by M. K. Hume
‘It’s fetid down there. A number of other children have been held captive on the altar, as you will soon see for yourselves. Severinus is not a careful housekeeper. When I last saw him, he was threatening to name prominent citizens and soldiers as his partners in these heinous crimes. We were forced to restrain him.’
The captain paled. ‘Good work, young man.’
Artorex smiled thinly, because he knew that the captain had no intention of hearing the names of powerful citizens involved in criminal activity, even if he had to personally cut out the tongue of Severinus to ensure his silence.
Thus, Caius, too, would be safe from wild accusations.
Artorex sighed inwardly. So this is the way that justice really works. Those persons who have the money, the influence and the real power always avoid the consequences of their actions. The steward felt nauseated. May the gods help me, but I’m a coward, he thought to himself. I must save Caius because I owe a life to his mother. Caius will be exonerated, when he’s near as guilty as Severinus. He’ll never be punished and he’ll never suffer a single day for his brutality. How the gods must be laughing at us!
One by one, the soldiers entered the crypt, save for one lucky man who stayed with Targo and the boy in the kitchens. When they returned, the men were dragging their prisoners behind them, with scant care for scraped shins or skinned heads.
Even the old woman, the mother of Severinus, was bustled into the early daylight like a common whore.
Then Luka, Myrddion and Llanwith emerged from the darkened entrance into the daylight. Pale with nausea, Llanwith slammed the trap door back into place with an exclamation of disgust.
‘Enough! I will be months getting the stink of that hole out of my nostrils,’ he complained. ‘And we will be forced to stay here at this villa until the magistrate of Aquae Sulis acquaints himself with its horrors.’
Luka called out to the captain who was swilling his mouth out with some wine that Targo had found in the kitchens.
‘I searched the crypt while we were awaiting your arrival,’ Luka told him. ‘There is a low annexe, not more than four feet high, behind the curtain on the rear wall. You should send some men to dig there while we are awaiting the arrival of the magistrate.’
‘But why should we dig, Lord Luka? What would be the purpose?’ the captain asked, angry and insolent but still half deferring to Luka’s rank.
‘Because some of the ground has been disturbed in the annexe. As that boy was not the first child to vanish in this district, we suspect that some of those children who disappeared are buried in the crypt where they perished.’
The captain gave a grimace of distaste, but he barked out instructions to two of his more bovine men to re-enter the crypt, armed with digging axes and spades, to search the floor of the annexe.
So lavishly was the villa painted in grotesque and lascivious scenes that the group could find no place where they could rest that was free from the depraved decor. Artorex determined to wait in the atrium, his back against the pool, so that he wasn’t forced to gaze upon the lewd fountain. He stared fixedly at a charming display of summer flowers in the garden as he considered the events of the night. One by one, his friends joined him there.
‘No wonder Caius was terrified,’ Artorex muttered. ‘If I had to spend a few hours in that hellhole watching those monsters carry out their evil work, I’d be ready for the madhouse myself. ’
‘Here!’ Myrddion tossed Artorex a golden seal ring with a red intaglio stone.
‘Severinus was persuaded to remember where he had hidden it,’ Myrddion said drily. ‘Caius may be a spiteful and dangerous young man, but I’m beginning to believe that he was unwillingly under the influence of Severinus. That creature is vile, and I can easily believe that he might seduce a foolish young boy until, eventually, the victim was completely under his control.’
‘Should we then acquit Caius of perversion?’ Artorex asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Llanwith pen Bryn said guardedly. ‘It seems as though Severinus kept the children for himself. Even Antiochus, by his own admission, was not permitted to touch their “pretty and holy flesh”, as Severinus described them. In truth, I feel dirty over this whole business. And I’ll never trust Caius at my back for, whatever his fears, he surely killed his mother.’
‘You prefer to kill cleanly, my friend,’ Luka joked, until he saw Llanwith’s jaw working.
‘Did you notice that the catamite plucks the hairs from his entire body and face? He’s far more womanish than my mother.’ Llanwith ground his sandalled foot into the rich loam of a flowerbed.
‘Ouch!’ Artorex responded automatically at the cynical remark.
‘You haven’t met Llanwith’s mother,’ Luka jested.
Llanwith’s mind was still in the crypt. ‘If you’re right, Luka, and if that annexe is the reason that the missing children from the village have vanished so successfully, then I’d like, very much, to be the one who executes Severinus, his vile catamite and his unspeakable mother - preferably all at the same time.’
‘As would we all.’ Myrddion sighed. ‘But any execution must be public, so the villagers can be assured that justice has been done. For our part, we must divert attention away from the Villa Poppinidii, for there are too many reputations resting on a quiet, lawful conclusion to this ugly turn of events. May the gods help us all with this problem.’
Artorex was too weary to query the decisions of his three friends and his eyelids seemed very heavy in the early morning sunshine.
Within moments, he was asleep.
‘Oh, to be a young man again and to sleep off horrors so easily.’ Luka smiled kindly as he watched the young man doze in the sunlight.
‘He won’t rest so easily soon - perhaps never again - if he is to fulfil the destiny we’ve mapped out for him,’ Myrddion whispered. ‘He showed his mettle during the night, and I’m convinced that he has the courage and the wisdom to become the commander we seek. Caius hangs around his neck like a curse, but who knows what our lad will make of that young pretender.’
‘What a raptor we placed in Ector’s peaceful nest, with no one to recognize his qualities but an old barbarian woman and a battle-scarred veteran from who knows where.’
‘I hope the oath Lady Livinia bound him to doesn’t cause trouble in the future,’ Luka responded.
‘We’ve done our part, whatever the outcome of our actions might be.’ Llanwith patted his friend’s shoulder kindly and eased himself on to a stone bench where he gazed at the fountain with a jaundiced eye. ‘Your plan was always risky, Myrddion.’
‘How do men twist their bodies into such unnatural positions?’ he asked of no one in particular as he observed the Severinii sculptures. ‘They look damned uncomfortable to me.’
‘You lack a certain erotic sophistication,’ Luka joked.
‘I’m a plain man - and I make no apology for it.’
Luka observed movement on the road leading up to the villa.
‘If I’m not mistaken, the magistrate and a number of the town councillors have finally arrived.’
Myrddion nudged Artorex gently with his booted foot until the young man scrambled to his feet, childishly rubbing his tired eyes.
The magistrate was dressed in the Roman fashion, in a snowy tunic and a purple-edged toga that denoted his exalted position. Myrddion wondered idly how this provincial Roman had availed himself of the rich colouring that was so costly in coin and human life. Only the greatest men in the land wore Roman purple, for the dye was found in a certain shellfish that, unfortunately, killed the slaves who extracted it. Sardonically, Myrddion doubted that the magistrate had the breeding or the lineage that would entitle him to wear even a hint of imperial purple but, wisely, he held his tongue.
Aquae Sulis is a dying remnant of a shrinking empire, he thought. But even an anachronism has its uses, and Artorex may come to need every ally he can find.
When the magistrate was settled inside the villa, the captain made his report of what he had seen in the
crypt. After he had concluded his observations and opinions, the three warriors informed the magistrate and the town councillors of their titles and their parts in the affair.
When pressed to explain why the five had descended on the villa, Artorex extemporized.
‘The Villa Poppinidii, as you know, good sirs, is a seemly house and farm some little way outside the walls of Aquae Sulis. Tonight, a tragedy struck the villa with the death of Lady Livinia of the Poppinidii, a family of some repute.’
The councillors nodded, confused at the tenor and length of Artorex’s explanation.
‘After the death of his mother, and in great shame that he hadn’t expressed his suspicions earlier, the son of Lord Ector confided that his erstwhile friends were practising unwholesome rites whereby the bodies and souls of stolen children were sacrificed. Caius had been pressed to join this vile cabal, but his natural distaste, and the pregnancy of his young wife, gave him an opportunity to refuse. He was terrified of the repercussions to his family and he couldn’t bear the thought that yet another child had been taken, as so many innocents had vanished before.’
Once again, the magistrate and the councillors nodded at the common sense expressed in these careful words.
‘Caius is only a few years into manhood, and he’d worshipped Severinus during his childhood. I believe that Severinus corrupted my foster-brother as a child but his breeding alone saved his life. Severinus terrified Caius into silence, and he failed to voice his suspicions lest he should shame his mother and sully the name of his family, and I’m assured that he never took part in any of the vicious rituals that we interrupted. After the death of Lady Livinia, he opened his heart to our distinguished guests and voiced his suspicions to us.’
Artorex paused.
‘We left the villa at once, for we were determined to save the life of the missing boy. We arranged for Targo, the Arms Master for the Villa Poppinidii, to accompany us as the representative of the villagers.’
One ferret-faced councillor stared at the bland face of Artorex with obvious distrust.
‘Why should we believe that Caius is guiltless of any involvement in this matter?’
‘Sir, we are here at the urging of Caius,’ Myrddion answered neatly. ‘Before we gagged him, Severinus assured us that the council would not hold our evidence as true, as he had welcomed prominent citizens of Aquae Sulis into his cult. Of course, you and I know that his assurances are baseless, and we do not believe his perverted lies.’
The councillor coughed hoarsely, his face now pale below his oiled curls.
The magistrate wisely ordered the soldiers to ensure that the prisoner’s gag and bonds were kept firmly in place. The felons were then locked into the wine cellar.
Artorex knew exactly what the magistrate was thinking. What were a few dead village children compared with the reputations of the mighty of Aquae Sulis? How would the magistrate fare if he meted justice to the guilty in equal and unfettered measure?
But why should I be critical? Artorex thought sullenly. For I’ve performed the same service for Caius. But I’ll damn my soul to the shadows before I permit Severinus to go free.
He smiled artlessly at the assembled group and determined to confront the councillors.
‘You gentlemen must remember that this matter will soon become public knowledge,’ he said. ‘There’ll be anger in your community, and the reputations of those few who are considered part of any conspiracy will be sullied forever. You will soon see the crypt that lies directly below this building, and you’ll be made fully aware of all that has taken place at the Villa Severinii. I myself wouldn’t have believed that such a place could exist outside of Hades had I not seen it.’
The magistrate’s eyes flashed, leaving Artorex fully aware that the official knew exactly what he was threatening.
‘Lead on then,’ the magistrate ordered. ‘We must be seen to be doing our duty.’
Artorex would willingly have faced ten fully armed warriors rather than return to the crypt, but he forced himself to lead the way into the open mouth of the tunnel towards the scriptorium; the ordeal seemed no more than just in the light of his lies and prevarications. The sound of shovels came up out of the earth, intensifying the impression that the councillors were entering a tomb.
‘Can’t anything be done about this stink?’ one older, hard-bitten merchant complained as he followed Artorex down the ladder.
‘Severinus burned perfume on the braziers to disguise the smell. Unfortunately, they provide the only light down here,’ Artorex replied.
The curtains on the far wall had been stripped aside and two burly soldiers were working on their knees in the narrow annexe. Artorex swallowed the bile that began to rise in his throat; the sickly reek of death seemed to be stronger than on his earlier foray into the crypt.
The magistrate eyed the small room, the throne, the stained altar and the discarded masks. He could see the evidence of other children in the dried slime of old vomit, urine, faeces and blood around the stone. There was a perceptible tightening of his narrow lips. Most of the councillors covered their noses with their robes of office, and several of them looked as if they would soon vomit if the smell intensified.
And so it proved to be.
One of the soldiers suddenly backed out of the annexe and heaved away his last meal in a corner of the crypt.
‘There’s another child here - and he’s been dead for some months,’ he cried, wiping his lips. ‘God help him.’
The other soldier was made of sterner stuff. His spade explored the edges of the swollen, corrupted little form, and then he, too, was forced to scramble back into the chamber.
‘They’re piled up like cordwood in there, one on top of the other,’ he reported. ‘I can’t tell how many but I’ll wager there be five or six, judging by the stink.’
Several of the councillors had seen enough and bolted for the relatively clean air of the scriptorium. The magistrate clenched his fists, set his lips in a tight line and issued orders that the soldiers were to fetch what linen sheets could be found so that the tiny shells could be brought out of this hellish place.
‘No wonder Severinus burned perfume. This smell would sicken all but the strongest of stomachs,’ Artorex groaned.
‘You may go, my boy,’ the magistrate said kindly. ‘I will see to the removal of the remains.’
‘No, sir. I started this ugly search, so I must finish it. We must show the parents of these dead children that our actions were carried out in accordance with what they would have wished for the recovery of their kin.’
‘As you choose,’ the magistrate replied drily.
And perhaps I can cleanse myself in the process, Artorex thought silently.
The soldiers returned, dragging sheets and woollen cloth behind them.
When the first blackening and bloated body was eased on to a sheet, all the remaining councillors fled, leaving only Artorex and the magistrate to witness the exhumation of the corpses.
The bodies, in varying stages of decomposition, were systematically brought out into the light. Artorex struggled to ensure that his self-control should not betray him, but when one small form almost broke in two when it was moved, he was forced to turn away, or else run screaming back up into the open air. Instead, he bound an abandoned scrap of cloth over his mouth and nostrils, for even the perfumed stink of the cloth was preferable to the ever-increasing miasma of rotten, corrupted flesh.
At last, seven small shapes, the last three being little more than clean bones, were moved away from the ugly light and placed on the sod floor in all their pitiful nakedness.
Only then did the magistrate and Artorex leave the crypt.
In the atrium, the magistrate issued instructions that the soldiers were to bring the bodies up from the crypt, after first numbering the pitiful bundles in the order in which they had been exhumed. He also ordered that hanks of hair should be taken from each small skull to facilitate identification. The bodies would then be burned and the r
emains placed in terracotta urns for their final journey back to their families.
Artorex had gone into the crypt as little more than an untested boy. He came back into the daylight as an adult, and with a man’s shadows embedded in his colourless eyes.
The soldiers set to work in the courtyard outside the villa, collecting wood to cremate the small corpses of the sacrificed children. One less doughty youth was sent to collect grave urns while, inside the atrium, the magistrate eased himself on to a bench, stripped off his clothing down to his loincloth and left his stinking robes of office to lie where they fell in the colonnade. He dispatched one of the Severinii servants to collect a fresh robe.
Artorex washed in the fountain once again and almost immersed himself in the shallow pool, but the stench of the crypt would remain in the back of his throat for many days to come.
‘And now for the Severinii,’ the magistrate said under his breath, no less impressive for the lack of his judicial robes of office.
The councillors clustered like frightened hens as far from the magistrate as possible; only Luka, Llanwith, Myrddion and Targo kept themselves firmly at his back.
‘I will question the boy first. What is his name?’
‘Brego, sir,’ Targo replied. ‘He’s the son of Bregan, the blacksmith. I’m afraid he is very frightened, my lord, for he has lost all trust in powerful men.’
‘Bring him anyway, for I need his account of what has happened here.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Targo answered, and he moved purposefully towards the kitchens.
The boy returned, wrapped in a woman’s shawl, and clinging tightly to Targo’s hand as if the old veteran was the only safe constant in a terrifying universe.
‘Brego?’ the magistrate asked in the kindest of voices as he crouched in front of the boy.
The boy met his eyes unwillingly and forced himself to nod. Artorex knew that the child wanted desperately to suck his thumb.
‘Who brought you here, Brego?’
‘A man.’ The boy’s voice quavered, for he was on the brink of tears.
‘What did he look like?’
