Kelli Stanley - The Curse-Maker

But this was more than the bankruptcy of dreams. I was looking for curses, the cursed and the curser, the cursed man, a homo maledictus. A human being, full of desperation and hope, greed and desire, love and hate. Above all, love and hate.

No, Calpurnius, may the earth rest lightly upon you, in your foolishness and your greed. You were wrong. And you paid for it.

The wind blew harder, and dry leaves once more tumbled down the path into town. They would blow past the temple, where the face of the goddess gazed down from the pediment and waited for the final cleansing to begin.

It would be difficult. I needed a confession. A lot of the story was still guesswork. But I was a good storyteller.

I felt the tree trunk again, my fingers tracing the dry, harsh ridges. Time for another town meeting.

* * *

The stone was golden now, bouncing off the orange torchlight. Flickers fell on the water, looking like fires on the sea. The gift of the goddess was patient. It lapped against the sides of the pools, the rhythm of forever.

Grattius hunched in a corner. He’d lost weight, strictly from nerves. His eyes roamed, and his legs twitched at every shuffling footstep.

His matching duovir, Secundus, drooped against a wall. We were standing near the first healing pool, next to the room overlooking the spring. Moonlight splayed shadows on the floor, dancing and twisting with the torchlight. Secundus stood with his hands in his battered toga, staring at nothing. His daughter stared at me.

Papirius’s eyes flickered over the scene, lingering on no one, while the garnet robe he was wearing drank the light the way Prunella drank everything else. She was sitting on a stool her husband brought out for her. He stood in Papirius’s shadow, as he always did.

Sestius couldn’t quite figure out how he got there. His eyebrows formed a permanent tattoo of surprise against his white skin.

Vitellius stood with an arm around Sulpicia, who sat on another stool. She’d insisted on coming. Her eyes were a little dimmer, and the smile even lazier, and I had no doubt what she’d do as soon as she felt better. Drusius stood on her other side, an awkward third but maybe not so awkward, judging from what Sulpicia was smiling at.

Philo was looking at me, his face gray and suddenly old. Ligur and Draco stood between the rooms, closing off the circle.

It took all day, several meetings, and a lot of explanation-some real, some imagined-to set it up. I hoped it would work. I disliked the melodrama; the assembled cast of players was too Aeschylean, too deus ex machina. It wasn’t my style. But Aquae Sulis liked its theatricals.

“Not so long ago-less than nine days, in fact-I rode into this town and expected to find a quiet health resort. What I found was a dead man. Murdered, strangled, and propped in the spring.”

Grattius shuddered. No one else moved.

“You all played a part in why it happened, why other crimes happened before and after. Along with other people who can’t be here tonight-at least not physically.”

A small gust blew through the window. Prunella stifled a whimper.

“There was Calpurnius-junior priest, chief drain cleaner, and all-around greedy bastard. Poisoned with aconitum, if you remember-and even if you don’t. Of course, anybody with a little money and the right smile can buy aconitum outside this window. But you live here. You know the secrets of the marketplace. They’re about as secret as the graffiti in the public latrine.”

Octavio stepped forward, his eyes like two bright coals. “Can you get on with this? You ask us to come in the middle of the night-”

“There are a lot of dead people in this story. I figured we should talk at a time when they could hear us. They might say something useful.”

He mumbled something under his breath. Shrank into his tunic, shuffled closer to his wife.

“Where was I? Oh, yes-Faro. We could’ve used Faro Magnus tonight, but he only performs for Pluto these days.”

Secunda sputtered, and her father put a hand on her arm.

“He was strangled-like Bibax-but not by a self-styled ‘Ultor.’ Though somebody hated him enough to nail a mask into his skull. That brings me to Materna. Hate always does. It killed her, finally, master instead of servant.”

Secundus stared at me, said nothing. His daughter held her arms across her chest and looked away.

“In between I was attacked, my wife was humiliated-shamed and threatened-I was accused of murder, set up with so-called evidence, and finally … finally I became a target, too.”

“Gwyna-is she all right? Is she not coming?” Philo spoke softly, as he always did when repeating my wife’s name.

“Doesn’t feel up to it. She’s a little sick of Aquae Sulis. That’s the problem. It’s a health spa, a resort town. Only instead of feeling better you fall down and die.”

I looked around, holding their eyes when I could. “You see, there were other murders. A young man who fought a boundary line. An old woman with a profligate nephew. An old man with a short leash on a younger wife.”

Sulpicia turned white and shook off Vitellius’s hand. Sestius was trembling and leaned against the wall to support himself.

“Maybe the most tragic one-the one that seemed to start it all-was a boy. After he was killed-cursed, by Materna, for allegedly stealing a bath robe-the mine-the mine that would put Aquae Sulis on every map, the mine that would make everyone rich and everyone happy, give everyone what they wanted as long as they promised not to look-the mine found a ghost. Well, actually it didn’t find a ghost. It made one.”

The spring gurgled and lapped in the cold stillness. Their breaths made little puffs of smoke.

“The story begins with Bibax. He had a gift-the gift of memory. He remembered things, especially if they could make him money. He sniffed out the sickly odor of health spas, traveling from health resort to health resort, a funeral procession of murder for hire and blackmail right behind him.”

Another puff of wind blew in from the spring, making one of the torches sputter and spit. Prunella gasped, and Octavio put a hand on her shoulder.

“In Aquae Sulis, Bibax met somebody he remembered. Somebody he pushed and threatened, somebody who could help him. Curse-writers are cheaper than the whores down the street from your temple, Papirius-but Bibax was expensive. He’d give you what you wanted, what you dreamed about. Best of all, you could blame it on the goddess.”

Sestius crumbled to the floor. No one helped him up. The groups drew together in little clusters.

“So the murders started. And around the same time, a mine syndicate formed. Crime follows crime like flies follow shit. I happen to know the former procurator of Britannia, the man who awards mine contracts, and he was the biggest pile of shit of them all.

“You see, a lead mine turned into a silver mine, and when the vein was found, the miner wasn’t. He became the ghost. The syndicate wanted to make sure Rome wouldn’t hold her hand out and ask for more, and they needed a place to dump the lead and hide the silver and wash it until it was good and clean. They chose Aquae Sulis.

“They planted a figurehead on the council. That would be you, Grattius. Yet their real representive would stay behind the scenes, directing the drama. That would be Materna.”

Secundus was chewing something, his eyes glossy, not really looking ahead. His daughter’s face was red and sullen.

“Everybody agreed to play blind. The lead was dumped over by the other spring, and the curse-writers picked it clean like so many vultures. The silver passed through hands and workshops, and some of it fell into your pockets. The syndicate promised to build a temple, for you, Philo”-he nodded, his face pale-“and build a bath, for you, Papirius.”