Kelli Stanley - Nox Dormienda

“I’ll get my tools.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think they’ll do any good.”

We took a roundabout way to the city. Not much was awake. We passed a combination inn and brothel, and got caught in the light from the ground floor. A scream-whether of joy, pain, anger, or just wine-made me jump. Avitus pulled me into the shadows, while a drunk wavered through the door. He looked like a tradesman. He stumbled, and fell against the wall, singing an obscene ditty.

“Galla’s hole is nice and fat,

‘Cause on a Legionnaire she sat.

For an as on me she’ll sit-

But I get the hole that’s full of shit!”

He was starting to scratch some graffiti on the wall, when a woman’s voice screamed again, and a chamber pot flew out the upper story window, barely missing him. Amid a subsequent stream of curses, Avitus tugged at my arm, and we crept up the muddy alley behind the brothel, heading northwest.

We threaded our way through the knot-like cluster of the marketplace. Apartments gave way to Roman houses, houses to British round huts, and soon any roofs at all were few and spread wide apart.

We finally arrived at the top of a low hill, and Avitus stopped. As far as I could guess, we were somewhere near the fort. Glancing to his left and right, the beneficarius walked three paces ahead and stomped on the earth three times. He stepped back, expectantly. A sliver of light from what had been solid ground suddenly pierced the night. I watched in awe as a hand pushed open a sod-covered door, and the earth yawned open, illuminated with the yellow-orange light of torches.

The sudden glare blinded me. Avitus whispered something, and when my vision cleared was beckoning me towards the door in the earth, holding a torch in his hand. I peered in, and saw rough steps carved out of rock and earth, leading downward.

“We must break a sacred rule tonight, and allow an uninitiated man into the temple. The reasons will be clear shortly. But pledge me, Favonianus, that you won’t speak of our god. To anyone.”

He was tense enough. “I swear by Dius Fidius. Now where the hell am I?”

He didn’t answer and started to climb. The steps were formed from compacted dirt mixed with rock, and were uneven and treacherous. The moist, black soil absorbed the dim light of Avitus’ torch. I barely made out the flicker of more lights at the bottom, some seven or eight steps lower.

When I managed to scramble down the dirt ladder-it was more ladder than staircase-I was in a man-made cave. Stone panels cut with strange carvings of animals and birds dug into the walls, and columns of rock braced a timber ceiling, helping to support the massive weight of earth above. A small group of men clustered around a marble statue in an apse. It was a finely carved portrait of a man in a Phrygian cap. He was slitting the throat of a bull. I was in a mithraeum.

Rumor was that Pompey brought it over from the East. Everyone knew it was popular with the Legions, but that was all they knew. Mithras liked his secrets, and Domitian didn’t like Mithras. The Emperor didn’t get along with other gods.

The figure on the right came into focus. Lit by the torches of two legionaries stood Bilicho, his hands tied with rope, his eyes blindfolded.

First relief, then surprise, then anger set in. Avitus knew Bilicho by sight. And he’d kept his mouth shut, hoping to cage a crumb or two of information while we stumbled over each other in the dark. The beneficarius would have to look elsewhere for a meal.

“Why are you holding my freedman here?”

He didn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed. “We found him outside, nosing around. And he won’t tell us why. Not yet.”

We stared at one another for about ten seconds, and then I smiled and turned to go.

“Good night, Avitus. Send him home when you’re done.”

He looked a little panicked. “We didn’t bring you here just to see him.”

I paused, a foot on their dirt ladder. I turned to look at him.

“Then quit scratching your balls and get to the goddamn point.”

One of the sentries looked shocked. It wasn’t the hour for military etiquette.

Avitus pinched his lips together and made a brusque movement with his head to follow him. After a few steps I stopped.

“Let him go, Avitus.”

He was striding ahead, but glared back at Bilicho and then me, and didn’t argue. “Undo his hands. But he’d better talk.”

One of the soldiers bent down and cut Bilicho’s binding with a dagger. He rubbed his chaffed wrists, and grimaced.

Avitus, impatient, motioned me forward. “Mind the pit,” he growled.

I glanced to the left. A deep hole, just the size for burial, was dug out of the raw dirt and filled with rocks. Only the quivering light of Avitus’ torch lit the small anteroom in front of us. I could barely make out a bigger-than-usual altar shape with something large and shapeless on top.

The lines scoring Avitus’ face deepened. “Tomorrow, the eighth day before the Kalends of Ianuarius, is the birthday of our god. I’m an initiate of the Sixth Level, and it’s my duty to prepare the temple. A few hours ago, I came in here to begin. This is what I found.”

He stood back, but shone the torch directly over the altar. There, trussed like a calf for sacrifice, was a fat, middle-aged man, his eyes rolled upward, a cloth tied around his mouth. His throat was slit in imitation of Mithras’ slaying of the bull.

The man was dead-that much was obvious. His throat was slashed almost to the spinal chord. Avitus blanched, and turned away when I bent the nearly severed head backward to study the depth of the wound. Any sharp, solid blade could have done it, but to saw through the rolls of fat in the man’s neck required strength.

A substantial amount of blood had poured over the altar, adding a grisly touch of color to the stone. Some of it had coagulated into pools, while more had just dripped down the side. The blood worried me. There was too much of it, and in the wrong places.

“Has anyone moved the corpse? And do you usually hold some sort of blood rite on this altar?”

Avitus was debating how much I needed to know.

“No one moved or touched anything. I posted some sentries, and they discovered your man prowling around outside when I was on my way to you. He wouldn’t talk, so we brought him in here.” He looked up. “I know your methods. I told the men not to remove this … this pollution.” Avitus looked like he might be sick in a moment.

“And … my other question?”

“No.” He croaked it harshly. “Sometimes … blood … but not here. Not ever.”

I nodded. Relief made him unbend a little. “You understand why I came to you? We can’t risk this getting out. The men are already restless, and they’ll blame the natives. There’ll be trouble for the governor.”

“You’re not usually so worried over what happens with the Brits, Avitus.”

His eyes dug to the back of my skull. “I’m not. They’re your concern. Agricola’s mine.”

“He’s mine, too. I’m his doctor, remember?”

“Look, Favonianus. We’ve had our differences. But we both want what’s best for the general, and I need your help. Serenus can’t keep his mouth shut, and you know it.”

The vigiles ’ surgeon sported the bedside manner of an embalmer and the discretion of a circus tout. If he examined the body, the bookmakers could lay odds on the dead man’s last meal. From the looks of him, I’d put a sestertius on the honeyed dormice.

I looked at Avitus. Triumph glinted from the corners of his mouth.

“And then there’s the problem of your assistant.”

The beneficarius could make my life difficult if he wanted, at least until I could get to Agricola and beg him to have Bilicho released. But he needed my knowledge, and he couldn’t afford to be too nasty.