Avenging Angels (Bad Times Book 3)

me?”
“I am a trader in goods. Rare goods of excellent quality, wise Prefect. I dare say, items such as may be unknown within your empire.”
“That answers my first query but not my second,” Gratus said, growing impatient with this foreigner’s evasive manner. Can no one east of Brundisium ever come straight to a point?
“As I told your servant, I bring gifts to honor you. In my lands it is customary to be generous with hosts and as I am a newcomer to these lands and you are, in effect, the host.”
“I see! I see!” Gratus said, fixing a smile on his face. The stranger returned it showing, once again, those magnificent dentibus.
The stranger snapped his fingers and a pair of Arabs, smelly adults with matted beards and rags for clothes, entered carrying a large cage of gleaming metal wire between them. Inside was a pair of birds that resembled pheasant but for iridescent blue wings and jet black bodies.
“A rare species from the mountains of my homeland. Their meat is tender and succulent. You may enjoy them as a meal but, as they are male and female, you may also breed them for sport.”
“Yes, yes! Birds!” Gratus said and gestured impatiently.
The stranger snapped his fingers once more and two more Arabs more filthy and ragged than the first two entered carrying a basket piled full of a fruit that resembled apples of a yellowish hue.
“A fruit of my native land. Great pains were taken to keep it chilled and unbruised for your enjoyment. It is crisp like your own apples but sweet like pears.”
“Hm.” Gratus was unable to conceal how underwhelmed he was.
A single Arab was summoned, and in his hands, he held a slender ceramic bottle decorated with exquisite relief sculptures in iridescent blue of elephants and deer and monkeys.
“The wine of my land. It is crushed and fermented from a rare berry found only at the highest reaches of the ranges that ring the place of my birth. It brings comfort and relief from pain and remorse.”
Gratus sat wrinkling his nose at the bottle as it was placed on the corner of his desk.
“And my last offering.” The dark stranger clapped his hands once and yet another pair of odiferous Arabs entered bearing a rolled carpet on their shoulders.
“A carpet,” Gratus said dryly. What was the obsession of all these black bastards with carpets? He had enough moldy rugs gifted him to cover the road back to Rome with their ornate hideousness.
The Arabs jerked at the binding ribbons and lifted one hem of the rug, causing it to unravel, suddenly depositing a figure onto the floor of Gratus’s office. A boy. A naked boy with tawny skin and flawless of limb with a shock of silken hair as black as a raven’s wing. The boy rose to his knees and peered up at the stunned prefect with bold eyes that spoke for a passionate heart. Gratus felt breathless.
“As Cleopatra was delivered to your own Julius,” the stranger proclaimed without irony or drama.
“Yes, yes.” Gratus said and reached out his hands to take the boy’s and help him to rise to his feet.
“I trust you are pleased, munificent Prefect,” the stranger said and bowed his head.
“I am. Most pleased. But what is this in aid of? What do you anticipate in return for such generosity?” Gratus said, too enthralled with the vision before him to feel the least bit suspicious.
“Only your friendly regard should our paths cross again in business or in society,” the stranger said and bowed once more as he backed away to make egress from the prefect’s presence.
“Oh, you have it. You most assuredly have it,” Gratus said, not turning from the boy’s fixed gaze to watch the stranger depart. He could not now even recall the name of the visitor with the too-perfect smile.
Gratus awoke late the next day in a state of euphoria he could not explain. His sleep had been deep and dreamless and quite sudden. He had the new boy brought to his bed where they shared the strangely bottled wine—Gratus insisting the boy drink a full measure before his lips would touch the cup. This was the land of Herod, and one must always be cautious when taking food or drink from an unfamiliar source. The boy became dreamy-eyed, but there was no further ill effect, so Gratus drank greedily the thick, sweet wine. Its effect was almost immediate, and Gratus settled back on his bed as though carried on the wings of doves and watched the world swirl close about him while the splendid boy explored his body with daring hands.
And that was the last he could recall of the evening before. He awoke as though still in the embrace of the spirit’s charms. He was warm within and cool without and had not a worry in the world. Certainly not at all like the rude awakenings he’d experienced on other mornings following a night of drinking. The haze of comforting bliss stayed with him even as he rose to find the corpse of the magnificent boy lying contorted and pale as a ghost on the floor at the foot of his bed. The lad lay with glassy eyes and foam-flecked lips, his lifeless hands gripping the nap of the carpet that had served as his vessel.
The prefect stumbled naked about his house, aware that he should be alarmed but feeling untroubled by his discovery. A physician was summoned, but found no symptom of poisoning in evidence but for the wild aspect of Gratus’s eyes. The boy, the physician surmised, died as a result of ill favor from the gods.
Gratus thought no more about it beyond regret over not being able to recall what had occurred between himself and the gifted boy. Ravilla, his ever-present lictor, insisted that it was an attempted poisoning and that the strange visitor of the day before be brought before them to answer for his actions. Gratus acceded to this only to remove