I handed it back to him. “Do you hammer it before or after you get a commission?”
“Oh, afterwards, of course. You can see for yourself the lead’s too delicate to sit around here waiting for someone. As soon as I get a client, I prepare the lead. This is for a lady who wants a ring back. I’ll have it ready for her when she comes out of the baths, and then she’ll throw it in the spring.”
He turned to rummage in a shallow box and pulled out a very small, thin stylus. “This is my favorite stylus. Writes real fine. Writing’s important, don’t you believe those who tell you it isn’t. They just can’t do it properly. The goddess likes it done nice.”
I took the stylus and looked at it carefully. I started to understand why Bibax, Rat Face, and Peregrinus were all on the small side. The tablets were tiny, and the writing could be a delicate process.
“So I take my stylus, and I write. This one’ll say something like ‘May the person who took my ring-be it man or woman, slave or free-be tormented with no sleep, no rest, and never be free from pain, and may their insides rot from within, until they return my ring to the temple.’ She might want more detail, and more specific punishment, and she may even give me a list of suspects. We can include that, too. This lady just paid for a general.”
“You pay more for more detail?”
“Of course. It’s more work. For me and the goddess, eh, Calpurnius?” He laughed, and the priest joined him.
“What makes the goddess listen to you?”
He grew serious. “That I can’t say. We put in a formula to get the goddess’s attention, and the client promises to give her something. This lady may even give her the ring, once she gets it back.”
“So she’ll pay you to ask for the goddess’s help, and then once Sulis finds and punishes the thief, she’ll pay the goddess. Seems like they’d lose less money if they just bought another ring.”
Peregrinus winked. “Well, don’t be spreadin’ that around. We’d be out of business. The final thing to do is fold up the curse-it’s important that it be folded right, because that helps bind the spell. That’s another reason for hammering it out so thin. Some of these amateurs”-he looked around and spat contemptuously-“they don’t understand you can’t just throw in a thick piece of lead and have the magic work.”
He looked up at the sun. “I’d best be getting back to this. Hope that helped you. Terrible thing, what happened.”
“Yes. Thanks. The council’s asked me to find the killer.”
He squinted up at me from underneath his gray-red eyebrows. “Well, if you can’t, Sulis will.” Then he went back to work.
Calpurnius was smiling sardonically. “Did that answer your questions?”
I looked at him. “I always have more.”
He sucked his teeth again. “I have a few minutes before I’m needed at the temple.”
“What do you do there?”
He laughed without mirth. “I’m a temple cleaner. Lowest of the low. A priest in training, suckling the hind tit of Sulis, and lucky to get a few drops.”
“How does the temple collect its taxes? From people like Bibax, I mean.”
He raised his eyebrows and said in a dry voice: “You’ll have to ask Papirius about that. I don’t get to touch the money.”
“Did you know Bibax?”
He shrugged. “Not personally. I saw him around. He wasn’t the best or the worst of his kind.”
I asked slowly: “Will the lady get her ring back?”
He gave me a funny look. “Maybe. Sometimes they do. Fairly often, in fact. The curses are a way to keep order in this town. We’re far away from Rome-that little fortlet doesn’t give a damn about us-and we don’t have vigiles or even a native system left to enforce the laws. And it’s a small place, Aquae Sulis, for all the cosmopolitan airs it puts on. And that’s only been within the last few years, anyway.”
“How do curses enforce the law? I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? You can’t keep secrets in this place. Take a look around. Between everyone going to the baths, and the sellers at the marketplace-who would sell their grandmother’s teeth if they could find a buyer-everyone knows everyone else’s business. If Flavia’s ring gets stolen, there are a limited number of people who probably did it. If word gets around that she’s had them cursed, well-why take chances? Just leave it at the temple anonymously.”
“Why should a thief care?”
“Because a thief has to live here, too. And a thief depends on Sulis’s waters, just like the rest of us.” He shivered. “I’m getting cold. I’d better go back.”
“Calpurnius-what if the thief isn’t a local?”
He paused and smiled. “Ah. That would be a problem, wouldn’t it? We hope fear will keep them all in line.” Then he turned to leave again.
I changed tactics. “Do people die here?”
That stopped him midstep. “What did you say?”
“Do people die here?”
He laughed again, a dry wheezing sound that sounded frozen and empty.
“Have you looked around you? Of course, people die. They come here sick-wills made out-she can’t save all of them, can she? Not even a precious medicus could do that.”
He gave me a withering look and headed back to the Temple, his toga still trailing a growing collection of dirt. On an impulse, I ran after him.
“Ultor-the message. Was Bibax killed because he was a failure? Because his curses didn’t work?”
He was only a few feet away from the temple, and there were other priests on the steps. He stood for a moment, wavering. Then he turned around and stared at me.
His voice was lowered. “Oh, no. I don’t think so.” He looked from left to right, then up at me, his brown eyes narrowed and penetrating. “I think Rufus Bibax was killed because his curses came true.”
For the second time that day, I was left standing on the pavement, feeling like a gaping idiot.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I spent the rest of the afternoon quizzing the offering stalls and curse-writers. No one wanted to admit knowing Bibax. No one mentioned his curses as possessing an unnaturally high success rate.
The priest knew something, obviously. Something I’d undoubtedly have to pay for. I accumulated a collection of eye creams, a badly sketched picture of the temple pediment, a blank piece of lead, and some clay testicles, the purchase price of small information. I shrugged and threw them into the spring with the other offerings. Not that I needed the testicles.
The bell for the baths finally sounded, and a throng of women rushed out, hair gleaming. I looked for Gwyna, and thought I saw her arm toss something out the window into the spring, but then I couldn’t see the rest of her and couldn’t be sure.
I made my way to the entrance, threading past females of all ages, shapes, and income levels. It was a relief to see Ligur, who’d been waiting all morning. We waited for the last stragglers, crimping their perfumed hair with their fingers, smearing rouge on their cheeks as they walked. I still didn’t see Gwyna. She’d stand out in the crowd like Venus in a roomful of gorgons.
Other men were waiting, too, trying to get an eyeful of any body part the last few women hadn’t shoved back into place. I paid half an as to the toothy attendant and finally stepped through the archway.
Dressing room first. This one offered large shelves in the shape of open boxes for you to store your clothes, and a not-too-narrow bench for slaves to sit and watch them for you. A few freelancers stood around, for those who couldn’t afford one or more slaves of their own.
The apodyterium was decorated with little sayings and greetings some promotionally-minded person obviously thought were clever, like GREETINGS, BATHER! THIS WAY TO HEALTH! Another small fresco illustrated a scene of two women bathing one another-a perennial favorite. Some poor bastard suffering from impotence had scratched a grafitto: I LIKE WOMEN. I LIKE SONG. I TAKE BATHS. SO WHAT IS WRONG?