It was the first time she’d said it out loud. “Will you be all right? I don’t want-”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I want to do this. It’s important.”
I reached across and took her hand. “Be careful.”
“You, too. Where else are you going?”
“On a hunt for Faro’s missing horse. I”ve got some ideas about it.”
“Be back in time to dress.”
“I hope to be back in time to undress.”
She leaned forward and took her hand from mine and put a finger to my lips.
“Shh. Focus on the case, Ardur. There are good people here, but the town-the ghosts-the-the soul of the place-it’s been infected. Corrupted. The slaves are right, you know. You can lift the curse.”
Her eyes were enormous and earnest. I bent forward and kissed her cheek. I didn’t want to disappoint my wife, but I was afraid that whatever was wrong in Aquae Sulis would prove to be too heavy for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I stopped at Natta’s shop at the foot of the hill. It would be a hard day for Gwyna, and I was under the impression that jewelry usually helps. Buteo was outside. He stood with his hands on his belt, staring off toward the town. He jumped when he saw me, coughing, a dry, rasping wheeze that the coming rain wouldn’t make any better. I wasn’t sure if much would.
“Good morning. I’d like to buy something. Is your-is Natta here?”
I almost said “your father” but remembered in time. They looked enough alike. He gestured with his head toward the small, dark shop while his heavy shoulders shook with the force of the cough.
More dust on the wooden counter. Natta crept out of the back, pushing aside the tattered drape and holding on to it for support.
“Yes? You want-ah, it’s the young doctor. Come in, come in. Your wife-she liked the necklace?”
“Very much. I want to buy her a ring.”
He smiled at me indulgently, until memory overtook his features and made them look younger and less ill. “She is-she is a beautiful woman.”
That surprised me. “You’ve seen her?”
He nodded, still in a trance of remembrance. “On her way to the baths, I think. Yes. She is very beautiful. She reminds me of-of my wife. Yes-my wife.”
He stared into the damp walls. Nothing else seemed to be coming. I didn’t have a lot of time, but maybe the old man needed to talk. If I didn’t have time for that, I wasn’t much of a doctor. Or a man.
“You were married?”
I asked it softly. I could almost see him thirty-odd years ago. Never good-looking, but love can make the ugliest man seem like Adonis. The sounds of coughing from outside finally stopped, but Buteo didn’t come in.
“A long time ago. More than thirty years ago. When I lived in Hispania. She was beautiful-like yours. Blond, slim. Greek, she was.”
“What happened?”
Darkness passed in front of his face. It settled in the crevices and was comfortable there.
“She-she died. A god-a god took her away from me. She died. Before she could give me children.”
Common enough tragedy. I knew how lucky I’d been that Gwyna-it didn’t bear thinking about. Most people blamed the gods. Natta’s pain focused on one. Maybe that made it easier. I doubted it.
“I’m sorry.”
Either my sympathy or Buteo’s heavy footsteps in the doorway shook him back to the present. He turned to Buteo. His voice was sharp. “Have you seen Philo?”
“No. He is busy.”
“You must, Buteo. You must get some medicine for the cough.”
Buteo had heard this before. “I will keep trying, Natta. He is a busy man.”
I cleared my throat. “As you know, I am a doctor, and if you wish-”
The gemmarius smiled at me, while Buteo lowered his brows into a frown.
“It is not necessary, my friend. You are here for other things. Buteo will see Philo. His cough comes and goes, like the rain in October. Now, what would you like? I have an onyx cameo-or this green glass from Egypt-”
I tried not to act like I’d been given the professional brush-off, and I tried not to let it make me hate Philo. I kept reminding myself he’d been good to us. Friends weren’t so easy to come by that I could afford to throw one away.
The ring I chose came with a necklace. A pale green glass Natta said came from Egypt, supposedly with special properties of protection. They were set in gold. Gwyna would like them. Besides, we needed all the protection we could find. I left the gemmarius and Buteo outside, the younger man watching me walk down the hill, Natta leaning on him for support.
The smell of rain made the crowd swarm like ants before a storm. I wandered among the curse-writers, some hawking their wares with extra-loud voices, some ignoring the passers-by while scrawling a name on a piece of lead. I was looking for one in particular.
He knew me when he saw me. He told the fat woman in front of his tent that he was closed.
“What do you mean-you just told me-”
“Sorry, lady. Rain.”
She threw her purple mantle around her ample shoulders and marched off in a huff to his nearest competitor. I leaned on the counter and smiled.
“Remember me?”
The rat eyes darted, looking for the nearest hole. He couldn’t find one and turned around, determined to outrun me. I reached across the rotten wood and grabbed his filthy tunic. It started to rip.
“Unless you like to run naked in thunderstorms, you should talk to me. I won’t bite.”
His shoulders shook. “I tol’ you the first time. I ain’t got no bad lead. That other one-down there. You talk to him.”
“No. I want you. And I’m willing to pay.”
His eyes made little slits of suspicion. “You’re willin’ to pay-for what?”
“For you answering one question.”
His pink tongue slid out between his lips. “Yeah? How much? An’ what kind of question?”
“Five sestertii, and no one will know the answer you give. Except us.”
I kept a tight hold of his wrist and dug out my pouch. I laid it on the board in front of us. There was obviously more than five sestertii in it.
He weighed his greed against his fear, but the scale was rigged. His shoulders hunched over and he leaned on the board. “What’s the question?”
“Somebody’s dumping cheap-maybe even free-lead in Aquae Sulis. Who is it?”
The eyes got big and round again, and his voice climbed to a piercing whine. “I don’t know nothin’! I tell you my-”
“Keep your voice down. Tell me what you do know.”
He quieted and looked at the pouch. He said flatly: “It’ll cost you more than five sestertii.”
“Make it a denarius.”
He tried to see through the leather, but the pouch wasn’t giving up my secrets. Finally, he nodded. “All right. Here’s what I know-but you didn’t hear it from me! My lead’s good! My lead-”
“I know all about your lead. Talk.”
He licked his lips again and lowered his voice. “Every so often there’s a pile left. Down by the other spring. Good lead, too. I ain’t never seen nobody leave it-we don’t ask no questions, know what I mean? Why muck up a good thing?”
“What happens to it?”
“Whaddya think happens to it? We take it! That’s why we can make curses so cheap. Lead’s got a price-it’s mined by Rome, ain’t it? They fix it all. But this lead-we don’t ask no questions. It’s good lead, too. Not too much tin in it, like some people’s.”
“How long has this been going on?”
He shrugged. “I don’ know. I guess two, three years tops. One reason there’s so many of us. Easy start-up business, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I get it. Not much overhead. When was the last shipment?”
He thought for a minute. “Probably about a month, month and a half ago. I missed my share. By the time I got down there it was gone.”
“Who told you about it?”
He looked around his stall, craning his head in both directions. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Bibax. That’s worth your denarius, and maybe more, ain’t it? Bibax always knew ahead of time.”