I stopped and put a hand to my forehead. It was as if she had begun pounding there.
Valerius touched my arm. "She's asleep, Nic."
"She's not."
"Keep walking. Soon we'll be out of her reach."
By the time we approached his villa, I couldn't hear the woman anymore. Yet while Valerius immediately called for servants to bring us food and drink, I remained restless. Even if Valerius was right and she was asleep, I didn't see how we could dine here and relax while she obviously needed help.
"We can explain everything," Crispus told me. "My father will answer your questions. Come in to eat."
"I'm not hungry." That wasn't entirely true -- I was always hungry. What I should've said was that at the moment, I wasn't starving.
"But it's private in there," Valerius said. "Come in."
I followed them to a small dining room where servants were busy setting food onto his table. I took the same seat where I used to eat when I had stayed here. Aurelia had always sat right beside me. I wondered again where she and Livia had gone.
The door had barely shut behind us when Valerius began to speak. "Listen to me and answer as honestly as you can. When you were in my fields two months ago, you heard nothing, correct?"
"She wasn't there before."
"Nothing has changed in that field. But you have changed, Nic. The only way you could hear the Mistress is if you had the key. Think of everything Horatio gave to you --"
"Nothing, I swear it!"
"-- or said to you. Even if it didn't seem significant at the time. An unusual choice of words perhaps."
There was something. It had nagged at my memory ever since riding here with Callistus. But whatever Horatio had said was out of my reach now. In the last few minutes when we stood together beneath the amphitheater, he did speak to me briefly, but I had been far more focused on entering the arena to fight Radulf. Listening to Horatio had never been my priority, though obviously, that was a mistake.
"Father, Nic needs to know about the Mistress," Crispus whispered.
Valerius looked at me. "Can you hear her, right now?"
"No. It was only in the field."
"What you heard is just an echo, a memory locked in the Mistress's dreams."
"Who is the Mistress?"
"She was a vestalis," Crispus said. "A sacred woman, like the woman who allowed you and Aurelia to take sanctuary in Caesar's temple. But the vestalis you hear right now is named Atroxia, and she lived three hundred years ago, in Caesar's time. Atroxia joined the Praetors in Diana's war against the gods. She supported Caesar's assassination."
"Atroxia had to be punished for her crimes," Valerius said. "No one in Rome receives honors like a vestalis. Which means, when necessary, no one receives their punishments either."
Based on the cries in my head, I already knew what the punishment must have been, but asked anyway, hoping I was wrong. "What happened to her?"
"Atroxia was buried alive, and she was buried with the Malice of Mars, according to Jupiter's plans for peace amongst the gods. The Praetors believe in exchange for Atroxia's service, that Diana put her to sleep, not to awaken until her tomb is opened." Valerius met my eyes to be sure I was listening. "That cannot happen, Nic. She cannot be awakened."
"Why not?"
"Because in order to keep her alive all this time, Diana had to curse her. Whatever she is now, Atroxia is no humble vestalis. She is the Mistress of the Malice
and bound by the curse to return that Malice to Diana. My hope is that when we give them the key, the Praetors will remove the Malice without waking Atroxia."
"I have no key," I said. "But if I did, I still wouldn't give it to them."
"Not even for your mother?" Valerius asked.
My eyes fell as my heart pounded. Yes, to save my mother, I would give them anything they wanted.