“Stand back-there’s someone here for you.”
There was no answer from within, so he shrugged and pried up the block, grunting with the effort, still holding on to his gladius. He opened the door wide enough for me to fit through it, and I could barely glimpse a shadowy figure in the corner of a room so black it looked like a grave. The stench of piss and shit assaulted my nostrils. They hadn’t even given the poor bastard a slop bucket.
I walked in, letting my eyes and his adjust to the yellow-orange glare of the torch. The blackness swallowed it up, and I was glad for a stronger light than a lamp.
I heard a shuffle, and a man stumbled toward me. He was young, beneath the grime and the pain on his face. Young and handsome. I suppressed a momentary twinge of jealousy. He must wonder what the hell she saw in me, what with my unshaven chin and black eye and still-swollen cheek.
The guard was still in the doorway, trying to listen. I didn’t speak Latin.
“I’m Arcturus.”
“I know who you are. Go away.”
“I’ve gone through a lot for you. And not just for you.”
He glared at me through the light, and knew what I meant.
“Your friend nearly killed me.”
“I’m sorry he failed.”
“No, you’re not. You’re not a murderer. You’re an arrogant, spoiled young bastard, but you’re no killer.”
“How do you know?”
“You didn’t kill my freedman when you had a chance. And I know more than you think. Like it or not, I’m your only chance-and not a very good one-of saving your skin. They’ve got a quaesitor on hold, waiting to put you through it.”
“Let ‘em. I won’t talk.”
“You will when they fry your skin with a hot iron, or hold a knife up to your eye. They can keep you alive for a long time, Rhodri. This isn’t a game.”
“I never said it was.”
We were silent for a moment. “Look, the only way I can help you is if you tell me what you know. Someone is behind this. A Roman. All the Britons are suffering right now, because the chief of the vigiles is a bully and a moron, and Agricola’s afraid of a civil war. You’re an easy target-and you’re making it easier for them.”
He clenched his jaw, and still said nothing. I was getting exasperated.
“Maybe you like sitting in the dark in your own shit and piss, but I don’t.” I groped in the pouch of my tunic with one hand. The guard leaned forward, expecting me to pull out a ballista. Instead, my fingers clutched the anguinum, the little token Lugh had given me. I held it in my palm in front of Rhodri.
“Your friend the blacksmith gave this to me. He said you’d talk to me if you saw it.”
He was surprised. “Lugh gave you this?”
“Yes. After he tried to kill me.”
His mouth actually turned up a little at the corner. “He’s a hard man in a fight.”
“Yeah. But he won’t be in any more until his ribs heal.”
He studied me, more respect in his eyes than before.
“I want to hate you.”
“Feel free. Many do.”
“Then why are you trying to help me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
He screwed his face up tight. “Not because of-her?”
“I’d try to help you whether she was involved or not.”
He paused again, as if we were sitting on a bar stool or under a tree, not in a black cesspit. Finally, he spoke.
“I believe you. I don’t have to like you to accept help in a just cause.”
“No-as I said, I’m not particularly fond of you, either. So as long as we’ve got that clear, tell me what you know.”
He took a deep breath. Some air blew in from the crack in the door.
“How much do you know already?”
“I know why you did what you did, and I know you and Madoc must’ve followed the killers to the mithraeum and waited until Maecenas was reburied. Then you dug him up, and left him on top the temple.”
He nodded. “We were trying to find the money. I knew he had it-I saw it that night. And we left the body on the temple as an insult to the Romans.”
“Didn’t you think that the murderers would also be interested?”
“Madoc said so. He said it might draw them out. I didn’t care, I just wanted to sully that filthy temple.”
Rash, brash and over-confident. I was beginning to like him despite myself.
“What happened when you ran upstairs, after you started the quarrel?”
“That was all planned. Gwyna-” He paused, and looked at me, and swallowed his jealousy. “Gywna was supposed to drug the Syrian, and I was going to come a couple of hours later, stage a fight and run up and steal the money. Not hurt him, you understand. Madoc thought most of it up, along with her. But when I got to the landing, Maecenas was lying face down on the floor in his own doorway. Dead.”
“How did you know?”
“I walked over and felt his neck. There was a blood stain on his back, and a rip in his robe. I figured he’d been stabbed, and then I panicked because I could be caught there and blamed.”
“Was he holding anything in his hand? Any papers?”
Rhodri shook his head. “Nothing that I can remember.”
“So then you ran?”
“I started to. But then I remembered the money. So I tried to be quiet and stepped over him and walked into his room. But there was a man already in there, hiding.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “What did he look like?”
“A Roman soldier. He had a green scarf with a gold pin on. Dark, thin, and nervous.”
“Not smooth-faced, pleasant-looking?”
“No. But when I saw him, I got scared and tried to run out, and that’s when the other one showed up, the smooth-faced one.”
“Where was he?”
“He must’ve come up a different way, or from another room, and was standing looking at Maecenas. He tried to block me, but I just ran like hell out the back and down the stairway into the alley. The other one, the dark one, couldn’t catch me.”
“Then what happened?”
“There was a wagon in the back, standing close to the rear door, with a man on horseback, holding another horse. He was muffled up, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell he was on the small side, and his horse’s gear was decked out with silver bosses. Rich man’s stuff.”
“Did he see you?”
“I think so. I ran again, around the corner to where Madoc was waiting for me. He’d seen the whole thing, and told me that the skinny one had gone upstairs, and then we watched while the smooth-faced one and the skinny one both hauled Maecenas down and into the wagon. The small man on the horse spoke a few words to the dark one, and the smooth one grabbed at his reins and made him angry, it looked like. Then we heard a pig squeal. Madoc said it was from the cart-he’d heard it earlier.”
“How long had they been there?”
“They were there when Madoc got to the waiting place, so before we started the fight or right at the same time.”
I grunted. “What did you do then?”
“We followed, at a safe distance. We knew about the temple. It’s built near an old shrine of ours, a well. The dark one opened the earth floor and put the body on a blanket and dragged it down. Maecenas lost a slipper, and the small man picked it up and put it in his cloak. Then the other one took the piglet-it was trussed up in the back-and slit its throat over a jar, and let it drip for a bit. Then he went down the hole with the jar, and came back up with it empty, and took the wagon and went in the direction of the fort. The other man went back towards town.”
“They forgot about the money.”
“Yes, but Madoc and I didn’t. We stayed out there in the dark, and saw the Romans and your freedman and you and waited until it was safe again.”
“Would you be able to recognize the dark man again if you saw him?”
“Probably. I can’t really forget that night. I’ve tried.”