He groans, looking at the servants walking the halls below us. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“The baths, of course,” Julian says.
I stare at him for a moment but then realize that between the shape of the baths and the running water, we won’t be able to be overheard. It’s one of the reasons the senators negotiate their backroom deals there.
We silently take the stairs down until we reach the baths. This time of night, they have an eerie quality the naive would mistake for being peaceful. The mist rising off the water makes it look like the River of Death, and I’m sure that’s fitting. Given the history of this place, I’m certain Antinous was not the only soul lost in here.
I follow Julian into the frigidarium. This room is for cold plunges. Icy spring melt flows down a waterfall and into the various interconnected pools. People believe that diving into freezing waters is good for their health. I’m not sure why.
Julian and I stop next to each other. I watch the water run while waiting to see if we were followed.
“You found something,” he says after a minute passes.
I rub my forehead. “I found a lot. After I cataloged Antinous’s papers and ledgers, there was evidence to implicate both Senator Eyo and Senator Terrance in the murders.”
“Implicate? Tor…don’t tell me you left dinner to search their chambers…” He closes his eyes for a pained blink, but I don’t bother to deny it. I asked a sentry to interrupt my meal at nine sharp, without telling him why. I excused him back to his own meal and then headed upstairs as the senators remained in the banquet hall.
“All right, what did you find?” Jules asks.
“Verhardt was blackmailing both senators.”
Julian raises his eyebrows, not shocked so much as mildly surprised. “Based upon what acts?”
“That was what I was trying to determine. For Terrance, it’s obvious. Antinous had numerous complaints from merchants he extorted, but he was also embezzling money from the treasury of the republic. The tax ledgers were off, and Terrance, who oversees the vaults, was the cause. Terrance has books recording payments made to Verhardt’s accounts, and they match the private books Antinous kept. It looks like Terrance was paying Verhardt a quarter of what he stole. But there are also payments from Eyo, and I’m not sure why. I haven’t gotten through all the papers, but he wasn’t embezzling money as far as I could tell.”
Julian takes on a thoughtful look. “It could be something else. I heard a rumor about him a while ago.”
Of course he did. The upper class loves nothing more than to gossip about each other as if they are not all guilty of similar acts.
“Which was?” I ask.
“One of his mistresses disappeared five years ago—two or three years after he was elected,” Jules continues. “I can’t remember her name… It doesn’t matter. She was found dead, washed up downriver from the capital, her body weighted with rocks. It was ruled a suicide by the previous Praetorian, but the suspicion was that she was pregnant, and Eyo killed her.”
It feels true, but maybe that’s because I am looking for a reason. Suicides are awfully convenient, and I know for a fact that the former Praetorian was not above corruption.
Still, rumors are not enough.
“That sounds like speculation,” I say.
“It is, but it’s rather surprising that Eyo has no illegitimate children; I’ve always thought that, given his staggering number of mistresses. The only offspring he has are his three children with his wife. But she is the one who comes from the established line and real money, not him. Although he’s accumulated quite a bit serving in the Senate.”
I consider the possibilities as I stare at the rushing water.
“Did his wife kill the mistress?” I ask.
Julian shrugs. “It’s one and the same as far as blackmail is concerned. Plus, Eyo’s fortunes rise and fall with his wife, since his family was newer nobility. The Eyos didn’t curry favor until after the Crimson Night. She is the benefactress.”
As much as they hated the Elusian monarchy, the republic still puts faith in the families who held power for centuries.
I think through the possibilities of Eyo or Terrance being the killer. It was their sentries who moved the body before I investigated it. Eyo was Verhardt’s guest at the Revelry party, but Terrance’s sentry is strong enough to decapitate a man. Antinous said the Senate conspires, but who did he mean?
Or did he mean both?
But something doesn’t sit well about this.
“The drowning of Antinous fits the senators’ styles, but why disembowel Verhardt?” I say, thinking aloud. “Why the scene? The safest play was to make it look like an accident.”
