Furies (27 page)

“What are you waiting for, let’s go!” Capito cried, and kicked in the back door to one of the buildings then charged inside, the soldier right on his heels. Aculeo turned back and ran down the alley out to the street. He pushed his way through the crowds again, trying to see where Apollonios had come out from the alley.

We can’t have lost him! So many people, how in Pluto’s name are we going to … ah, there. Apollonios was walking slowly along the street, head down, trying to blend into the crowd. Aculeo pushed through the pedestrians, trying to get closer. He was approaching the Agora now. The recluse glanced back over his shoulder just then, saw his pursuer drawing nearer, and ran.

The man was like a silverfish the way he slipped through the crowds, never missing a step. “Hoi, stop him!” Aculeo cried in vain. Apollonios veered to the right suddenly. He’s heading to the canal – he crosses that and he’s into Rhakotis, a cursed maze – we’ll never find him there! Aculeo sprinted after him, heart pounding, lungs burning. The recluse slipped down onto the dry mud bank and plunged feet first into the canal, wading across, the water up to his chest in a hurry, his filthy chiton billowing out behind him. Aculeo stood back on the bank, ready to plunge in after him, when he saw Capito and the soldier appear on the other side of the canal. They must have crossed at the bridge down the way, he thought, then he jumped into the water, bellowing at the top of his lungs to drive Apollonios forward.

They seized the recluse as he climbed dripping onto the opposite bank. He roared in fury as they held him down, wept in despair as they bound him hand and foot. “What do you want with me?” he cried. “What did I do? Sarapis, Benefactor of all that is good, protect me! Get your fucking hands off me!”

“Just gag him while you’re at it,” Aculeo gasped, collapsing in exhaustion on the bank of the canal.

The stairway leading down to the underground cells was rank with the stench of human waste and death. They could hear rats scrabbling about in the darkness, startled by the sudden influx of torchlight. The prisoners cried out in a dozen different languages, begging for food, water, freedom as Aculeo and Capito passed their cells.

Apollonios’ cell was in a distant corner of the complex. The man lay curled up in a pile of fetid straw on a mud-brick platform, his breathing harsh, laboured. The guard opened the cell door. Aculeo held up his sputtering torch, stinking of sulphur and pitch.

Capito sent the guard away. “Get up,” he growled. Apollonios didn’t stir. Capito grabbed him by his dirty hair and dragged him onto the cold stone floor. The recluse cried out in pain as he looked up blearily at the two men. In the dim, sickly light of the cell, they could see his jaw was swollen, likely broken, his upper lip split and caked in blood. It seemed the guards had had some sport with him.

Apollonios touched his mouth with a trembling hand. “Hail Sarapis, who weighs the lives of men, know that your sacred place in my heart …” he whispered, barely audible. He began coughing, then resumed his fervent, mumbling rant.

“Your brother told us you fought at Teutoburg,” Aculeo said. “Decorated by Caesar himself – is that right?” Apollonios made no reply but stopped his wretched mumbling at least. “They say the waters there were still dark with blood a year after the battle was done. How could a man like you have survived?”

“Hail … Zeus-Soter, God of All Men,” the recluse stammered, “may you protect these men who know not your love, may you teach them.”

“So the Gods saved you?” Capito asked.

“I serve only Sarapis, ruler over all that is good and light, may others learn to worship you as I so humbly do and offer you your rightful tributes throughout eternity.” Apollonios blinked and looked up, as though noticing the two men for the first time. “Who are you?”

“Don’t you remember me, recluse?”

A light of recognition filled the prisoner’s bruised eyes. “Hail to Hades, Lord of Shadows, may you curse this lover of his own mother!” he snarled and spat a thick wad of phlegm on the floor.

“He seems to remember you well enough,” Aculeo said.

“And do you still remember the porne you attacked last year before you fled the city?” Capito asked.

“Let him drink of the waters of the white cypress of Lethe so he loses his mind in the eternal fire of your foul and hideous realm!” Apollonios muttered, turning to face the wall.

“We know what happened at the Sarapeion,” Aculeo said. “You murdered a slave there.”

“A cursed lie!” the recluse cried. “Hail Sarapis, who weighs the lives of men, know this wretched man before me is unworthy of your sacred love. May you strike him down with your beneficent fire and bring him to his knees, even as you cast this loathsome city into the sea!”

“A witness saw you attack that slave. You murdered her, covered her with your cloak.”

“She … she was already dying,” Apollonios said, his fury abated, muttering feverishly under his breath. “Already dead. Hail Sarapis!”

“Enough with your cursed Sarapis!”

“So pretty, such a pretty thing,” Apollonios whispered to himself. “She’d like it, wouldn’t she?”

Aculeo felt a chill run down his back. “What would she like? What would the pretty girl like?”

“Hold me,” the recluse said softly. “Please.”

“You murdered her then and there. And Myrrhine, whose throat you cut before you dumped her body in the canal. And what of Neaera?”

“I need to get out of here,” Apollonios said, covering his ears, rocking back and forth in his mud-brick bed. “Please, Sarapis, save me!”

“We know you murdered those women, damn you!” Aculeo snarled, grabbing the man by his soiled chiton. “Why did Gurculio want them dead?”

“What are you talking about?” Capito hissed under his breath. Aculeo ignored him.

The recluse covered his ears and curled up on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest like a frightened child. “Please, I couldn’t. He would never kill.”

“Come on, Apollonios,” Aculeo said. “You must have killed a hundred men to survive Teutoburg. What’s a few girls to that?”

“Why am I cursed with this miserable existence, O Great One?”

“Tell me about Gurculio, damn you, or I swear I’ll beat you to death here and now!”

Apollonios turned and grabbed Aculeo by the wrist with surprising strength. “Take my life then, Roman! Take it! Take it! Take it! Take it!”

“Unhand me!”

“Fuck!” Capito said, moving in to separate them.

The recluse suddenly released Aculeo and dropped to his knees on the stone floor, raising his wasted arms to the shadows overhead, the yellow cord bracelet slipping to halfway down his filthy forearm. “O Great One, have I not stood on every street corner of this wretched city, spreading the word of your divine purpose, invoking your sacred will? Have I not dedicated my very life to you?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Capito said. “We could have a clearer conversation with the rats that nest in his bedding.”

“Fine,” Aculeo said, rubbing his now aching wrist, his heart pounding. Capito called for the guard to let them out again.

“Hail Sarapis, hail Isis, hail Harpocrates, your divine child,” Apollonios whispered in a feverish rush. “Please, please, please, won’t someone save me from this wretched vision?”

The walls of the tavern glowed with the soft yellow lamplight, shadows shifting across a mural of a priapic Pan and a group of nymphs dancing deep within a bucolic forest. The sound of slurred song and mindless laughter from the other patrons floated about as slaves carried forth jugs of wine and platters of food.  

“The Library must be closed for the night,” Capito sniffed, glancing about the place, “all the great sophists have gathered here instead.”

“I felt like strangling the man,” Aculeo said.

“It’s your own damned fault. Everyone knows you should avoid the gaze of a murderer, lest you become infected with a murderous rage yourself.”

Aculeo said nothing, gazing deep into his krater of cheap palm wine, swirling the debris about. Capito reached across and gave him a clap on the shoulder. “Come on, Aculeo. Let’s celebrate. We caught the murderer today.”

“You believe Apollonios murdered them, don’t you?” Aculeo asked.

“Eh? Yes, of course he did, of course.”

“Myrrhine? The river slave? Neaera perhaps?”

“Yes, and who knows how many others?” Capito gave him a puzzled look. “What game are you playing at, Aculeo? You yourself convinced me of it.”

“I know it.”

“So what were you going on about, asking him about the moneylender?”

“Something doesn’t fit,” Aculeo said and went to refill his cup from the small amphora.

Capito snatched his cup away, sloshing wine on the table. He was smiling still, but his eyes were steely. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about or not?”

“Let go of my wine,” Aculeo said, meeting the other man’s gaze.

Capito put the cup down. “Why did you ask the recluse about Gurculio? What were you fishing for exactly?”

“I’m not sure myself. It’s a tough thing to fish when your net’s as tangled as this one.”

“When we found the murdered hetaira by the canal, you said you’d seen her at Ralla’s symposium.  You saw Gurculio there too, if I recall correctly. You think the two of them are connected to these murders as well?”

Aculeo held his tongue. The Magistrate drummed his fingers on the tabletop, his mouth tightened into a narrow slit. Aculeo looked away. Part of him wanted to reveal what he knew to his friend, but the rest of him held back. What do I know, exactly? One hetaira is missing, while another is murdered along with some random river slave. And their murders are connected somehow by a length of yellow thread. And I’m still no closer to finding who murdered Iovinus and stole my fortune than I was before.

“It’s just foolishness,” he said at last, forcing a smile.

“I’m invited to a symposium at Ralla’s villa tomorrow evening, so if you’re truly expecting him to start murdering his guests I’d like to know beforehand so I don’t get my best tunic soiled.”

“It was nothing. It was the recluse that murdered these women. End of story.”

“Doubt can nag at you like an old woman, eating away at the edges of any brief joy a man may feel,” Capito said. “Just let the murder court do its job now. The Archipegaron will try Apollonios, convict him and execute him. As for us, we’ll be done with it. Ah! I must be getting drunk. This fellahin piss is actually starting to taste good. Come on, let’s find some decent wine and women to match so we can forget about this scabrous world at least ‘til morning.”