I led her out. She didn’t want to trust me, but she’d seen what I’d done and took a chance. I got her outside and gave her some water and most of Nimbus’s oats. Nimbus gave me a dirty look and sniffed at the donkey as if she smelled bad.
I put the donkey on a long tether, securing it around a spiny dogwood branch. She was in bad shape, but I figured freedom would help her get down the mountain.
The bastard was still unconscious. I fought an urge to kick him when I walked back inside. It was getting dark, and I took some flint and lit one of the lamps along the wall. Started to walk toward the other gallery.
A crunching noise behind me made me spin. Nobody. Probably the donkey. I breathed again. When I reached the arched opening, I found the reason for the ghost.
Silver. A lot of it. Unmarked ingots, not stamped, no money going back to Rome. Rome wouldn’t like that. She never liked people who cheated on their lease.
A silver mine, not a lead mine. Cousins, sure, and incestuous ones, too-you could get the silver out of the heavier metal with fire and the clay cups. But this was more than extraction. This was a good-sized vein.
I turned around to leave and the world went black. Somebody was digging for something in my own head. And he was using a pick.
Goddamn it. I screwed up. There were two of them …
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I opened my eyes and saw exactly what I expected. A stubbly-faced man with worried eyes stared down at me in the dark as if he were waiting for something. The black fog around him started to clear, and I wondered why the ferryman looked so damn big. Then a pain that made my toenails quiver shot through my head. I was alive. I squinted. The ferryman looked familiar.
“Draco? What the hell-Draco?!”
He shrank back, as if I were going to jump up and chase him away.
“I-I came with a message from Bilicho, and the mistress-I mean-your wife-sent me after you. She-she said she didn’t want you to know. So I followed you here.”
He stood up. He was thinner than usual, and the only thing up here that looked genuinely haunted. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that Coir wasn’t worth it. I rolled over on my side and groaned, then tried to push myself up.
He helped me to my feet. We were standing outside of the cave, near the fire, and the darkness did nothing to lesson my feeling that any second Cerberus would take a bite out of my ass. I rubbed my eyes. The ears still worked. I could hear the horses snatching illicit bites of thistle.
I tried to walk and wobbled instead, like a bird just out of the nest. As soon as I could stand without his arm, I figured my head would live to be hit another day. I took a good look at my new freedman.
“I’m goddamn glad to see you. I thought I’d never get to-well, I thought I was dead, let me put it that way. What-what happened?”
He stood up straight like he used to and didn’t look so much like a broken-down arena fighter.
“He hit you with a shovel.”
He jerked his thumb toward the woodpile, where another man, large and bearded, lay trussed and tied to a log. Draco was never much of a storyteller.
“Where did you come in?”
“I was down the road. The mistress-your wife, that is-gave me the black horse to ride. I left him down the hill, walked up here, saw him on the ground-”
He gestured toward the bastard I’d skinned my knuckles on. He was groaning, tied up next to the other one.
“-and I thought I’d better tell you I was here. Then I saw him hit you from behind. I couldn’t yell in time-and-and, well, I wrestled the shovel away and hit him with it. Then I carried you out here, and tied them both up.”
I held his eyes. “You saved my life-and I’m rather attached to it, as lives go. They would’ve dropped me down a shaft without so much as an apology to Pluto for the intrusion. Thanks, Draco. That’s not nearly enough, but it’ll have to do for now.”
He shuffled his feet and tried not to look embarrassed. For Draco, that was like trying not to look large. I grimly explored the back of my skull and winced. Same old bumps, but no new cracks, and no blood came off on my fingertips. I got the flat end, not the sharp end. I’d be all right. I was a little alarmed at the extra head I was growing.
“How long have I been out?”
“About-about two hours, I reckon.” He looked down at the miner I fought. “You must’ve hit him hard. He’s just now waking up.”
That meant it was the second or third hour of night. We had a long, bumpy fifteen miles to travel-and me with two heads, and not much sense between them.
“Draco-you are staying, aren’t you? With us?”
The shuffling noises increased, and even in the dark he was as red as the embers in the fire. Nobody mentioned Coir. “I’d-I’d like to, Master.”
“You’re a freedman. Call me Arcturus.” I grinned and reached out a hand to grab his arm. “Welcome home.”
I could see the firelight reflect in the smile on his face. It was good to have him back. And it was the last time I’d go to a goddamn resort town without a bodyguard.
“Where are the horses? And the donkey?”
“The little black one is with Nimbus. The donkey is still by the dogwood tree.”
I grunted. “Nimbus smelled Pluto. That’s what she was nickering at.”
I looked around as far as the light would go. Draco had lit some of the lamps inside and taken a couple outside, and stoked the small fire while I’d been unconscious. I wondered if he’d mined any silver while he was at it.
“Master-I mean, Arc-Arcturus. What should we do with them?”
It hurt to think. That was nothing new.
“They’ll slow us down if we take them to the fort. They’d have to walk. Or be dragged.”
I stepped carefully over to where the men were tied, trying to get used to the pain. I spoke as loudly as it would let me.
“Of course, we could just throw them down one of the tunnels, tied up, and they’d starve to death. Or drown, from water coming in. Or maybe we should feed them to the rats. They’re always in tunnels-big, red-eyed, hungry rats. They’re not too picky about what they eat, either. Isn’t that right, Draco?”
He nodded, eyes wide. I looked at him. I couldn’t very well wink in the dark, even if one side of my face wasn’t twitching. I hoped he understood.
“Yeah. Rats, I think. Some of ’em wouldn’t turn down a meal, even of-this.”
I kicked at Bushy Beard’s leg. His face reflected the moon and was starting to form a scream. Not too much longer.
“It’ll be slow, of course. They always start with the extremities. First the toes. Then they work their way up, until-”
Bushy Beard pissed in his pants. It trickled into the ground and ran in a little stream toward the one I’d hit. The bastard wriggled over as much as he could, trying to keep from getting wet. I leaned over him.
“Don’t bother. You smell worse than piss already.”
His mouth was bloody. He spit some of it at me. I was gratified to see there were some teeth chips in it. I wiped my hand off on his hair and turned to Bushy Beard.
“Who hired you?”
He was shaking, his eyes bouncing back and forth between me and Draco, as if we’d transform into rodents when the moonlight struck us. Rat stories. You can always get them with rat stories.
“I don’t know-honest, I don’t know him. Just a man, I met him in an inn. He was looking for-looking for workers. I used to be-used to be a soldier-I know a little about mines-”
He was too young to retire. Probably a deserter. If I turned him in, he’d be better off with the rats.
“I see. You’re a deserter from the auxiliary.”
He’d already pissed once but was trying again. “Oh, God, please-please don’t. I got-I got a wife somewhere, probably kids-please-please-”
The other one wasn’t as intimidated. He tried to talk. He’d get used to the lisp.
“Shu’ your god’am mouf. Don’ ’ell ’em nofin.”
I turned to where his hand was still crumpled from its earlier introduction to the rock. I stepped on it. He screeched. Lucky for him he was ambidextrous.