House Of The Vestals by Steven Saylor

Titus fell from the balcony."
    She looked at me with an intensity that was almost frightening. "My husband was a haunted man."
    "Haunted by whom, or what? Lucius spoke to me of lemures."
    "Not plural, but singular," she said. "He was tormented by one lemur only."
    "Was this spirit known to him?"
    "Yes. An acquaintance from his youth; they studied law together in the Forum. The man who owned this house before us. His name was Furius."
    "This lemur appeared to your husband more than once?"
    "It began last summer. Titus would glimpse the thing for only a moment-beside the road on the way to our country villa, or across the Forum, or in a pool of shadow outside the house. At first he wasn't sure what it was; he would turn back and try to find it, only to discover it had vanished. Then he began to see it inside the house. That was when he realized who and what it was. He no longer tried to approach it; quite the opposite, he fled the thing, quaking with fear."
    "Did you see it, as well?"
    She stiffened. "Not at first…"
    "Titus saw it, the night he fell," whispered Lucius. He leaned forward and took Cornelia's hand, but she pulled it away.
    "That night," she said, "Titus was brooding, pensive. He left me in my sitting room and stepped onto the balcony to pace and take a breath of cold air. Then he saw the thing-so he told the story later, in his delirium. It came toward him, beckoning. It spoke his name. Titus fled to the end of the balcony. The thing came closer. Titus grew mad with fear. Somehow he fell."
    "The thing pushed him?"
    She shrugged. "Whether he fell or was pushed, it was his fear of the thing that finally killed him. He survived the fall; he lingered through the night and into the next day. Twilight came. Titus began to sweat and tremble. Even the least movement was agony to him, yet he thrashed and writhed on the bed, mad with panic. He said he could not bear to see the lemur again. At last he died. Do you understand? He chose to die rather than confront the lemur again. You saw his face. It was not pain that killed him. It was fear."
    I pulled my cloak over my hands and curled my toes. It seemed to me that the brazier did nothing to banish the cold from the room. "This lemur," I said, "how did your husband describe it?"
    "The thing was not hard to recognize. It was Furius, who owned this house before us. Its flesh was pocked and white, its teeth broken and yellow. Its hair was like bloody straw, and there was blood all around its neck. It gave off a foul odor… but it was most certainly Furius. Except…"
    "Yes?"
    "Except that it looked younger than Furius at the end of his life. It looked closer to the age when Furius and Titus knew one another in the Forum, in the days of their young manhood."
    "When did you first see the lemur yourself?"
    "Last night. I was on the balcony-thinking of Titus and his fall. I turned and saw the thing, but only for an instant. I fled into the house… and it called after me."
    "What did it say?"
    "Two words: Now you. Oh!" Cornelia drew in a quick, sharp breath. She clutched at her wrap and gazed at the fire.
    I stepped closer to the brazier, spreading my fingers to catch the warmth. "What a strange day!" I muttered. "What can I say to you, Cornelia, except what I said to another who told me a tale of lemures earlier today: why do you consult me instead of an augur? These are mysteries about which I know very little. Tell me a tale of a missing jewel or a stolen document; call on me with a case of blackmail or show me a corpse with an unknown killer. With these I might help you; about such matters I know more than a little. But how to placate a lemur, I do not know. Of course, I will always come when my friend Lucius Claudius calls me; but I begin to wonder why I am here at all."
    Cornelia studied the crackling embers and did not answer.
    "Perhaps," I ventured, "you believe this lemur is not a lemur at all. If in fact it is a living man-"
    "It doesn't matter what I believe or don't