Kelli Stanley - The Curse-Maker

She sat beside me. “It’s late. I think we should go to sleep.”

My muscles uncoiled and stretched, agreeing with her. I overruled them. “You go. I should check on Draco.”

She stood up. “Are you sure? Can’t it wait until-”

I held my hand out to her, and she pretended to pull me up. “Until I can eat a leisurely breakfast, and take a leisurely stroll to survey the estate, and stop by the flower beds to gather some petals, and-”

“Go on, Ardur.” She held her face up for me to kiss, and I started with it and ended elsewhere. She smoothed my hair off my forehead and traced a finger down my cheek.

“Don’t be too long,” she whispered. And walked out of the room like an invitation.

Several of the servants were guarding the door. They saluted me as I walked by. Arcturus. General of slaves and breaker of curses. A man who was tired of running, and tired of wondering, and just plain goddamn tired.

The hired thugs were sleeping. They snored and smacked, stretching their legs in the cramped room, curled on the floor as if it were a featherbed. A gift, the last sleep. Draco was still awake, though there were three slaves standing watch.

“Anything?”

He shook his head. “They’re from out of town. Near Iscalis. Some worked the mine, some he just picked up.”

“Did they give a description?”

“Small man, Roman, educated. Not from Britannia. That’s all they knew.” He looked embarrassed, as if he should’ve found out where their second cousins were born.

“Thanks, Draco. One thing-ask if they heard about our visit to the mine. If they did, make sure they make a statement of that fact to the soldiers.”

His eyebrows wrinkled in puzzlement. “Yes-but-”

“Someone’s trying to set me up-like I thought they would.”

Bewilderment deepened the lines in his forehead and made him look sinister in the flickering orange light. I patted him on the arm. “Don’t worry, Draco. You’ve been magnificent. There’s no one I’d rather have with me in a fight.”

His smile lit the room better than the lamp, and I turned to leave. “Send someone to wake me when the soldiers arrive.”

I stood outside the villa, looking at the violet-black sky. The air was fresh and clean, like the magical water. I should break the pipes, flood the town, let the waters wash away the evil.

The faint whirr of bat wings came to rest in a tree somewhere. I felt old. I liked my wounds clean and my crooks obvious. I liked murderers who looked like monsters, and decay and corruption to stink as it oozed. But nothing in this yellow-gray town was what it seemed, nothing was straight, nothing was clear. Except for the water.

I held out a palm to catch the soft rain. It’s why I was here, why everyone was here; it was the alpha and omega of this place. The waters of Sulis. I had to go back to the beginning. Back to Bibax.

* * *

She was already asleep and didn’t wake up when Lineus came to get me before dawn. The legionaries wanted to know exactly what happened, and they wanted to hear it from someone other than a recent freedman.

I yawned my way through the story, making it sound less dramatic. I told them about the leg wound in case it made identification easier, though from the condition of their uniforms, these men weren’t exactly vigiles caliber. Small detachment, filling time before retirement. Nothing much happens around here, they told me. Especially if you don’t look.

They took the mercenaries away. The bright spot for them was that maybe the soldiers would be too lazy and out of shape to torture them properly. One of them remembered my visit. His friend-the one who hit me-quit for parts unknown. The soldiers listened, writing it all down on a bark book.

The legionaries hauled them into a wagon, and they cried and pleaded, the leather thongs cutting into their wrists until they bled. Desperation is always pathetic. But the same men would’ve been happy to kill me, loot the villa, and rape my wife. They were lucky. They’d get what they deserved. So few people do.

I went back to bed, the squeaking sound of the wagon wheels revolving in my head. I kissed Gwyna, and she turned to nestle against me, still asleep.

It was well past the first hour when we woke. We yawned at each other while we dressed, then stumbled into the triclinium for breakfast. The cook was all smiles this morning. He even boiled chicken eggs and made the oats just the way I like them. We were enjoying an illusion of normality when Lineus appeared.

I groaned, and Gwyna’s egg froze on its way to her mouth. “Who is it? Philo? Papirius? Why can’t they just let me-”

“I beg your pardon, Dominus, but the visitor has never been here before. He needs your help.”

I looked at Gwyna. “That’s what they all say. And before you can-”

“He’s a little boy, sir.”

The only little boy I knew was Gywna’s brother, but he was safely in Londinium with Bilicho. She’d reached over to grip my arm. Her face was pale. “Show him in, Lineus-immediately.”

I took her hand. “It’s not Hefin. It can’t be.”

A ragged boy about eleven years old was pushed into the room by one of the slaves. He was staring at the ceiling with his mouth open, his feet filthy. The side of his face was red and swollen.

“Aeron?”

My voice made him jump. He started to back out of the room into the ample stomach of Lineus, who propelled him forward again. I stood up. So did Gwyna.

“Aeron-let me take a look at you.”

His eyes wavered from one to the other of us, and he swallowed. Then they fell on the food and lit up with the fever of the hungry. Gwyna brushed his hair from his forehead. He flinched, then looked at her with a shy smile, and went back to gazing at the food.

She said: “Sit down, Aeron. Eat breakfast first, and then tell Arcturus what happened.”

She coaxed him to a chair, and while he ate I gently felt along his cheekbone. He’d been hit. Hit hard.

He wasn’t shy about devouring eggs, and we called Priscus for more. He couldn’t chew so well on the left side. Gwyna watched him, a fond look on her face. We met each other’s eyes over his head.

I went to get my tools and a basin of water from the kitchen. I ran a sponge down his cheek, pulling his hair to the side. His ear had been clubbed. He was quiet.

“This might hurt, son. I’ve got to check for broken bones.”

Gwyna gave him an encouraging smile and held his hands tightly while I felt all over the left side of his face. Nothing broken.

I took out some valerian root. Not as fresh as I’d like, but it would have to do. I cut off a section and wrapped it up in a chamomile leaf and gave it to him.

“This is medicine to help with the pain. You cut this root into five slices-about this thick. Then take it and this leaf, and put it in some wine-not too much-mixed with hot water. Then drink it before bed. Can you remember that?”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now tell me who hit you.”

He flinched again. “That’s not really why I came.”

“It’s reason enough. Who did this to you?”

He looked at the floor. It wasn’t in the boy to whine or complain, and he didn’t want to seem less tough than he was. I knew the type.

“Does it have something to do with what I asked you? About keeping your eyes open around the cubicles?”

He looked up and his eyes answered for him.

Gwyna leaned forward, her voice tender but urgent. “Won’t you tell us, Aeron? It will help Ardur.”

He bit his lip, then blurted it out. “It was her. The big woman, the ugly one with the daughter.”

Could only be Materna. She’d be ugly to a blind man. “Why did she hit you?”