The Fateful Day Read Online Free PDF

and the house itself. My mouth was dry, but having come this far I controlled my fears and forced myself to go inside to check.
    Once again, there was nothing obvious amiss. The peristyle garden looked as pleasant as it always did. The central fountain was not playing, which was unusual, but not all that surprising since the owner was away. Otherwise everything looked much as when I saw it last: the garden quartered by four little walkways meeting at the fount, each section with its own array of flowers, bushes and sweet-smelling herbs, and interspersed with arbours and little statues of the gods.
    There was a covered walkway round the whole perimeter, of course – a sort of outdoor corridor connecting all the rooms – with the atrium and other public reception areas at the further end and various bedrooms, guest accommodation and the like, stretching back towards me on either side. There was no sign of human movement – which, paradoxically, encouraged me this time. A single walk around, I told myself. Most of the rooms had windows made of horn, so it was impossible to look inside them from the court, but I would quickly reconnoitre and see what I could see.
    Not that I expected to discover anything. By this time I was reconciled to finding the place deserted, and I was already planning the message I would send to Marcus later on. The first thing I’d do when I got into town was go and see the garrison commander and arrange a courier.
    I walked along the covered path, my footsteps scrunching on the gravelled ground. I did not want to venture into my patron’s room, but I did try a door to what I knew was a sleeping-room for guests – indeed I had stayed there once myself when I was ill. I pushed the door, which opened at my touch – and there was the neat bedroom complete with bed and stool, just as it had been when I was sleeping there.
    I tiptoed out again and went on with my patrol. Over to the corner of the court, through the side entrance, and so into the main reception rooms – the atrium, the study, the
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. They were all strangely empty – Marcus had clearly sent away most of his better furniture and expensive ornaments – but they were clean and ordered. Everywhere, the outer shutters had been taken down and the rooms were light enough for me to need no lamps. The floors were swept, and nearby in the servants’ waiting room someone had placed the usual scatter of clean rushes on the floor so that hurried footsteps did not ring so much. But there was no one, dead or living, to be seen. It was as though some magician had come and put a strong enchantment on everybody here, causing them to simply fade away like smoke.
    I was standing, thoughtful, in the small reception room, gazing in the direction of the entrance court. The windows in these public rooms were made of stylish glass rather than being simply shuttered spaces like my own. This let a lot of light in, and kept out the cold and draughts but it did make it quite difficult to see the world outside. Could one make out the gatehouse through the blue distortion of the pane? Could someone standing here have witnessed what occurred?
    My thoughts were interrupted by a movement in the court – a shadow so swift and immediately gone that I was almost doubtful of my eyes. And there it was again. I cursed the glass that turned it to a blur. But I had seen something, and I was almost certain what it was: a person, or people, moving swiftly in the court – not walking boldly to the entrance as one might expect an honest visitor to do, but skulking like shadows, unwilling to be seen.
    Moments before, I had been looking for signs of human life, but now that I had glimpsed them, I was petrified. I stood stock-still – I don’t believe I could have moved a muscle if I tried – and listened carefully, but for several moments I could near no sound at all.
    Then it began. A creak – that inner gate again. A footstep on the gravel of the path, so soft I