“I remember. Were they lovers?”
“Probably. He was a man, after all.”
She squeezed my hand. “So the girl picked up and delivered things-”
“When he needed her to. She doesn’t know anything. I’m sure he never confided in anyone-he was too smart-and what I said about the baths, when Octavio was playing his part-that could really apply to anyone in town. Everyone goes there, every day. Access wasn’t a problem.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Ardur-”
“Yes, my love?”
“I don’t understand why he signed those sheets ‘Ultor.’ Because he hated Bibax? It doesn’t make sense.”
It was almost the first hour of morning. I said it slowly.
“Because he didn’t kill Bibax. Or Calpurnius.”
“What? Who-”
“Fulviana-the woman he loved-the woman he said he couldn’t save, when she became pregnant-”
“What about her?”
“She was another man’s wife.”
* * *
The light was rising over the hills, casting a pale pink light on the yellow soil. The shop was closed. Dust covered the counter.
I tapped on the door; nobody answered. I thought we’d try the spring.
We found him there, leaning against the side of a rail, using it to support his frail body. He was holding a pouch of cut and inscribed gemstones, pouring them one at a time into his hand. I recognized them. His best work, the ones he was saving for the future.
I asked him: “Where’s Buteo?”
He turned away from the water. Aquae Sulis was beginning to wake, the sounds of roosters cackling and open doors banging, echoing through the streets. We didn’t have much time.
Natta kept his back to the railing, his hand, misshapen from years of work, clutching the pouch. He didn’t answer. He looked at Gwyna.
“You brought your beautiful lady, Arcturus? So beautiful. You like the necklace? And the ring?”
She was still wearing them from last night, and her hands drew up to feel the glass between her fingers. He smiled.
“They were hers. Now they are yours. You look-you look very much like her.”
“Natta … where’s Buteo?”
The gems rattled in the pouch as his hands shook. “Where you cannot touch him. Where no one can touch him. It was time.”
“But Philo is dead! I told you yesterday I would-I would take care of everything. Why did you-”
“Because it is my right … and because-because, my young friend-it is difficult to stop. Once you have tasted it-tasted the power-it is hard to end it, and Buteo became a part of it. Part of the curse, the homo maledictus you have been looking for. So I gave him something-something to help him sleep.”
He looked at Gwyna. “But your lady does not understand us. Let me try.”
I nodded. He fixed his brown eyes on hers.
“Once, lady-a long time ago-there was a woman. A woman who looked-who looked much like you. Her family married her to a man, not so poor, not so rich-but … ambitious. Yes. He was ambitious, once.
“The lady desired children. But after one year, she was not with child. And she grew impatient, and thought perhaps a god could help her.
“So she went to the temple. The god there promised many things and many children. But the priest-the priest told her she must stay the night, and the god will come to her. If she prays hard enough, the god will give her a child himself.”
He lowered his head and plucked at the pouch in his hand. “The priest was an age-mate of her husband’s. A man who saw her once, and-and fell in love. That night-only Endovelicus knows who came to her. The god-or the priest-or both.”
He brooded for a moment, his mind a thousand miles away and forty years in the past. Then he looked at Gwyna again. And smiled.
“They did not lie. The woman became pregnant. And-and visited the temple often. But there were problems. It was not easy for her. And when it was time for the birth, her husband was away. So she went to the priest, who was a doctor, too, as all priests of Endovelicus are. He tried to save her and the baby. He could not.”
Tears rolled down Gwyna’s cheek. Natta looked away from her and turned to face the waters again.
“Some said it was the priest’s child in the woman, and he was shamed. And when she died … some said he killed her, before the truth could come out, a baby born who looked like him. He was thrown out from the temple, left Hispania in disgrace.
“He thought the baby died with its mother. But the midwife delivered it, slapped it harder, and it began to breathe. A baby boy. The midwife gave it to the woman’s husband and helped him raise the child, until she, too, passed away.”
He brought the pouch out and held it in front of him, staring past it to the bubbling water.
“The boy learned the story from his father when he was old enough. They left Hispania and traveled, moving from one town to the next, and one day they came to a certain place. There, in the town, was the priest-the priest who long ago had loved the boy’s mother and left the child to die. And the boy-who was now a man-became enraged.
“The priest was now a doctor. And the man wanted revenge on this priest who had wronged his father, who had killed his mother. So he followed him-watched him-saw what he did. Sometimes in the name of mercy, sometimes for money. Always for reputation. A temple, the priest wanted. Another temple.
“The man saw the evil and thought he could rid the town of it. First one, then the other. Ending with the priest. Hydra heads, he called them. Hydra heads. But they poisoned him. Poisoned my Buteo.”
Gwyna took a step closer to him. The pouch made a small splash, the brown leather bobbing against the blue and green, drawing the sacred water in like breath. Becoming sodden and heavy and finally drifting, waving, falling to the bottom.
Natta whispered, facing the spring.
“These stones-our future-belong to the goddess. I will follow Buteo. But do not weep, lady. I will see her again. I have waited long enough.”
The spring churned and made little waves against the stone. A few people stood, some staring at the water. Some threw in a wooden carving or a small silver piece. I held on to Gwyna. Natta drew himself up from the rail and limped away, his faded robe trailing in the pale dust.
* * *
It was difficult to say good-bye after all. The slaves were still talking about the curse and how I broke it, and about the night we formed a small army and defeated Hannibal at the gates. Draco was coming back with us, a free man in more ways than one.
The donkey was healing well but couldn’t work anymore, and no one else was willing to pay for her feed. I’d board her out with Nimbus and Pluto. Maybe it was time to start thinking about that farm I always wanted.
We looked around the villa again, thanked it for making us welcome, a safe house in an unsafe town. That was changing.
The market square was cleaner. You couldn’t get aconitum quite as easily anymore, though the bottles of piss would always be big sellers. Grattius and Secundus disappeared, Grattius running from the legion, Secundus from ghosts more terrible than Rome. Papirius was still chief priest, but he would keep his nose cleaner and his hands out of the spring. Natta’s jewels would go to the goddess, disappearing in the water and mud, waiting for a future he’d never see.
Gwyna fingered the necklace she was wearing when we rode by the closed gemmarius shop, the horses’ hooves clomping on the paving stone.
A breeze blew against our backs, a warm spell that came out of nowhere, but maybe down from the green hills that ringed Aquae Sulis like a crown. It was dawn, the first hour of day, and the spring, as it had been when we met the old man, was empty. Draco waited for us up the hill.
She took the mask Papirius had given her and held it between her fingers. The splash of water rose like a little fountain. Together we watched the tin sink, the water washing over the face like a drowning man’s. When it was gone, she shuddered. I held her.