by Assaph Mehr
One slight problem stood in my way — I had never managed to track down Zymaxis’ whereabouts outside of the cabal meeting.
And thus, proud of my cogitation despite my headache, finally devising a clear path forward and about to set forth and see it implemented, did Fortuna dump a bucket of piss on my head.
The time was early evening, the last traces of blue still visible in the west while the first stars showing in the east, the gibbous moon yet to rise. I sat together with Dascha and Borax for an informal meal in the kitchen, a quicker and simpler arrangement than having Dascha wait on me in the triclinium while Borax ate with her in the kitchen. No proper Egretian master would dare be caught eating together with the slaves like that, but I wasn’t a proper master and was eager to get on with tonight’s business.
In appreciation of Borax’ gladiatorial past, and no doubt in an attempt to entice him to come again, Dascha cooked everything with garlic. Lettuce salad with anchovy and garlic dressing, baked garlic bread buns, squid stuffed with pine nuts and garlic, and snails in coriander and garlic wine sauce — I did not ask where she got that last expensive delicacy on such short notice. While we were polishing off the last of the snails and getting ready for the sesame honey cakes — without garlic, I hoped — there came frantic knocking on the front door.
Borax and I looked at each other, and then made our way to the vestibule. We both held our daggers in our hands, and Borax carefully opened the little slit window in the door to peer outside.
“Finally! Is this the house of Felix the Fox?” I heard a reedy voice.
“Who wants to know?” Asked Borax.
“I have a message for him from Cornelia!” said the voice.
Borax looked at me. “Only one,” he said, “and looks harmless.”
“Let him in.”
Borax lifted the bar from the door, and stepped aside for the man to enter. In stepped a dishevelled-looking man whom I recognised as one of Cornelia’s slaves that accompanied us on the voyage back from Kebros. He saw me and looked relieved. “Felix, please! Cornelia asks you come at once. It’s Aemilia — she’s been missing since last night!”
Chapter XXVII
Cornelia’s house was situated high up on the Clivi Ulterior, as befitting her illustrious ancestry. This was the most exclusive district of Egretia, where the richest families kept their mansion-sized city houses. There are a few arterial streets radiating from the forum and snaking their way up the sharp inclines of Vergu. From these, many smaller alleys branch off, running between blank walls to modest doors. The rich live their lives facing inward, with an austere facade to the street.
We marched up almost at a run, the distraught slave leading us first along the Vicus Petrosa of the Meridionali and then up from the intersection with the Via Crispa through the Clivus Incudis, going behind the Porticus Aemilia, up past the Aqua Sextiae and into the highest reaches of the Clivi Ulterior. At these heights waters were not supplied by our main aqueduct, but by springs from Mons Vergu itself. The ultra-rich get clean water, clear air and unobstructed view, and were separated by an hour of strenuous uphill climb from the rest of the populace.
The slave got us inside and straight into Cornelia’s study. This was the first time I have seen her without total self-composure. The woman who flaunted social convention on the Kebric Isles was hardly recognisable in the one in front of me, pacing back and forth, hugging herself, hair dishevelled. She lifted her eyes to me when the slave showed us in, and I saw tears well up in her eyes. She drew a deep breath and composed herself by sheer force of will; the woman was not used to appearing vulnerable.
“Felix, I am glad you could come so quickly,” she said. “It’s Aemilia — she’s disappeared and I fear for her life.”
“Tell me everything from the beginning. Don’t rush, try to remember every detail.”
“She was unimpressed with you during our voyage back, as you might recall. One of her first acts when we returned was to search for that first edition of Liberalis you talked about. Once she got laughed at out of the respectable book merchants, she came home absolutely fuming. Well, you’ve met her, that just made her even more determined. She started out to prove that you were a complete fraud. I learnt that she was aiming to solve Caeso’s death and prove to her uncle that you are cheating him. When I found out we had an argument over it. It was not proper behaviour for a young woman of her age, and far too dangerous besides. Eventually I forbade her to do anything about it.
“Then yesterday we got an invitation from my friend Caecilia Metella. Their son Quintus Aquilius won a prominent case in the extortion court, and the daughter Aquilia is the same age as Aemilia and a good friend to her. I was hoping that this would provide her with a distraction. Caecilia Metella and I have been thinking of young Quintus as a possible prospective husband for her. We wanted to see them together to know the match would be a good one, before Caecilia would get her husband to think it was his own idea. Last night was to be the perfect opportunity for this.
“We got there by the tenth hour of the day. It is not far from here, but we took the litter as I thought we might be coming back rather late. The party was a big affair, as young Quintus will be standing for election as a quaestor this year. I instructed Aemilia to catch Quintus Aquilius’ eye and speak with him. I know she was not enamoured with him, yet none of us ever are when we marry. It would be a good match if they get along, better than some other alternatives, and she understood this and cooperated.
“I must have lost track of her during the party. As celebrations finally wound down, desserts served and entertainment program finished, I went out to look for her. I could not find her, and when I found Aquilia she told me that Aemilia complained about a headache rather early in the evening and had herself taken home in our litter.
“I spoke with the master of my litter bearers, and he told me he carried her back by sunset. When I got home I knocked on her door, wishing to speak with her about the prospect of marrying Quintus Aquilius. She didn’t answer, but I thought nothing of it at the time — it was rather late, and I assumed she was asleep.
“Then this morning she did not come for breakfast. I queried her slave girl, and it turned out that Aemilia did not spend the night here. She sent all her slaves away when she came, and left instructions not to be disturbed. When the slave girl came to check on her in the morning, her bed had not been slept in!” Cornelia finally paused for breath, the story having come gushing out without break.
“It seems that Aemilia made some other arrangements for that night, an assignation from which she never came back. The young fool is always getting herself in too much trouble! I fear that she was trying to show you up, started to investigate the dark business Caeso got himself tangled with, and managed to get herself drawn in. At first I spoke with all the slaves in the house, tried myself to figure out where she might have gone to. I set out with a few of my more intelligent and trusted slaves to make enquires, but got nowhere.
“I know Aemilia had a low opinion of you, though I think she was wrong in that. She just does not handle being mocked well. You strike me as a different man. Honest may not be the right word, but I do not believe you are a charlatan. You have been looking into Caeso’s death. If anyone can find out who she went to meet and what trouble she got into, it’s you. Please Felix, please get her back to me!”
* * *
I asked Cornelia more questions about who Aemilia had mentioned, who might she have gone to meet, but learnt little as the girl did not speak on the matter with her mother after their row. Questioning the slaves and servants of the house revealed more information. They were quite eager to help, as distraught by the young mistress disappearance as any member of the family would be.
Aemilia was usually accompanied by her body slave, an Assyrican girl named Naama, and one of the family’s pool of guards. However while the slaves had walked with her and could describe to me the places and some of the people she met with, they were not privy to her conversati
ons. By piecing together those descriptions, I gathered she met with Caeso’s friends and had only done preliminary investigations into other sources. I knew already that she had met with Sosius, and could now add Porcius and Lutatius. I also got vague descriptions of other people I did not recognise, although from the general description of the places where they met and Aemilia’s attitudes I gathered she was taking a social approach. Not having the background in magia, not indeed the details of his death, Aemilia would not know what to look for. Her angle was Caeso’s friends, trying to find out how he got involved in this business in the first place. The girl was shrewd, if not particularly wise.
I do not believe in coincidences, as I mentioned. I discounted that this was one of the many random acts of violence that plague our city at night. That left the obvious conclusion — she met someone who did not appreciate her poking her nose into their business. What and whom did she uncover, that would lead to her disappearance?
I started with the most direct course of action. “Could you bring me some personal items of Aemilia?” I asked Cornelia. “Four things she uses or wears daily, like a favourite hair-pin or garment. I will also need access to your kitchen, cleared of slaves.”
She knotted her brows and paused for a moment, then gave instructions to the slaves to bring me some of Aemilia’s belongings. Soon I was alone in the domus’ very large kitchen, with only Cornelia watching me from the doorway. I cleared the large wooden table which the cook used as a work bench, and spread Aemilia’s effects on it. There was an exquisite bone hair-comb, a short sleeping tunic that still had her smell on it, a polished silver mirror and her favourite wax tablet and stylus on which she used to draft her poetry.
I took a small bronze spoon, and with a nod of apology to Cornelia, hammered it flat with an iron skillet. I filled the skillet with wine next, and heated up a mixture of sharp spices in it and some blood from a cut of meat I found, chanting under my breath all the time. The major disadvantage of not having studied properly at the Collegium was that I was not privy to the proper methods of augury. I did, however, have enough of an understanding to be able to pick up a lot of folk-practises for incantations during my travels and years in the business, remove the superstitions, enhance with proper procedures and distil them to working essentials.
When the blood-wine mix was properly ready, I rubbed each of the four items against the flattened spoon and placed it on the table, marking the corners of a square. I dipped the spoon in the mix, and traced a circle with it, enclosing the arrangement. I climbed on top of the table and tied the spoon with a piece of long string to one of the rafters. It hung down as a pendulum, and I tried to get it as close as I could to the middle of the circle made up by Aemilia’s possessions and red goo.
“You might want to step back,” I said to Cornelia. Still standing on the table, I started the main part of the incantation. As the tempo of the chanting increased the spoon began to swing on its string, powered by the flow of magia coursing through it. When the makeshift pendulum was in full swing and without stopping my chant, I lifted the heavy skillet and started to drip the wine and blood gooey mixture down the string.
The idea with such ceremonies is that the pattern traced by the dripping red goo will indicate the location of the desired object. When looking for people, using their personal effects and the right inflection can give quite detailed information. I have done these ceremonies a fair number of times in the past with much success. I was sure of my methods, unconventional as they may be; once, when looking for a stolen set of precious citrus-wood bowls, the resulting pattern had such an uncanny resemblance to the profile of the house’s steward, that he collapsed into tears immediately and confessed to the theft.
Not tonight. The spoon started to spin erratically, as if the string was held by a spasming man with the falling disease; it emitted a keening noise that set my teeth on edge. It splattered the red mixture all over the kitchen, slapped my right knee once painfully, and then broke the string and flew straight into the silver mirror. The force of impact was so great, that it skewered the mirror and impaled it into the thick wooden table.
I cursed profusely as I climbed down, only stopping the stream of invective when I saw Cornelia’s face. “I do apologise,” I said. “This ceremony is usually infallible in locating the missing. However it seems that Aemilia is now being shielded from scrying. If I we needed any more proof that this was not a random disappearance but connected to Caeso’s dark death, this is it.”
The hour was getting very late by the time I left Cornelia’s domus, and there was no point to attempt to track down the people Aemilia had met with. Places of business were closed for the day, and people ensconced in their homes with instructions to the door slaves not to admit anyone unknown.
I would have to set out early tomorrow. I decided I will not waste time with Corpio even though I knew Aemilia went to meet with him and his steward; I believed they already told me all they knew. Instead I would have to track down the other people she met; those I already spoke with and the others for whom I just had descriptions, partial names and a few addresses; most were for private residences. She kept her meetings to socially acceptable establishments and circumstances — which would make it harder for me, as I was not part of those circles.
There was just very little I could do for Aemilia this night. But as much as I needed to sleep in preparation for the day to come I got almost none of it, plagued by heavy dreams of her fate.
* * *
The next day we set out before dawn as planned, and visited the people on my short list of suspects. I tracked a few of those Aemilia met, though far from all. I spoke with them, some pleasantly and some more forcibly, yet learnt little new. Yes, Aemilia has been asking questions about Caeso; but most of them did not know what he was involved with in the first instance, so could not provide her with anything relevant. Some tried to brush me off, some tried helpful suggestions of where I should look, suggestions that I dismissed as useless or unlikely.
As the day wore on, my heart sunk further and further. A dreadful shadow in the back of my mind crept ever forward, eclipsing every other thought, though I tried my best to ignore it. One person who should have been on the list I got from Aemilia’s slaves, but wasn’t; one man I could not find anywhere in the city. And tonight was the night I was to confront the cabal, with the blood-oath and initiation I felt ill prepared for.
We got back to my home at dusk to prepare for the night ahead. We were dead tired, yet could not stop to rest. In order to keep going, I made us a special brew, one I learnt in the legions. It involved boiling of certain herbs — leaves, stems, berries and dirty roots — together with some minor incantations. The result is a drink that looks and tastes like boiled mud, bitter and nasty like a mule’s kick to the gut, but it does keep a man alert for hours. Borax sniffed at it and made a face, unimpressed. When he saw me laugh and swig the foul concoction, he had no other option to preserve his manly image except to gulp it all down.
We left after sunset. Centuries ago, our ancestors have built a proper road leading up from the forum to the very peak of Vergu. The road leaves our city walls at the Porta Alta and snakes around the mountain a full circle. We used to hold state funerals at the very top. These days, funerals — like that of Caeso — are held a short distance outside of the walls, in a place where the ground presents a wide ledge with good views inland. Beyond that ledge the climbing gets rough, and the road is poorly maintained. To climb to the very top would take a healthy man almost four hours. In daylight. We were going by torchlight, any traces of light having long crept out of the sky by the time we left the walls. We should make it just on time for midnight, although I suspected most of the cabal will already be there. Ready and waiting for me.
Chapter XXVIII
When the full moon rose, we snuffed our torches. The light was sufficiently bright for us to see the path, and I did not wish to advertise our approach. I left Borax with instructions to hang back, stick to the
shadows and wait for my call. There were no signs of torches behind us as we were probably the last to arrive. I wanted to keep Borax as a surprise. He was clearly not used to this kind of sneakery and his huge bulk was conspicuous, but I felt I needed all the help I could get tonight.
We were on the north face of Vergu now, getting close to the final ascent. The moon was shining brightly, illuminating the badly maintained track. Years of neglect and disuse, exposure to the elements, storms and the occasional shifting of Vulcanus sleeping under the mountain have eroded the path down to a very narrow strip of uneven white stones, set between overhanging and dropping cliffs.
We made the turn that led to the last stretch of winding, slippery stairs carved into the mountain rock. The climb was just like in my vision of yesterday; unsurprising, as I had made this ascent in years past.
We reached the last step leading to the deep ledge at the top. This open space faces east, overlooking our great city. At the sides were the massive slabs of hard granite, so sheer they could be climbed no further. At the back I saw the narrow gap that leads to the crater at the centre of the peak. There was a fiery glow coming from between within, though thankfully it looked like braziers and not from down the bowls of the crater.
I stood for a moment, catching my breath, looking out on the dark sea mirroring the silvery moon and the many small dots of fires down in Egretia. I gave the last instructions to Borax.
I put my hand inside my long tunic sleeve, found the sheath of my dagger strapped to my forearm, and extracted the res magiae — the wooden toothpick wrapped in the two strands of hair and sealed with blood. I held it in between thumb and forefinger for a moment, then broke it and dropped the broken pieces, ground them into the rock them with my heel.