by Paul Finch
She took a corridor on the left, leading to a central courtyard, or peristyle, its walls again hung with ivy and decorated with frescoes of dolphins and water-nymphs. In the centre of the yard there was a tiled pool, though this was dry and cracked. In the middle of the pool, on a plinth from which water would normally spout, stood a bronze statue of the first Augustus, Octavian. Flavia regarded the impressive figure; it gleamed in the twilight, assuming an almost saintly radiance. Momentarily, she longed for those far-off days she had only heard about, when Rome was a seat of justice, learning and prosperity, rather than a wager of war and a creator of tyrannies.
Overhead, the sky had turned lilac and was increasingly speckled with stars. Time was not on her side, so she hurried through the peristyle into the next passage, from which other cubicula branched. All of these were now empty, though once they would have been used for storage or the quartering of slaves. The largest had clearly been a kitchen, as was evident from its slate work-surfaces, its racks for herbs and spices, and the great cauldron suspended over its hearth. At one end of it there was a door of bare oaken planks, which Flavia hesitated to approach; she fantasised briefly about what might await her on the other side. Why was this door closed, when all the others were open?
When she finally found the courage to open it, she saw stone steps leading down into a deep blackness scented with soil and sewage. She imagined dungeons and torture chambers. Then she realised that this was the way down to the caldarium. Her sigh of relief smoked in the chill underground air. She slid a foot forward, and found the topmost step. Her exploring right hand encountered a niche, in which a flint and several candles had been placed. With a prayer of thanks, Flavia managed to strike a flickering light.
She now gazed properly down the stairwell. It was not so deep as she’d expected, a flight of only eight steps dropping beneath an arched ceiling of brick to a lower, paved passage. However, even with the candle, Flavia was reluctant to descend. Basement caldaria were often small but confusing complexes of ovens, cellars, cupboards and crawlspaces. There were likely to be many unseen places, many blind turns which at present she hadn’t the pluck to investigate.
Instead, she went back into the kitchen and crossed to another, wider doorway. This opened onto a garden terrace, from which a colonnaded passage led through flower and vegetable beds to a circular bath-house with a great bronze door. Flavia suspected that entry to this particular building would be impossible. On abandoning his villa, Tribune Maximion had removed all fixtures of value, but it was likely that figurines of marble would be built into the very fabric of the bathing area. If thieves weren’t able to steal them they would probably just smash them. From what she’d been told, thieves were unlikely to venture into this place, but in reality – at least thus far – there was nothing especially eerie about the house. It was a derelict shell, nothing more.
Holding her candle in front of her, Flavia strode back through the kitchen in the direction of the peristyle. She wondered what her chances of survival would be if nothing happened during the night, and if in the morning she went out to see the tribune and claimed the house was cleansed? Almost certainly, at the first sign of renewed haunting, he would recant his false-witness, though that would not put him in a good light with his superiors.
Flavia heard what sounded like a creak from the floor above.
She stopped in her tracks, listening intently.
Another creak followed, another and another – and suddenly it was plainly obvious that they were footfalls. Somebody was moving about up there, padding stealthily. Flavia peered at the plaster ceiling, clutching the candle so hard that it squashed out of shape in her fist. There had to be an intruder, but whom? The footfalls were moving back and forth from room to room, seemingly aimlessly.
She stood rooted to the spot. Who could this be? A thief? A vagrant who had been sleeping in the house? If he discovered her would he cut her throat, ravish her? She could call for help to the Praetorians, but would they answer? Dozens of harrowing thoughts flashed through Flavia’s mind. This was the Celtic border country, and an unsettled place. Beyond the river, Silure renegades were still at large; there were bandits, escaped slaves, even wild animals. Flavia had heard that sometimes bears entered empty residences, searching for scraps of food. She backed to the nearest wall, her heart thumping. Above, the footfalls still resounded. Whoever or whatever it was, they hadn’t yet found what they were looking for – and their search went on.
At last she steeled herself to creep out from the kitchen and along the passage to the peristyle, where she again halted. Outside in the yard, she might be spotted from one of the windows above. But – wasn’t that what she was supposed to be doing here? Listening for odd sounds, investigating, confronting and finally expelling any intrusive presences she encountered? Expelling them! The thought was laughable. How could she, a puny mortal, tired and hungry, unarmed and half-naked, succeed where one of Rome’s elite soldiers had failed?
Yet the reality was that she had to try – else the bloody block awaited.
Steeling herself again, Flavia ventured through the peristyle with quick, quiet steps, holding her breath until she reached the next passage. From there, she made her way to the atrium, relieved that the front doors were closer, but still unnerved that she must challenge whoever it was upstairs. Once in the atrium, she could no longer hear the padding feet. Whether this was because she was out of range, or because the prowler had heard her and was now lying low, she couldn’t be sure. She still moved to the bottom of the staircase. No sound came down from above, no light was visible – evening darkness filled the entire house like brackish water.
“Hello?” she called in a querulous tone. “Whoever you are, you must leave. This house is privately owned.”
There was no reply.
“I warn you … the master of this house is only a few minutes away. He is a tribune in the Praetorian Guard, and he will deal with you accordingly if he catches you.”
Silence reigned.
At last, knowing that she had no choice, and that even in the worst outcome, death by murder was preferable to slow dismemberment, Flavia placed her first foot on the stair. Still, no sound came down from above. Emboldened, she continued, finally ascending to the top. Various doors were visible from here, giving through to bedrooms and cubicula for linen or laundry. One rather grand archway led through to the triclinium, which as she’d expected, overlooked the peristyle. Very nervously, expecting at any second to be attacked, Flavia searched them all. Shadows seemed to hustle and bustle around her; each time the candle-flame flickered, objects leaped like dervishes. But there was no sign of life – in fact the only things she saw were items of broken furniture: chairs, recliners, a gutted dresser or two. Perhaps robbers had been here in the past, but they weren’t here now. She trod fearfully from one room to the next, but nowhere could she find hide or hair of a trespasser. Not that this was comforting; she was unable to shake off the conviction that, though she saw no-one, someone else was in the villa, shadowing her every step.
Again, she spoke out aloud, demanding to know whose presence it was. There was no verbal reply, though suddenly Flavia fancied that she could hear the sound of running water. She listened, astonished – it was as if a faucet had been switched on. Could it be coming from the peristyle? Had, for some reason, the waters of the fountain started to flow? She hurried through to the triclinium, and unbolted and pushed open a shutter, peering down. But from that height, the inner yard was a pit of gloom; not even the statue of Augustus was discernible.
She scampered down the stair and went through to the peristyle from the atrium. The statue was now a grim outline in the dark. Once she got close to it, she was able to raise the candle and distinguish the first emperor’s wise but pensive features, and then look down – and see the dry tile-work at his feet, and the dusty cobwebs strung over the water-spouts. And yet still, from all around her, louder now, as if she was standing at its source, she heard a cheery gushing
and splashing.
She heard something else as well: idle voices, laughter, playful shouts.
Doubting her own sanity, Flavia stared around at the frescoed walls – at the nymphs frolicking with the dolphins, at the satyrs in their sun-lit glades, at the rivers of wine emptying from pitchers. Paintings. Flat, lifeless paintings. Yet the sounds of Bacchanalian joy continued, the squeals, the giggles. The eyes in those wild, wayward faces seemed to fix on her, to follow her as she backed away, and finally turned and fled from the peristyle, a scream of fear locked in her throat.
Mad moments followed as Flavia stumbled through the corridors. Doorways capered around her, walls crashed into her. Only by a miracle did she keep the candle alight until she tottered out onto a veranda overlooking the villa’s rear garden. Unable to go further, she crouched into a ball against the balustrade, holding the light in front of her as if it were a weapon with which to ward off a foe.
No foe emerged in pursuit, however. The sound of water was suddenly stilled; the mumbling, chuckling voices were silenced.
Flavia remained where she was for several minutes, weeping, praying if not for protection, for guidance against something her faith had never prepared her for. She believed in spirits – of course she did; she believed in life everlasting, and that on the Day of Judgement the bodies of the righteous would rise again and re-unite with their departed souls. But there was a world of difference between the angelic forms she’d envisioned during the rapture of worship, and the sentient, lurking thing she now imagined in this maze of darkened rooms and passages. Nevertheless, at length, Flavia rose to her feet and ventured back inside.
God was the creator of all things, benign and malevolent – nothing could happen to her unless by His will.
Her resolve grew as she walked. The full darkness of night had descended, and the candle in her hand was little more than a blob of melting wax, but Flavia would not have been in this position at all if her zealous belief hadn’t given her courage beyond the ordinary. She strode boldly through the villa and out into the peristyle – where no sound now greeted her. The candle-flame failed to illuminate the etchings on the walls, so thick were the shadows. Her eyes probed the dimness, challenging the interloper to appear.
At first there was nothing. Then, very faintly, the reverberating thud of a blow sounded somewhere below her feet. Flavia listened. A second blow followed, and a third – but these were not wild, uncoordinated blows. They followed each other at regular intervals, as if someone were beating steadily on a large, animal-hide drum. Moreover, each one was louder than the one before. Soon they were crashes rather than thuds, then booms rather than crashes. They grew in volume until eventually they’d become thunderous. Once again, terror gripped Flavia. She clapped her hands to her ears. The bombardment had now reached the point where it seemed impossible the entire villa wasn’t shaking to pieces. Each boom was the roaring slam of a cathedral door – yet there wasn’t so much as a vibration in the walls or floor. Not a whisper of dust descended from the ceiling.
Flavia went unsteadily through the kitchen to the basement entrance. Whatever was happening was happening below, and below there was only the caldarium. Nerves taut as harp-stings, she took the iron ring-handle and opened the door to that lower region.
And instantly there was silence.
At first it was ear-shattering, numbing. But then it changed somehow; subtly altered – became a breathless silence; a waiting silence; a beckoning silence.
A sobbing sound began. It sounded like a child – distant yet, strangely, near. And it came from below.
“Who are you?” Flavia called with a shaking voice.
Another voice replied. A child’s voice, though again it was distant.
“Help me!” it pleaded. “Please help me! I can’t get out … I can’t!” There was despair in that voice; utter, abject misery.
“Stay where you are,” Flavia said. “I’m coming down.”
She descended, though first she lit a fresh candle from the niche, and melded the previous one back into place, so that it might cast light on the stair behind her.
“Please help!” the voice begged. It was muffled slightly, as if its owner was trapped somewhere – behind a locked door or beneath fallen masonry.
Flavia turned at the bottom corner, and was confronted, as she’d expected, by a paved cellar area, with various doors leading off into blackness. Beyond each one, ladders would run up to alcoves below the floorboards of the rooms above, within which stoves and cisterns would be located. Even in this room there was a large cast-iron kiln, now black and cold of course, but with a forest of pipes and tubes running up and away from it, branching across the low, cobwebbed ceiling, or angling up through tiny, specially-cut holes. The thermals in this building were ingenious, she realised, remembering the smoky, log-stacked hearths in her own home. Tribune Maximion had installed a system which not only warmed the ground-floor rooms, but probably carried hot air to the upper floors as well. It must have cost him considerably. No wonder he wanted it back in his possession.
“Hello?” she said. “Whereabouts are you?”
“Here … in here!” sobbed the little voice. “I can’t get out!”
Perplexed, Flavia looked around. The voice seemed to be here, there and everywhere.
“Tell me where exactly,” she said, peeking with her candle into every room and side-passage. Nothing moved in any of them; not even mice.
“In here!” the voice repeated, still sounding muffled but now with an odd metallic quality. “Can’t you find me?”
Incredulous, Flavia looked up at the web of interconnecting tubes and pipes.
“Help me!” the voice said. “I’m lost in here … lost.”
It burst into laughter; bass, brazen laughter.
Flavia was jolted with shock. Her instinct was to back away, but back away from what? The laughter sounded on all sides of her, clattering wall to wall in the confined space. Instead of running, she joined hands around her candle and with eyes closed, prayed: “In the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, I command you to leave this house”
Abruptly – very abruptly, the laughter ceased.
Flavia opened her eyes again.
She saw nothing, only the candle-shadows. Despite the cold, a sweat of fear greased her entire body. It was difficult even to breathe during the silence that followed.
Then there came a whisper. It was a female whisper. But it was harsh and sibilant, only female in the way the gorgon’s whisper might be female, or the Lamia’s.
“You follow the Nazarene?” it asked.
Flavia felt her terror subside a little. The Lord’s name was a tower of strength, even in the most dread circumstances. “So you know Him?” she said.
There was another silence, and then with a cat-like hiss, the whisper erupted into demonic wrath. “AS A PLAGUE-RAT KNOWS FLEAS, YOU FILTHY BITCH!”
Flavia shrank a little, but as well as rage, there was something else in that appalling voice – fear, and that gave the Christian woman courage.
“You know Him … and you’re frightened of Him!” she said triumphantly.
A furious clashing of metal and banging of pipes resulted. The uproar was almost deafening; once again, Flavia clapped hands to her ears. But inside, her heart was leaping. This was surely proof, if proof ever were needed, that her Lord was king above all things, both natural and unnatural. She believed this implicitly already, of course, but it was a wondrous thing to be reassured.
When the chaos subsided, she spoke again, now with strength and confidence. “Who are you? Tell me your name!”
There was no answer, only an uncannily distant echo and re-echo of ringing pipes.
“Are you the ghost of someone who was wronged?” Flavia asked. “Did you die by violence in this place?”
Still there was no reply. Defiantly, she stuck her candle into cubby-holes, or between the stoves and cisterns where only thick drapes of spider-web hung in musty shrouds. She expected to see a brok
en skull, or perhaps some fragment of thigh or finger-bone poking out from a secret resting-place. But there was nothing.
Flavia’s breath billowed like mist in the flickering light. Her scalp was still prickling, her flesh still creeping – she knew that she wasn’t alone here.
“Whoever you are,” she said, making her way back across the central chamber and up the steps, for she sensed that this entity was not just below her, but above her too, and on all sides, “whoever you are, you are commanded to leave. Begone!”
She emerged into the kitchen, which was now striped with silver moonlight. It was a menacing sight, but she walked fearlessly through it, roaming from one room to the next, finally crossing the peristyle and entering the atrium.
“Move on, I say!” she cried. “Move on to the next life …”
“LIFE! YOU CURSED HAG!” came a scream of rage. “LIFE … FOR SUCH AS I!”
Items began to move: shutters opened and closed, banging ferociously; sheets and rugs were tossed across the room; furniture spun and overturned.
“WHORE! CHRISTIAN WHORE!” The voice was now filled with more than hatred – with lust, with a monstrous, gloating lust. “THROW YOURSELF DOWN AND SPREAD YOUR DETESTABLE HOLE … YOU YEARN FOR SINNER’S SEED!”
Flavia stayed put as the tempest swept around her. “Is that the best you can manage?” she said. “A stream of obscenities? Are you no more than a child?”
Instantly, the storm ceased. From somewhere in the darkness there came a chuckle like rolling bones. There were more words – in the same crazed-harridan voice, but now unintelligible because they were spoken in fluent Greek.
Flavia listened, amazed.
Smoothly, the Greek flowed into Etruscan, then into Hebrew, then Coptic …
She felt fingers of ice on her spine.
It spoke in Ligurian, and in a guttural tongue which she thought might be Akkadian. She didn’t know whether the thing was making genuine discourse, or uttering gibberish, but the message was still the same, and it chilled her to the core. This thing – this presence had a knowledge; a vast and impossible knowledge.