‘Nose-dim, all of you. Then look. Bruises.’
Fighting nerves, Loren inched closer until he, too, knelt by the woman. Felix wore a guarded expression, protective almost, for the corpse under his hands. His wariness gave Loren pause, an attitude for this dead stranger he simply couldn’t place, but when he reached to pull aside Clovia’s hair, Felix made no move to stop him. Deep welts of purple and red mottled her throat, a violent necklace. Gingerly, Loren brushed her cheek, wincing at the chill.
‘She was strangled,’ he confirmed.
‘Poisoned and strangled.’ Julia’s lips pressed tighter, and she gestured to the guards. ‘Clear her from the room.’
Ax and Gus trudged forward to gather poor Clovia and shuffle her away to somewhere private. Sickness filled Loren’s chest. He wondered what would become of her body, if she had family outside Julia’s estate, where along the road from Pompeii she might be buried. If anyone would care how a serving-woman met this gruesome end.
‘Wait.’ Loren fished in his pocket and pulled out a coin. He slipped it into Clovia’s slack mouth. It paled in comparison to rituals he’d seen at lavish funerals he’d attended as a child, but it would at least pay her passage with a psychopomp, Charon or Mercury, to the underworld. When he dragged his eyes from hers, fixed in death, it was to find another pair studying him.
Again, that wariness. Felix carried a sombreness at odds with his flippant nature. Reverence from the least reverent in the room. Suddenly Loren was struck with the impression, unfounded as it was, that Felix felt Clovia’s death most keenly of any of them.
At last, Gus and Ax carried Clovia from the atrium, and silence settled.
Felix broke it first.
‘Before you ask,’ he said, ‘I didn’t kill her.’
Julia held up a hand and ducked her head. ‘I know.’
It was the last thing Loren expected her to say. But her certainty didn’t waver, even as the frozen set of her mouth thawed into a politely cool smile.
‘Are you accompanying us today, Felix?’ she asked.
‘The games aren’t my style.’
Her lips quirked. ‘Too bloody?’
‘Something like that,’ said Felix.
Loren’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. There’d been amurder. Yet they spoke of gladiator games casually as the weather.
‘Shame.’ Julia turned. ‘They ought to be entertaining. Loren, get dressed. We leave within the hour.’
Sharp footsteps receded from the atrium. The instant they faded, Loren pulled back from Felix’s side. ‘Where were you when I woke?’
‘I had business in the city. Does it matter?’
‘Does it . . .’ Loren’s chest heaved. He braced a hand against his heart. ‘Yes. Because.’
Because murder. Because Julia hadn’t made a lick of sense. And because Felix’s new tunic dripped with corpse-water, and he was barefoot as the ghost in Loren’s dream.
‘I didn’t do it,’ Felix repeated. ‘You know I didn’t.’
That was the trouble. Loren wanted to believe he wouldn’t, but since the moment they met, Felix had done his best to keep Loren from knowing any part of him. Irony rang hollow in Loren’s ears that, if it came to it, he knew more of the ghost’s truths than he did the real Felix’s. At least the ghost made his intentions clear.
‘Felix,’ Loren said, half a plea, ‘I don’t know a thing about you.’
‘Then you haven’t paid attention,’ Felix said, cold as marble. ‘I watched my own father’s murder. Do you honestly think I could have done this?’
Like snuffing a candle, Loren’s anger fizzled. Felix-induced guilt again. Any time Loren gained ground chipping through those walls, it came at the expense of hurting Felix. Now he felt like Pompeii’s biggest jerk.
‘I didn’t know,’ Loren tried.
Felix cast him a scathing look. ‘Spare me the pity and go and get dressed. If Julia wants to parade you around, you better look presentable.’
Loren thumbed a streak of mud on the tile. ‘You should come with us.’
