Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

or no difference, and his impressions of his conversation with Viyescu were better kept to himself—but at least his afternoon of waiting was over.

Liam began to hurry through the city to the Aedile's house, and had to concentrate to slow down, to give Coeccias time to get home from the Temple of Uris. He even managed to make himself stop to buy a jug of wine, thinking it appropriate to bring something with him.

He need not have bothered. Coeccias opened the door himself when he knocked, and there was a steaming mug of mulled cider in his hand.

"Ah, y'have brought a small something, have you?" Relieving Liam of the jug, he ushered him in and then led the way back to the kitchen, which was considerably neater than it had been in the morning. Noticing Liam's appreciative glance, Coeccias laughed. "Burus was busy all the day, setting straight for the morrow. Cleaning's forbid on the eve of Uris-tide."

The servant looked up from stirring the steaming pot of cider and smiled sourly, handing Liam a cup without preamble.

"If it please you, Rhenford, we'll save the wine for another time, and finish this batch of cider. I'll not drink it tomorrow, and by the next it'll be fairly undrinkable." He sat at the table, motioning Liam to sit opposite him, and raised his mug. Liam touched his mug to the Aedile's, and they drank in silence for a moment.

"Truth, it's a blessing to be out of that infernal armor," Coeccias said after a moment. He had changed into his usual stained black tunic, though his hair had stayed perfectly in place. As though reminded of it, he ruffled it with his free hand. "I'd just as soon make a trifling donation than march that process again. It's a passing trouble."

"I imagine it must be worse for the men who have to carry the statue."

"Oh, aye," the Aedile agreed. "I'd sooner wear the armor than carry the goddess, but I'd even sooner just worship from afar. Not for me are pomps and displays, I'll tell you, though I'm as deep in for Uris as any other."

Burus apparently decided the cider was sufficiently stirred, because he stood and left the room.

"Now say, Rhenford, what think you of the moneys handed out?"

"The rent? It's paid, so we know for sure that the woman was not Tarquin's—though I never really thought she was. We're still left with Lons."

"Ah, I note y'omit Marcius from your accounting, at last. Y'are convinced, then?"

"I can't imagine or prove anything else, though I still think Lons doesn't have it in him."

He did not mention Viyescu. What he had discovered—what he thought he had discovered—he could not put into words. He thought the druggist wanted to reveal something, wanted to come forward, but it was only a fleeting feeling, a hunch. Not worth bothering Coeccias with.

Coeccias shrugged. "I'd agree, for argument, but thinking's no place here—the knowing is all. We know the player had a right good reason, and the knife was that of a player. All points to him, though why he's not fled is beyond me." For a moment, the Aedile stared into the depths of his mug, then looked up and spoke in a different tone.

"There's another thing, though, that'll interest you. The druggist recommended himself to you."

"Viyescu? He mentioned me?"

"Aye," Coeccias nodded. "At the fane, after the procession. He must have seen me post the messenger to you, for he came to me when all was done, and asked if I knew the hierarch. It took a moment, but then I recalled your imposture, and said I did. He said there was something he'd thought of to tell you since your last talk, something that might interest you."

"Well?"

"Truth, he mumbled and muttered and jigged around it, saying he'd only come to tell it through pure meditation on Uris and a lot of other pious rambling, but the pure and straight of it is that 'the woman' had come to him again, just the other day, and begged once more a dram of the poison from him. Now this is our woman, is it not?"

"Yes, but we already know Tarquin wasn't keeping her," Liam said, shaking his head.

"Remind me: what was the herb?"

Santhract, but it doesn't matter. Tarquin was dead, not pregnant."

"That's true," Coeccias admitted. "Though here's more on it: this hooded and cloaked beldame must've put a mighty fright to our druggist, for that he was shaking leaflike, and pale, and looked around him oft."

"So?" Liam could barely restrain his frustration. Viyescu's information was scarcely to the point, gone the way of his interviews with Marcius and his decanter of virgin's blood. Wasted breath and effort poorly spent. He was annoyed with the business, and with Viyescu. The puritanical druggist's problems had nothing to do with Tarquin's death, of that he was suddenly sure. Lons was the killer, though he did not want to believe it. "So some temple-soft fanatic is frightened by a woman? It's not proof, it's not knowing, and the knowing is all, isn't it?"

Was that what Viyescu had wanted to tell him? That he was frightened of the woman? It did not matter.

He regretted his tone, but fortunately the Aedile did not take it amiss.

"Truth, you've the right of it. More like Viyescu was afraid to talk with me, or to utter ungodly thoughts in Uris's fane. The knowing is all, and we know it's our player. Perhaps we'll clap him tomorrow." He fell to pondering his cup of cider, and when he saw it was almost empty, lumbered over to the fire to refill it, taking Liam's cup as well. Bending over the pot, he muttered heavily. "I'll say, though, that I'm wondering wherefore he hasn't fled. If I were him, I'd to the heath before we were a street away."

Liam accepted his refill. "He has probably guessed you have someone watching him, and that the proof is circumstantial. It is circumstantial, though damning."

"Enough to hi,mg him, if need be, though I'm loath