by M. K. Hume
‘And Severinus?’
‘Severinus will soon be entertaining some important visitors,’ Targo interjected. His mouth was a seamed wound of half-suppressed contempt and Caius flinched away from the old soldier’s basilisk glare.
‘And, in case he should wish to argue his rights, all five of us will be present to answer any questions he might have,’ Luka added sardonically.
Caius cowered as the men saw to their weapons, but Targo watched the young man’s hands, which clenched and unclenched as if they searched for something to grip and tear.
‘You’re not to leave the villa, Caius,’ Artorex warned. ‘I’ll know if you even attempt to disobey me. And no warnings are to be sent to Severinus, for I’ll soon become aware of your duplicity if you attempt to do so.’
‘No! No! I wouldn’t do that. I swear I’ll obey you in all things.’
‘See that you do obey me, Caius,’ Artorex continued. ‘For your mother’s sake, I’ll try to extricate you from the sins of your fine Roman friends. But should I discover that you, personally, have shed innocent blood, or lied to us, I’ll expose your knowledge of these hideous crimes to your father, loath though I’d be to do so in his time of grief.’
‘I haven’t lied to you!’
‘Then I’d suggest that your wife and daughter are awaiting your congratulations and your best efforts at reconciliation. You may be sure, Caius, that I’ll kill you if you raise your hand against your wife or your child. As long as we are alive, you will be bound to your oath and you will act like a Roman gentleman. You owe your mother a change of heart and, by Mithras, you will honour her shade by making her death have some purpose. You’d be wise to understand that you are under threat from all who are here this night. Do you understand me, Caius?’
‘Aye!’ Caius muttered, his eyes hidden.
‘Look at me, foster-brother! You’d be unwise to think that you can placate me and then go back to your old life. Your punishment is to live to prove every day that you can be trusted. I don’t know whether I will ever believe you.’
Myrddion shot a quick, searching glance at the steward. Caius was being forced to become a penitent curled at Artorex’s feet, but Myrddion couldn’t see any trace of sympathy in the face of his protégé. To live on, to harbour one’s guilt and to endure life under constant suspicion was a cruel punishment, even for an unforgivable crime.
Shortly afterwards, five grim men left Caius’s rooms, pausing only to collect their arms and don dark cloaks.
Artorex spoke briefly to Frith. He instructed her to watch Caius with the stable boys on hand during his absence, in case his foster-brother should try to take his own life, or undertake some other foolish action. Satisfied that the villa was in order, he followed the others to the stables.
The night was thick with shadows, for the hour was well after midnight, that time when the vitality of the body wanes, and even the moon seems like a pallid skeleton of itself in a starless sky.
The horses and men disappeared like silent wraiths into the fog that blurred the outlines of the Villa Poppinidii.
CHAPTER VI
CLEANSING THE ALTAR
After an hour’s hard riding under a gelid moon, the party arrived at a sumptuous villa on a bare hill overlooking Aquae Sulis proper. Although no lights shone, the brick and stone of the buildings seemed to be awake and eerily sentient. In those dark hours preceding the dawn, the villa appeared to crouch like a jewelled toad on the spine of the hill, causing Artorex to suppress a superstitious shudder.
The floor plans of Roman villas, despite their thick walls, usually followed the natural variations of the terrain, so that they blended with their surroundings. With their orchards, gardens and running water, Roman homes were graceful and comfortable places.
But the Villa Severinii was unlike any Roman palace that Artorex had ever seen. The hill was bare of all vegetation and no sculptures were visible along the walls to soften the harshness of the bare stone. The structure hadn’t been whitewashed, as was the normal custom; Severinus had ordered that a dark red ochre should be mixed with a skim of mortar, which might have been fashionable in old Pompeii but transplanted into Aquae Sulis gave the impression that the villa had been dipped in drying blood.
Boldly, but on silent feet, five grim men led their horses up to the stables. The silence was tomb-like, and the air seemed unnaturally prescient. Not a soul was stirring in the villa, not even an ostler. The horses rolled their eyes, sensing something unwholesome in the air, and Artorex was suddenly grateful that he had not come alone.
The humid weather conditions conspired to suffocate the intruders. It was the kind of warmth that rarely came to the north but, when it did, it left the weak or the very old short of breath and close to death. Within their light armour, the friends sweated profusely, even in these early hours of the morning when the cooler breezes should have brought some relief.
Perhaps the earth itself is sickening here, Artorex thought as he wiped away the sweat that streamed down his face.
The gate at the entrance to the villa had been left unlatched, perhaps in anticipation of the arrival of Caius. A drowsy steward intercepted the armed men as they entered the atrium, his eyes flaring in sudden panic. He would have run to raise the alarm had pen Bryn not picked him up bodily from behind, clamped one hand over his mouth and expertly snapped his neck.
‘The servant could have been innocent,’ Artorex protested.
‘Not if he lived in this pestilence,’ Llanwith whispered. ‘Smell the air, my young friend. The corruption of death hangs over this villa.’
‘The air is thick with a cloud of perfume,’ Targo grunted as he dragged the body of the steward into the shadows. ‘Damnation! The place smells like a whore’s armpit.’
The same cloying heat accentuated the stink of attar, precious oils and something sweet, sickening and dead that pervaded the painted walls of the villa.
Llanwith pen Bryn slowly led the party through the imposing central garden.
No other servants seemed to be awake, for no one accosted the group as they slid into the villa’s gilded, red-painted rooms. Paintings of debauchery covered the walls, and bronze sculptures depicting obscene couplings were placed in niches along the walls of the colonnade. Priapic figures with grossly swollen organs stood leering in the shadows and even Myrddion, who had seen much human depravity during his life, was forced to turn away.
Artorex shuddered with disgust, while Luka silently disappeared into the right wing of the building.
Unlike the usual plan of a villa, the scriptorium of the Villa Severinii was sited at the very end of the left wing of the structure where the earth fell away, making a hidden crypt possible inside the slope of the hill. The scriptorium was almost bare, except for a wall of niches where the scrolls were presumably stored, a single desk, and a chair just off the mid-point of the room.
The only decoration in the room was a woven mat in the very centre of the mosaic floor, from which glared a large black eye. The air in the room was thick with a miasma of exotic oils and something else that roiled under the heavy, cloying scent.
With a soft exclamation of disgust, Llanwith pen Bryn removed the mat, exposing a trap door cut into the mosaic.
Luka slid into the room, his dagger in his hand.
‘The sleeping chambers are empty,’ he whispered. ‘I found no one but a few terrified old women in the servants’ quarters, so I locked them inside one of the storerooms. From the looks on their faces, they seem to know what their master is about - and they are relieved to be safely imprisoned.’
‘Then it’s time we joined the festivities,’ Llanwith mouthed grimly through his beard.
Luka and Myrddion raised the trap door as silently as the mechanism allowed. A black maw yawned below them. Llanwith disappeared first into the darkness, down a ladder of some kind, while Artorex followed closely behind.
The ladder terminated on a sod floor at the end of a simple, timber-lined corridor. The smell was so thic
k that Artorex had to stifle a telltale, reflex gag.
As the others joined them at the bottom of the ladder, Artorex became aware of a low chanting. The sound was tuneful and not unpleasant, but the melodic voice only served to intensify the horrors of this secret, sinister place.
From the shadows of the corridor, Llanwith and Artorex peered cautiously into a large stone-lined room that had been largely carved from the rock of the hillside. The floor was constructed of packed earth and was bare of any ornamentation, as were the walls. Two large braziers provided light, and one of them burned the nard that so thickened the still air.
For the first time, Artorex felt cold - chilled to the soul. The air in this underground cell was cool, but something else caused his flesh to shrink away from the walls, something primal turned the sweat on his body into a rankness that left him shivering.
A woman sat comfortably on a throne to their left. She held a wine cup in one beringed hand and would have seemed a normal Roman matron, except for a towering Egyptian facial mask and headdress that rose from her narrow shoulders some two feet above her head. Her silhouette made strange shadows across the floor to the edge of a small alabaster altar, which was at the very centre of the room.
Two men, naked except for ornate cloaks and grotesque head masks, capered before the altar of veined marble. One willowy form wore a headpiece shaped like the grinning head of a large black dog and the other, stockier man wore a grotesque mask that was black, shining and hideous, for all it was shaped like a massive human head. He had just drawn away from the body of a boy child who lay spread-eagled, face down, on the altar, his limbs held by chains secured to the four corners at the base of the altar by iron rings that had been set into the highly polished stone.
Except for the intermittent chanting of the woman and the panting of the black-headed suppliant, all that could be heard in the hideous room was the quiet sobbing of the child, his face pressed to the altar stone and his long pale hair hanging almost to the floor.
Llanwith drew his sword and the tableau froze as the steel hissed from its scabbard. Artorex and the others moved into the room in Llanwith’s wake, their swords at the ready in their hands.
‘What abominations do you enact here?’ Llanwith roared, and the dog-headed man cowered behind his companion. Both men now looked ridiculous in their flaccid nakedness.
Only the sobbing of the child robbed the scene of its elements of farce.
Myrddion moved forward and knocked the black headdress sideways with an expert blow of his sword.
‘This gentleman, I believe, must be Severinus, who is imitating Set, the Egyptian god of the underworld.’ Myrddion raised his sword to the handsome, dark face that was revealed to the assembled group.
Severinus was in his mid-thirties, and he was gifted with a natural beauty of face and form, which was now running to fat after many years of self-indulgence. A thick pelt of dark body hair that partly disguised a grotesque little paunch marred the man’s well-formed torso. His handsome face was completely plucked free of beard. Only his eyes belied the delicacy of his features, for they were flat and quite devoid of any emotion other than rage.
Myrddion turned slightly to face the other figure and used his sword point to dislodge the mask.
‘And his companion must be his catamite, Antiochus, in the guise of Anubis, another of the death deities. I think the dog motif is rather in keeping with this filth, don’t you, Llanwith?’
As he finished speaking, the woman launched herself out of her throne with a screech. Her outstretched talons would have done Myrddion serious damage had Luka not tripped her and stripped the heavy mask from her face.
‘And this . . . this . . . this lady is meant to be Isis, I suppose. All we need is Osiris to round out this very unpleasant little ritual.’
The woman, Severina, screamed insults through her thickly rouged lips and, under the lavish cosmetics that gave her face an illusion of youth, Artorex could see that she was old and raddled. The words she spouted out with such crude venom were so vile that Luka restrained her hands and gagged her with strips of her own gilded shawl.
‘Release the boy, Targo, and take him upstairs into the clean air. Then find a blanket to cover him and give him something to eat and drink from the kitchens,’ Artorex ordered.
‘And you may release one of the servants to bring the city watch to us,’ Myrddion added, without taking his eyes from the murderous face of Severinus. ‘Choose one who is likely to do your bidding - but I’m sure we can safely leave that matter in your hands.’
With a grim expression, Targo pulled the black cloak from the shoulders of Severinus, while Artorex unlocked the chains that bound the boy across the altar with a key hanging from Severina’s girdle. Targo wrapped the boy in the folds of the black cloak and, with the child pressed against his heart, hastened to obey Artorex’s orders.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Severinus snarled, raising his autocratic cleft chin. ‘How dare you enter my villa and threaten me and my kin with your weapons?’
‘We are citizens of good standing with an interest in the abominations that have been committed in this place,’ Myrddion replied without expression. ‘And we have more than enough power to enforce the laws of the land and terminate your vile rituals. For the moment, that explanation is more than sufficient for lice such as you to absorb.’
Severinus narrowed his pebble-black eyes and peered at Artorex through the hazy torch smoke. His sweet, well-shaped mouth smiled to reveal white, slightly uneven teeth.
‘I know you. You’re that bastard foster-brother of Caius. He’ll rue the day he sent curs down on me.’
Artorex stepped around the altar, nearly losing his balance on a surface that was slick with a scum he did not wish to identify. One fist swung out, seemingly of its own accord, and smashed the straight nose and cupid-bow mouth of Severinus.
‘I suggest you keep your filthy tongue between your teeth. There will be time enough to speak your fill when the soldiers of the watch arrive. What will they make of your little playroom, I wonder.’
Severinus stared malevolently at his captors with eyes that were both crafty and amused. He licked the blood from his mouth with a long pink tongue, and seemed to relish the taste of its freshness. Artorex was forced to look away, or his stomach would have betrayed his will.
‘The Council of Aquae Sulis will not raise a hand against me. I am not the only one who worships the Dark God, and my hospitality has extended to several prominent citizens in the past, including Caius, the so respectable son of the Poppinidii family.’
Artorex hit Severinus once again, with sufficient force to send the man reeling backwards into a long swathe of gilded cloth hanging against one of the walls. As Severinus clutched at its folds to regain his balance, the curtain tore and revealed a black opening in the wall.
Artorex spat with loathing.
‘You mention that name at your peril, Severinus, for this night the Lady Livinia of the Poppinidii has gone to the shades of Hades. And her son has testified to your involvement in the rape and murder of children.’
But Severinus was not easily cowed. If anything, he seemed exhilarated by a twisted sense of power.
‘None of you should dare to lay a hand on me, for you are nothing but Celtic dogs who amount to less than nothing. You are servants, fit only to wipe my boots, and I will have you crucified before I am finished.’
‘I, Llanwith pen Bryn, son of the King of the Ordovice, dare to accuse you of child murder,’ Llanwith intoned, his voice strong and cold in the fetid room.
‘And I, Luka, son of the King of the Brigante, also dare to accuse you of child murder,’ Luka repeated.
‘And I, Myrddion Merlinus, Steward of the High King, Uther Pendragon of the Atrebates, also dare to accuse you of child murder.’
Overawed by the lineage of his companions, Artorex stepped forward to face the snarling face of Severinus.
‘I, Artorex, foster-son of Ector and Steward of th
e Villa Poppinidii, do accuse you of the foul crime of child murder.’
But Severinus only laughed, a high-pitched whinny of confident glee that sickened the warriors and caused the fawning Antiochus to cover his ears in terror.
Llanwith bound the madman’s arms behind his back lest he harm himself, while Myrddion did the same to the cowering Antiochus. But still the laughter peeled on until Severinus’s voice began to grow harsh and croaking.
‘It is best that you go upstairs, boy, and wait for the guard,’ Llanwith ordered Artorex hoarsely. ‘You can do nothing more in this pest hole.’
‘But the ring that Caius lost is here. It must be found.’
‘Leave that trifle to us, Artorex. Go outside and breathe some clean air,’ Luka repeated.
Gratefully, Artorex retreated down the narrow corridor, up the ladder and out into the scriptorium. Pausing only to wash his face, hands and feet in the water of the atrium fountain, he made his way to the gates of the villa to await the arrival of the City Watch.
Dawn was brushing the sky with its fiery breath when a small detachment of armed men came marching up to the villa. Artorex raised his head from his hands, and ushered them through the entrance to the villa.
At first, the Captain of the Watch was disposed to treat Artorex like a thief, especially as the corpse of the Severinii steward was still lying where Llanwith had abandoned it at the threshold to the villa. But when Targo brought out a tired young boy, with deeply bruised eyes set back into his skull, and took the child haltingly through the tale of his capture, incarceration, starvation and rape, the captain was disposed to treat Artorex with more civility.
When the young man escorted the soldiers to the gaping hole in the floor of the scriptorium, several of the watch clutched amulets around their necks in superstitious fear.
