LXV

I SLAM OPEN THE HEAVY oak door to Domus Telimus with my shoulder, stumbling from drizzling darkness into warm lantern-light. Curse my complacency as I shove it closed again and then lean briefly against the wall, rain-soaked and wheezing. Vek. Too close. More shouts echo from outside, urgent questions called and answered as the Quintus and his men continue their search for me.

I let the metal of my mask, so tremblingly close to slipping throughout my escape, return to my chest atop Ostius’s stone medallion. Same with my arm. The manipulation of the Harmonic imbuing happens easily now, constant use over the past two weeks building that muscle in my mind into something close to instinct.

Diago darkens the archway to the atrium as the iron triangles slide from view, padding over and giving me a vaguely concerned sniff before licking at my bloodied side. I swat him away and immediately groan at the motion, collapsing to a nearby bench. The crossbow wound is a graze, but it’s more than thoroughly bleeding. “Kadmos!”

The balding Dispensator appears within a few seconds of my shout, the Will-locked alarm he keeps on his person no doubt having already alerted him to my entry. His relief at it being me—we haven’t yet had any invasions from enterprising mobs looking for proscribed fugitives, but he’s all too aware of what’s happening out there—segues to concern as he sees my battered state.

“Master Vis.” He’s brushing my hand to the side and examining the injury with an apprehension that quickly degrades to tutting irritation. “Again? Rotting thugs out there. Stay here. I’ll fetch some gut string and—”

“No time for that. We need to clean it and hide it, and I need fresh clothes. A robe—I’m sweating and wet, I’ll have to say I was using the baths. And prepare some tea. There are people chasing me but they don’t know it was me, and they will almost certainly be checking in here soon.”

Kadmos, to his credit, suppresses his questions and immediately fetches what he needs as I start stripping off, layering my iron triangles to the hidden underside of the bench I’m sitting on. Kadmos knows there’s a search on for the man who executed Military’s leadership and continues to haunt the city, but he doesn’t know it’s me. The streets are dangerous, and so he hasn’t questioned my injuries thus far.

I don’t think he would give me away. I am a Telimus and he has expressed, several times, that he thinks that what happened to Princeps Exesius and the others was simply justice. Plus, his technically Military-affiliated name was kept off the Proscriptions only at my insistence, with me officially taking possession of all things Telimus. But still. There is no benefit in exposing either him or me unnecessarily.

Once the metal triangles are concealed, I use the cleanest parts of my tunic to wipe up droplets of blood that have spattered on the bench and mosaic underfoot, still cursing myself. After two weeks of effective and increasingly notorious nights skulking Caten’s streets, I should have expected the trap. Too much success, too much flaunting. Too predictable in only targeting those going after the proscribed. I know word has spread rapidly of my interventions. Iron mask bringing the terror of what they think I did to the Princeps. Sharpened iron pyramids leaving moaning, and bloodied limbs, and grateful Octavii and Septimii escaping in my wake.

Governance and Religion were inevitably going to feel that my continued appearances were making them look either weak or complicit. Thus, the Quintus and Sextii forming the loudest of the mobs tonight: hardly the most complex of ruses, and if I’d checked for just a moment before rushing in, I could have sensed their Will.

Within a minute Kadmos is back with water and cloth and bandages and a robe, wincing as he sees the dark bruising across my chest, but swiftly going to work on the more immediate problem.

“You should know, Master Vis,” he says as he cleans with painful but necessary efficiency. “You have a visitor.”

“What?” My heart clenches. “Who?”

“He wouldn’t give a name. A middle-aged man. He has been nothing but courteous, though, and said to give you this.” He hands me a stylus; at first it means nothing but as soon as I touch it, I feel the Will—my Will—in it. One of the imbued ones I gave to the Iudicium survivors. “I’ve made him comfortable in the dining room, but if we are expecting more visitors…”

Vek. My classmates who are still in the city, from Religion and Governance, wouldn’t need to send someone anonymously.

Punctuating the fear, a bashing on the front door ricochets through the house like an angry shout. I flinch at its announcement. Diago growls.

“Put him and anything with blood on it in Ulciscor’s office. Seal the door. Eat the gods-damned key if you have to.” I whisper it. Keeping my arms raised as Kadmos finishes winding the bandage around my stomach, ties it off painfully, and scoops up all traces of our medical intervention. Then I shrug on the robe and slick back my hair a little. “Can I pass for just having bathed?”

He never thinks I bathe enough, and I can see him almost physically restraining the joke he wants to make, despite the urgency. Instead he summarizes it with the faintest of smiles. “Having been interrupted, at least, Master Vis.”

I make a face at his back as he hurries off to conceal our mysterious visitor. Wait a few seconds—allowing a second thumping at the door, this one even more urgent—and take a deep breath. Straighten, ignoring the lingering pain of my body, and feign bemused concern.

“Hail?” I open the door a crack, checking who it is, then widen it as if relieved to see the dripping Quintus standing outside. “Tanrius?” One of Quartus Laurentius’s commanders. Military, but at least nominally on our side. My promotion to the same rank as him, after the carnage of the festival left so many openings above me, allows the more familiar greeting.

“Catenicus. I am sorry to bother you at this hour.” Tanrius is a big man. A thick, rain-beaded black moustache stretches across his face. “We’re chasing Carnifex. He disappeared around here. Have you seen or heard anything?”

I frown. “Carnifex?”

“The man who assassinated Princeps Exesius and the other senators.”

“Oh. Rotting gods.” I hide my discomfort behind an apprehensive reaction. Executioner, in Vetusian. I wonder who came up with the name. I haven’t heard it before. “No, Quintus. Sorry. All’s been quiet.”

He nods and almost turns to depart, then eyes my attire. “You’ve been bathing?”

“Yes.” Vek.

“So you wouldn’t have heard if someone got in.”

“My Dispensator is around. And Diago would have noticed, I think, too.” I give him a crooked smile as the alupi pads up to us, sniffing Tanrius suspiciously.

“Of course. Of course.” Tanrius eyes the animal nervously. “Why didn’t your Dispensator answer the door?”

“I’ve instructed him not to under any circumstances. He’s not on the Proscription lists, but even so…”

“Understandable. Our duty of care is heavier than ever in these times.” Again he seems almost ready to leave, but either greed or discipline—or the half dozen Sextii behind him—gives him some frustrating trace of backbone. “And in saying that, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least check…”

I don’t hesitate, with a casual shrug swinging the door invitingly wide. “Do you have a description yet?”

“Not much more than you would have heard, though we caught a glimpse of him earlier. Probably a little taller than you, strongly built. And he might be injured, though it depends how much Will he was imbuing.” The Quintus shakes the damp from his uniform and beckons his men inside. “We’ll be quick.”

“Thank you, Tanrius.”

I wander somewhat aimlessly after the group as they swarm with grim purpose into the atrium. Kadmos appears a moment later, a tunic draped across his arm and steaming cup in his hand. “I assume you’ve finished bathing now, Master Vis. Here’s your tea.” A normal volume, but at least a couple of the intruders will be able to hear. Quick thinking. It would’ve been strange if they’d checked the baths and my clothes weren’t there. Kadmos hands me both, then eyes the men vanishing into various rooms. “Who are our guests?”

“They’re chasing a criminal. Just checking he’s not hiding in here.” I take a long draught of the tea, the urgency of its effects outweighing its scalding nature.

“I think we may have noticed.”

“They’re just doing their job.”

Apparently determined to make me a liar, one of the Sextii still in the atrium eyes Kadmos. Walks up to him with insolent swagger and studies him. “Your name?”

I don’t let him speak. “His name is Kadmos, Sextus. He is the Dispensator of the Telimus family and is not on the Proscription lists,” I say firmly, stepping between the men so that I am face-to-face with the blond man. “He is a Totius Septimus and is a member of my household.”

Diago pads forward. Sits prominently beside Kadmos.

I don’t glance at the alupi: confidence, rather than discomfort now. Two weeks, since he killed a room full of men in a matter of seconds. If not for the churning chaos of those first days after, the complete lack of any way to get out of the city, I may well have taken him back to Solivagus for fear of him snapping again.

Instead, I kept him in my rooms in Domus Telimus, unsure what else to do with him and with far too many other, more pressing concerns at the time. He slept on the floor, the first night. I woke to him curled up by my feet on the second.

And then on the third, to my choking on his fetid breath with his nose almost touching mine. He grunted sleepily and rolled onto his back as I shoved him away. And as I vainly tried to haul his massive and somewhat comically unwilling form out of my bed, I finally registered that I wasn’t afraid of him. Allowed myself to replay the nightmare of the Basilica, and realised just how targeted Diago was in his fury. No hint of threatening me. No hint of even threatening Ostius.

Only the men who arranged for the deaths of my friends. Only the men who would have ordered mine, had they been allowed to leave that room.

The Sextus’s gaze slides from me, to Kadmos, to the alupi now, uncertainty colouring the wild hunger in his eyes. I watch him carefully. I do think Tanrius is genuinely after Carnifex. These others with him, though… the way they look at everything reminds me of the ravening mobs I’ve been fighting. As if they are possessing everything with their eyes, and calculating how short a step it would be to make their desires reality.

The Sextus finally looks to the side. “As you say, Catenicus.”

I breathe an inward sigh of relief. Diago pushes his head against Kadmos’s side, and the Dispensator scratches his head absently. It’s been a gradual relaxing around the massive wolf, since those first few days. A mixture of increasing certainty that the alupi’s actions were in my defence, his ongoing calm obedience, and the growing necessity and comfort of his deterring presence.

I still don’t know exactly why he did what he did at the Basilica. Some effect of our strange connection that drove him to protect me, perhaps. But I am certain now that he was protecting me.

In these uncertain days, that has been enough for me.

“Catenicus!” Tanrius is calling from the next room, and I know immediately what it will be about. I take another sip of the tea, leave Kadmos with the watchful alupi, and make my way to the entrance of Ulciscor’s office.

“This door is locked.” The Quintus looks at me expectantly.

“And my father, wherever he is, is the only way in. Unless you think he’s the one you’re after?” I allow my gentle smile to falter as Tanrius continues to look dissatisfied. “Alright. You’re a Quintus. Smash away, I suppose. I’ve been wondering what was in there myself.”

Tanrius examines the door. It’s stone and wood, the majority of it covered in a beautiful relief of Etrius. The uniqueness of the art is meant to make it easier to imbue. “This looks expensive.”

I see his hesitancy. Wrack my brain. Tanrius. He’s from a family of knights. New money. “What do they say? Wealth is buying luxuries without having to think. Generational wealth is buying luxuries without thinking.” I give a rueful shrug. “My father falls into the latter category, sometimes, I’m afraid.”

Tanrius chuckles, nodding his like-mindedness. Considers me anew. “I forget you weren’t always a Telimus, sometimes. I hear your name so much, it feels as though you’ve been a part of the city forever.” He sighs, waves his hand. “Never mind about the door. Our time will be better spent moving on. Thank you for your accommodation, Catenicus.”

My relief is strong enough that it threatens to show itself, but I nod calmly back, Tanrius calls his men, and we walk to the door. I happen to glance down. Spot a dot of red beginning to leak through the right side of my robe. I dangle my arm to hide it.

The Quintus’s nose wrinkles as we leave the atrium. “What are you drinking?”

“Tea. It is as unpleasant as it smells,” I assure him, keeping to his right and doing all I can not to seem like I’m shielding something from him. “But it helps with the aches.” I motion with my stump. Draw his eyes away.

“Ah.” Just slightly uncomfortable, as almost everyone is when I call attention to the missing limb. “Well. I have been placed in charge of capturing Carnifex, so if you hear or see anything…”

“I’ll make sure I get word to you.”

Tanrius smiles tightly. His eyes weary. Not like the men I’ve fought over these past weeks, maddened with greed or bloodlust or in some cases, simply lust. He really is just trying to find a man he thinks is dangerous. The man he blames for tearing his world apart. Hard not to feel for him, in that moment. “Stronger together, Catenicus.”

“Stronger together, Tanrius.” I shut the door behind him and wait a long ten seconds before sliding to the floor. A release of tension more than from pain or exhaustion, now. Kadmos’s tea is doing its work.

I discard the robe, grimacing at the blood seeping through Kadmos’s hasty bandaging. Check my metal shards are still hidden beneath the bench, then pull on the tunic the Dispensator gave me, and make my way stiffly into the atrium. The wound needs stitches, but it can wait a little longer.

“Well done, Master Vis,” says Kadmos quietly. There’s a cautious question behind the praise.

“You as well, Kadmos.” I move limbs experimentally, trying to decide what’s stiff and what’s injured. “Do you need me to explain?”

“No.” He inhales, then gives me a light squeeze on the shoulder. “And I won’t say anything.”

I nod. Put respect and gratitude into the motion, expecting the statement though I was.

“Then let’s go and greet our guest,” I say wearily.