I led Cassia home, the setting sun burning the clouds gold. We paused at the popina on the lower slope of the Quirinal. Blasius was there again, on his stool near the counter. He scowled at me as we drew near then deliberately turned his head as though not wanting to watch us pass.
At home, we consumed the last of the bread and stew I’d fetched earlier, as the world outside darkened. Cassia opened the tablet she’d carried with her today and began copying her notes onto papyrus with the ink she carefully hoarded.
I did not understand the point of duplicating what she’d already written, but I made no comment. I left her to it, laying myself on the floor by the shutters again, not wanting any intruder to get past me.
I still did not know who had broken into our apartment the night before we’d taken the ring to Nero. A chance burglar who’d seen me with the glint of gold in my hand? Or our conspirator who’d realized the wrong man had taken the ring?
If we solved that mystery, perhaps we would know everything.
In the morning, Cassia walked by my side to the building site. She’d stuffed several scrolls and tablets into a large bag, apparently intending to read through them while I worked.
When we arrived, Vibius was already there with Gallus, and he’d brought Aelia with him. She’d wrapped herself in a palla, like a priestess, a fold of its cloth draped over her hair.
“There you are, Leonidas,” Vibius greeted me. “My wife is ready to begin.”
His obvious pride of Aelia radiated from him. Cassia bowed her head in greeting before she made her way to the boulder she’d sat upon on her previous visit. Cassia had indicated she wanted to question Aelia about her family’s ownership of the property, but she’d never approach a highborn woman without permission. I might have to smooth the way through Vibius.
Gallus rubbed his graying hair. “I hope this works,” he muttered. “The dreams I have had …”
“Aelia will fix those,” Vibius said with confidence.
Aelia sent him an exasperated glance but seemed used to her husband overly praising her skills.
We were the only people on the site. None of the workers had come—I assumed Gallus wanted to make sure any curses were lifted before the construction continued.
I thought of Marcianus’s speculation that more bodies waited under the earth. We’d dug a good bit in the days before we’d found the body, shifting the foundation stones Gallus wanted taken out, with no bones turning up.
In spite of Marcianus’s conjectures, I still believed this was a single murder, with someone out there desperate for its discovery.
Aelia moved to the foundation stone nearest the spot we’d found the body and bravely seated herself on it. She opened her bag and withdrew from it a stylus, a thin sheet of what looked to be lead, and a small pot.
She laid the lead sheet on her lap, opened the pot, and dribbled a brownish liquid over it. I realized, with uneasiness, that it was blood.
Before the blood could run off the sheet, Aelia upended the bottle and corked it. Setting it carefully aside, she took the stylus and began to mark the lead through the blood.
A low-voiced chant came from her throat, one musical and melodic. The sound was pleasant, one that dredged up a memory from long ago. I seemed to see a fire with people sitting around it, while a woman sang stories of the distant past.
Who the woman was, and why I remembered this, I didn’t know.
Aelia’s words weren’t Latin, but Greek, so I had no idea what she sang. Gallus and Vibius followed along with the incantation, their bodies swaying slightly to her music. Cassia had paused in her writing to listen, enchanted.
Vibius watched his wife with great fondness. As mismatched as they were—a prominent patrician’s daughter with a nobody Equestrian—the marriage was obviously a happy one. I’d already concluded that they had no offspring, as Vibius was the sort who’d boast of them without restraint.
If they ever did have children, would a son of Vibius’s inherit Cloelius’s properties, via Aelia? Some money and lands could pass through the daughters if there were no male heirs, or if those male heirs had been disinherited. I did not know if Cloelius had children—and I’d seen no evidence of any—in that case, would the large home with the vast gardens come to Aelia? Would she want to sell it or spend all her money trying to maintain or improve it?
Aelia rose from her seat, lifting her face to the sky. She finished her song, silence descending over the site.
We jumped when she abruptly broke the lead tablet across her knee with a crack like thunder. Tossing the pieces on the ground, she upended the bottle, flinging the blood over the earth where the bones had lain.
While we stared, Aelia calmly retrieved the broken lead sheet and returned it, stylus, and the empty bottle to her bag. “There,” she declared. “It is done.”
Gallus let out a breath of relief. “Thank you.” He reached for the pouch at his side. “The fee is twenty denarii, Vibius told me.”
Aelia waved him off. “As my husband benefits from this cleansing as much as you, I will not charge you.”
“Excellent.” Gallus rubbed his hands together, though Vibius looked a bit nonplussed that Aelia had refused payment. “The air feels cleaner already. Tomorrow, we will begin anew. If Sextus Livius is not afraid to build here, neither am I.”
I felt something inside me go slack in relief. I’d worried that even with Aelia’s magic, Gallus might be afraid to go on with the project. Now, I could come here every day and watch a building rise.
