After a while, she nestled under my arm. I knew the peace, the leisure of it would end, and I knew once it did I might be sorry. But I didn’t care.
“How did you know about me?”
“The women gossip. They wonder why you’re not married.”
“I’m not the only bachelor in Londinium.”
She reached a hand up to feel the growth of beard on my chin. “But you’re the best-looking. You should learn to trust women again.”
I looked down at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone knows you had a torrid love affair when you were young and in Rome, and then Agricola’s daughter fell in love with you but they married her off to someone more ambitious, and then you just stopped looking.”
I didn’t know whether to be outraged or amused. “What else do they know?”
She ticked off the points of my biography with her fingers.
“Your mother was killed in the War by Boudicca’s army, and your Roman father was already dead-stop it-and you were adopted by an important man-Nero’s procurator, I think. And then you studied-Ardur, no, I mean it-and decided to become a medicus, which most people find strange-will you stop?-but I don’t. And everyone knows you’ve been solving problems for a long time, too. They say you’ve saved innocent men and helped to punish the guilty. They say the gods favor you.”
I had my doubts. Sometimes I wished the goddamned innocent would save themselves. I reluctantly removed my arm and sat upright. I held her hands.
“We need to talk.”
She nodded. The spell was over. It was crawling back inside of us, where we’d try to forget about it but wouldn’t be able to. We had to be two strangers again.
She squeezed my hands and then let go.
“My-my father doesn’t know I saw Maecenas last night.”
“I didn’t think so. Don’t worry-I didn’t mention it.”
“He’ll find out eventually.” She rose from the bed, and walked to the small window. The light was getting darker. Her next question surprised me.
“How did he die?” The words blurted out as if she hadn’t meant to ask.
I couldn’t lie to her. But I also couldn’t tell her everything. So I told her what I told her father. “Somebody slit his throat. He was found in the mithraeum.”
Her quick blue eyes flashed. With-what? Relief?
“Thank you. That’s what we’d heard this morning.”
“ ‘We’? Who told you?”
The pointed question surprised her.
“Rhodri.” The dim light illuminated her body, wrapped in a cloth much too rough for its delicacy. Her face told me that she knew that I knew who Rhodri was. But I had to finish the game.
“Who is Rhodri?”
She turned and smiled down at me. It was her father’s smile.
“A man who desperately wants to marry me. A native. A trouble-maker.” There were other questions more pressing, but what the hell.
“And you? Do you want to marry him?”
She fidgeted, turned her back on me, and straightened a wax tablet that Hefin had been writing on.
“I-did. At one time.”
“And now?”
“No.” It was a simple word, just one, and it was whispered. But my lungs were working again, and this time I didn’t kiss her.
“Where is he now?”
I could hear the armor go back on. She wasn’t going to tell me everything, either.
“I don’t know. In hiding, I suppose.” She responded to my raised eyebrows.
“I know he’s a suspect. And for good reasons, which will soon be on everyone’s lips, if they aren’t already. He was here, last night. He threatened to kill the Syrian. And then he followed me-to the inn.”
She arched her back slightly, and rubbed her neck.
“Rhodri is innocent, I’m sure of it. I begged him not to go, and I didn’t see him follow me, or I would have stopped him. Somehow. He must’ve gone in after I’d left for home. He’s not a bad man. He talks more than he acts.”
“He acted last night; he started a fight at Lupo’s before he ran up to Maecenas’ room.”
She nodded with impatience. “Yes, I know. He told me. But he’s like a child. His anger flares and burns out and then it’s over. He wouldn’t-couldn’t-have killed the Syrian. Besides, he wouldn’t know where the mithraeum is or how to get into it.”
But he knew that Maecenas’ throat was cut. And he knew he was found there. That meant one of the soldiers talked, or somebody-possibly Rhodri himself-had been around last night to see it. Or it meant Rhodri was guilty. Either way, he was a man to see.
I wondered how many people knew the Syrian was dead. Madoc did, and Rhodri not only knew, but told Gwyna where the body was found and how-apparently-he’d been killed. There were too many people who knew too many things, and I wasn’t one of them.
“You still haven’t told me why you were on your way to see Maecenas. Without your father’s knowledge. I can guess why Rhodri wanted to kill him.”
She turned her back on me. A flat irony crept into her voice. She didn’t sound like the same woman from a few minutes before.
“It’s difficult to explain how hard poverty is-particularly on my father. He’s been depending on the-the marriage fee.” Her body shook a little, but the words were steady. I waited.
“Maecenas sent me a note yesterday. He arrived earlier than we expected, on the night before, from Dubris. Obviously, I hadn’t known he was already in Londinium when we spoke. He sent word to my father through Caelius. My father was-delaying the process as long as possible, and didn’t give me the message until I returned from my visit to you.”
Somehow, this didn’t seem like Urien. He struck me as a man who would do almost anything for money-and pride.
“After I left your house, I came home. The message was that the Syrian wanted to meet me at the inn. To make sure he was getting his money’s worth.” I could taste her bitterness.
“He also said that he’d release some of the marriage fee early, if he-if he-if I would sleep with him last night.”
I remembered the brief sense of elation I felt when I realized who the corpse was. Now I wouldn’t have to feel bad about it.
“Rhodri came to see me. My father told him what happened. Of course, he would never allow me to debase myself.”
He’d sold her to the bastard to begin with. I wasn’t sure Urien would’ve stuck at formalities. She turned to face me, and caught at the doubt in my eyes.
“He-would-never-accept that arrangement”, she insisted stubbornly. “But we have creditors. We owe money. I can’t sell my clothes, because they’re the illusion that feeds us. When people don’t think you’re in trouble, they’re more willing to help.”
An indisputable truth. Homo sine pecunia mortis imago. Maecenas was now a man without money, and he was most definitely the image of death.
“And so, unknown to your father, you left the house to go to Lupo’s and see Maecenas. You told Rhodri not to follow, and not to interfere-” She nodded. “And you-you-”
“I didn’t sleep with him.” Her smile was painful. “That had been my plan. But my courage failed me. I failed.” Exhausted, she sank on the bed again, holding her head in her hands.
I fought the urge to hold her. I fought the relief filling my chest like air to a drowning man. The words hurt, but I still said them. “Even if you had-there’s no guarantee he would’ve given you the money.”
She looked at my face but didn’t see it. Her eyes were muted, and somewhere else.
“There’s no time left. Within the week, my father will be called to court. Maecenas was our only hope, and now he’s dead.”
She spoke softly, flatly. I wondered at the difference between yesterday’s impassioned speech and the detached, regretful woman in front of me. She said she’d kill him if he touched her. But she’d apparently still planned on marrying him.
“Gwyna, you said yesterday that you’d kill the man before he-”
“I know what I said.” Her eyes snapped, angry and suddenly awake. “I meant it. But my father needs money. I’m all he has, the only one who can help him. And I must think of Hefin, too! I’d do anything-anything!-to save my family.”