The young Secunda was immediately above him, and mama Materna was keeping a beady eye on both of them. Her daughter might want to play “sheathe the gladius” out of sheer ennui.
Materna took up most of the room on the highest couch. To the right and above her, Secundus tried not to disappear. Their most interesting guest held on to the far right summus in summus position with his fingernails.
“Arcturus-this is Faro Magnus. You’ve probably heard of him.”
Faro the Great. The one who could raise the dead. Sounded easier than raising any life in this place.
I nodded at Faro while Secundus talked about him like one of his horses.
“I told you the wife and I are keen on theatricals. Well, Faro has agreed to do something special for us tonight. He’s quite a little find, Faro is.” He winked broadly. “Right after we eat-can’t keep the cook waiting!”
The food was as stale and tasteless as the party. We gummed our way through a watery oyster and anchovy appetizer, gnawed an overcooked capon stuffed with cold chestnuts and tasteless truffles, and glued our lips together trying to eat the honeyed dates. I proceeded to ruin another set of napkins. They weren’t cheap. We couldn’t afford any more free dinners.
Faro, at least, was interesting. Slight man, well groomed, with black hair, thick and curly. His skin was startlingly white, his eyes an eerie, penetrating gray. He looked the part. Like the rest of us, he ate without much appetite.
Materna watched everyone, her eyes shining like a beetle’s back. A frightening woman. If I looked in her hand, I’d probably find some strings tied to Secundus’s back. Somehow I didn’t think she liked us. Especially Gwyna.
Our eyes met, and she bared her teeth at me. I smiled and accidentally swallowed a date pit. For relief, I turned to Mumius.
“So, Mumius-what legion are you with?”
He was picking date off his teeth. “II Augusta.”
“Oh-so you’re at Isca Silurum?”
He nodded. “Right now I have a message for the fortlet outside Aquae Sulis, and then I’m to report for Household service in Londinium. Hurt my leg, so they transferred me.”
“How’d you injure it?”
He turned red and stared at his dates. “Tripped on a picket.”
I changed the subject.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a wheelwright.”
I was hoping for more fascinating conversation from this unexpected new source, but Secundus made a noise in his throat, and everyone except Materna looked at him expectantly. She was gazing at Faro, with a suggestion she hoped he would raise more than the dead. Poor bastard. That would be a real miracle.
Two slaves cleared the tray in front of the necromancer, and he sat up, moving as deliberately as a tightrope walker. His eyes stared across the room, unfocused and blank.
“Well, as I say, the wife and I-we’re interested in things. Entertainments, and whatnot. And, if I may speak for you, dear”-Materna nodded her massive head at him graciously-“I-that is to say, we-think there’s much to be said for certain talents.”
He cleared his throat again and looked around nervously, as if he were afraid we’d all take the chance to yawn and leave the party.
“Faro here, for example. Now, I’m sure you’ve all read about people raising ghosts, but Faro here can really do it. He can talk to the dead. Gets ’em to talk back. So I thought-that is to say, we thought-why not give him a go at the party?”
Secundus sat down and smiled at his wife like a dog waiting for instructions.
I glanced sideways at Gwyna. She’d been talking with Crescentia, Big Belly’s wife, for most of the night. Now her eyes were enormous, and riveted on Faro. The black hair, the pale face, the expressive eyes-which seemed lifeless and dull, as if he had to empty his own soul to make contact with others. The mask was just about perfect. I couldn’t tell if it was comic or tragic.
The Entertainment waited a decent interval for the Host to be patted on the head by the Hostess. Then he looked around the room as if he’d just noticed it. His mouth opened, and the voice was sonorous and commanding.
“Dark. We must have dark.”
Secunda giggled and arched her back toward Faro as if to say, “Take me now.” Big Belly and his wife squirmed a little. Gwyna’s eyes were still on the necromancer. I was beginning to dislike him. He was like a smell that started out tolerable and got rank the more you inhaled. I didn’t object to a con man. Just an oily, good-looking one.
Secundus clapped his hands and told the slaves to put out the lamps. One by one, the room started to become dim, then gray, then nearly dark. It was always dull.
Magic didn’t mean much to me. People like Faro had to make a living, too, and I could usually spot the tricks they pulled on rubes like Secundus. Most necromancers were small, starved-looking men, with lean eyes and furtive mouths, who looked like they not only spoke to the dead but borrowed their clothes. Their palms would be sticky with sweat and anything else that could help them deliver a trick or two. Faro’s hands were dry and steady, more like a doctor’s than a magician’s. I couldn’t see anything on them but skin. Not yet.
When all but one of the lamps were extinguished, a slave brought out a small table with three vases and set it in front of Faro. He picked up the first one and held it up so we could make out its shape in the darkened room.
“A sacrifice of milk-pure milk, mother’s milk, suckled from the breast of the earth-”
Secunda stifled another giggle, choking it down when her mother turned a baleful look on her. He poured it into a shallow dish reverently, then held up another vase in the same way.
“A sacrifice of wine-pure wine, god’s seed, spent from the body of Bacchus, intermediary of the dead, savior of man, intercessor with Proserpine-”
An Orphic touch. Nice work. Showed Faro was educated, maybe even a member of one of the more exclusive religious cults.
He poured the wine into the same dish, just a few drops. No one made any sound. I stifled a yawn. I hoped it wasn’t the old water-to-wine trick. That was hackneyed fifty years ago.
Finally, he picked up the smallest vase. “A sacrifice of honey-pure honey, the moisture of the goddess, the life-giving Proserpine, the wife of Pluto, and mother of the dead.”
The honey drizzled very slowly. Materna leaned forward, waiting for it to drop from the vase, as if she believed the royal couple of Hades would suddenly materialize in the dish. Even Secunda was awake and not picking at her fingernails.
When enough honey oozed out, Faro shook his head three times, shook the plate three times, and started to chant.
“Amoun aunantou laimoutau riptou mantaui mantou Apollo, hear me, Apollo, God of prophecy and oracles, Amoun, Aunantou laimoutau riptou mantaui mantou, hear me, oh goddess Minerva, goddess that is Sulis, send your fallen, send your secrets, amoun aunantuou laimoutau!”
The chant got louder and more emphatic with every name. Faro’s eyes were rolled back-I could see the white catch in the dim light. A breeze wafted through the room, and the last lamp flickered and died out.
“Amoun aunantuou laimoutau! Sulis-your secrets-the dead-lately or past-who is here who wants to speak? Who is here who misses? Who is here that yearns? Amoun-”
He was yelling, building to a crescendo that was almost a scream. The hair on my arms was standing on edge. Faro was good. Too good for Aquae Sulis.
“-aunantou-laimoutau! Sulis-let them speak! Let them hear! Let them see!”
Silence fell like a gravestone. Ragged breathing was the only thing I could hear. Then Faro’s voice … but it didn’t sound like Faro’s voice. It sounded like a child’s.