A tall man was making his way to the front. Almost exactly my height, handsome, distinguished. Maybe fifteen years older. The throng made way for him, some grabbing at him as though he were the featured gladiator. He exuded warmth and charisma. I didn’t like him.
He stepped forward, glanced at the priest. Papirius nodded his head in my direction. “The governor’s medicus, Philo. Julius Alpinius Classicianus Favonianus.”
His strong, lean faced creased with what looked like a genuine smile of welcome. “Favonianus. Of course, I’ve heard of you. You’re also known as Arcturus, I believe. We’re very lucky you’re here.” He reached out and grasped my arm. “Philo-one of the many doctors in Aquae Sulis.”
Modest, too. Big Belly grumbled, “We asked him to wait for you, Lucius.”
Philo shook his head, the gray in his temples glistening in the sun. “You have a much better doctor here.”
“Are you here on business, Favonianus?” The priest asked it as if there wasn’t a corpse between us.
“Actually, no. A holiday for my wife and me.”
I felt Sulpicia raise her eyebrows.
“Well, then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if Philo…”
I looked at the dapper doctor. He seemed competent enough, if a little disgusting in his perfection. I shrugged. “Be my guest.”
The young stonecutter-Drusius-stared at me, his thick eyebrows furrowed. What the hell did he want me to do? Fight over the dead body of Rufus Bibax? I’d been asked very politely to mind my own goddamn business, and I intended to do just that.
Philo smiled apologetically. “Please come by and see me. We’ll talk. Where are you staying?”
“The governor’s villa.”
The murmur went around again. I didn’t want to spoil it by asking where the hell the villa might be.
Papirius crooked a finger at two slaves, who ran up with a litter chair for the corpse, then started making priestly noises. “Please disperse, good people. The spring shall be emptied. Sulis will renew life, just as she has seen fit to take this one. Sulis will-”
I was heading out of the mob, and eyes-some friendly, some not, all curious-were following me. I turned around. “Sulis had nothing to do with it.”
Papirius and Philo looked at me, the priest irritated, the doctor curious.
“What did you say?” asked Papirius.
“I said Sulis had nothing to do with it. That man was strangled and thrown in your pool. Murdered-and the murderer left behind a little note.”
I held out my hand. In the palm was a small piece of lead, very thinly hammered and square cut. On it was inscribed one word: Ultor. The Avenger.
* * *
Gwyna looked disappointed, which dumbfounded me. I’d done what I thought would please her-avoided getting involved. I’d even avoided Sulpicia, which was no easy task because she kept getting in my way. I climbed back on Nimbus, looking around at the small-pored golden limestone of the buildings. It reminded me of Gwyna’s hair, and was safer to look at than she was.
The wealthy owned long, low villas close to the temple and baths, or in the hills above, to the northwest of the town nearer the small fort. Somewhere among them was Agricola’s. Gwyna asked me: “Did you find out where the villa is?”
I turned red and she gave me a pitying look. Another market square up ahead. I nudged Nimbus, who obligingly trotted forward-the one female in the family who tolerated me-and dismounted at the nearest shop, a gemmarius around the corner from the oversized temple area.
A tattered sign boasted that Tiberius Natta offered an assortment of carved gemstones, set and unset. He was a swarthy man with gray hair, short and stocky. Used a cane, though he couldn’t have been sixty yet. An assistant, another dark man in his late thirties, came forward to answer my question.
Seems Agricola’s villa was right up the street, on a little hill overlooking the temple area. I thanked them, and told Gwyna while I climbed back on Nimbus.
She nodded, avoiding my eyes. Once we could see the villa from the road, I pointed it out, and we started the climb up the path to where it perched, low and inviting, with a superb view of the temple and the river. The silence was broken by the morning song of birds and the sound of the horses’ hooves stepping on the fragile rock.
We rounded a corner, and the house was in front of us. Large, with a detached stable, private bath, and a small attempt at a vineyard. The terraced gardens were full of lavender, Gwyna’s favorite scent.
Suddenly, she asked: “Why didn’t you stay?”
I must have looked as stupid as I felt, because she said it again.
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“I don’t understand. Stay where?”
“At the pool. Why didn’t you stay with the body? Why did you let those other men take it away?”
I dismounted and came around and offered a hand, which she ignored, springing lightly to the ground herself.
“Gwyna, we’re here to relax. And to take care of you, and-and to fix things. Why the hell should I have insisted?”
She stared at me, holding Pluto’s reins as he tried to get a bite of hollyhock while Nimbus gave him a withering look.
“Because it was the right thing to do. It happened for a reason, that we came into town and you were there when that poor man was discovered. Besides, I don’t need anybody to ‘take care of me.’ ”
She flounced ahead, jerking Pluto’s nose away from the flowers.
* * *
The slaves were the best kind: invisible, accommodating, unquestioning. Everything was ready for an extended holiday for the newlyweds. Except the newlyweds themselves.
Gwyna busied herself with the servants, a vast improvement from the apathy of home. I watched her moving around in her riding breeches, until she got tired of me blocking the way and ordered me into the triclinium. The cook served a delicious lunch of sheep’s milk cheese-much creamier than we get in Londinium-figs, olives, and snails cooked in garlic.
Gwyna didn’t eat, though she came in to make sure the wine was poured correctly. She said: “Why don’t you bathe, Arcturus? You touched a dead man, didn’t you?”
Clipped and chilly. I headed for the villa’s bath and the warmth of Agricola’s caldarium.
After a good rubdown by a strapping Pannonian named Ligur, I started to relax in spite of myself. Ligur was shaving me when Gwyna walked in. She saw me, stopped, turned to leave.
“Wait-what-where are you going?”
The shrug was elaborate. “Your face needs a shave. I see you’re already taken care of.”
She was dressed in a modest bathing tunic, different from the more revealing breast band and short skirt she normally wore, and left before I could say anything else. I wondered again what happened to the woman I married less than a year before.
I dressed for dinner. I could hear her in the caldarium and imagined the slave girl massaging her with oil. That should be my job.
Thinking about it meant either another trip to the frigidarium or a brisk walk, so I left for the garden, where I could breathe again. A breeze from the hills carried the sweet scent of roses, mixed with lavender, and ruffled my hair.
The governor’s villa in Aquae Sulis. A goddamn beautiful spot to be miserable in.
CHAPTER TWO
The roses and the hollyhocks laughed, their petals shaking in the wind. She was right, of course. Normally I would’ve stayed with the murdered man, drawn by that gnawing hunger to know, the same feeling that used to earn me a few sestertii before I became old and complacent and the governor’s medicus.
Goddamn hands. They got me in the goddamn business. What happened to the other doctor, the younger man who fought his own goddamn fights, who made his own goddamn way, who could, on occasion, discover the goddamn truth.