by Assaph Mehr
“Araxus?”
“Araxus.”
“But he’s mad!”
“On a good day. I found him when he had his reason about him. He has always been a brilliant incantator and the curse that afflicts him has, in a way, augmented his powers. That single black eye of his has the most refined visus verum I have even known. Sadly, he cannot turn it off, which must weigh heavy on his fragile mind.” I spoke fast, as I didn’t wish to examine his state — and our past — in detail.
“He was able to leach the magia out of the tablets in a way that would not fry us on the spot. He released it into the ground and the air, returning it to the numina from whence it came. I’m afraid we left a rather charred tree stump next to a creek that is now brackish and foul. In years to come, that gully where we carried this out will acquire a reputation of evil spirits, bad omens will be attributed to some dryad or lar, and people will learn to avoid it. But that should be the extent of it. Nothing more sinister. Now, let’s get on with our task.”
We carefully unwound the lead sheets. To create the curses, special sigils and formulae had been inscribed upon them with a hard stylus. Someone would then have chanted, made sacrifices, invoked the numina, and otherwise channelled the energy into the tabulae. At that point they were still dormant, in a sense. To activate the curses, the sheets were either folded or rolled, hammered, and often a nail driven through them, to anchor them to a particular location. This deformation released the imbued energy into a shaped effect.
The sheets we recovered from the three insulae had been prepared by the same hand. All were meticulously rolled rather than simply folded and had an iron-tipped bone shard driven through them in precisely the same angle and location for the activation.
Once opened, the symbols that had been etched into the sheets bore similarities to one another. Upon closer examination, traces of dried blood in the grooves and folds of the sheet became obvious. I scraped as much of the dried flakes as I could and kept them in a closed jar. Finding the kind of animal from whence the blood and bone fragments came — if it was an animal, rather than a person — might prove useful.
The last task was to prepare copies in wax. I didn’t wish to leave the originals under the roof of people I liked, inactive or not. The wax tablets could be destroyed far more easily, if the need should arise.
As we worked, I pointed out certain features for Aemilia — which intersecting lines might bear meaning and which I thought were artefacts of the folding. Why certain terms appeared in foreign languages. What letters in the handwriting looked out of place and whether the incantator who prepared them missed, or whether it was an intentional, meaningful deviation.
She was a fast learner and a steady hand at calligraphy. We’d made decent copies by sunset, after which I instructed Aemilia in the research I wanted her to carry out. She would spend the next few days with the wax facsimiles and the scrolls and codices I brought and learn as much as she could about how the curses were created and how the effects were called into being.
I am sure, deep down, Cornelia appreciated my assigning Aemilia a task that should keep her homebound and under supervision. I never found out, as I countered the lack of a dinner invitation with a proclamation that I must remove the tablets — inert though they were — from the domus to be stored safely away and would therefore sleep that night in my own home.
Chapter XV
Working on the basis of Araxus’ hint, I made my way to the Campus Civicus and the Emporium Sempronicus. The emporium holds stores and offices for many merchants and traders dealing with imports and exports from around the Mare Sepiae. It was a bustling centre of commerce, with diverse crowds from powerful business magnates in blindingly white togas to grubby dock-hands in filthy tunics.
Some of the most crucial commodities were metals, from iron and tin ores to refined silver and gold and from base metals used in construction to precious metals to adorn the statues of the gods.
And lead.
A very curious metal, lead. As soft and malleable as gold, yet grey and lacking lustre. Hardly as precious, yet far more useful. Our engineers used it to construct the great aqueduct, the Aqua Sextiae, and the associated plumbing that brought fresh water from six sacred springs to a city of a million bodies and carried their waste away.
It was used in vats for wine making, as a wine sweetener and food preserver, as a component in women’s makeup and other countless unguents, as weights for fishing nets and lines, in household pots, in cheap ornaments and toys, in inks, in the manufacture of glassware, and even in an ingenious contraption pumping fresh seawater to tanks on boats allowing the transport of live fish over great distances.
It was considered the Father of Metals and — strangely for our patriarchal society — the basest of metals at the same time.
My interest in this all-purpose substance went beyond the purview of regular lead merchants. I was not constructing aqueducts, nor manufacturing household pottery. So, I bypassed the impressive shop-fronts of respectable wholesale brokers and wandered to dingy back-alleys and their insalubrious — and unscrupulous — purveyors. These were ones who would craft a sheet of lead to obviously nefarious specifications, without burdensome enquiries. Ones who might be confused by such literary loquacity, but not by the jingle of coins.
It was late in the morning when I stepped into the fourth lead merchant’s decrepit store. The first three yielded nothing suspicious, their proprietors only dealing with mundane writing equipment not possessing the required knowledge or facilities to create exotic lead alloy sheets.
I was greeted with a gruff, “Yeah, what d’ya want?” from the proprietor, a woman in her fifties.
“Sheets for writing.”
“Papyrus in the boxes on your left, wax tablets on the bottom shelf.”
“Lead ones, actually.”
“Top shelf on the right.” The woman didn’t even bother to look up from her task. She was busy weaving a leather thong through the sides of two wax tablets, to allow them to hang together and close as a diptych.
“Only… I need to write quite… specific… sheets.”
The proprietor paused her work and turned to look at me for the first time since I entered her shop. She stared at me for a long moment, and I stared right back. A much-wrinkled woman, grey hair held in a tight bun, with the appearance of one used to heavy work. I wasn’t sure I would win against her in an arm-wrestling match. Instead I gave her my ‘experienced dealer in contraband’ look — not a hard pretence, considering I had on more than one occasion dealt with items best kept away from the authorities.
“What d’ya have in mind?” She finally asked.
“A mix of nine parts lead to one part tin in exact proportions, with a bit of crushed cobalt. Stretched and folded seven times,” I made the opening gambit.
It didn’t faze her. Where the other lead merchants asked me if I was an idiot or thought them even bigger ones, this proprietor simply said, “Now what’s an upstanding citizen like you going to write on a thing like that?”
“Oh, just a bit of this and a bit of that. I have it on good authority that you are the one to contact when assured results are desired. Word on the street is that it was your products that were used on those Subvales insulae. You know, the ones now standing empty.”
“That matris futuo!” she slipped between clenched teeth, but recovered quickly. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what idiotic rumblings you heard from some mentula on the street. For all I know, you’re from the Collegium, and this isn’t the first time I’ve been set up by Afranius. That verpa always envied my business.”
I noticed that, between all the invective, she didn’t deny it. Good sign. “I assure you I hate the Collegium just as much as you do,” I said. “My name is Felix, known as Felix the Fox. Ask around. You’ll find I have no love for those greedy bastards.” That wasn’t enough, so I added, “Here, give me
a plain sheet and I’ll show you.”
She was hesitant, so I grabbed the nearest wax tablet and stylus, scratched a few symbols, and uttered the right words. It wasn’t much. I can’t summon extensive magia quite that fast — but I’m good with parlour tricks.
It was enough.
I handed the woman the tablet. Her eyes widened as she read the symbols, even as the wax melted and ran down her hands.
“I can see there ain’t no love lost between you and the Collegium,” she said, scraping the wax away from her fingers. “What’s to stop me from reporting on you?”
“Well, for one, you no longer have any evidence. A bit of melted wax won’t be enough to get me in trouble with anyone but my laundry lady. But more importantly, I think you won’t report me because you supply people like me with what we need. You are a businesswoman, after all.” I emphasised that last point with a rattling of my money pouch.
“Even if I’d agree to create such tablets for you — and I ain’t saying I will — it’ll take me some days. I’m all booked out, so why don’tcha come back next week?”
“I need it as soon as you can make them. Name your price.”
She did. It was exorbitant.
We haggled. I knew Flaccus would pay it without a flinch, but if I didn’t haggle it would have been suspicious. When I negotiated her down just enough, I said, “Look, instead of half now and half when the sheets are ready, I’ll pay you three quarters now and as a bonus you’ll tell me the names of anyone who bought these exact same tablets in recent weeks. If he’s the real man behind the insulae jobs, I might employ him too.”
“You pay me four-fifths now, and the other three-fifths when the sheets are done. And you don’t ever mention me if anyone asks how you found him.”
Her maths skills may not have been an accountant’s dream, but I left with a name.
Gaius Hirtuleius Ambustus.
***
Finding a man in a city of a million people takes some skill. Luckily, according to the description I got from the merchant, he was true to his cognomen ambustus. The man had red burn-scars on the left side of his face, neck, shoulder.
Armed with this knowledge, I set out to do the task we detectives do only slightly less than legionaries — wear out our sandals by traipsing all over the place.
At the end of the second day I found myself sitting in a public tavern nestled between the fora Bovarium and Piscium, gazing at The Siren’s Song — one of our city’s most notorious brothels. The Siren was the kind of place where, even from across the street, one could smell the old sweat and semen that permeated the walls.
Though I had never seen him before in my life, when Ambustus arrived I was sure I had the right man. The burn scars on his face held the colour of hot coals, even though he had sustained them years ago. His left eye was set above melted cheekbones and rimmed by angry red folds of skin, giving him the appearance of some cursed chthonic deity, still on fire.
I finished my drink and went in after him. After fending off attempts by the nearest attendant to foist an obviously syphilitic girl on me, I paid him to send an amphora of his best wine after Ambustus and tell him it was on the house.
I washed my hands in a public fountain outside the brothel and went back to my table. I hoped the whore Ambustus was with got some of the wine too, for surely she needed it more than he.
It took a while, but Ambustus stumbled out adjusting his tunic and humming a merry tune. I walked after him and called his name, and he turned and peered at me blearily.
“Gaius Ambustus!” I repeated with a smile, “I finally have the honour of meeting you!”
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“I doubt it. I’m hardly as renowned as Ambustus Magnus. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Felix, sometimes known as Felix the Fox. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Will you do me the honour of allowing me to buy you dinner?”
I herded Ambustus towards a nearby tavern and ordered the best wine and a lavish meal before he could mount a serious objection or question my motives.
As the taverner brought us bread and dishes of stewed squid in herbs and garlic, I toasted Ambustus with cup after cup of wine.
“You keep calling me ‘the great,’ but I am not sure what I’ve done to deserve this epithet,” he said.
“Why, it’s your work on the insulae in the Subvales, of course!” I feigned surprise at his question. “It’s the talk of everyone in the know. Those curses were the best executed of their kind for a generation. I am sure they will be talked about for decades to come.”
In his wine-befuddled state he didn’t think to deny this; his first reaction was to nod his agreement. When I saw his brow furrow and questions start to rise, I simply poured him more wine and talked faster.
“Anyone who knows anything worth knowing in this city, tells about your great skill and audacity. Your name will go down in the annals of Egretia as one of the greatest veneficitores of our time. I dabble a little in the magia business myself, but my skill would hardly compare. I would love to know how you managed to be so precise in scope and effect, though you will probably think me a rank amateur who couldn’t possibly understand your work. Still, to be able to learn from a genius such as yourself is an incomparable opportunity.”
And so, compliment after compliment, one cup of wine after another, I stoked his pride and vanity and broke through his reluctance and suspicion. I learnt his method of getting the curse tablets into the insulae without being observed with his distinctive visage. His plan was simplicity itself — he’d disguise himself as a travelling merchant, wait around till he saw a young child going in and out, and entice him with a charm for growing bounty fruit or perhaps playing a trick on a mean neighbour. The child would then take a tablet and bury it in the garden for him. He hinted at having invented new mechanisms for activating the curse tablets.
Now came the trickier part — finding out who commissioned him. “Your employer must have pleased Fortuna greatly, to hire a virtuoso like yourself and get all those curses done so masterfully! I imagine him rich, too, to shower you with gold for such services.”
“Ha! Rich he may be, but a greater skinflint has never graced our shores.” His speech was heavily slurred by now. With each wheezy ‘s’ his rancid breath sprayed me with wine and spittle.
“But surely he recognises your service?” I feigned my best incredulity. “Or, he might be afraid that you would turn your terrifying powers on him.”
“Now that is a thought… perhaps I just might. He paid adequately for my services, you see, but not when I requested money for more experiments. There was this thing I wanted to try, you know. My powers have grown enough to turn a person’s own lares against him.”
“He would be a fool to cross you. A high-ranking senator like him, such a scandal could destroy him.”
I got a hiccough of assent in reply.
“I wonder how he keeps his clients. A patron must give lavish rewards if he is to maintain loyalty.”
“Oh, he spends enough on them. He practically owns the college up the street from here at the Vicus Greges. He rents it cheaply to the dock-hands, provides free drinks, and those verpae are ready to do any violence for him for the sheer delight of it.”
That was something I could work with, but I decided to push my luck. “I know,” I slapped my hand on the table. “I have a brilliant idea. Why don’t I register as his client and then whisper in his ear about how all your great deeds are appreciated by anyone in the right circles, and how you are courted by powerful men with offers of money who’d like to have you as their client. I’ll let him understand that you are steadfast in his service, appreciating him as a good patron.”
“You would do that for me? You are a good friend, Felix.” He put his arm around my shoulder and nearly knocked me unconscious with the admixture of sweet wine and tangy fish sauce on his breath
.
I toasted our little plot with another cup of wine, then furrowed my brows. “What’s his full name again? I want to make sure I get his right address in the morning.”
“Gaius — hic — Gaius Nu — hic — Gaius Numicius,” Ambustus managed to say before the third-loudest belch I have ever witnessed escape a man’s lips overtook him.
“That’s right. Of course. Pretty soon you should be expecting a whole bag of golden aurei,” I smirked. “Now where was that barkeep? Disappeared right when we ran out of wine. Let me go get us another amphora.”
I went to the rear, yelled for the proprietor loudly to get us another amphora of his best, then went to pee in the gutter outside the door. With my back to the world, no one saw me get my pouch of supplies from my inner tunic pocket and select those herbs I needed along with a few strands of hair from a shaggy dog. Attempting to poison a veneficitor is not a wise course of action, but I was willing to bet he was too drunk to notice. All I needed was a little something to push him over.
I went back inside the tavern, demanding clean cups. I carried them myself to the table where we toasted each other again and drank deeply.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to return home to my nagging wife now,” I said. I took a pinch of my herbs, mashed them with my right thumb into my left palm, blew a slow breath into my fist, and sprinkled the contents into my wine. I drank deeply and made a face.
He peered at me curiously. “What was that?”
“Ah, just a hangover cure I picked up from a beer-guzzling Capilani. The stuff they drink is horrible, but this ensures that there will be no headache tomorrow. I couldn’t possibly stand having a hangover with my wife’s shrill voice screaming at me to get the slaves to clean the latrines. I never go drinking without it. But what am I thinking? How unkind of me not to offer you some. Here, please allow me to return your kindness tonight. This will leave you fresh and sprightly tomorrow.”
I picked up another pinch of the herbs, mashed them with my left thumb into my right palm, inhaled a breath, and sprinkled the mix into his wine. “Tastes dreadful, I’m afraid, but it’s worth it.”