Kelli Stanley - Nox Dormienda

“I figured I’d better be quiet until we talked, and I was pretty sure Avitus would bring you up there if he recognized me. Then I saw those two lumbering giants. They couldn’t find piss in the Cloaca Maxima . I thought up a story about being robbed, stuck my purse in the crook of that tree, and let myself be caught.”

I rubbed my eyes and grinned at Bilicho. “You always manage to surprise me.”

His mouth twisted into a misshapen smile. “The day I stop, kick me out of the house. I’ll be no good to you. Are you going to Agricola?”

I frowned. “Maybe. I’d like to make sure he’s all right-we haven’t spoken since before Saturnalia.”

Bilicho yawned like a shaggy hippopotamus. “Sleep first, then decide.”

I sank on the couch and yawned in return, then saw what was on the table and flung myself back up. Bilicho checked to see if I’d sat on Draco’s gladius .

We pulled the basket chairs around the table and moved in closer. I opened the fragment of papyrus and anchored each of the ends down with a lamp. The paper had been torn diagonally. From its size, and the quality of the papyrus, it looked like a formal letter, the kind that usually arrives with military orders or other command messages. A dollop of red wax remained at the top edge.

“His name is the only full word we have-here at the top,” I muttered. “This looks like ‘ leg ’ afterward-probably l egatus . Hmm. That would declare him an official emissary. Here’s the next line-”

“- erio Domitiani . By the order of Domitian!”

“Good. That fits. The rest of the missing lines would describe his office and list Domitian’s titles. I can just make out a few more letters here, right in the tear. Hmm. ‘- Olae ’?” I looked up. “It could be ‘Agricolae’. That means the message was to Agricola.”

“Or about Agricola.”

“Maybe.” I carefully rolled the papyrus back up and turned toward the calf-skin pouch. It was sleek and expensive, beautifully tanned, and sewn with expensive gold thread. I weighed it in my hands.

“Heavy. We’ll find more than brass or bronze in here.”

I pulled open the leather strings, and emptied the contents on the table. Bilicho gasped. At least thirty freshly-minted gold aurei poured out, mixed in with about twenty silver denarii . The coins looked like the new type we’d heard about. Domitian had increased the amount of gold without increasing the face value, and the more valuable money almost never made its way up to Britannia. I stared at it. It didn’t get here by swimming.

The murder motive couldn’t have been robbery-at least of the monetary kind. But what was the Syrian doing with so much? Even a woman of Gwyna’s beauty wouldn’t fetch a price like this, even if she came from one of the scion families of Rome. Even if any were left.

The metal was a little too bright for my eyes. Next to it was a ring and a small pair of ivory dice. I picked up the ring. It was a signet, gold, thick, ostentatious. Malachite is hard to carve, and the initials were not elegant. I could make out the “V M” intertwined with a grape vine. I shook the pouch again, but it was empty.

“Nobody could spend this stuff. At least not on the street. And not without changing it.”

I put everything back in the pouch. Bilicho added a slow-burning log to the fire, while I walked into the chilly corridor and took what seemed like a long walk to my bedroom. I opened a locked chest. Only I had the key to it, and I kept it around my neck, next to my mother’s medallion. I nestled the pouch underneath some souvenirs of Delphi. Avitus would have to pull more strings than Orpheus if he wanted to search my house.

I stumbled and almost dropped the lamp on the way back to the dining room. Bilicho was sitting in the chair, nodding off. We were useless. I nudged him gently.

“Go on to bed. I’m staying here.”

“Why?”

“I need to think before I fall asleep. It’s bigger and warmer in here than my bedroom.”

Bilicho shrugged. “It’s your stiff back.” He stood up, stretched, popped a joint in his shoulder, and made his way out the door.

“You sure you’ll be all right?”

“There’s the mantle if I get cold later, and I’ll probably crawl into my own bed soon enough. Get some sleep.”

I heard him mumble in agreement as he walked down the hallway. I yawned again, and after wadding up one of my cloaks as a pillow, burrowed into the couch with a still-damp mantle as a cover. Tucking my hands beneath my head, I stared at the ceiling. Vibius Maecenas was dead. Murdered and mutilated. Agricola’s temple-a symbol of the Roman Army-desecrated. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t help. All I could think about was the smell of blonde hair on a summer’s day.

Rosy-fingered Dawn never visited Britannia in the winter time. It made her neither rosy nor excited to get up in the morning. All I could see was grey. I’d been thinking about yesterday for nearly an hour and a half.

In front of me was the governor’s palace. Four of the governor’s bodyguard waited in front of the heavily fortified door. One glanced at me as I stood on the river bank, belching out clouds of smoke in the frigid air.

The palace sold Rome like a fishwife sold mackerel: there was nothing subtle about it. It was big, obnoxious, and covered in reasons why you should get down on your hands and knees and kiss the ground because Julius Caesar had decided to take a piss across the Oceanus Britannicus . Green and white marble in front, black columns, painted statues-you coughed up the money before you remembered you didn’t like the taste of fish.

It was unfinished, but it didn’t matter. Even the guards were decoration-the palace was the real threat. Agricola had softened it with the generosity of other buildings: the baths, temples, the arena, law courts-everywhere you looked, you saw the benevolent smile of your governor, Britannia’s paterfamilias . And now, all of a sudden, everyone wanted to be Roman-at least the upper classes. The lower classes preferred to stay invisible.

I shifted my weight. The governor was a brilliant man. For the last five years, the sunshine of Rome had shone down on little grey Britannia, and peace was just around the corner. The south was officially subdued except for a stubborn few, who clung to the past like men on a life raft. They’d kill a soldier here, burn down a building there. But the distrust and resentment they fed on was lurking right beneath the surface. Even in Londinium.

Agricola didn’t worry about it. Tribal memory was as stubborn as a rock, and he’d worn it down to a pebble or two. Time would do the rest. He wanted the north; he’d get it this summer. He’d build a line of forts, and keep the south safely Roman.

He was a man with much to lose.

I turned back. The palace looked the same as it always did. The guards were alert but bored, the threat and the promise of Rome still intact. I would see the governor-but not now. Better to wait for Avitus.

I was a man with much to lose, too.

* * * * *

Roosters were crowing all over the city by the time I got home. Venutius made some warm oat porridge for a change, and dug up a few dried plums and bread rolls to go with it. Unfortunately, the porridge wasn’t the simple mixture it pretended to be. I smelled it, and my stomach shriveled in horror. Goat milk and garum . There is such a thing as too much creativity in a cook.

I was gnawing on a stale wheat bun when Bilicho came in, still looking sleepy.

“Did you see Agricola?” he asked, and sat down, reaching for a plum.

“Beware of the porridge this morning. No-I decided against it. I expect Avitus will arrange a meeting with the governor, and I don’t want to crowd him.”