Chapter 37

 

Ostia, circa 115 BCE

Dawn was breaking and I was making my way to the fish market—our brothel had its own kitchen and we could bring in quite a morning crowd, turning a decent profit from selling fish cakes and bread, let alone our other common wares. The morning was delightfully cool. There had been a rain during the night and the air was clean, delicious on the tongue. I was feeling rather content; something that had been so very rare the past years, so when I was interrupted it made me more predisposed to strike out. He was a young man, who recognized me from a party some time ago, and I did try to politely put him off, but he was insistent. He thus sealed his own fate.

I led him into an alleyway, to some empty stables for a quick dalliance and I took his life almost as an afterthought. As I did so I nearly felt… regret. He struggled on the ground, weakening by the second as he hissed and burbled. I had struck his own knife deep into his throat, cutting his voice box for good measure. Leaning back against the wall I watched silently as he died.

It used to mean something, killing these people. It had been a visceral joy the first time, the second, and the third… better than sex, better than a full meal after a week of grass, bark and stream water. Each death was an epiphany, an eruption of feeling. It was the closest thing I had to feeling true power, and that had fueled me for more than ten years, but now? Now it was almost a habit rather than a joy. All these men and women dead by my hand and it seemed the only reason I kept on was to hold at bay the creeping suspicion that it was all meaningless.

As he faded I stepped away from the wall and settled to my knees beside him, laying my hand upon his cheek. His eyes glazed, the ruddy complexion of his face slowly darkening.

“It’s not your fault,” I whispered, “it was just bad timing… sleep now and be done…’”

I made to clean my hands on his cloak; by now I had learned to kill a man with a knife without making too great a mess, but I had some blood on my hands. I also stripped him of his valuables to make his body look as if he had been robbed. It was a dangerous ploy, for I would be at risk while they were in my possession, but I would dump them in the river so no one would find them. I had no stomach these days for seeing common thieves put to death for my crimes.

A small sound coming from the back of the alley made me freeze in place. I turned just in time to spy movement behind a wooden box at the other end of the alleyway. I waited a moment, just listening. I had known this place well and was certain it was empty this time of day. Clearly someone was near the back of the alley cul-de-sac. If it was more than one I would have to pretend I had found this man waylaid. It would be a weak excuse but it had been so many years since anyone had even questioned me I believed I could pull it off. But if it was just one, then perhaps I would have one more kill to crown this morning before returning to my more mundane tasks.

I rose to my feet and strepped towards the box and there was an unmistakable intake of breath. It had the sound of a woman, or a boy.

“I know you’re there my friend,” I said. I was calm and welcoming. “Please show yourself.”

Not a sound came and I sighed in resignation. What did this person hope to accomplish? I resolved to make it quick for I had lingered here long enough. A single corpse could be explained easily by a simple robbery, but two would attract attention and my last had been taken just four days previous.

I strode down the length of the alley and stepped around the box to find myself confronting a boy, no more than ten years old, huddled in a servant’s entrance doorway. He was dirty the way only long months on the streets can make one dirty. He looked Greek, or perhaps even Ethiopian, with hair like black wool, dark olive skin and eyes large and wide with terror. He was beautiful, quivering in the deep alcove leading to the door, his eyes darting from side to side before fixing on my face.

“There’s nowhere for you to go,” I told him gently. I smiled broadly, welcomingly, like an aunt or sister, and stepped towards him. He bolted towards me, ducking as if to run underneath me, and I lunged downward to catch him. But suddenly he jumped up, leaping like a squirrel and actually bouncing off my shoulder and kicking at me as he ran. I turned and grabbed for his kicking leg but his skin was slick with the sweat of fear and he slipped my grasp. I cursed myself for being so careless.

For a brief moment I thought to let him go. I stood there for several heartbeats, watching him sprint to the end of the alleyway. It was still dark in the alley and my cloak covered my head. He could not have seen my face clearly, and who would listen to a street urchin’s tales of a woman killing a man nearly twice her size?

But I became frantic. I had to have him. He had an enormous head start and people would be filling the streets soon. Yet I sprinted down the alley, determined to find him anyway. As I left the alley I saw him a ways away, stopping to catch his breath. As he saw me he began to run again, directly toward the market. I walked quickly but calmly. I had to catch him. I would not let this little street rat bring me down.

Turning a corner I spotted him not ten paces away behind a crowd of women bartering with a large African basketseller. I pointed at the boy and yelled, “Thief!” The merchant and women turned to stare as he jumped and sprinted away, dumping over a pile of baskets. The merchant swore and the women squawked as I shoved past them, tripping over the baskets and cursing. As more and more people filled the streets, I ran on, looking for any sign of the boy while others looked at me, idly curious but not otherwise paying much attention as I searched for anything out of the ordinary such as shouting, or swearing or…

There was another angry merchant collecting a pile of fruits that had tumbled into the street near a corner, cursing and looking over his shoulder, to the east. I broke into a run, sprinting around the corner in the direction the merchant had been looking. Noting the zig-zagging direction the boy seemed to be taking, the memory of his scent came… rotted fish and oil. He must live near the docks. I zigzagged though the narrow streets and even narrower alleys, pausing now and again to look and listen.

I came to a square where three bakeries formed another small marketing spot and I stopped, something telling me to pause and look. I scanned the crowd and the corners of the buildings and a sudden motion caught my attention. I saw him staring at me, his face a study in shock as he peered around the corner of a stall selling baskets of yellow bread loaves. He bolted again, but I had his measure now and I sprinted down a parallel alley before turning to spy him across the way, just as I anticipated.

 I have your number now you little vermin!

I bolted down a parallel street, threading through the growing crowd like a serpent through grass, heedless of the sometimes-indignant cries of those I passed. I had to get ahead of him before he reached the river, for he doubtless had people there who knew him and that would complicate matters. I broke into the cross street and turned east, expecting him to emerge from the alley at any moment… except that he did not. I reached the entrance to the alley and saw nothing, not him, nor any obvious place he might be hiding. I whirled about, looking west and caught the barest glimpse of a small form as it disappeared into another alleyway further down the street.

The insolent little mouse had doubled back upon me! With a growl in my throat I took after him again, able to run at a full gait along an empty side street. There would be no more attempting to finesse this. He had shown me how clever he was and I would not let him slip from my sight again.

I sprinted along the space between two buildings and out into another narrow street where I turned again towards the river mouth. I heard a shout ahead, some cursing, and I knew I was close. Suddenly, I burst into the docks area.

I saw him then, not too far ahead but running full out, the flash of the pale bottoms of his dirty bare feet almost a blur as he headed toward a ship… a boat that had just cast off its last moorings, and was already beginning to row out to the mouth of the river.

I set after him, closing the distance rapidly, but as I ran a man stepped toward me as if to grab my arm. I spun as he reached for me, my cloak and part of my shift ripping away as I tore myself free. I continued running after the little wharf rat, thinking I would catch him in the river if I must. I was sure I could out swim him and I was certain he could not possibly catch the boat.

But I was wrong. As he reached the end of the dock, perhaps only ten paces ahead of me, he gave a mighty yell and launched into the air, hands and feet flailing… and he caught onto some thick netting hanging from the stern of the boat.

I skidded to a stop and fell just at the edge of the dock, sweating and panting, nearly falling into the water. Looking down I noticed that I was all but naked, my shift torn to shreds and my cloak long gone. I looked up to see two stout seamen pulling the boy into the back of the ship, staring at me as the rowers eased the vessel out into the mouth of the river, bound for the sea. The boy was saying something to the crewmen, and others were watching with great curiosity. The man who had grabbed my cloak came running up behind me and suddenly I was acutely aware of just how public and dangerous a situation I was in. I had to do something, say something, and a desperate thought for cover came to me.

I leapt to my feet and shook my fist at the boy as I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“The little shit didn’t pay!”

Silence fell over the docks for an instant and then someone started laughing uproariously. It spread to the others, shrieks of laughter coming even from the man who had my torn cloak in his hands. He was bent over, tears streaming down his face as he guffawed. On the boat I saw the men laughing and clapping the boy on the back, clearly amused and astounded by his supposed audacity, but he was not laughing himself. His eyes were fixed on me, still wide and terrified.

I locked my eyes on his and then very deliberately broke into a smile. I raised my right hand high in salute and after a moment he did the same. I could see him visibly relax. I then turned to the man holding the remnants of my cloak and snatched it from his hands.

“Tell me, where is that ship bound?” I asked him.

“Oh, they’re Egyptian, sweet doris. They won’t be making way back here for another year. Maybe you can settle up then?”

He was laughing at me as he said it, but I ignored him and stomped away, wrapping what was left of my garment about my hips, relieved to find I still had the pocket with my last victim’s belongings in my possession. I tried to calm myself, but I was shaken so badly that I had to find an alley where I could just stop and try to make sense of what I was feeling, of what had happened.

There was a sensation in me that I could not place my finger upon and it touched me whenever I thought of that boy sailing away, escaping my grasp. It wasn’t until several minutes passed that I realized just what it was. I was happy.

I was glad he had escaped. I had not put my hands around his slender little neck and I was relieved for him. It surprised me to realize this, and as I tried to understand it I felt myself going weak, my knees buckling, forcing me to sit.

The confusing happiness I felt turned to something bitter and terrifying. How could this failure render me more satisfied than all the murderous artistry of the past thirteen years? What did it mean that a child had bested me and that I was relieved to have it so? In the years since Rufus died I had been in pursuit of something almost indefinable and it had lain forever just beyond my grasp. I sought to feel powerful again, to assert mastery over others, but that quest seemed unending—and what had been such ultimate joy had become a desperate habit.

In that moment I just stared at the wall opposite and it came to me. I finally knew the truth about myself. I was not a goddess. I had never truly been one and never would be one. As I tasted that thought, I angrily rejected it. But it returned, refusing to be set so easily aside. I tried to hold it away, to make it leave my mind, but it returned, doubly insistent until I clapped my hands to my ears and crouched, singing softly to myself. But finally I was forced to look at it and accept what it meant.

All the hate, all the fury, the death and mayhem sown by my hands: Futile. Meaningless.

I remained in that alley for a very long time, alternately raging in frustration and weeping in resignation. But there was no escaping it. Rufus had been more right than he knew: You can never be more than a frightening and murderous witch skulking in the shadows…

Suddenly I felt more pathetic than even the lowliest of slaves. And I could no longer escape myself.