Furies

by D. L. Johnstone

  Aculeo slipped past the scrum and into the stoa, stepping behind the throne. The body was partially covered with a red cloak, faded red, threadbare, patched and filthy. He took an edge of the cloak and lifted it. The woman was likely no more than twenty years old, with a plain, thin face, chestnut-brown skin, wide cheekbones and thick dark lips. One arm was bent awkwardly over her head, the other folded neatly across her chest. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes were still open, unblinking, no spark of life behind them. Her dull black hair was cropped short and uneven, patches of skin on the scalp, neck and arms were mottled with pink bumps. Clearly not Neaera, he thought with relief. A fellahin perhaps.

  Her tunic was torn and stained with blood under her right arm. A deep-looking cut ran from her wrist halfway down her forearm. Aculeo noticed a glint of something clutched in her fist and gently pried her stiff fingers open. It was an earring. A pretty thing, like a cluster of tiny gold grapes with leaves of what looked like jasper. It was fine work, and expensive. He glanced at her ears. No sign of its mate.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” A pair of very large Public Order officers loomed over him, scowling.

  “Apologies,” Aculeo said. “I meant no harm.”

  One of the officers snorted and circled a thumb and forefinger against his lips, jabbing his tongue through the opening. The other man roared in laughter.

  Aculeo scowled and left the stoa. He spotted a familiar looking man in the purple-bordered toga of a nobleman in conversation with one of the priests just outside the sanctuary. Marcus Aquillius Capito the younger, Aculeo mused. The youngest son of the senior and very wealthy Marcus Aquillius Capito the elder, he’d been shipped to Alexandria two years back to gain experience in public office. That had been at the apex of Sejanus’ tyranny, of course, when a man never knew which end of the sword he might end up on. Aculeo recalled Capito as being a fairly typical young noble, bright, eloquent, arrogant, not to mention painfully ambitious. Still, they’d gotten along well enough in the few social meetings they’d had. What’s he doing here?

  “Capito,” Aculeo called, hand raised in greeting.

  Capito looked over and gave a puzzled smile. “An odd place to run into you, Aculeo,” he said, coming over to greet him. A retinue of four Roman soldiers followed, keeping only a few steps away.

  “Are they with you?” Aculeo asked.

  The other man offered a sphinx-like smile. “My personal guard. I’m Junior Magistrate now.”

  “Oh? Very impressive.”

  “Well father’s pleased at least. What about you? Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for a woman who’s gone missing. I heard a dead woman had been discovered here this morning and came in case it was her.”

  “And?”

  “She’s not the one I’m looking for,” Aculeo said.

  Capito considered the dead woman thoughtfully. “A street porne perhaps, or a runaway slave.”

  “The she-wolves often try to bring their men here at night,” a priest said as he looked down at the corpse with a look of revulsion. “Fornicating in the shadows, defiling the sanctuary.”

  “So what does a City Magistrate care about a dead porne?” Aculeo asked, ignoring the priest.

  Capito gazed over Aculeo’s shoulder. “That’s why.” An obese priest clad in a pure white tunic and silk scarlet himation was waddling towards them, face flushed with anger, half a dozen priests in his wake.

  “Why is the whore still here?” the High Priest seethed. “The desecration continues every moment her blood pollutes our sanctuary!”

  “My deepest sympathies for this terrible outrage to the temple, Eminence,” Capito said.

  “Your sympathy,” the other man spat. “What do you intend to do about it, Magistrate?”

  “I’ll be leading the investigation of course.”

  “Well get on with it. You can start by getting the body out of here!”

  “Of course, Eminence,” Capito said calmly.

  “I’m sure the potential impact of the desecration on the temple’s daily revenue has nothing to do with his dismay,” Aculeo said as they watched the priests walk back to their private offices. The rainstorm began in earnest then, fat, warm drops splashing down around them through the open roof of the temple.

  “If she’d been murdered in the street it would have caused little issue,” Capito said as he and Aculeo moved towards a sheltered part of the sanctuary. “But here in the Sarapeion … well it’s another matter altogether.”

  “Very thoughtless of her,” Aculeo said.

  Two temple priests approached Capito. “This is him,” the older priest said, pushing forward the other man. He looked barely out of his boyhood, his chin covered with a wispy beard. “The acolyte Leto. He was on duty here last night.”

  The youth looked down at his feet, avoiding their gaze. “So? What happened here last night?” Capito asked.

  “A supplicant came to the temple very late,” Leto said, biting his lower lip.

  Not surprising, Aculeo thought. Worshippers came from around the world to the temple seeking healing for whatever it was that afflicted them – sleeping in the sanctuary overnight in order to receive instructive dreams from Sarapis, or even paying the priests to dream on their behalf.

  “And?” Capito said impatiently.

  “I accepted his votive offering, brought him some wine and a lamp and let him be.”

  “You were supposed to stay with him,” the priest said angrily, striking the youth on the head.

  “He asked to be left alone so that he might receive his vision,” the acolyte cried, wincing from the blow.

  “So what did you do?” Aculeo asked.

  “I … I fell asleep in one of the chapels,” Leto admitted. “I awoke when I heard the supplicant cry for help.”

  “Fool,” the priest growled, striking him again

  “You know, it’s rather challenging for a man to talk when you keep hitting them on the head,” Capito said in annoyance. “Why did the supplicant cry for help?”

  “He claimed he’d been attacked by a madman in the Sanctuary,” said the youth.

  “There was a madman?” Aculeo asked.

  “I never actually saw him, sir. I came as quickly as I could, but the madman must have already escaped. The supplicant was most upset. I tried to calm him down but he was inconsolable, claimed he’d been attacked by this man. Then … then I saw her,” the boy said, glancing towards the body. “I summoned the priests and told them what I’d found.”

  “You neglected your sacred duties and the Sarapeion was desecrated!” the priest cried, striking him again. “When the High Priest learns of this …”

  “Discipline him later, please, it’s quite distracting,” Capito said irritably. “What of the supplicant? Did he say anything about the murdered girl?”

  “No Magistrate,” the boy said. “He left soon afterwards.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Cleon, sir. Cleon of Athens.”

  “Any idea where we can find him?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Leto sniffled, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  “If Cleon shows up again, send word to my offices,” Capito said. The youth gave a sullen nod.

  A pair of temple slaves carried in basins of washing soda and horsehair brushes to scrub the blood off the stoa floor. Other slaves approached the dead woman and laid out a sheet of canvas on the floor, carefully lifting the body onto it before carrying it down the mosaic-tiled corridor towards the temple doors.

  “I need to talk with the Public Order officers before I leave,” Capito said. “I trust next time we meet it’s under more pleasant circumstances, Aculeo.” With that, the Magistrate walked away.

  Clotted clouds of pink-brown blood swirled in the rain puddles on the marble tiles as the temple slaves tried to erase any remnant of what had gone on here the prior night. Aculeo looked at the earring he’d found in the dead woman’s final grasp, with its perfect little golden grapes and finely carved jasp
er leaves. A pretty piece for a street porne to be carrying, he thought. The whole thing didn’t add up somehow. What did happen here last night?

  Ah well, it really is none of my concern, and it brings me no closer to finding Iovinus. Every day that passes, the trail grows colder. The man’s like a ghost. Did I truly see him at the Hippodrome that morning? His head was throbbing again – he wondered if the priests kept any sacrificial wine about.

  Aculeo made his way out of the temple and down the hundred steps. When he reached the bottom he noticed a small white shrine in the shadows, all but obscured behind a thick tangle of thorn bushes. The sculpture on the shrine was of three hideous old women with knotted hair, roaring mouths and bulging eyes. The Furies, the goddesses who sought vengeance for victims of murder. The deities stared back at him, their painted eyes unblinking. Something caught his eye in the shadows of the shrine, a stain of some sort, he thought. He crouched next to it, carefully pulling the branches of the bush aside to get a closer look. Not just a stain but a painted symbol – like a bodiless stick figure man with bent arms and splayed legs protruding from where its neck should have been.

  He scraped at the mark with his fingernail, then rubbed the scrapings between fingertip and thumb – they softened into a chalky paste as they mixed with the oils on his skin. He smelled his fingertips – the distinctive, metallic tang of blood.

  The villa was as it had been, all their fine furniture, beautiful artworks and splendid tapestries in their proper places once more. Aculeo walked down the dark marble hallway. It was odd – he could hear the sounds of people bustling about and talking to one another, but he couldn’t actually see anyone. In fact, every room he came to was empty yet still echoed with voices. Where is everyone?

  When he reached the garden wall at the rear of the villa he stepped through the Himmatean marble archway. The air was warm and sweet, tinged with the spicy perfume of the hyacinths and mock orange trees that bordered the impluvium. There he saw Titiana standing next to the fountain. He ran forward to take her in his arms. She didn’t move. He pulled back slightly at the hardness of her cheek pressing against his, her lips cold and unyielding as he tried to kiss them.

  He took her hands in his anyway, squeezed them tight. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “Did you just arrive?”

  Titiana gave no response, though Aculeo sensed she did not want to be there at all. “Everything will be better now, on my oath. We’re together again. Where’s Atellus?”

  Titiana remained silent and still as a statue, but she was clearly troubled. Something was amiss. Aculeo called for the boy. He could hear nothing but the breeze and birdsongs in the trees.

  “You didn’t leave him back in Rome, did you?” But he knew even as he asked that wasn’t the answer. “Titiana, you’re worrying me. Where’s our son?”

  Titiana’s unsettling gaze fixed upon a narrow path at the far end of the garden leading deep into the flowered shrubs. Aculeo released her hands and stepped onto the path. The path quickly narrowed with overgrown foliage. “Atellus?” he called. Still no answer. He pushed the branches aside, ignoring the thorns that pricked at his arms and legs, moving deeper and deeper into the untamed shrubbery until at last he reached the garden’s back wall.

  There was no sign of the boy. The ground suddenly rolled and fell like a great wave beneath his feet. Aculeo clutched at the wall to catch himself and felt the bricks start to crumble and come apart beneath his fingers. He stepped back just as the wall gave way and watched the bricks and the pathway’s paving stones topple down a sheer cliff that led to the sea far below, where waves pounded and crashed against a wild shore.

  And then he spotted a small figure tumbling down the cliff’s face as well, breaking into pieces as it tumbled to the sea …No!

  “You’re not an easy man to find,” said a man’s voice.

  Aculeo awoke with a start. Two figures stood in shadow at the foot of his bed. He blinked up at them, utterly disoriented. Gellius and Bitucus, he realized. They appeared almost amused.

  “My friends can still find me easily enough,” he muttered. His head was throbbing, still clouded with wine, his mouth dry as sand.

  “I’m surprised you have any friends left,” Gellius said.

  “I’ve all I need. Though I could use a new slave. The current one seems too willing to let any riffraff cross my doorstep.”

  “I tried to stop them, Master,” Xanthias said from the doorstep.

  “Don’t go blaming the poor fellow,” Gellius chided. “We didn’t give him much choice.”

  “Nice place,” Bitucus said, looking about the cramped, dingy little closet of a room.

  “We could schedule a tour if you’d like,” Aculeo said. “It might occupy a full thirty seconds if we took the scenic route.”

  “Another time.”

  “Where’s Trogus?”

  “Waiting in the street,” Gellius said. “Any luck finding Iovinus?”

  “Not really.” Aculeo told them of his disturbing encounter with Pesach at the fullery the prior day.

  “It’s worse even than I could have imagined,” Gellius said, clearly upset. “To think that a former associate, a fellow Roman, could have fallen so desperately far. Poor, poor fellow.”

  “He did tell me about a porne Iovinus used to patronize,” Aculeo said. “The trouble is no one’s seen her in days. We’ve reached a dead end I’m afraid.”

  “Perhaps not,” Bitucus said with a sly grin. “We know where Iovinus is.”

  “What? How?”

  “Unlike you, we still have friends,” said Gellius. “We put the word out the other day. Most of them were all too willing to help us find that bastard. They didn’t seem too keen on you either, mind you. Anyway, someone spotted him at a tavern in Delta last night. Apparently he rents out a room there.”

  The oppressive shroud of Aculeo’s dream immediately dissipated, the prospect of regaining his fortune so real he could almost taste it! “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Delta, the city’s Jewish Quarter, was quite unlike the rest of Alexandria. There were few images of any god there, no statues, shrines or plaques marking the boundaries of any divine presence or influence. The Jews’ prohibitive customs of food and worship had kept them distinct and apart from the rest of the city’s diverse populace. Even so, as citizens of Alexandria they’d certainly been successful enough – it was said there were now more of them in this city alone than all those who’d followed their prophet Moses out of Egypt.

  Aculeo watched Trogus limp ahead of them. His cough had grown worse and he looked even more ill than he had the day before – gaunt and flushed and the ulcer on his leg looked puffy and seeped a trickle of clear pus. It was painful to even look at. “You should see a healer,” Aculeo said.

  “Why don’t you take that long nose of yours and stick it up your ass,” Trogus growled.

  “Don’t worry,” Gellius said quietly, “he’ll be fine once we find Iovinus.”

  “We all will,” Bitucus agreed. Trogus said nothing, just put a clenched fist to his mouth to smother another racking cough.

  “I can hardly wait,” Gellius said. “We’ll have ourselves a feast for all our friends – the finest food, the very best wine, music …”

  “It will be as though none of this ever happened, as if it were simply a bad dream,” said Bitucus.

  Gellius clapped a friendly hand on Aculeo’s shoulder. “What of you, Aculeo? What will you do once we recover our fortunes?”

  “Take the first ship to Rome,” Aculeo said without hesitation. “I’ll take my wife and son back, we’ll buy the finest villa in the Seven Hills and never look back on this fucking city again.”

  “An excellent plan,” Bitucus said with a grin.

  “You’re idiots, all of you,” Trogus growled, wincing as he limped along the street.

  “Why do you have to talk like that?” Gellius asked, sounding hurt.

  “Oh use your head, damn you. If Iovinus is so fatted o
n our stolen fortunes, why’s he living in a room above some shitty little tavern in Delta?”

  The others glanced at one another in sudden realization, but held their tongues for the rest of the journey.

  The tavern was a small, seedy little dive in a dark corner of Delta with a handful of patrons, even at this early hour. The thrattia was pouring a jug of black wine from the swollen cowhide hanging on the back wall, siphoning it through a hole cut in one of the animal’s hooves. She glanced at the newcomers. “Find yourselves a table. Something to drink?”

  “We’re not here for that,” Aculeo said. “We’re looking for a Roman named Iovinus, skinny fellow, big ears, late twenties.” The thrattia held his gaze, an eyebrow raised, saying nothing.

  “Pay her something, fool,” Trogus growled. Aculeo handed her a bronze as. The woman wrinkled her nose. Aculeo reluctantly found a mate to the first coin.

  “Upstairs,” she said with a shrug, and returned to her duties.

  The men walked carefully to the bottom of a narrow staircase and looked at one another. “So what do we do now? Just burst in on him?” Gellius asked.

  “Someone should wait in the alley in case he tries to escape,” Bitucus said.

  “I’ll do it. Just try not to fuck things up too badly,” Trogus grumbled, and limped to the back door. The others headed up the stairs. The only room with a door was at the end of a short hallway. The door hung crookedly in the frame, its boiled leather hinges cracked and peeling.

  Gellius knocked. No answer. “Maybe he’s out.”

  “To hell with it,” Aculeo said and put his foot to it. The door flew open with a crash against the wall. The room was dimly lit, a narrow pallet of a bed the only furniture, and smelled of must and sour body odour.

  A creaking noise sounded near the window. A figure hiding in the shadows turned slowly to face them. Aculeo recognized the outline of the man’s face. “Iovinus,” he whispered, scarcely able to believe it.