“I don’t understand what this is about. Papirius said something about the mine. What does that have to do with-him?”
A sound that could curdle mother’s milk stabbed the humid air. An angry keening. Gloating in it, satisfied malice. A younger voice ululated in harmony.
“Mur-der-er! Mur-der-er!”
The crowd divided. She didn’t need a whip.
Materna hauled her beetle-eyed bulk with surprising grace into the center of the circle. She wailed again, a long, shrill cry, and tottered over to Faro. Then she slowly knelt and laid herself on top of his body. Secunda echoed her mother. The bearers were helpless. They didn’t want to touch the women.
I shoved Papirius aside. “Get up.”
She lifted her yellow jowls to the sky and shrieked again. The crowd was stunned and silenced. Then she pointed a fat, shaking finger at me.
“Murderer!”
Collective gasp. Whispers rose like moths to lamplight. I was about to get my fingers dirty and pull her up by the hair when someone else pushed passed me.
“Rise, you miserable old bitch. Rise and get off him. Or I swear before Sulis and Diana-I’ll rip your eyes out of your skull here and now.”
Gwyna’s voice didn’t quaver. All sound ceased. Slowly, Materna picked herself up from Faro’s dead body. Secunda was already standing by the outer fringe of the crowd.
I looked at Materna. It wasn’t easy. “Where’s Secundus?”
Someone shoved him forward from where he was hiding. Eager hands joined in, pushing him sideways until he almost fell. He finally reached the circle and crawled over to stand in Materna’s shadow. He couldn’t look up.
“Here’s your latest entertainment, Secundus.” I turned to the head priest.
“Where’s Grattius?”
Papirius’s lips were thin. “He-he wouldn’t open the door.”
“What do you mean, he wouldn’t open the door?”
“He won’t come out. He’s barricaded himself inside.”
I chewed over the latest bit of information. It tasted as rotten as the town itself.
“I’ll find him later. We’ve got one duovir here.”
I pointed to Faro and raised my voice. “Something nasty was left at my door. Maybe it was so this-lady-could make a dramatic entrance.” I pointed to Materna, who swallowed like a poisonous toad.
Secundus couldn’t speak. More whispers and nervous giggles popped and gurgled like the bubbles in the spring.
“This is a sort of town meeting place, and this is a sort of town meeting. I’m here to tell you a few things. One: Faro here was a part-time necromancer and full-time fraud.”
A gasp this time. Some angry hisses. Still, they were eager for more.
“He confessed to me that he’d been hired to spread gossip about a haunted mine. A mine owned by some sort of syndicate-and members of your own town council.” I had to wait for the shouts to die down.
“Faro also confessed to other crimes, even more cruel and malicious.” I looked at Materna. Philo and Sulpicia both glanced at Gwyna. “I traveled down to the mine itself yesterday, based on what Faro told me. When I got there…”
I paused, waiting for the crowd to quiet down again.
“When I got there-I was attacked. Because I found that the mine was actually working, actually running, and hauling out more silver than lead.”
A few people toward the rear melted away. I wondered if it was something I said. The mob got loud again. Some refused to believe it; some said they knew it all the time.
Drusius was still standing next to me, and murmured: “So that’s why they killed Aufidio.” Sulpicia disappeared into the crowd, after handing the stonecutter a note. Papirius and Octavio tried to look shocked.
“That’s not all.” I had to shout it. “I returned home in the middle of the night. This morning, one of the slaves found the dead body of Faro Magnus-whom I’d last seen at the duovir’s house.” I pointed to Secundus. Then I looked around the crowd and raised my voice as loud as I could.
“If anyone knows anything or saw anything to do with Faro, particularly last night-please come forward. There is a substantial reward.”
Someone shouted, “How much?” above the excited cacophony.
“Denarii, not sestertii. Depends on the information.”
Materna came to play a scene. She began with another inhuman shriek so shrill that the people in the front row held their ears. Words and spit flew with equal venom.
“I say it again: Murderer! You hit him! You threatened him! And he’s found at your house! Murderer!”
Gwyna took a step forward. I held her back with difficulty.
“Now, Materna-Arcturus wasn’t even home when this murder took place, and he’s here by authority of the governor, as you know. He’s helping us investigate. He didn’t kill Faro.”
She looked at Philo appraisingly. His voice carried weight with the crowd, but I didn’t want or need his help.
“Secundus! Did you or did you not witness my interrogation of Faro Magnus?”
The genial horseman of a couple of days ago was nowhere to be seen. He cringed under the malignant auctoritas of his wife and stepped forward like a man at his own crucifixion.
“Yes. I did.”
“Did he admit the haunted mine was a hoax?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell your wife what he said?”
“Y-I-no. No, I didn’t.”
His wife ignored him. She stared at me and said it softly.
“But you had all the motive. You wanted to punish him. You wanted to kill him. Because he revealed the truth about-”
Philo slapped her. She held a hand up to the red mark on her yellow cheek, her mouth open. I wasn’t sure whether to shake his hand or punch him in the teeth. Defending my wife was not a job I shared with anyone. Other than my wife.
Papirius cleared his throat. “Are you through? Can we-dispose of-”
“Go ahead. Do you recognize the mask?”
Papirius eyed it as though it were a poisonous snake. “No. It isn’t a temple mask.”
Secunda answered, surprising everyone. She whispered: “It was the ghost-raising mask. The metal part. He-he used to wear-”
She broke down and threw herself on what begot her. Materna seized the opportunity to make motherly noises, clucking and muttering, and finally withdrew, leaving a slimy trail in her wake.
I watched her leave, then said: “Bury the bastard.”
The crowd disbursed, reluctantly, Faro’s magnetism still irresistible. Drusius hurried off to find Sulpicia.
“Philo-thanks.”
He stopped smiling at Gwyna long enough to turn toward me. “Of course, Arcturus. Only thing to be done. What’s next?”
“Rome will want to know who’s been cheating her. My guess is everybody. First I’ll find Grattius. Then I’ll talk to Secundus. If he manages to survive tonight with his wife.”
He shook his head. “What an utterly wretched, ugly woman. I had no idea.”
“The goddamn town is bathed in ugly. Materna’s just the prime example.”
He laid a hand on my arm. “I’d like you both to come to dinner. Not tonight, obviously, but-well-Aquae Sulis being what it is, I thought-”
“You thought it would help recuperate our ailing reputations and calm gossip. I appreciate it. Though what the crooked bastards that run this town think of me isn’t the foremost thing on my mind.”
He smiled. “Valete, Arcturus, Gwyna.” He turned and left, walking quickly toward the baths.
Gwyna took my arm and stood on tiptoe to get a better look into my eyes. “Come on, Ardur. Let’s go home.”
I signaled the bearers. We walked alongside the empty litter, through the dusty, crowded streets, people staring at us. We passed the edge of the sacred spring, and I felt a gentle drop on my head. I looked up, said a prayer of thanks to the thick gray clouds.
The rain came down. But it couldn’t wash the dirt away from Aquae Sulis.