Kelli Stanley - The Curse-Maker

“I know.” She shivered. “Go-go see him, Ardur. And-and if you could-could tell me what I should-”

I took her by the shoulders.

“Nothing, goddamn it-you’re doing nothing. Just … just help me get dressed.”

She grabbed one of my comfortably dirty tunics and helped me get it on so that the cloth didn’t touch my aching head. I sat on the bed while she dug for a mantle and laced some sandals on my feet.

I reached a hand out to touch her face. “Where is he?”

She stood up, giving me a look I remembered from childhood. “I’m coming with you. You’re injured, and-and I have to see it-see it through.”

I wouldn’t win the argument, so I shut my mouth and followed her through the house. The slaves were huddled in the triclinium.

I said in an undertone: “Where’s Lineus?”

She whispered: “Outside.”

Lineus was clinging to the wall of the house like a man in a leaky raft. Stallions in the garden, wives missing all night, the head of the house gone on sudden trips and returning at odd hours with donkeys-nothing made him blink. Until now. He stared at me, eyes wide and unseeing.

“Lineus. Listen to me. I found an illegal mining operation yesterday. This man was part of it.” I thought explaining might help. If only someone would explain it to me.

“Sir-sir-”

“Gwyna will take you inside. Wait with the others in the triclinium. Try to calm them down, all right?”

He swallowed, moving his mouth like an asphyxiated fish. I looked at Gwyna. “Would you mind…”

She was staring at Faro’s body, tore herself away. “Come along, Lineus.” She said to me in an undertone, “I’ll be right back. I’ll-I’ll help you.”

As soon as the door was closed I bent down, unsteady on my feet, crouching with my knees bent so that no blood would rush to my head. Pushed myself to hurry, to shove the pain aside.

His face was still bruised where I hit it. Purple, swollen, skin tight, protruding pink and gray tongue. Not so handsome anymore.

Strangled. Like Bibax, only quicker and cleaner. I moved his head out of the way to check the neck. Stiffness starting to settle in the lower jaw. I tried to close the popping eyes, staring dully into the world beyond. He’d finally arrived. I wondered if he recognized it.

Eyes wouldn’t close. They needed coins to weigh them down. Appropriate for Faro. I shut his jaw, leaving enough room for a fly to escape. Not the nastiest thing that ever came out of his mouth.

His hair was plastered against his temples and matted with fluid. I risked getting dizzy again and bent closer. Flinched backward on reflex, almost falling over. There were nail holes in his skull.

Something had been attached and gently pounded in-not hard enough to crack any bone, not deep enough to drain a lot of brain. The holes hadn’t bled much, so it was done after he was strangled.

I looked away for a moment. I’d seen worse things that I couldn’t remember at the moment. Lying a few feet away from him was a tin mask, larger than life size. I picked it up. Two nails in the back.

I rocked a little, bracing myself on my knees, and stood up to examine it further. Ritual, of course, not theatrical-actors don’t like wearing nails. Neither do priests or necromancers, for that matter. Maybe it was normally attached to some sort of wooden frame.

I flicked at the tiny bits of skin and coagulated blood that still adhered to the metal. The door creaked, and I jumped. Draco was hovering behind Gwyna.

“How’s Lineus?”

“Better.”

“Good.”

Gwyna’s eyes were drawn back toward Faro’s body. “Have you…”

“I’m in the middle of it. He was strangled, about the same time I came home last night, or a little earlier. Then this mask was tamped on his head. Probably right before he was brought here. Draco? Can you help me?”

I crouched back down on the ground and set the mask aside, moving like an old man. Draco squatted next to me. Gwyna stood on the doorstep, watching us.

Faro was wearing traveling clothes. A heavy cape with a hood, sturdy breeches under a tunic. His arms and legs were splayed, awkward in death. Looked like he’d been dropped in a hurry.

“Flip him over, Draco.”

With an easy motion, Draco turned the body over and lowered it noiselessly to the ground. The back of the cape was very dirty. Bits of grass and horse manure clung to it, and the hem was caked in damp, fresh earth.

“Go through his tunic. See if you can find anything.”

Draco looked a little scared, but his big hands moved with surprising dexterity. He found a worn leather pouch tied to Faro’s belt.

“Go on. Untie it and give it to me. Keep looking, particularly for papers. Check his hands, too. Don’t worry-they’re not stiff yet.”

The pouch was heavy. All coins. I poured a few into my palm. A hell of a lot of money for a traveling necromancer. Draco came up empty, and I double-checked Faro’s hands. Nothing. Not even any hair. Whoever killed him was quick and professional.

I stood up again. I wouldn’t be able to do that trick too many more times today.

“Stay here. I don’t want any more tracks on the path than necessary.” Draco stood next to Gwyna, rubbing his hands down his tunic over and over.

The wide path up to the villa was still soft and damp. Footsteps. More footsteps. Not too large, not too small, nothing unique. All I knew was that he wasn’t seven feet tall, four hundred pounds, or walking with a limp.

Small cart tracks ran about halfway up the hill, near some blackthorn trees. The wheels were uncooperative, as were the horse hooves. No missing shoe nails, no crack in the wheel, mended so that it made a distinct impression in the soft dirt. So much for goddamn footsteps and horse tracks.

The pile of horse manure showed they stayed a while. My homecoming spoiled their plans, and they had to wait until the lights were off. Careful, patient murderers.

I was out of breath when I reached Gwyna and Draco, and braced myself on the door frame. Exhaustion and concussion. No time for it. I turned back to look at the body. Faro had all the time in the world.

“He was brought here last night in a cart. They waited around because the lamps were lit.”

Gwyna’s hand grasped my arm. “Should we-should we bury him?”

Everything between my ears hurt like hell, but it worked well enough for me to know what was next.

“No. That’s what they want. They expect us to hide it. To act guilty. Draco, get the litter. We’re taking Faro the Great back where he belongs.”

* * *

Lineus gave us the details before we left. He opened the door just before dawn to check the stable slaves. At first he thought it was a drunk. Then he moved closer and realized it was something worse. The mask was still on the face, and through a combination of curiosity and morbid compulsion, Lineus pulled it off. Then he threw up. One of the other slaves woke Gwyna.

She wrapped Faro in a sheet. I let her do it, but I didn’t like the look on her face, a kind of tenderness mixed with revulsion. As if there had been something between them.

It was toward the end of the second hour when our little parade entered the temple precinct. Wind from the west, storm on the way. Women were streaming into the baths; the tents and stalls creaked and flapped, some empty. The spring bubbled, a smell of thunder mixing with the tang of the water, the blessed, blessed water. Bathers to baths, hopeless to health, maggots to flesh.

All the actors were in place today, but someone else would have to play the necromancer.

I parked the litter bearers in between the spring and the temple. Found a stray priest and told him to get Papirius. We waited a few moments, Gwyna staring at the waters, remembering the last time she looked at them.