By morning, Arthur had slept for less than two hours and hated the sun personally. It entered Lucius’s courtyard with the confidence of a god and the manners of an unwanted guest. He sat at the small table with a wax tablet in front of him, a cup of watered wine beside it, and four words carved into the wax: Registry. River. Ostia. Patrons. He stared at them until the letters began to blur.
Aelius could correct records. That was the problem. A man died, and the archive could call it a transfer. A slave vanished, and a tablet could claim she had been sold. A laborer was taken in a cart at night, and by morning he could beco a number, then a line, then nothing. So Arthur needed sothing Aelius could not correct. He needed a record that would not die.
Livia understood before Marcus did. She sat across from him, wrapped in a plain cloak, her face still pale from blood loss and stubbornness. Lucius had allowed her into the courtyard only after a long argunt that ended with Livia promising not to stand and Lucius making it very clear that promises from patients were worth less than old bandages. Arthur pushed the tablet toward her. Livia read the four words, glanced toward the room where Dama and Tullia slept, then tapped the first word.
Registry.
Then she scraped a line through it.
Arthur nodded. "Exactly."
Marcus frowned. Livia spoke slowly enough for Arthur to follow so of it, then faster when impatience won. Marcus listened and translated. "One record can be changed. Many records are harder."
"Yes," Arthur said.
Marcus still looked unconvinced. "Harder is not safe."
"No. But harder is better than dead."
Marcus looked at the tablets. His gaze moved toward the room where the survivors slept. "Nothing is safe," he said. "Safe is just what people call tomorrow when they survive today."
Arthur said nothing for a mont. Neither did Livia. The words were too simple to argue with.
Lucius snorted from the doorway. "A fine philosophy. I shall carve it over the beds."
Arthur looked at him. Lucius glared back. Sohow, that counted as conversation now.
The plan beca clear in pieces. They could not trust one office, one clerk, or even the watch entirely. But they could make the truth noisy. They could write the nas in several hands, place copies in several places, and have witnesses seal them. If Aelius changed one tablet, another would remain. If he seized one witness, others would still exist. If he denied the cart, dockworkers had seen it. If he denied the prisoners, the prisoners had nas.
Livia wrote quickly. Not beautifully. Quickly. Arthur watched the stylus move over the wax and felt sothing close to hope. Not grand hope, not the kind that belonged in songs. Small hope. Practical hope. The best kind.
Dama was the first witness. He was too weak to sit without help, so Marcus carried him into the courtyard and set him carefully on a stool. The boy looked embarrassed by his own weakness, which made Arthur like him and feel worse at the sa ti. Tullia ca next, holding Marcia’s hand. She did not speak at first. She only stared at the wax tablets as if they might bite.
Arthur crouched in front of her. He did not know enough Latin to comfort a child properly. He barely knew enough Latin to order bread without causing confusion. So he said her na.
"Tullia."
The girl looked at him.
Arthur pointed to the tablet, then to himself, then to her. "We write," he said carefully. "So they cannot erase."
Livia translated more smoothly. Tullia listened, then nodded once.
The first tablet held nas only. Dama. Nicanor. Tullia. Marcia. Philo. The others. Arthur insisted on that first. Not accusations, not theories, not Aelius. Nas. If everything else failed, at least the world would have to trip over the people it tried to forget.
Tullia leaned forward to watch. Her finger stopped beside one of the nas.
Nicanor.
She did not say anything, but her lips pressed together. Arthur did not need a translation. She knew that na.
The second tablet held testimony. The old debt slave, Philo, spoke slowly, his voice dry and thin. He rembered the river warehouse. He rembered the wool thrown over him. He rembered hearing the driver say Ostia before soone kicked him into silence. Marcia gave the na of her brother and the day he vanished. Dama gave the holding room beneath the baths. Tullia could not say much, but she described the mark on the cart.
The crossed circle.
When Livia pressed her to be sure, the girl drew it with one trembling finger in spilled dust. Arthur stared at the shape. A circle cut by lines. A little map of roads inside a boundary. Or a cage pretending to be a map.
Marcus saw his expression. "What?"
Arthur shook his head. "Nothing useful yet."
"That usually ans sothing useful later."
Arthur looked at him. Marcus looked back, completely serious. Livia made a small sound. Arthur turned and saw her trying not to smile.
"Are you all just going to start saying that now?"
Nobody answered. That was answer enough.
For a few minutes, the courtyard felt almost alive in a normal way. Lucius complained about people blocking the herbs. Marcus moved stools. Livia corrected Arthur’s Latin three tis with increasing pain in her voice. Marcia helped Tullia drink. Dama managed to laugh once when Arthur carved a word so badly that Livia took the stylus from him without asking. It was small. It mattered.
Then soone knocked on the front door.
The courtyard froze. Marcus was already moving before the second knock ca. Lucius put one hand on Dama’s shoulder and pushed him gently back into the shadow. Livia swept two tablets under her cloak. Arthur grabbed the rest and nearly dropped them, which would have ruined the mont considerably.
Marcus returned a mont later with the young clerk from Aelius’s office.
The boy looked worse than before. His face was pale, his hair damp with sweat. His eyes moved across the courtyard and caught on the rescued people. Fear passed over his face, then guilt, then fear again. Arthur recognized him. The clerk who had brought the invitation. The clerk who had not gone to the watch.
Livia recognized him too. Her expression cooled.
Marcus held the boy by the back of the tunic, not hard enough to hurt him, just enough to explain the situation. The clerk swallowed, then swallowed again. He spoke quickly. Too quickly. Arthur caught only fragnts. Aelius. Records. Tonight. Ostia. Marcus shook him once, and the boy stopped talking.
Livia asked a question. Her voice was calm in a way that made Arthur glad he was not the one being questioned. The clerk answered. This ti, Marcus translated.
"He says Aelius is moving the records."
Arthur’s stomach tightened. "What records?"
Marcus listened to the boy’s answer. "The death corrections. Labor transfers. Anything with the damaged seal."
Livia’s fingers tightened around the tablets under her cloak. Arthur looked at the four words on his own tablet. Registry. River. Ostia. Patrons.
Aelius was already cleaning.
Of course he was. Careful n did not wait for disaster to arrive. They made space for it, arranged a chair, and prepared an explanation.
"When?" Arthur asked.
Marcus translated. The clerk answered in a whisper.
"Before sunset," Marcus said.
Arthur looked at the sun. They had hours. Not days. Hours.
The clerk tried to speak again. Marcus let him. This ti, he looked directly at Arthur. "Gaius," he said. The na ca out like an apology. Then he said sothing longer.
Livia went still.
Marcus translated, slower now. "He says... Aelius has another list."
Arthur’s mouth went dry. "What list?"
The clerk answered. Marcus stared at him for a mont before translating.
"Nas of those to be corrected."
Corrected.
Arthur hated that word more every ti he heard it.
"Living people?" Arthur asked.
The clerk nodded before Marcus finished. A muscle jumped in Marcus’s jaw. Livia looked away first, and Arthur wished she had not. Seeing fear on Livia’s face made everything feel more real. Lucius cursed softly.
Arthur looked at Dama, at Tullia, at Marcia, at Philo. Then at the tablets in front of him. Their proof was not enough. Not yet. They had been thinking about the people already taken. Aelius was thinking about the next ones.
For one mont, Arthur wanted the system to appear. He wanted blue light and clean words and an objective that told him what to do. Sothing official. Sothing certain.
Nothing ca.
Good.
Perhaps the system was learning. Or perhaps Arthur was. Civilizations did not survive because a voice told one man what to do. They survived because soone built sothing that kept working when the voice was silent.
Arthur stood. His legs felt unsteady, but his thoughts did not.
"Livia," he said. "Copies."
She looked at him.
"All of them. Nas. Testimony. Seal marks. The cart. Ostia. Aelius’s records being moved."
Livia nodded once and was already writing.
Arthur turned to Marcus. "We need witnesses outside this house."
Marcus understood enough. "Shrine?"
"Shrine. Watch. Dockworkers. Anyone who saw the river."
Marcus’s expression hardened. "Dangerous."
"Yes."
"Good."
Arthur blinked.
Marcus shrugged. "If it is dangerous for us, it is dangerous for him."
That was annoyingly wise.
Arthur pointed at the clerk. "He stays."
The young man flinched. Marcus smiled without warmth. "Yes."
Lucius made a disgusted sound. "Wonderful. Another guest."
Arthur looked at him. "Can you keep him alive?"
Lucius stared at the clerk as if deciding whether the effort was worth the air involved. "Probably."
The clerk did not look comforted.
The next hour moved like a siege. Livia wrote until her hand shook too badly to continue. Arthur took over badly. Marcia wrote one copy in a cleaner hand than anyone expected. Lucius complained, then wrote the clearest copy of all, which made everyone stare at him.
"What?" he snapped. "I was not born old."
Nobody argued.
Each tablet was sealed by more than one person. Marcus pressed his signet into wax beside Lucius’s. Livia added a mark from Gaius’s old seal, not the bronze one with the purple cloth, but the ordinary administrative seal they could explain. Philo scratched his mark. Marcia pressed hers. Dama, weak as he was, insisted on touching the wax himself.
Tullia watched. Then she asked to mark one too.
No one refused.
Her mark was crooked. Arthur thought it was the most important one.
When the copies were finished, the courtyard looked less like a safe house and more like a poor office built during a dical ergency. Wax shavings covered the table. Everyone looked exhausted. The young clerk sat in the corner under Marcus’s watch and looked as if he had aged ten years.
Arthur held one sealed tablet in his hand. It was not enough to bring down Aelius. Not yet. But it was sothing he could not simply correct in one quiet room.
Blue light flickered at the edge of his vision.
Distributed Evidence Created. Administrative Correction Resistance: Increased. Witness Exposure Risk: High. Recomnded Action: Deliver Copies Before Sunset.
No reward. No Authority. Just a warning and a direction.
Fair.
Arthur slipped the tablet into his satchel. Outside, Ro moved toward afternoon. Inside Lucius’s courtyard, the erased had begun writing back.
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