Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

“Ah, then perhaps the lemures were here before you arrived.”

“No,” he said gravely. “They must have followed me here.” He limped toward the brazier, stooped stiffly, gathered up a handful of leaves and scattered them on the fire. “Only a little at a time,” he said softly. “Wouldn’t want to be careless with a fire in the garden. Besides, it makes the pleasure last. A little today, a little more tomorrow. Burning leaves reminds me of boyhood.”

“How do you know they followed you? The lemures, I mean.”

“Because I recognize them.”

“Who were they?”

“I never knew their names.” He stared into the fire. “But I remember the Etruscan’s face when my sword cut open his entrails and he looked up at me, gasping and unbelieving. I remember the bloodshot eyes of the sentries we surprised one night outside Capua. They had been drinking, the fools. When we stuck our swords into their bellies, I could smell the wine amid the stench that came pouring out. I remember the boy I killed in battle once — so young and tender my blade sliced clear through his neck. His head went flying off. One of my men caught it and cast it back at me, laughing. It landed at my feet. I swear, the boy’s eyes were still open, and he knew what was happening to him...”

He stooped, groaning at the effort, and gathered another handful of leaves. “The flames make all things pure again,” he whispered. “The odor of burning leaves is the smell of innocence.”

He watched the fire for a long moment. “They come at this time of year, the lemures. Seeking revenge. They cannot harm my body. They had their chance to do that when they were living, and they only succeeded in maiming me. It was I who killed their bodies, I who triumphed. Now they seek to drive me mad. They cast a spell on me. They cloud my mind and draw me into the pit. They shriek and dance about my head, they open their bellies over me and bury me in offal, they dismember themselves and drown me in a sea of blood and gore. Somehow I’ve always struggled free, but my will grows weaker every year. One day they will draw me into the pit and I will never come out again.”

He covered his face. “Go now. I’m ashamed that you should see me like this. When you see me again, it will be more terrible than you can imagine. But you will come, when I send for you? You will come and see them for yourself? A man as clever as you might strike a bargain, even with the dead.”

He dropped his hands. I would hardly have recognized his face — his eyes were red, his cheeks gaunt, his lips trembling. “Swear to me that you will come, Gordianus. If only to bear witness to my destruction.”

“I do not make oaths—”

“Then promise me as a man, and leave the gods out of it. I beg you to come when I call.”

“I will come,” I finally sighed, thinking that a promise to a madman was not truly binding.

The old slave, clucking and shaking his head with worry, ushered me to the little door. “I fear that your master is already mad,” I whispered. “These lemures are from his own imagination.”

“Oh, no,” said the old slave. “I have seen them, too.”

“You?”

“Yes, just as he described.”

“And the other slaves?”

“We have all seen the lemures.”

I looked into the old slave’s calm, unblinking eyes for a long moment. Then I stepped through the passage and he shut the door behind me.

“A veritable plague of lemures!” I said as I lay upon my couch taking dinner that night. “Rome is overrun by them.”

Bethesda, who sensed the unease beneath my levity, tilted her head and arched an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“And that silly warning Lucius Claudius wrote in his note this morning! ‘Do not bring the boy, the circumstances might frighten him’ — ha! What could be more appealing to a twelve-year-old boy than the chance to see a genuine lemur!”

Eco chewed a mouthful of bread and watched me with round eyes, not sure whether I was joking or not.

“The whole affair seems quite absurd to me,” ventured Bethesda. She crossed her arms impatiently. As was her custom, she had already eaten in the kitchen, and merely watched while Eco and I feasted. “As even the stupidest person in Egypt knows, the bodies of the dead cannot survive unless they have been carefully mummified according to ancient laws. How could the body of a dead man be wandering about Rome, frightening this Titus into jumping off a balcony? Especially a dead man who had his head cut off. It was a living fiend who pushed him off the balcony, that much is obvious. Ha! I’ll wager it was his wife who did it!”

“Then what of the soldier’s haunting? The old slave swears that the whole household has seen the lemures. Not just one, but a whole swarm of them.”

“Fah! The slave lies to excuse his master’s feeblemindedness. He is loyal, as a slave should be, but not necessarily honest.”

“Even so, I think I shall go if the soldier calls me, to judge with my own eyes. And the matter of the lemur on the Palatine Hill is worth pursuing, if only for the handsome fee that Cornelia promises.”