Capito arrived, looking about, rain drizzling down his face. “Where is he?”
“This way,” Aculeo said, heading into the scrub. They followed a tangled trail of broken branches leading up a steep bank of loose limestone and rubble towards a partially cultivated, level area. No sign of Callixenes. Capito pointed to a bloodstain smeared on the grey wet shale. There was another stain further down, and another leading towards a rocky crevice near a muddy grove of date palms. They moved quietly towards the crevice. Callixenes lay inside like a viper in its nest, his face twisted in pain.
“Either we take you out in pieces and feed you to your pigs or you crawl out on your hands and knees,” Capito said. “Five seconds to decide.”
Callixenes considered his severely limited options and finally crawled out towards him, head down. Aculeo shoved him to the ground with his foot and Capito tied his wrists tight behind his back, looping part of the rope around the man’s throat to keep him from trying to work the bonds free. They were back at the property in a few minutes. The slave girl watched from near the animal pen, trembling in fear as Callixenes was led towards her. Sekhet looked up from her work on the wounded soldier, her eyes filled with a cold rage as she gazed at the freedman.
“What in Pluto’s name did you do with those women?” Aculeo asked.
“What women?” Callixenes asked, his face twisted in a maddening smirk.
Machon cracked the man across the skull. The freedman fell face first into the mud, out cold. “That’s for Dryton, you fucking freedman asshole,” the soldier said.
Capito gave Aculeo a grudging nod. “Have we finally discovered your cursed answers?”
“Some at least. We know Neaera was murdered, but not why.”
“You’ve the murderer at least.”
“Callixenes? He’s only the tool. There’s another we want,” Aculeo said.
“Who?”
“Albius Ralla. He stole this property from Posidippus six months ago. He’s behind the whole thing. Whatever it is.”
The Magistrate stared at him for a moment, then smiled. “Ah, I thought you were serious for a moment.” Aculeo turned and walked away. “Aculeo? Don’t tell me you’re …” Capito looked down at the unconscious freedman in dawning horror. “Oh shit.”
When the rain finally ended, they gathered what dry wood and reeds they could find, built a pyre down on the dismal shore and set it ablaze. Even soaked in pitch, the pyre produced little more than an acrid black smoke at first that curled into the sky. Until the fat from the slaughtered pigs caught fire, that is, then the flames popped and sizzled and swelled until the fire seemed to fill half the beach and the air was thick with the sickly tantalizing smell of the animals’ roasting flesh. Aculeo could feel the greasy, roaring heat of the fire lick his face and closed his eyes against it, his skin aglow with crackling yellow-orange light.
“I wonder if we should have sacrificed them to the gods instead,” Capito said uneasily.
“To what god would you make sacrifice of these foul creatures?” Sekhet asked. “Whatever gods have dominion over this place, I doubt they’d covet such an offering.”
“We can only hope as much.”
Aculeo watched as a dozen fellahin workers crawled on their hands and knees, side by side through the dark mud of the farm. They had commandeered them from farms up along the western shores, as workers from neighbouring properties had been unwilling to come to the farm at any price or threat; having heard the tortured cries of the victims that had come from this wretched place, they considered it to be a place of demons. The searchers focused on a quadrant Sekhet had marked out with twine, in and around the clearing where the farmhouse, abattoir and pig pen were located, sifting through the filth, looking for bones, hair, clothes, jewellery, anything that could give them a link, a clue.
Every now and then one of the workers would let out a cry, holding up their find for Sekhet to come and examine. They’d found a large number of bones so far, mostly in the great stinking piles of pig waste that sat out behind the pen, thick with clouds of voracious flies. Tangled lengths of hair, partially digested fragments of vertebrae and other bones, along with several teeth. One worker had spotted what he thought to be a piece of skull buried in a huge ant heap. When the workers tried to dig there, the fiery red ants had swarmed, stinging them, and so the workers drenched the ant heap in pitch and set fire to it as well. Eventually they were able to retrieve four blackened human skulls from the smouldering heap.
“What kind of nightmare is this place?” Capito growled, sweat dripping down his face.
“Maybe the fellahin are right,” Aculeo said. “It’s a place of demons.”
“Worse than demons,” Sekhet said darkly. “To be murdered is crime enough, but for their bodies to then be desecrated this way, consumed by these miserable beasts … they’re cursed to eternal death, their kas wandering aimlessly with no way to find their khets.”
“We can make sure it stops here at least.”
“Albius Ralla is linked to this – you’re certain?” Capito said, all too willing to be told otherwise.
“Certain enough.”
“If he catches wind of what we’ve done before we’re ready, we’re both dead men.”
Aculeo looked down at the injured officer, whose face was deathly pale and drenched with sweat. “How is he?” he asked Sekhet.
“He’s stabilized at least,” she allowed. “Still, he’s suffered heavy bleeding and is already running a fever. We need to get back to the city as soon as we can.”
Capito watched the black, stinking smoke spiral up into the sky. “We should just set fire to the whole cursed place.”
“I’d like nothing better,” said Aculeo. “Right now we need to head back to Alexandria.”
Capito shook his head. “I’d be much better off hiring a boat and heading to Thrace. I could hide out there for a while, start a new career, change my name of course .”
Aculeo smiled grimly and clapped him on the back. “We have him, Capito. We just need to finish the job.”
“Easily said. Alright then, let’s go back,” Capito said with a sigh.
They noticed too late that some sparks from the blazing pyre had fallen on the crude wooden shrine to Poseidon that stood on the beach, setting it ablaze as well. By the time they managed to finally douse the flames the shrine was little more than a charred stump. The omen couldn’t possibly have been worse. They looked at one another helplessly, none of them wanting to speak. Aculeo gazed out to the sea, hoping the Gods wouldn’t be too vengeful this time when they claimed their retribution.
Lycarion the Harbour Master gazed through the window of his dockside offices, watching the little two-sailed merchant’s ship tack neatly around the Bull’s Horn, an enormous craggy white rock that jutted from the water’s surface near the entrance of the Great Harbour of Alexandria. It was a fine, deep harbour, highly favoured among merchant ship masters. One just had to be careful near the treacherous Hog's Back Rocks and the Arm of Lochias on the left, then ease the prow to the right around the tawny-coloured breakwater. There she goes – nicely done. Now swing in towards the Poseidium, pinched between the island of Antirrhodus and the Imperial Galley Port, with its twin triemes and various round boats, beyond which was a swell of elegant dove-grey limestone and Aswan granite buildings, the inner palaces and the ostentatious Caesarium, almost hidden by a copse of palm trees and sacred groves.
I wonder what she brings, Lycarion mused, absently tapping his walking stick on the floor. Saltfish from Lycia? Hymettian honey? Or some fine woollens from Miletos? Some decent wines I hope. Countless ships from all the known world were lined up at dock in the slips of the inner harbour, lines of square, white linen sails snapping in the breeze. A few stood at anchor further out in the harbour, great two and three-masted vessels with larger holds that could carry great loads of grain and other wares across the open sea in a single journey. And the Harbour Master controlled the entrance and exit of every last one of th
em – an enormous responsibility, but not without its rewards – a piece of this, a bit of that, it all added up quite nicely. Gulls and pelicans flapped overhead in the morning sky, just as curious as he was to what the new ships might bring.
“Excuse me,” said a voice. The Harbour Master turned about, startled – he’d not heard anyone enter his offices.
Look what we have here, he thought, taking in the two men’s tattered tunics, broken sandals and messy mops of hair. Both of them unshaven and unbathed in the gods knew how long. They were likely crawling with fleas. A dozen of their sort poked about the harbour every day, runaway slaves, army deserters fleeing some distant war, or ordinary beggars looking for handouts. It didn’t matter, Lycarion thought irritably, everyone has their own problems to worry about.
“Who do you think you are sneaking up on me like that?” he snapped.
“Oh, apologies, sir,” the grey-haired fellow said solicitously. “My name is Marcus Augendus Gellius, this is my associate Gaius Durio Pesach. You must be the Harbour Master.”
Lycarion didn’t bother to reply. He didn’t believe the Roman names for a minute. Everyone wants to be Roman these days. He looked askance at the other man, the one named Pesach, a rusty-haired little fellow, skinny as a plucked rooster with knobby knees and arms covered in red patchy skin that he kept scratching at. He had an altogether scurrilous look in his pink-rimmed eyes that made Lycarion grip his cane a little tighter.
“We were hoping you could help us,” Gellius said, offering a tentative smile. “We’re looking for some ships records.”
“Oh are you?” This Gellius fellow was certainly well-spoken for a slave. Probably a Greek. “And why’s that?”
“We’re gathering information on behalf of the Magistrate Capito.”
The skinny fellow, Pesach, actually walked over to the wall of shelves where he kept the ship’s logs and started nosing about. “Hey you, keep out of those!” The man shot him a scowl but put the scroll down all the same. “I assume you have a letter from the Magistrate then, do you?”
Gellius grinned and bobbed his head, preparing to spin another transparent lie. “Not exactly. It’s a simple task though, really. There are some ships we need the records of. We have questions of when they may have left port, what they were carrying. That sort of thing.”
“And I have all that information, of course. But why should I let you see it?”
“Oh, but it’s quite important, I assure you,” the fellow said. “Magistrate’s orders.”
Pompous little prick, Lycarion thought. He smiled. “Fine. Without a letter, though, it’ll cost you ten sesterces.”
The skinny one actually hawked and spat on the floor, then looked him right in the eye, daring him. Insolent wretch – he could use a good hit upside that pointed head of his! “You should get control of that friend of yours,” Lycarion seethed.
Gellius looked mortified. “Please, Pesach, this is not the time. Sir, this is a matter of public record. We beseech you as citizens of Rome …”
“Oh, well then, since you’re citizens of Rome …”
Gellius looked rather pleased with himself. The fool even moved towards the shelves to start digging through the records. Lycarion struck the floor in front of him with his cane, and laughed to see Gellius jump back. The man nearly shit himself! “For a citizen of Rome the price is only thirty sesterces.” Gellius’ eyes went wide. “And you can take me in your mouth out back.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
“Then why don’t you come back when you have things figured out, you stupid fuck.”
“I could use your little thing to pick my teeth if I wasn’t afraid it would get lost in there,” the skinny fellow said with a sneer.
“Let’s start with you then,” Lycarion said, running the tip of his tongue across his lips, tightening his grip on his cane.
“You should watch that tongue of yours before I rip it out of your mouth, shithead.”
“Pesach, please, now is not the time,” his friend whispered.
“You’re going to let him talk to us like that?” Pesach demanded.
“Talk to you like that?” the Harbour Master roared. “Who do you think you are speaking to me that way? Get out of here the both of you before I knock you into the harbour and let the fish feed on you!”
“Sir, calm yourself,” Gellius pleaded. “We must have got off on the wrong foot somehow. We only want to look at some old shipping records you might …”
“You’re speaking to Roman fucking citizens, you fat stupid fuck!” Pesach yelled, his face red as a boiled beet, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Pesach, let me handle this. Don’t mind my friend, sir, he means no harm.”
“Maybe you should tie him to a post somewhere and beat him then!” Lycarion growled. “He’s like some sort of mad dog!”
Gellius winced. “Oh. You really shouldn’t have said that.”
The Harbour Master barely had a chance to react as Pesach wrenched the cane from his hand and jammed the end of it hard into the man’s stomach. Lycarion doubled over in pain, gasping for breath, and could only watch as Pesach swung it across his head with a sharp thwack. He crumpled to the floor in a broken heap.
“What have you done?” Gellius sighed.
Pesach casually kicked the Harbour Master in the head. “Let’s just look at the damned records, alright?”
The sun had climbed high into the hazy spring sky, the clouds rolling back to reveal great swaths of blue, the sweltering air drenched with the smell of fertile mud as the barge headed through the dark channels cut between the high green walls of reeds. Dryton moaned and twisted in agony on the floor of the barge, the front of his chiton dark with blood, his face grey, greasy with sweat. Sekhet talked to him in soothing tones, but she looked worried. Callixenes lay trussed up in the bottom of the boat, silently watching the healer as she worked.
“You work for Ralla then,” Capito asked Callixenes. The freedman met him with a cold stare and returned his attention to Sekhet. “You want to be tried for murder yourself? Executed?”
“They should sew him into a sack of scorpions and toss him in the Nile,” the soldier Machon growled.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Aculeo offered. “Not if you help us. We know it wasn’t you who arranged all these killings.” The freedman glanced back at him, a smirk on his pocked face, then looked back at the healer, licking his lips. “Who else came to the rituals?”
“He’ll die, you know,” Callixenes said.
“Who’ll die?”
“Your soldier there. He’s a dead man.”
“Shut your damned mouth,” Machon said. Callixenes met him with a grey-toothed grin.
“Don’t listen to him,” said Sekhet. “He’ll be fine.”
“I doubt that. I dipped the arrowheads in pigshit,” the freedman said. “The poisons have seeped into him already – he’ll be dead in a day or two if he’s lucky. A week or more if he’s not.” He laughed so hard he began to cough.
The soldier grabbed the freedman by the throat, punched him in the face over and over, sending the boat rocking wildly. “Shut your cursed mouth, or I’ll shut it for you, you freedman shit!”
“Enough!” Sekhet barked. “You’ll tip the boat!”
Capito grabbed the soldier from behind in a bear hug, pulling him off. “Machon, stop, we need him! We’ll deal with it later, alright?”
Machon sat there, straddling Callixenes, his breathing ragged, angry, before finally climbing off. The freedman gave a wheezing laugh, his nose gushing with blood, his left eye swollen and pink, his lip split. He spat a thick wad of bloody phlegm at their feet. Aculeo and Capito gagged him tightly, blindfolding him as well to prevent him from infecting others with his murderous gaze.
Sekhet dipped a length of cloth over the side of the boat, wrung it out and laid it on Dryton’s forehead to try and cool his fever. He’d fallen asleep at least, as had Machon and Capito. Aculeo sat in silence, watched as f
ellahin fishermen along the shore swept their nets through the water.
Sekhet slid over then to examine Aculeo. “Your nose is broken.”
“Is it?”
“Hold still,” she said, kneeling before him, positioning her thumbs on either side of his nose.
“Watch it, what are you …? Fuck!”
“Your gratitude overwhelms,” she said, sitting wearily next to him. “So the one behind all this, Ralla. He’s a man of wealth and influence?”
“Yes. A great deal of both.”
Sekhet sighed, quietly watching the fishermen at work as they took care not to tangle their nets in the reed thickets. “And you think you can stop him?”
“We have Callixenes. He was linked to four of the victims at least. We have the remains we found at the farm. And I have the documents proving he owns the land where the murders took place that I can provide the Magistrate. He has everything he needs to go after Ralla. Though he doesn’t seem so pleased with the prospect.”
Sekhet looked him in the eye, unsmiling now. “Nor should he be. Egyptians have a saying about such things, you know. When you hook too big a fish you should start worrying who’s caught who.”
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