Pile of Bones (22 page)

“The killing instrument returns.” Sulpicia scratched her ear. “Not much to look at, but then again, its function has always been more defensive. Artifices of old used such machinae to distract silenoi—along with other things that have excellent hearing.”

The artifex stared at the bee. Her expression was a puzzle. She’d been far more astonished by Sulpicia, which was understandable.

“It’s under your control now,” Babieca said. “Didn’t you say that you could make it return to the one who forged it?”

“I—perhaps, but—”

“That’s simple,” the fox said. “You have the whole fibula now. The creature must obey. All you need say is:
Return to your maker.
”

The artifex hesitated. “Is that such a good idea?”

“We need to know who fashioned this thing,” Babieca said. “Anyone that powerful might be able to help us. Whoever it is, we need to reach them before Latona does. They’re in danger just as surely as we are.”

The artifex sighed. Then she murmured to the bee: “Return to your maker.”

The insect leapt from its perch. It hovered in the air for a moment, as if uncertain. They all watched it dancing in the dark of the undercroft, wings whirring. It almost seemed to be thinking about something. Perhaps it was recalling the face of its maker. Then it shot through the open doorway.

“Follow that bee!” Babieca cried.

They ran out of the undercroft, catching a glimpse of silver as it flew upstairs. The bored artifex who’d been reading
stared at them in surprise. They ignored him, running up the stairs in pursuit of the insect. They found it flying in a circle within the tabularium. Was it waiting for them? Babieca couldn’t quite tell. It flew outside again. He grabbed his tunic and cithara, falling a step behind the fox and the artifex as they kept pursuit. The bee left the tower through a window, and they burst through the front door.

Roldan, Morgan, and Fel were waiting by the entrance.

“What are you—” Morgan began.

“No time!” Babieca broke into a run. “Keep up!”

They flew through the city, past wagons, messengers, and lean furs cleaving to alleys. They seemed to float above the stones as they ran, their sandals touching air. Sweating, panting, breaking into laughter, they followed the silver bee. Surely, they looked absurd: a man in a reeking tunica, clutching his instrument as he tried to keep pace with a red-haired artifex. Behind them, a miles was struggling to keep up, her single bronze greave catching the sunlight. To her right was a sagittarius, and to her left, an auditor, legs pumping, eyes straining to see what resembled an erratic star flying ahead of them. Babieca crowed. His body was on fire with joy. He was running along the spokes of Fortuna’s wheel. As long as he stayed in motion, he would never fall. None of them would.

The bee led them to the lowest part of the city. Here the cobblestones gave way to patched earth and marshy pools. The habitations fell away. The path was overgrown with reeds and tall osiers, brittle from the sun. They came to a marble-fronted building, silent and smelling of incense. Babieca watched the glint of silver as it flew into the necropolis. There was no time to question its motivations. The company followed.

Inside, the mausoleum was dimly lit by oil-fed lamps. The first graves were modest, arrayed in a plots that resembled dice. Babieca saw brittle wreathes, rusted baubles, and other gifts left by the living. Someone had placed a hen’s egg next to a child’s marker, symbolizing rebirth. They passed a row
of red-and-black urns, decorated with funerary portraits. The ground sloped as they continued, drawing them deeper into the earth. The air was cool and sweet-smelling. He wanted to read the inscriptions, but there was no time. A few tired lupae watched them as they passed, saying nothing.

At last, they came to a section deep within the necropolis. They found the bee circling a grave marker with a rusted hammer beside it. The artifex had reached the grave first, and she was staring at it strangely.

Babieca peered at the letters on the stone. “‘I was Naucrate,’” he read softly, “‘the artifex. I maintained the fountains. May the goddess protect my daughter, Julia.’”

The artifex held out her hand. The bee alighted once again on the fibula, regarding her calmly as it fluttered its wings. Then it grew still.

“Naucrate was my mother,” Julia said. “She did more than maintain the fountains. She was a true artifex. I barely hold a flake of her talent.”

Babieca stared at her. “It was your mother who fashioned the bee,” he said. “All this time, you’ve been the missing piece.”

She looked bitterly at the insect. “This was all that she left me. It didn’t fly, or make noise—it was just a useless thing. I could never understand why she wanted me to keep it. When the spado offered to buy it in his master’s name, I—” She was on the verge of tears. “The money was too good. I couldn’t say no.”

“Wait,” Morgan said. “What do you mean, ‘in his master’s name’?”

“Well—it wasn’t Narses who paid me. It was another spado, a younger one. His servant, I guess. I wasn’t sure how he’d heard of the thing, but artifices like to gossip. It was finely crafted, even if it didn’t do anything. I could see why he’d want to buy it. So I took his coins and erased it from my mind. The last piece of my mother. I was happy to see it go.” Her eyes widened. “Then, last night, it came buzzing at my window. I’d already heard talk of the bloody banquet.
What was I supposed to do? I yelled at it to go away. It flew off.”

“Why did you lie to us?” Babieca asked.

“I was frightened and ashamed. I just wanted you to leave me alone. How was I to know that my mother’s brooch would cause so much trouble? Look at it. Would you imagine that such a little thing could be so dangerous?”

“Julia—” Morgan gave her a long look. “Describe this young eunuch.”

“I don’t know. He was sort of fat. He wore a green cap, like they do sometimes. He had soft hands, and a high voice. He carried the seal of Narses.”

“He was at the Hippodrome,” Roldan said. “Standing by Narses. And I saw him once before that, eating lemon sharbah.”

“We spoke with him at the banquet. He was polite. Harmless, I thought.” Babieca chuckled. “All this time, we’ve had our eye on the wrong spado. I don’t think Narses had anything to do with this. It was his servant. Basilissa Latona must have made some kind of deal with him.”

“A power-hungry spado,” Roldan said. “Could that really be it?”

“Remember what Felix said.” Babieca was nodding now. “He never spoke with Narses about the fibula—only to one of his attendants. He must have stolen the seal. Maybe he showed it to Felix as well.”

“I don’t understand.” Julia placed the fibula in her tunic. “Why would a spado try to murder a basilissa?”

“Because he wants a promotion,” Fel replied. “Narses wouldn’t allow this. Latona must be trying to work around him. Fortuna knows what she promised the young eunuch, but it most likely involves his master’s head on a pike.”

Morgan turned to Julia. “If you’re through lying—perhaps you can help us. We need to get Basilissa Pulcheria to safety.”

Julia looked thoughtful. “I might know a way into the
arx. It’s not pleasant.”

Morgan was about to reply when she suddenly wrinkled her nose. She looked at Babieca in astonishment. “Did you piss yourself?”

“It’s the tunica!”

“You might want to accustom yourself to that particular smell,” Julia said. “The place I have in mind is a lot worse.”

T
HEY PLAYED IN THE NECROPOLIS UNTIL
nightfall. Julia collected stones for latrinculi, and the ground served as their board. After they’d grown tired of losing to Fel, they traded dirty epigrams, writing them on scattered bits of paper. They tried to make an alquerque box out of twigs and twine scraps, but it wouldn’t hold, so they scratched spaces into the earth instead. They invented a game involving red clay shards, which they’d gathered from a broken amphora. Then Roldan persuaded a bored salamander to exhale small rings of fire. Very few people came near their corner of the mausoleum. Most would rather visit the basia than the city of the dead. Only a handful of mourners descended those dark steps.

Once every game had been exhausted, they returned to the surface. Julia led them out of the reedy corner. They kept to the city’s most obscure angles, walking down blind corners, avoiding the densely populated Via Rumor. As the setting sun doubled shadows, they came to the Tower of Trovadores. Babieca heard bawdy music from above. Failing light struck the yellow-tinted windows, until they burned like gold leaf on papyrus. Without a doubt, bards of variable
desire would be lounging on the steps, getting drunk and composing trenchant verse. No member of the gens even suspected his existence. He was a nemo, a pathetic strummer destined to chap his fingers begging in doorways. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the clamor of bad decisions being made by the beautiful.

Julia led them down an alley that ran behind the tower. At the very end was an iron grill set into the wall.

“This leads to the cloaca,” she said. “The sewer runs throughout Anfractus, splitting off into various branches fed by the aqueduct. Not only does it connect to the baths, it also runs beneath the Arx of Violets.”

“Shouldn’t it be locked?” Roldan asked.

“Furs use it,” Babieca replied. “Every night, bodies are dragged into the cloaca. At one time, there was probably a lock, but the aedile grew tired of replacing it.”

“What made you think of this?” Morgan asked Julia.

“My mother used to mend broken pipes. She knew a great deal about water and its pathways through the city. The cloaca, she used to say, was the most impressive thing about Anfractus. In the beginning it was little more than an open trench, but the founders paved it in lava-stone, transforming it into a far-reaching road.”

“A furry shithole,” Babieca clarified.

“We shouldn’t run afoul of them, since they keep mostly to the south end. No fur in her right mind would walk directly beneath the arx.”

“Yet we’re just stupid enough to try it.”

Julia shrugged. “You wanted a way in. Unless you can change your form and walk through the front gate, or hover over the battlements like a shade, this is your only choice.”

Morgan smiled at him. “Plus, you already smell the part.”

“I told you—that reek was from the tunica.”

“I’ve smelled your wind before. Don’t blame it on the clothes.”

Julia kindled a lamp, and they stepped through the small door. A paved path ran through the middle of the cloaca, with churning water on either side. The stone roof was supported
by concentric barrel vaults, their design solid and unpretentious. The founders, so it was said, had built Anfractus when their power was at its height. They’d also built roads connecting this city to others, but those had decayed over time. Now they were broken stone, smashed arteries overgrown by plants. The spine of the great via belonged to the spreading forest, which would one day cover the cities themselves, if the silenoi had their way.

They passed great pipes that led upward, carrying refuse away from thermae and a few extravagant homes. Water from the twin rivers flowed left and right, flushing the cloaca. This did little to improve the smell, though. Refuse floated in the watery margins, forming a scum that crept along the sides of their path. Morgan distributed fistfuls of old herbs, which they’d taken from the necropolis. Their sweetness was careworn and faint but better than nothing. Babieca saw various items floating by: a sword hilt, a leather purse, soiled smallclothes, and even a decomposing book. Roldan almost reached out to grab this, but Morgan, anticipating his desire, shook her head.

“Best to avoid the water,” she said.

There were rumors of animals that lived in the cloaca—giant rats and moths that would suck out your marrow—but all they encountered were questionable pools. This was the labyrinthine stone bowel of the city, where blood, dye, and piss all drained in equal measures. Once, they heard the sound of distant footsteps. Furs knew how to walk silently. It must have been a company such as theirs, looking for something beneath the city. Julia covered the lamp. They stood still in the darkness, listening. The second company was moving away from them. After a moment, their footfalls were no longer audible. Julia continued, leading them farther down the slimy road. Her pauses and frequent backward glances told Babieca that the artifex wasn’t as confident as she seemed.

Eventually, they reached a place where several gray streams converged. A rust-caked ladder had been attached to the wall. Several of its rungs were either broken or covered in layers of filth, streaked by sinister greens and browns.

“This should lead to a bank of toilets,” Julia said, “that is positioned near the Patio of Lions. No sweet ascent, but it will get us inside.”

Babieca looked skeptically at the ladder. “What if we crawl out of the cistern just as some poor soul is taking a shit? He’ll drop dead when he sees us.”

Morgan grabbed the closest rung. “His shade will have to forgive us.”

Slowly, they climbed up the reeking shaft. After the fifth or sixth rung, his hands stopped shuddering when they touched the unimaginable. He focused on the hiss of the water, telling himself that the twin rivers were doing their best. Just as he was beginning to feel faint, he saw a square of yellow light. He stood in a foul cistern, a catch-all for the toilets above. Morgan lowered down a rope, and he took it, bracing his feet against the slick walls. It took some effort, but he managed to climb through the narrow aperture. He slid out of the disgusting keyhole, breathing hard while trying to push down the bile in his throat.

The midden was empty, save for a symposium of flies. Once everyone had reached level ground, they paused to retch and regroup. The herbs were next to useless. There was no way to conceal the horrific perfume of the cloaca.

“I’m having second thoughts,” Julia said, wiping a strand of spit from her lips. “Instead of continuing, I think I’d rather set myself on fire.”

“Not a chance,” Fel replied. “Aside from the sagittarius, you’re the only one with any knowledge of this place.”

She stared at the ring of filth around her hands. “Sweet Fortuna, why is it
green
? What could possibly—”

“Don’t think about it. Just keep going.”

They left the latrine and walked down a corridor. The ceiling had a stalactite vault, brimming with irregular stones. Rhombus patterns were carved along the walls, and their foliated borders held secret inscriptions that Babieca couldn’t decipher. The corridor gradually widened, supported by red stilted arches. It opened up entirely, and moonlight guided them onto the Patio of Lions. The night was
warm, yet still held the possibility of rain. A reflecting pool bisected the patio, its waters motionless. The lions stood on an island in the center, six of them in all, carved from marble. They clustered around a fountain, each one favoring a different line of sight. They were supposed to represent the six spokes of the day gens, Fortuna’s bright wheel.

“My mother said there used to be another fountain,” Julia whispered, “made of black marble and consecrated to the night gens, but Latona’s grandmother had it removed.”

Babieca studied the colored tessellations that made up the floor of the patio. Red and green birds flew across a white sky, mingling with stars and crescents, until he couldn’t tell where one shape finished and the next began. When he stared at them too closely, spots flickered before his eyes, and he had to look away from their infinite dance. Circular stone benches had been placed around the pool, lit by hanging lamps, while lotus flowers drifted in the water. All Babieca could think of was the possibility of washing his filthy tunica. He was on the verge of stepping into the pool when he heard footsteps.

“Back against the wall,” Morgan whispered. “Don’t even breathe.”

They waited in the lengthening shadows. Two figures emerged from the north end of the patio, walking side by side. They approached the pool, and he resisted the urge to swear softly beneath his breath. The first was a young spado in a green cap and tunica. He had a wispy beard and slender hands, which he kept folded in front of him. Basilissa Latona was at his side, dressed in a mantle of leather whose hem brushed her pointed slippers. Gems and silver spangles decorated the front of the gown. Her pearl diadem caught the light, casting trails of nacre across her shoulders, like milkweed.

“Double the guards at her door,” Latona said to the eunuch. “I don’t care if they think the north wing is haunted. If they hesitate, show them the old capon’s seal. That should pacify them. Not even miles are daft enough to cross the chamberlain.”

“Their hesitation would be less, my Basilissa, if you gave the order.”

“No. I’ve already gone too far. My seal could be used against me, but Narses doesn’t have long to live. It won’t matter if we pervert his word.”

“He’s not completely blind. I think he’s been talking to the aedile.”

“His arrogance will undo him. His first mistake was to underestimate you, Mardian. He allowed you to suffer in his shadow.”

“I was loyal to him, my Basilissa, until he questioned your will.”

The ruler of Anfractus watched the lotus flowers drifting by. For a moment, she seemed diminished, a woman struggling beneath the weight of her finery. Then her eyes narrowed, and the aegis crept back into her features. Her mouth compressed to a thin line. She seemed remote and immeasurably ancient, daughter of a ruling class whose beginnings could no longer be traced with any kind of certainty. Her ancestors had built this palace, along with the magnificent sewer upon which it stood. They had built her throne and, presumably, the mechanical foxes that slept at its base. The founders were responsible for her position, their blood ran in her veins, yet those archaic grandmothers were barely ghosts to her.

“We’ve slept for too long,” she said. “Afraid to reach for anything, terrified of our own shadows on the wall. Something has to change. Otherwise”—she made a gesture encompassing the patio, its lovely tesserae, its clever hydraulics—“we’ll languish in this beautiful, torpid place, like virgins afraid to leave their father’s halls.”

“I am no virgin, my Basilissa,” Mardian said.

“No.” She smiled thinly. “Your cold passions obey no limit, do they?”

“I work with what I have.”

“When Narses falls, you shall have all that you desire.” Latona considered the stars. “Egressus will be mine—all of its resources and its loyal subjects. All of the ancient
power that sleeps beneath it. Then the lares will finally listen. The old frontiers will fall.”

“They shall march for you,” Mardian agreed.

“My mother didn’t have the nerve. She threw away the relics and pacified the gens, day and night, but taking Egressus never occurred to her. She was content with Anfractus. I have always wanted more.”

Mardian bowed his head. “My Basilissa—gladly would I see this plan fulfilled. Make me your die, your hallowed instrument. I will not fail you.”

Her eyes wavered for a moment as she looked down at him. Latona seemed to mistrust his fervor, to draw back slightly from his conviction. But she steeled herself and nodded.

“You will be chamberlain by morning. For now, keep the old capon distracted. There’s one last secret that I must pry from Pulcheria. Then you can throw her out the window.”

“Nothing would please me more.”

Mardian and Latona exited the patio, disappearing through the north entrance. For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Fel said, “It doesn’t sound like we have much time. The basilissa is being held in the north wing. If we can get to her before the guard is doubled, we might stand a chance of freeing her.”

“What did she mean,” Morgan asked, “about the lares marching?”

“She said that the old frontiers would fall,” Roldan said. “She’s planning some sort of invasion. Egressus isn’t her only target. She’s after something else.”

“But where are we even supposed to take Pulcheria?” Julia asked. “It’s not like we can smuggle her out of the city.”

“She must have come on a ship,” Roldan said. “If we can reach the harbor—”

“Are you hearing all of these
ifs
?” Julia shook her head. “What’s to keep the undinae from drowning us, or the city guard from cutting us to pieces?”

Babieca smiled. “Just luck.”

“You’re all crazy.”

“I don’t see you running in the opposite direction.”

The artifex sighed. “I guess I’m just stupid enough to stay.”

“That’s the spirit.”

They headed north. Morgan was familiar with the miles and their schedules. They avoided the lamplight as much as they could. Whenever the sagittarius halted, they would stop short behind her, keeping silent. Babieca felt like the stones must be able to smell them. More than anything, he wanted to pour a bucket of clean water over his head, to rip off his clothes and scrub every inch of himself with sea sponges. When he’d imagined going on a real quest, he hadn’t factored in the possibility that he might be terrified and covered in shit.

Of course, he hadn’t expected a lot of things. A miles with one greave. An artifex with a mechanical bee under her tunica. A struggle between men who were not men precisely, whose cold passions obeyed no limit. Now he remembered seeing the young eunuch at the Hippodrome, seated not far from where they’d first met Julia. Surely, he was the spado that Felix had spoken of, carrying the authority of his master’s insignia. Narses may have had a fierce reputation, but Mardian—a shadow, Latona called him—had outmaneuvered the chamberlain. He’d arranged all of this without dirtying his hands. He must have been a descendant of the old spadones, those grim gardeners who pruned the court with blades dipped in aconite.