F&SF July/August 2011

by Fantasy; Science Fiction

  I rose from the bed, feeling a bit unsteady, and unlatched the simple lock on the door. I made my way down the stairs, wondering if Gnaeus or Ismene would be stirring yet. My mouth was parched and I craved water.

  I reached the foot of the stairs, crossed the small vestibule, and stepped into the tavern. What I saw bewildered me at first—my mind could make no sense of it. Then I staggered backwards, retching and clutching my stomach.

  The room was a scene of utter carnage. Bodies lay in heaps, covered with blood. Among them I saw Titus Tullius. His head was thrown back, his eyes and mouth wide open, his limbs twisted. His throat had been cut. The front of his tunic was so soaked with blood that no trace of its original color remained.

  Even as a spectator at gladiator games, I had never seen so much death in one place. Suppressing my nausea, I counted the bodies. There were twelve. The entire party of Romans lay dead on the tavern floor. Every one of them had his throat cut.

  I ran upstairs to wake Antipater. He clung to sleep, but finally I was able to rouse him. He seemed confused and unsteady on his feet, as I had been after waking. By the time we went downstairs, the innkeeper was up. He stood in the tavern, gaping at the slaughter and shaking his head.

  "It's like a battlefield," he whispered.

  "Great Zeus!" cried Antipater. "They've all been murdered. Gordianus, did you hear anything last night?"

  "I slept like a stone."

  "So did I. But how could the noise have failed to wake us? There must have been a terrible struggle. Surely these men cried out."

  I frowned. "And yet, I see no signs of a fight. No benches overturned, nothing broken—and no weapons drawn. It's as if they submitted to what was done to them."

  "Or were taken by surprise," said Antipater. "Who was here last night, Gnaeus?"

  "Only these men, no one else."

  "No soldiers from the garrison?"

  The innkeeper shook his head.

  "What about your serving woman?"

  "Ismene was here, of course."

  "Where is she now?" said Antipater.

  "I don't know. She's usually here by now. She goes home at night to a little hut on the outskirts of town, but she's an early riser and she's usually in the tavern before I get up."

  "Perhaps something's happened to her," said Antipater.

  "Or perhaps she's fled," I said. "YouI pick up the corner of the net... I pick up the corner of the netacnotor don't think Ismene could have—"

  Gnaeus snorted. "If you think Ismene played some part in this, you're mad. Why would she want to harm these men? Why would anyone have done this?"

  I thought of the way Tullius had talked about the destruction of Corinth, disparaging its people and blaming them for their own destruction. Antipater had been offended by his remarks. Whom else had Tullius offended, here at the tavern or elsewhere? Had the ghosts of Corinth themselves been stirred to retribution by his slanders? Horrified by the inexplicable slaughter, my imagination ran wild.

  Antipater thought of a simpler motive. "Perhaps they were robbed."

  Gnaeus ran upstairs and returned a few moments later. "Their rooms appear to be untouched. No one's taken their things." He shook his head. "The garrison commander will have to be told. I'll go to him myself."

  Not caring to remain in a room full of corpses, Antipater and I waited in the street outside until the innkeeper returned. He was followed by a troop of armed soldiers marching in formation. The dogs yelped and scattered at their approach. Among the men I recognized Marcus and his superstitious friend Lucius. At their head was a silver-haired officer with a weak chin and a patrician bearing.

  The officer took a good look at Antipater and me. "You two are witnesses?"

  "I found the bodies," I said. "But we didn't witness anything."

  "I'll be the judge of that. Quintus Menenius, commander of the garrison here at Lechaeum. And who are you?"

  "I'm Gordianus of Rome. This is my old tutor, Zoticus. We've just come from the games at Olympia. We were going to cross the isthmus this morning and catch a ship over at Chenchrea—"

  "Not today, you won't. Show me these bodies, Centurion Gnaeus," he said, paying the innkeeper the courtesy of using his old title. "And you two, come along. I may have more questions for you."

  Quintus Menenius had surely witnessed bloodier spectacles in his years of military service, but when he saw the carnage in the tavern he drew a sharp breath and shuddered.

  "All these men were your guests here at the inn, Centurion Gnaeus?"

  "Yes."

  "Were they robbed?"

  "Their rooms appear to be untouched. I don't know about their persons."

  "Lucius! Marcus! Examine the bodies. See if you find any coin purses."

  Moving from corpse to corpse, the two soldiers found small moneybags on each, all apparently intact.

  The commander furrowed his brow. "No robbery? Then why were they killed? And how was it done, without a struggle?" He shook his head. "Put the coin purses back where you found them, men. These are Roman citizens. There will have to be a scrupulous inventory of each victim's property—for the inquest." He uttered the final word with a tone of dread and sighed, as if weary already of the mountain of reports he would be obliged to file.

  Stuffing a coin purse back where he had found it, Lucius suddenly drew back.

  "What do you see, soldier?" said Menenius.

  At the same moment, from the corner of my eye, I noticed Marcus; he, too, was returning a coin purse, this one to the body of Titus Tullius—but did I see him remove an object from the little leather bag? I wasn't sure, and no one else seemed to notice. Then I was distracted, for Lucius, having previously drawn back, now cautiously reached for something beneath the body at his feet, then snatched back his hand as if scalded.

  "By Hercules, man, what is it?" Stepping over corpses, Menenius stooped down and pulled a thin, flat object from beneath the body. It was a lead tablet such as I had seen in the witch's den.

  Menenius heard me gasp. He gave me a sharp look, then returned his attention to the tablet, squinting at the letters scraped into the lead. With a snort, he abruptly crossed the room and shoved the tablet into my hands. "Here, you have young eyes—and you seem to know what this is. Read it aloud."

  I scanned the words. Hackles roseI pick up the corner of the net... I pick up the corner of the netacnotor on my neck. "I'm not sure I should."

  "Read it!"

  I took a deep breath. "'Ananke, I call on you. Moira, I call on you. Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name, I call on you. Strike down these impious Romans! Rob them of their lives and let them join the dead whom they besmirch. Open their throats and let the blood of life pour out of them—'"

  Lucius emitted a stifled shriek and began to shake. He looked as if he might bolt from the room. Only his commander's glowering gaze held him in check.

  "Go on!" shouted Menenius.

  "'Destroy these Romans, Ananke. Destroy them utterly, Moira. Annihilate the impious defamers of the dead, Egyptian Ufer of the Mighty Name—'"

  Lucius began to sway. His eyes rolled up in his head. He crumpled to the floor amid the dead bodies.

  "By Hercules, the man's fainted!" said Menenius with disgust. He ordered a couple of his soldiers to tend to Lucius, then snatched the lead tablet from me. "Witchcraft!" he declared. "The local women are mad for it. Was this the work of your serving woman, Centurion Gnaeus?"

  The innkeeper looked back at him, speechless.

  "It will all come out at the inquest." Menenius sighed. "We'll have to round up the local women and make them talk. Extracting evidence from females suspected of practicing magic—a nasty business, hardly suitable work for Roman soldiers, but there you have it. Garrison life!" He ordered the soldiers to clear the bodies from the room and take an inventory of their belongings, then asked the innkeeper to show him the dead men's rooms. Antipater and I were dismissed, for the time being.

  While Antipater stepped outside, saying he needed fresh air, I d
rew Marcus aside. "Your friend Lucius was terrified when I read that curse."

  Marcus grinned. "He'd hide behind his shadow if he thought a witch was in the room."

  "So you don't think what happened here was the result of a curse?"

  He shrugged. "Who can say? The commander will determine who, or what, killed these men."

  "What did you take from Tullius's coin purse?"

  The question caught him off guard. He tried to feign innocence. I tried to feign certainty, since I was not at all sure of what I'd seen. I kept my gaze steady, and it was Marcus who gave way. With a crooked smile and a shrug, he produced a finely crafted bronze image of Hercules the size of a man's finger.

  "You won't tell anyone, will you?" he said.

  "Where do you think Tullius got such a thing?"

  "Perhaps he brought it with him from Rome, as a lucky charm."

  "Then little good it did him," I said. "Do you mind if I keep it?"

  For a moment, Marcus maintained his good-natured mask, then abruptly let it drop. "If I say no, I suppose you'll tell the commander, eh?" He glared at me. "Go ahead then, take it. That makes you a thief, too, and no better than me. I suppose we all have a bit of the magpie in us, eh? Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."

  Marcus rejoined the others in the gruesome task of moving the dead bodies.

  EVEN THOUGH WE had told him all we knew, Menenius would not allow Antipater and me to move on until the inquest took place. The driver refused to stay any longer, and headed home to Olympia with his wagon early the next morning.

  For a young man of eighteen, there could hardly have been a more boring place to get stuck. A full day exploring the ruins of Corinth had been quite enough for me. Lechaeum itself had little to offer beyond the tavern, which I could no longer enter without becoming nauseated. The dusty, sparsely stocked little shops clustered around the garrison offered nothing to tempt me; nor did the brothel on the waterfront, to judge by the haggard women I saw coming and going via the back entrance.

  On the bright side, it appeared that the inquest would be held in short order. Things did not look good for Ismene, the serving woman at the tavern. A search of her little hut turned up materials used in witchcraft—the same typ wondered what acnotores of lamps, incense burners, and blank lead tablets that Antipater and I had discovered in the witch's den on the Slope of Sisyphus, along with small lead boxes containing wooden dolls, which according to Antipater could also be used to cast spells. Obviously, Ismene was a witch, and presumably had written the curse tablet discovered in the tavern—but she was nowhere to be found. The soldiers searched every house in the vicinity and questioned all the locals. Ismene had vanished into thin air.

  According to Gnaeus, the locals all agreed that witchcraft had killed the Romans. Absent evidence to the contrary, it seemed that the commander was prepared to go along with this idea.

  "Do we really believe all those men were killed by a curse?" I asked Antipater. We were sitting under the shade of a fig tree outside the inn, enduring the heat of the day along with the dogs lying in the dust nearby.

  "You read the tablet yourself, Gordianus. It called upon the forces of necessity and fate, as well as this Egyptian Ufer, whoever he is, to 'open their throats.' Isn't that exactly what happened—in the middle of the night, with no resistance from the victims, and so quietly that neither you nor I was awakened? That sounds like witchcraft to me." Antipater shuddered. "What's that in your hand?"

  Absentmindedly, I had pulled out the little figure of Hercules I had taken from Marcus and was fiddling with it. There was no use trying to hide it, so I explained to Antipater how I came to have it.

  "I've been thinking I should give it to the commander, to be restored to Tullius's property, but it's awkward. If I tell him Marcus took it, he'll probably be flogged, or worse. But if I don't tell the commander the truth, he may think I stole it myself. If I say I simply found it, how do I explain that I know it belonged to Tullius?"

  "Are you certain it was his?"

  "It came from his coin purse."

  "Let me have a closer look." Antipater examined the figure under a patch of sunlight. "This is Corinthian. The city's bronze-workers were famed for making miniatures like this. Do you see the mottled surface, dark red and green? That's a special patina they developed, which is seen in no other bronze sculpture. And here, this stamp on the bottom—that's the sign of one of the most famous Corinthian workshops."

  "Tullius was such a show-off, you'd think he would have shown his Corinthian good-luck charm to everyone."

  Antipater frowned. "Do you know what I think? Tullius didn't bring this with him from Rome. I think he found it amid the ruins the other day, and filched it."

  "I'm not sure 'filch' would be the proper word. After all, if he found it, fair and square—"

  "He had no right to take it. By decree of the Roman Senate, nothing can be built within a certain radius of the ruins of Corinth. Nor can anything be taken out. Nothing in, nothing out. There is to be no commerce of any sort, and that includes treasure hunting. Of course, one presumes there's no treasure left, that everything of value was long ago looted or destroyed. But perhaps under all the dirt and rubble, a few precious items might yet remain—like this figurine. That would make this object quite rare—probably worth a legionnaire's salary for a year."

  "This little thing? You're joking!"

  Antipater looked up and down the street. "Perhaps I exaggerate. Nonetheless, I'd tuck that away, if I were you. And I'd keep my eyes peeled for Marcus. I wouldn't put it past that fellow to knock you over the head and take it back from you."

  The day grew warmer still. Antipater fell fast asleep. I found myself looking at the craggy face of Acrocorinth in the distance, and felt a sudden impulse to return there. We had lost the wagon driver, but without Antipater to slow me down, I decided I was perfectly capable of walking there and back. I rose to my feet and headed out, shooing the dogs to keep them from following.

  The sunlight was blinding. Waves of heat rose from hillsides shouldorckorcovered with dry, brittle grass. I quickly grew thirsty, and realized I should have brought some water with me.

  I reached the line of the ruined city walls, and pressed on. I found the spot where we had run into Tullius and his party, and from there, I tried to determine where I had last seen them when I gazed down from the summit of Acrocorinth. Heat and thirst made me light-headed. The piles of rubble all looked alike. I became disoriented and confused. I began to see phantom movements from the corners of my eyes, and the least sound—the scrambling of a lizard or the call of a bird—startled me. I thought of the mother who had killed her daughter and then herself, and all the countless others who had suffered and died. I felt the ghosts of Corinth watching me, and whispered words to placate the dead, asking forgiveness for my trespass.

  At length, I stumbled upon an area that had recently been disturbed. Overturned rocks exposed the worm trails beneath, and clods of earth had been dug up. Some instinct led me to move a particular stone, and behind it I discovered a narrow defile, just large enough for a man to stick his arm inside.

  The idea that a snake or a spider or something even more terrible might live in such a crack gave me pause. I took a deep breath, then reached into the dark hole.

  My fingers touched something cold and scaly, and I heard a slithering noise. I drew back my hand, then had a glimmer of realization. I reached inside again and felt my hand immersed amid bits of smooth, cold metal. I trapped one of the coins between my forefinger and thumb and pulled it out.

  The silver was tarnished almost black, but the images were so deeply cast that I could easily make out Bellerophon astride his winged horse, Pegasus. On the reverse was an image of the monstrous chimera slain by the Corinthian hero. The coin was thick and heavy in my hand.

  I became so lost in studying the images that I didn't hear the approach of the horse and rider. When their shadow fell on me, I looked up, startled. The sun formed a blinding halo aroun
d the soldier's gleaming helmet.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" said Marcus. "The coin, I mean. It's a funny thing, how some objects are beautiful because they're one of a kind—like that figure of Hercules you took from me. But coins become more beautiful the more of them there are. And there are a great many in that little hiding place you've discovered. It took me months to dig up those coins, along with all the other treasures I've found amid the ruins."

  "Treasures?" I said, my mouth dry.

  "Vases and such. A lot of the things I find are broken to bits, or melted by the flames, but every so often I find something so perfect I can hardly believe it. Like that little figurine of Hercules that Tullius found yesterday and dared to slip into his coin purse. From what I overheard, he and his friends agreed ahead of time to split anything they found evenly between them, and when they found this particular cache of treasures, they agreed to leave it intact and come back for it later. That was naughty of Tullius, to slip the Hercules into his coin purse while the others weren't watching. What if Menenius had come across it while searching the dead bodies, and realized where it came from?"

  I frowned. "Overheard? When did you hear Tullius and the others talking?"

  "Yesterday, as they went about their business here in the ruins. They clucked like hens the whole time—and had no idea I was watching and listening. I can thank my training for that. Quintus Menenius may be one of the stupidest men the gods ever made, but he did teach me a thing or two about stealth and surveillance. That sort of thing comes in handy if you want to scavenge treasures from an area that's off-limits for such things, and keep anyone else from doing so." He shook his head. "Titus Tullius and his friends thought they could come here, loot to their hearts' content, and run off with the spoils, and no one would lift a finger to stop them. What fools!" subsequentborckor

  "Why didn't you simply report them to Menenius? Wouldn't he have arrested them?"

  "Menenius would have clicked his tongue, given them a stern lecture, and sent them on their way—then barred all visitors to the ruins, posted guards night and day, and sent a full report to the Senate asking for further instructions. My treasure stores would have been discovered. My little operation would have come to an end. I'd have nothing to show for all my hard work."