*
Orbilio opened his eyes, and found himself in a room that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. He closed them again, conscious of a throbbing in his head and a terrible ache in his side. Where was he? He remembered walking down his own street when Angelina confronted hi m. Recalled only too well the knife in her hand. After that, though, he must have passed out. He forced his eyelids apart, and realized that what he was seeing were his own walls and ceiling, but from a totally different angle. He was lying in the guest room where he’d left Deva, and it was at the back of his mind that it was a good place to recover. She’d want for nothing in this house and also, he decided, his taste in decor was better than he’d given himself credit for.
But there was something he had to do, wasn’t there? Something urgent? Struggling to sit up, a burning pain splintered his body, tore it in pieces and scattered them to the four winds. He fell back, panting. Sweat poured from his forehead.
‘I could have given you something to dull it,’ the herbalist said, applying a soothing lavender compress to his temples, ‘but it would have knocked you out cold. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t allow that.’
Overriding the lavender was a smell that Orbilio recognized from his days in the army. A mixture of mouldy bread, opobalsam, turpentine and vinegar. The unmistakable smell of dressed wounds. Gingerly he prodded the wadding around his waist. It brought him out in a fresh sweat.
‘You were lucky,’ the herbalist said, replacing the compress. ‘If your pixie had stabbed you on your right side, she’d have punctured your liver.’
Lucky, Orbilio thought, was a relative term.
‘What circumstances?’ he asked.
‘Hm.’ The herbalist dried his hands on a towel. Propped a pillow under Marcus’s head. ‘You know I told you that by burning the house down, your pixie was destroying the fantasy? Well, it occurred to me after you left-’
‘Yes, I know. The fantasy was me.’
‘Precisely. Which is why I came running after you, and just as well that I did.’ The herbalist replaced the stopper on a small onyx bottle. ‘Just as I was prising the knife out of her hand, a legionary happened to pass by. She’s in jail.’
‘And you told me you weren’t a hero.’
‘I must admit I surprised myself,’ the herbalist said. ‘But when it comes to saving the world, I think I’ll stick to my potions.’
‘And Deva?’
‘Still alternating between shakes and shivers, but I moved her to your steward’s room, because you needed this bed more.’
‘Bring her back,’ Marcus rasped, swinging his legs off the couch. ‘I’m getting up anyway. There’s something urgent I have to do.’
‘Yes.’ The herbalist smoothed his receding red hair. ‘I’m afraid there is.’
‘We’re back to those circumstances again,’ Marcus said, as another explosion of pain ripped him to shreds. ‘The reason you couldn’t-’ (not didn’t) ‘-give me a sedative.’
‘I’m sorry to put you through this, Marcus, but a note came while you were unconscious.’ Exhausted hands picked up a scroll of parchment from the table. ‘Since your steward said it was connected with the rapist, I took the liberty of opening it. It’s from a young woman called Claudia, and on it is written the name of the beast who tried to destroy my Deva.’
‘Just the name?’
‘Just the name,’ the herbalist nodded.
‘She always was one for economizing,’ Orbilio said, but his smile turned into a grimace as a fireball tore through his stomach. ‘I’ll have to borrow your cloak,’ he told the physician. The porter’s was covered with blood.
‘Shall I come with you?’ the herbalist asked.
‘No.’ This was for him and him alone.
‘But, Marcus,’ he called after him, waving the parchment. ‘Don’t you want to know who it is?’
‘I already do,’ Orbilio said thickly.
It was Dymas.
*
Squirming in the arms of her attackers under the cover of the dray cart, Claudia experienced the unmistakable stirrings of panic. These were professionals, but who? Butico? No, he wouldn’t risk that. Slave traders, then? Wrong time of year. Slave ships operate when the seas are fully open, they need as many escape routes as they can. And in any case they don’t snatch women from Rome when there are coasts all round with unprotected villages to raid. Anyway, this was a sophisticated operation which had been planned in advance. They’d followed Claudia from the house. Deliberately blocked Pomegranate Lane, knowing that she would be forced to cut down the adjacent Pepper Alley, which in turn had been turned into a trap. Men had been stationed in readiness to take care of her bodyguard. Pedestrians had been kept out of the alley by some ruse which, being Saturnalia, wouldn’t faze them.
The flutterings of panic grew stronger. Her limbs started to quake. She was snatching air in great quivering gulps.
It had to be ransom. Maybe another ploy by the Wine Merchants’ Guild to force her hand? Say to the authorities, look: women need men to look after them and protect them, because how can you trust a woman with business, when you can’t trust her to look after herself? But the Guild already believed they’d driven her out by ensnaring her in Butico’s felonious hands- As the wheels clacked over the cobbles, Claudia heard a faint animal whimper. It took her a moment to realize that the sound came from her. Out, out, she had to get out. With one furious kick, she brought her heel back on the shin of the bear who was holding her. Yelping, he loosened his grip. She pulled the sack from her head with one hand, pushed at the oilskin with the other, saw people, lots of people, laughing and drinking and having fun in the streets.
‘Help,’ she called, but they didn’t hear her. ‘Hel-’
She never got time to finish the word. A cudgel caught her square on the side of her head. Somewhere in the distance, as though down a long tunnel, she heard the herald call the first hour. What a way to start Saturnalia Eve.
Thirty-Four
It was all so obvious with hindsight, Orbilio thought.
With his strength ebbing, he had been forced to take a litter and now he cursed the stupidity that caused its perilously slow progress as the bearers forged their way through the jaunty throng. Dammit, he should have predicted Angelina’s violent outburst. Just as he should have understood that Dymas was the Halcyon Rapist. Tomorrow was the biggest day of most people’s year. It would start with the Great Sacrifice, followed by the public feast and concluding with Games, dancing and wine flowing out of the fountains, and people were happy. For a few treasured days, they could put their problems aside and Orbilio had never felt more alone, more isolated, from the community.
Around him, a sea of jovial faces exchanged pleasantries in a score of incomprehensible tongues, the chill in the air nothing to them, as they wished goodwill and happiness to all men. On his cushions, the bonhomie grated. Perhaps it was the wound in his side straining the herbalist’s stitches, but somehow the festive atmosphere highlighted his own shortcomings. Drew attention to his failure as an instrument of the law. His head pounded and his eyes could barely focus. An innocent man had been executed. Girls had been dragged off the streets and brutalized. And all because of him.
His mi nd ranged back over the case. Firstly, how information through street contacts had led to Dymas reporting that he had a suspect. But why should he have questioned the honour of his own people? If you can’t trust the Security Police, hell, who can you trust? Realistically, how could he have predicted that, when Dymas shouted out that he’d found the mask beneath the suspect’s bed, it had been planted by the investigator himself?
No, no, he couldn’t allow hi m self to get off that lightly. True, that evidence alone might not have convinced him. The suspect, a loner, had protested his innocence and he had owed it to the man to check the facts, but then three of the victims identified him outright as their attacker. Surely all three couldn’t be wrong? Lying back on the cushions as his litter crawled its agonizing snail’s pace through the streets, sweat streamed down Orbilio’s face, and not from the pain which was wracking his side.