MEMENTO MOR I
9
Albanus had had many days on the road to rehearse his account of the death, but it seemed he was still going to need prompting. “What sort of complications?” “She was”—Albanus paused to cough—“she was found floating in Sulis Minerva’s sacred spring, sir.” Ruso had never been to Aquae Sulis, but he could imagine the shock that the discovery of Serena’s body must have caused. Not only a violation of life but a desecration of the most famous shrine in the province. It was only when Albanus added “She seems to have been there for several hours, sir” that he remembered what he had heard about the temperature of the water. “Oh, dear gods.” “The business about the spring is confidential, sir.” “Of course.” The priests would have taken hasty steps to purify the site and to keep the dreadful news quiet. “And as if that wasn’t bad enough, sir, on the same night two visitors and a local died in a fire and another man went missing.” “What?” It was enough to drive a man to a belief in the anger of the gods. “The authorities are trying to deal with it all quietly so as not to spread further panic among the rest of the visitors, sir.” “Well,” said Ruso, seizing on the only aspect of this chain of disasters that seemed at all susceptible to logic, “gods or no, Serena’s death was obviously nothing to do with Valens. If a man wants to get rid of his wife, he divorces her.” “Centurion Pertinax is of the opinion that he didn’t want to get rid of her, sir.” “Really?” It was not often that Ruso found himself sharing an opinion with Serena’s father. “So why is he blaming Valens?” Albanus cleared his throat. “My own wife is of the view that all those curses people have thrown into the sacred spring over the years have finally come to fruition, sir.” “I see,” said Ruso, not adding that if a reasoned and sensible view were required, Albanus’s wife was the last person in the empire whom he would consult. “Tell me.” “Well, sir, Aquae Sulis isn’t just a healing shrine. People with grudges inscribe terrible curses on thin sheets of lead and fold them up and throw them—”