The Year of Confusion(89)

“Cleopatra might have slipped them orders to kill our suspects. I haven’t cleared her from suspicion yet. It was her steward that hired Domitius. He didn’t just come up here and knock on the gate and ask for a job.”

The two lictors, fasces shouldered, fell in behind us. We had been walking for a few minutes before I realized there were six of us, not five. I called a halt. “Who are you?” I asked the dark-swathed figure.

Callista lowered her shawl. “I feel terrible for not recognizing that writing instantly. I may be able to help, and I really feel that I must witness the end of this.”

“I can’t be responsible for your safety,” I told her.

“Nor should you be. A philosopher is always responsible for his own life and his own death.”

“Come along then,” I said, too tired to argue. One more to worry about. I hadn’t really cleared her of suspicion either.

It was a beautiful night and silhouetted against the moon I could see the banner drooping from the high pole above the old fort. We hardly slowed when we reached the house. The door was bolted, but with a single coordinated kick Balbus and Hermes turned it to firewood and we passed on through. I told the lictors to stay at the door and let nobody out.

“Gupta!” I yelled, “Ashthuva! Come with me to the praetor!” There was no answer. We proceeded room by room. We found them in the rear of the house, crouched over a chest, drawing out bags that clinked. It seemed a sordid activity for such an exotic pair, but I suppose some things are the same the world over.

“I arrest you,” I said, “for the murder of the astronomers Demades and Polasser and suspicion of complicity in the death of Postumius.”

Gupta smiled, his teeth startlingly white in his dark face. He uncoiled to his full height as smoothly and bonelessly as a serpent.

“You arrest me, Roman?” he said in his strange, singsong accent. “Do you arrest my sister, too?” The lady herself stood as well, her clothing somewhat disarrayed. Balbus made a strangled noise somewhere high in his nose. He was seeing her for the first time. I was having a hard time keeping my attention on Gupta myself. I hoped Hermes was keeping his head about him, but I doubted it.

“Your sister, is she? You must be close. You killed three men for her on your sea-voyage here.”

“You learned about that?” he said. “I had thought Romans were far too stupid to deduce such things.”

“Don’t feel too bad,” I told him. “I’ve been known to underestimate barbarians in my time. Now, you have little life expectancy left to you, but I can promise you a quick, easy execution if you will answer my questions. I’ll clear it with the dictator. Otherwise you’ll answer those questions under torture and your death will be in no way easy.”

He kept smiling. “Torture. You Romans know so little of torture. Come to India some day. I will show you what torture is really like.”

“I’m afraid you are all through with India,” I told him. Ashthuva was fiddling with something at her waist. “What are you doing, woman?” she took her hands from her waist and in an instant her singular gown unwound and fell to the floor, leaving her as naked as a statue of Aphrodite and ten times as enticing. Balbus made another noise and so, I fear, did I. She was completely covered with intricate tattoos, and while I was stupidly studying these Gupta made his move.

When I regained my senses somewhat, he was almost on me. No scarf this time. He had a long, curved dagger in his hand and he was moving as fast as any human being I had ever seen. He had quite sensibly chosen to attack me instead of Balbus or Hermes. I looked older and easier and, indeed, I was. I blocked his dagger hand with my cestus and thrust at him with my own dagger, but he snaked around it with an ease that was positively insulting. He cut again and I would have died then, but Balbus was on him and swift as the Indian was, Balbus was almost as fast and he was bull-strong to boot. He got both hands on the assassin’s arms and Hermes clouted him over the head with a small table. No sense taking any chances with this one. Seeing her brother down Ashthuva whirled and darted for a back door but found herself facing Callista, who had dropped her shawl there and stood as serenely as if she were about to address a gathering of academics.

To my amazement and horror, the tattooed woman leapt high into the air and her right foot lashed out in a kick of neck-breaking force. I thought to see Callista dead in an instant, but this was a night for surprises. Leaning back slightly, she slapped the leg aside with her open palm. Ashthuva came down lightly, but she was slightly off-balance. Callista stepped in and with a dainty foot swept the Indian woman’s leg aside and she toppled. She scrambled to get up, but in that instant Callista was on her, cracking her beneath the ear with the edge of a palm, gathering both her wrists into one hand, the other pulling back on the long, black hair. One knee was pressed into the small of the woman’s back with Callista’s full weight upon it. Ashthuva was going nowhere. Callista knelt there easily, crouched in a position that would have appeared awkward in another woman, her shapely, white left leg bared to the hip. She took no more notice of it than of her slightly disarranged hair.