plan – the original plan, anyway – had been to kill me before or after he'd got me down the tomb, but I had my doubts about that. My gut feeling was that the poor bastard had had enough of killing already and was glad himself that it was over; he'd come close enough to confessing unprompted that day I'd picked him up on the Caere road. Also, if he'd wanted to add me to his tally he could've done it easy when I first hit the flagstones because at that point I was in no condition to worry about a simple, human thing like a knife in the ribs.

Last and not least, of course, far from trying to make a hole in me when I wasn't expecting it the guy had actually saved my life. That was the real bummer. Arruns might be a murderer four times over but I owed him, and one thing the old aristocratic code drums into you like it or not is that you pay your debts. The moral ones, anyway.