Kelli Stanley - The Curse-Maker

Men stood around, aimless, unsettled. Priests scurried back and forth like ants without a trail. I ran faster, my feet hitting the pavement hard and kicking up the yellow dust into miniature whirwinds.

I was looking for Gwyna. I couldn’t find her.

My breath was coming out ragged now. I couldn’t feel my heart beating, or the pain when a sharp rock bruised my foot. All I could think about was Gwyna, and why I let her walk into a room where someone wanted her dead.

“Gwyna! Gwyna!”

My voice echoed and re-echoed, bouncing off the wall of the baths and the temple, and every godforsaken roof in a godforsaken town. She couldn’t-she couldn’t-

“Ardur!”

Breath left my lungs. I was staring at my wife, who was in front of me, pale, nervous, excited-and very, very, very alive.

I held her. Something happened at the baths. I didn’t give a good goddamn.

She said: “Are you all right?” Maybe I was fading in and out, one of Faro’s ghosts. I tried to smile.

“Now. What’s going on?”

She pulled me toward the side of the entrance. No one was going in. “Ardur-they’re looking for you.”

“Who’s looking for me?”

“The priests. Octavio. I’m glad I found you before they did. Materna…”

Her eyes flickered. I waited for it.

“Materna is unconscious. I think she’s dying. You need to-need to see what you can do.”

I stared at her. “What about Philo?”

“He’s examining her right now.”

She was looking at something in the distance, something I couldn’t see. I had to ask it. I remembered the Syrian.

“Gwyna-Gwyna, you-”

She squeezed my arm. “No, Ardur. If I had to-yes. For you-for-for our baby, when it comes. I’m not sorry she’s suffering, but I-I trust the goddess. And you.” Her eyes were huge, the blue hot enough to burn.

A voice hit me between the shoulders.

“Arcturus? We’ve been looking everywhere-” Octavio’s hands were sweaty, and he rubbed them up, down, up, down over his tunic.

I murmured to Gwyna: “Stay here and wait for me.”

The balneator grabbed my arm and tried to pull me toward the entrance. “Materna’s had an attack of some kind. Philo’s with her, but he wants your help. I know you two weren’t friendly-”

“She tortured my wife and accused me of murder, Octavio. But maybe I’m just antisocial.”

He tugged my arm again, and I refused to move.

“She won’t want me-”

“She won’t know, Arcturus. She’s almost dead. You don’t have much time.” He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, let the sweat make a puddle on the pavement. “Just go, see what Philo wants. We can’t let anyone in until we get her out, and he won’t move her until he sees you.”

I shrugged, then followed him past the eyes of the curious, who huddled near the entrance walls and made book on why they were closed.

Sulpicia was sitting on a bench just outside the door. Vitellius held her close. I nodded, and he plucked at me, agitated.

“Arcturus-give Sulpicia something for her nerves, will you? She hasn’t stopped shaking.”

Didn’t sound like the Sulpicia every man in Aquae Sulis knew. Her face burned a bright red beneath the makeup. A mask, and not one of the happy ones. Her entire body was shaking and twitching hard enough to make her blurry. She wasn’t watching me. She wasn’t watching anybody.

I put up a hand to her forehead. It was on fire. “Sulpicia-can you talk?”

Her eyes roved over mine, huge and black. I bent her head back and forced open her mouth. Octavio watched me, impatient, knowing enough to keep his own mouth shut.

No saliva. Her fingers fluttered near her face like baby sparrows, making an intricate pattern of nothing. She fell forward suddenly, hands to stomach.

I shoved her head back against the wall. Vitellius yelped. No goddamn time, and not much hope.

I jammed my fingers down her throat and counted to five. Tried again. This time the reflex kicked in. She started retching, couldn’t feel it. I forced her head down between her knees. C’mon, Sulpicia. Your stomach muscles are tight enough.

It came up a gush, and Vitellius jumped back. Measure of his devotion. I repeated the process until her stomach was empty and my hands and tunic were stained with rust-colored vomit.

The boyfriend was squealing. I checked her pulse. Slowing. Normal color coming back. She probably wouldn’t die today.

His squeal got louder. “She drank poison. Give her simple broth and wine with a lot of water.” A fly buzzed dangerously close to his open mouth. “Go. Get her out of here.”

She was starting to moan a little. At least she’d had practice. He made her lean on him, and they half fell, half dragged their way to the square. The gaggle of onlookers waddled out of their way.

Octavio’s face corroded around the edges like a rusty pipe. “You know, Arcturus-you may have just killed Materna. Philo needed you right away. Sulpicia was probably just drunk or someth-”

“Either you’re a fraud or an idiot. If Materna’s unconscious, she’s gone. You said so yourself. I can’t raise the dead. That was Faro’s job, remember?”

I took a step toward him. His fingers curled into tight little red balls at his sides.

“Sulpicia was poisoned-probably by the same stuff that’s killing Materna-and I don’t make decisions about who lives and dies around here. Do you?”

We glared at each other, his chest puffing with exertion, the sweat still dripping on the pavement. Materna was dying. They were already lining up the evidence.

The baths were loud in desertion, like an empty theater. I washed my hands in the overflow pipe while Octavio breathed on my elbow. He belonged here, like mildew, and was just as hard to get rid of.

He motioned with his head toward the apodyterium. Materna was on the floor, her body oozing over the stone as if it were already dead. Maybe it always was.

Philo was bent over her mouth, listening to her breathe. “Arcturus-thank God you’re here. I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing. I think she’s been poisoned. It’s not aconitum. ”

His handsome face was flushed and worried. I looked down at the woman who wanted to kill my wife and me.

“How long has she been unconscious?”

“About half an hour, I think. They sent for me as soon as she collapsed.”

“Did you make her vomit?”

“I tried. She couldn’t do it. She’s in very deep.”

I stared at Materna’s pulpy body, her massive chest climbing like a weary traveler, then descending slowly, waiting for the trip to end. Her body was heavy and fat, but not with food or wine. She fed off a diet of power, spiced with the occasional life.

A small breeze from the exercise yard nudged me in the back, and I knelt down next to Philo. Pulled open her eyes. The pupils swallowed everything. Humanity had been devoured a long time ago. The darkness was still hungry, and it was waiting for Materna.

Her lips were dry, pressed in a skeleton’s smile against yellow teeth. Skin the color of parchment, and as hot as a blister full of pus.

I looked up at Philo. “She’s not going to make it.”

A sob swelled from the corner. Secunda was slumped on the stone bench, blending in with the rock. Philo stood up, his knees creaking. He wavered there, not sure if he should try to comfort Secunda or wait for a more specific diagnosis.

Octavio crawled back into the room, wanting to make sure we knew he was still in charge. He flicked a glance at Philo and let the weight of his authority drop on me.

“What is it?”

I waited to hear what Philo would say. He looked at me with a dog’s eyes, and when I stared blandly back, my eyebrows raised, he made it sound like a suggestion.