The hallway was dirty and empty, with pornographic graffiti scratched everywhere. Some of it was anatomically impossible. Lupo’s offered women, boys, and apparently dwarves, when they could get them.
“Are you sure this is an inn?”
He noticed my disgust, and cackled with nerves. “Our customers like to take advantage of Lupo’s business, too.”
We arrived at the last door on the left. It faced the rear of the building, and was adjacent to a back stairway.
“Where does the stairway lead?”
“Outside, to the mews.” He avoided my eyes as he knocked on the door. He knew it would be empty.
“Did the-gentleman-request this particular room? All the others are empty.”
“Yes. Sir? Sir?” He was making a pretense of calling Maecenas. And lying.
I put my hand on the door. “Open it.”
He looked up at me, his eyes round and shiny and full of fear. He was terrified, and not just of me. He fished in his filthy tunic-it looked as though he’d slept in it for several days-and pulled out a ring of keys. Fumbling a bit, he fit one in the lock and opened the door.
I walked in, while he cringed on the threshold.
The room was bare. I checked the chest and found no sack, no bundle of belongings. The cot was rumpled, but neat. No sign of struggle, no mess. I looked at the floor. Pigeon-Chest memorized my movements as if he wanted to get the details right. No blood on any of the floorboards. Someone had done a thorough job of erasing Maecenas’ presence like so many words on a wax tablet.
I walked to the small, dirty window that overlooked the alley below. The glass was cheap, and I’d seen clearer panes made from cow horn. What light struggled through caught a tiny gold thing in one of the cracks of the floor. It was a triangle or point of some kind, maybe part of a fibula. I hadn’t recalled seeing one on Maecenas last night. I looked at it closely. The gold was high-quality, the original pin a trinket of a well-to-do man or woman. Or maybe a prize of someone not so lucky. I put the piece in my pouch.
“Where is he?”
I-I don’t-”
I advanced on Pigeon-Chest with a scowl. “The bastard owes me money. I sent my servant here to collect it last night. Where the hell is he?”
The innkeeper shrank against the wall. He was trying to figure out what he could tell me and still stay safe.
“He-he’s disappeared. No one’s seen him since yesterday.”
“No one?”
He shook his head in confirmation.
“Did anyone see him leave?”
“No. He must’ve gone in the middle of the night.”
I unbent a little. “Did he owe you money, too?”
His flat, shiny eyes got brighter, and he found he could talk again-business man to business man.
“No, he paid for several days in advance. Is-is it true that he was a freedman of-of-the Emperor’s? That he was marrying a native girl? That he’s here on some sort of s-secret business?”
I poked my head out the door and looked down the hall. No one in sight. The action made the impression I wanted.
“That’s what he said. Whether or not it was true-”
I left the thought dangling in mid-air. He took the bait.
“Oh! I see. So you loaned him money, thinking …”
“I loaned him money. That’s all you need to know.”
He retreated, hastily. “Of course, of course.” Puzzlement creased his bulbous brow. “But the girl, she came here last night.”
“Who?”
“The one he was supposed to marry.”
I forced myself to shrug. “So? It’s not like it takes much to impress a local. He probably paid a few sestertii and got himself a good breeder.”
The innkeeper nodded. I swallowed my disgust, and it was hard to keep it down. Then I pounced.
“How did you get taken in?”
He stuttered some more, and the lizard-lids came back over his eyes. “I-I forget who told me. He may’ve told me himself. Yes, he said so, when he paid for the room. Said ‘This money came all the way from the Palace’ and I said, ‘The Governor’s Palace’, and he laughed kind of nasty and said, ‘No, idiot, the Emperor’s Palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome’, or something like that. And he talked about the woman he was marrying.”
I didn’t want to hear what he’d said about Gwyna. Pigeon-Chest was hiding something, maybe something small, but it wasn’t coming up this morning. I turned abruptly and strode to the doorway.
“I need to talk to anyone who saw him last night. He may have mentioned something. I’m not about to let fifteen aurei slip out of my grasp.”
His eyes bulged. “Fifteen aurei? That’s more money than I’ve ever heard anybody here having-probably more than even Agricola owns!”
I pursed my lips and started walking back through the hall. “He saw a whore last night, didn’t he? I want to talk to her.”
He shrank, suddenly, frightened beyond what I could do. He was in front as we started down the stairs, and I could see the reason. At the foot of the stairs was Draco, with his arms folded, and towering over even him was what looked like a Cyclops.
Huge, craggy features jutted out like spines on a hedgehog. A thicket of black, wiry hair sprouted from the top of a gargantuan but pointy head, and a mass of scar tissue was all that remained of a left eye. An entire ox-hide clothed his huge, misshapen body. He carried no weapon. He was a weapon. A monster, created by the gods to make the strongest man piss on himself at the sight.
Fortunately, I’d seen worse. And, to the shock of Pigeon-Chest, the sound coming from the hole in Lupo’s face was laughter. He seemed to be joking with Draco. I shoved the innkeeper out of the way.
“Lupo, I presume? How do you do.” I grasped his hand, a courtesy I hadn’t extended to Pigeon-Chest.
His voice was surprisingly gentle. “You want something?”
“Yes. The bastard who was staying here last night left owing me a great deal of money. I’d like to talk to whichever girl serviced him.”
Draco stepped backward. He’d evidently forgotten what I told him about pretending to be mute. Now he placed himself between Pigeon-Chest and me.
Lupo thought for a minute. He wasn’t as slow as he pretended, but then neither were we. “Galla. He saw Galla last night.”
I laughed bitterly, took out three denarii, and placed them on the bar. “I should have known better. My slave told me the Syrian had ‘Stricta’. This should be enough to buy your whole operation. Now, let me see her.”
Lupo wasn’t used to tough talk. Draco stepped out from behind me now, his hand on his belt, his muscles tensed. He was smaller than Lupo-what wasn’t?-and much more agile. Lupo was grotesque, but no fool.
“Stricta. All right. You see Stricta.”
He lurched off in the direction behind the bar, and I wondered what sort of joke he could’ve told to make Draco laugh.
We left Pigeon-Chest behind. He scooped up the coins, but I didn’t think he’d try to dupe Lupo. Another figure came out from the kitchen, a gap-toothed man of middle-age-probably the wine-server. He huddled behind the bar with Pigeon-Chest. I glanced in the corner. Madoc was gone.
The rear cubicles were too small, dark and cramped for anything other than a three minute poke, but it looked as if the women were actually living in them. The graffiti was worse down here, and so was the stink. Bodies, bodily fluids and sour wine mixed in a heady aroma that made me almost dizzy with nausea. I guess the women got used to it. I guess they had to.
The front cubicles looked the smallest-more like pantries than rooms. I could hear some noises from one or two-mostly male gasps and groans, and an occasional dramatic pounding on the wall. A cheap and tawdry whorehouse, one of several in Londinium, and one of countless thousands across the Empire. Some better, some worse. Though I couldn’t imagine any much worse than Lupo’s. Even the life of a whore should be worth more than a flea-bitten straw mattress on a stone ledge, with only watered-down vinegar to dull the pain and two-inch roaches for a sympathetic ear.