Master of the Revels

by Nicole Galland

  I reached past Mortimer and clicked the mouse to zoom in on just the woman in gold. She looked gorgeous and sexy. “I wish I knew the rest of that story,” I said.

  “Simple. The family didn’t become associated with astronomy. The observatory was built where it was supposed to be. Berkowski took the photo where he was supposed to. Happy ever after.”

  “I mean the rest of that story,” I said, pointing to the image of Livia.

  Mortimer tapped his finger on the lower left corner of the screen, where Livia’s foot reached the border of the room. There was a long multicolored run of tiles that were out of place in the geometric border design. “Hey. I bet that’s the key.” His gaze glanced up slightly. “Seven minutes before I go back to repairing the rot in all this code. Let’s decrypt it.” He zoomed in on the aberrant streak, until we could easily count the individual tiles. A row of four brilliant tesserae was followed by tiles in a slide of hues, from reds through umber yellows, greens, teals, and blues, and finally half a dozen neutral tones.

  “I count twenty-three colors,” he said.

  “If you include y and z, the Latin alphabet has twenty-three letters,” I said tentatively.

  “Cool, let’s try it,” said Mortimer, zooming out enough that we could see most of the mosaic. “Disregard her dress, because that’s all gold, but anywhere else in the image where there’s four gold tesserae in a row, the following one corresponds to a letter, determined by color.” He ran the mouse jerkily over its pad and the image on the screen shifted. “There’s gold foursomes everywhere—the women’s bellies, part of the ball, that necklace. This’ll be fun.”

  “Fun, yeah,” I said without enthusiasm. “Even if we decode and translate it, we won’t know what it means, it’s just his father’s bullshit occult gobbledygook.”

  Mortimer shrugged cheerfully. He zoomed in close to the upper left corner of the mosaic until the tesserae were nearly to scale, and we began the task (tedious to me, weirdly refreshing to him) of scanning the image as if reading across a page. As we encountered each run of gold tesserae, he’d jot down the next tile’s color (on the back of the warranty for East House’s new infrared surveillance camera), and I’d map it to the correct Latin letter on a Post-it note. Teal, sky blue, dark tan, sky blue, pink, tan, warm yellow, pink, dark teal, off-white . . . it took longer than Mortimer’s allotted mental break, but soon we reached the bottom right corner.

  “OK,” said Mortimer. “What little alchemical nugget did we just unearth?”

  I read the letters I’d marked down. “Oh . . . LIVIA TE AMO MAGIS QUAM ASTRUM,” I read, surprised. “Livia, I love you more than . . . well, astrum means ‘star,’ but singular like that it could also mean ‘Heaven.’ ‘Glory.’ ‘Immortality.’ Livia, I love you more than Heaven.”

  “See?” Mortimer grinned. “Happy ever after. Okay, thanks for playing, I gotta get back to my code rot now.”

  * * *

  Post by Rebecca East-Oda on “Sicily” GRIMNIR channel

  DAY 2027 (15 FEBRUARY, YEAR 6)

  I reached out to my college roommate Myra Helmsby, who’s a classics professor at Princeton. One of her postdocs is currently at the American Academy in Rome, researching the socioeconomic lives of artisans employed by Emperor Constantine I. Most of his research notes/hypotheses/conclusions currently exist only on his laptop, but he and Myra have regular video calls, and Myra agreed to ask about Hanno Gisgon. She faxed the responses (yes, I know, but faxing is so old school that even if DODO could intercept it, they’d never think to look).

  Two things to know: First, unsurprisingly (based on Mel’s glowing review), Hanno Gisgon left Sicily and joined the bevy of preferred artisans attached to Constantine’s court. Second, Constantine survived an assassination attempt just before the Edict of Milan (that’s the stop-killing-the-Christians edict, 313 CE). Most sources say the Praetorian Guard prevented the assassin. The postdoc’s research suggests he was saved by Hanno Gisgon! That means Gisgon left Sicily shortly after he finished Livia’s mosaic in 309, to have earned the trust of, and access to, Emperor Constantine by 313.

  Not sure it’s relevant to the DEDE, but I take satisfaction in having some historical data points DODO doesn’t have yet. Also, nice to know things turned out well for him.

  Handwritten by Anonymous in Latin, on papyrus, Milan

  LUPERCALIA, 313 CE

  In celebration of the Emperor’s escape from death, I break my long silence to describe a supernatural event germane to his survival. This happened at the autumn equinox, four years ago. As Apollo is my judge, I swear on the soul of my ancestors, all I write now is true.

  It had rained hard for three days at the villa of Marcus Livius Saturninus. The villa itself is cleverly designed to divert water even if the River Gela overruns its banks, and so within the compound, there were only wet tiles and paving stones. But immediately outside the walls, in the stables and the outbuildings and orchards, puddles were shin-deep, and everywhere else was mud to the ankle. Travel was impossible. Even daily chores were difficult.

  On the fourth day, the rain ceased, although the clouds remained low and dark in the sky like thunderheads. It was on this day that the paterfamilias, Marcus Livius Saturninus, ordered the death of the prisoners. I was Saturninus’s newest bodyguard, recently presented by Emperor Constantine during his sojourn to Rome. Except for my new master, I knew none of the people whose fates I write of here.

  All four of us liked the prisoner Hanno Gisgon. We were on orders not to speak to him, but we did not stop our ears when he spoke to us. For the three rainy days he was kept in confinement, he said the same two things repeatedly: that he had not touched Saturninus’s daughter unlawfully, and that this miscarriage of justice kept him from his expected arrival in Constantine’s court.

  He was whispering these things even as he carried the beam across his shoulders to the post, the site of his execution. Waiting near the post was Saturninus himself, in ceremonial toga, his face both sagging as with grief and yet set hard as stone. Nobody was with him but the young woman, wailing and beating her breast. There were two guards to either side of her, hands clapped on her elbows and shoulders.

  Ten feet from the post was the hole. Laborers had dug it at Saturninus’s orders before the rain began, and it was now so full of cloudy water that it looked like a shallow puddle. The prisoner did not even notice it as he walked by. Seeing the girl sobbing hysterically, worry crossed his face, but then he shook his head as if reassuring himself.

  By the post, the four of us prepared the prisoner. We were two at each arm, the inner guards gripping him firmly while the outer guards secured his forearms to the crossbeam with a long leather strap. I was binding the prisoner’s right wrist but working more slowly than my left-arm colleague, for I was distracted watching the girl’s anguish. Before I had secured the binding, Saturninus ordered the other guards to shove the girl into the hole. She screamed as she fell, and the prisoner gaped in disbelief as he realized that what appeared to be a puddle was in fact a grave.

  “Not I but the wisdom of the Julian Law condemns these two!” Saturninus called out to nobody. “She shall be buried alive for giving away her maidenhead, which is not hers to give. He shall be crucified for adultery and theft.”

  “Father!” the girl screamed piteously, trying to scramble out of the hole, the muddy edges slippery under her fingers.

  Enraged, the prisoner ripped his arm out of my grasp, grabbing the leather binding that was already wrapped once around his wrist, and now he flung his arm forward across his body, the end of the strap snapping whiplike at the left-side guard’s ear so hard that the guard screamed and released his grip on both prisoner and crossbeam; his companion let go too, to jump back on reflex. To avoid being struck in a backhand move, Lucius and I also dropped the beam and stepped back.

  The heavy crossbeam, now held up by none of us, slammed down to the muddy earth and dragged the prisoner’s bound left wrist down with it. He stumbled to his knees, but as h
e fell, he struck out with the strap again, this time toward Saturninus, and with a blasphemous curse I dare not write even to record it, he whipped the strap across Saturninus’s face with murderous intensity. Saturninus shouted in pain and amazement and ducked behind the two guards who had shoved the girl. The prisoner drew back the strap to whip Saturninus a second time and took a step to pursue him, but the massive tether of the crossbeam brought him stumbling to his knees again. As he struggled to rise, I stepped on the beam, which felled him again, and the four of us, once more in control, forced his right arm back over the crossbeam, where I bound it extra tightly.

  Saturninus’s face was bloodied from the strap. He raged and cursed violently, spitting at the prisoner, calling him names worse than anything we called each other in the barracks. “Hoist him, so I may have at him!” he shouted. The four of us raised the crossbeam up, with all his weight sagging from it, high enough to slide the mortise onto the post. We released and stepped back. The prisoner’s feet were two handspans off the ground. His own weight would fatigue his muscles until he could not breathe, but that would take a day or more.

  The prisoner’s feet struggled to find purchase against the post, to hold himself up and relieve the pressure on his arms. “Nail his heels to the side of the post!” screamed Saturninus. He shouted at me: “Go into the smithy and get a long nail! Now!” He pointed to a sturdy outbuilding made of stone, fifty paces away.

  I rushed at once toward this building, but there was nobody in it, and in the dim light of the stormy day, I could not easily see within. Remember, I had never been here before. Seeking assistance, I took stairs up onto the roof, but nobody was there.

  From the roof, I witnessed all the rest of it.

  Saturninus had grabbed a spear from one of the guards. He was a strong man and trained in arms, but it had been years since he needed to demonstrate his prowess. His first jab at the prisoner had missed. He steadied his grip on the long spear and raised it to puncture Hanno Gisgon’s midriff straight on. He was acting out of rage and a desire to torment, but in fact this would be a faster death than crucifixion, and more merciful, so I confess I was glad for the prisoner’s sake. But Saturninus never had a chance to strike.

  On the slope above the villa there came a sudden massive explosion that ripped open the very mountainside itself, as if a volcano had erupted where there was no volcano. The fire was so violently bright, I could not see the sky beyond it. The earth rumbled, trees and boulders cracked, a roaring wind ripped leaves off trees and toppled the few freestanding objects in the fields—scythes and feed troughs and trellises. The building I was on tilted so severely I almost pitched off it. The ripped-open face of the mountain, sodden from days of such relentless rain, shuddered and, like thin gravy, cascaded toward the expanse of the compound. In less time than it takes to draw breath—I swear to Apollo I do not lie!—the entire compound and all the outbuildings, including the one I staggered atop, were covered in fully six feet of mud. All cries stopped abruptly as every living creature was drowned and asphyxiated instantly. All but two: myself and the prisoner.

  But that was not the end of the supernatural intervening. For no sooner had the mud reached its resting place than the airborne inferno above us lashed out; I covered my face and turned away as a shower of lightning strikes fell upon the earth so that all the mud sizzled with a deafening hiss, and then—the mud now seared—all fell to silence. I have never in my life experienced such silence.

  The inferno vanished as suddenly as it had come.

  The prisoner and I looked at each other across a now-barren expanse. The dried mud encased him up to the middle of his chest.

  I climbed down off my tilted perch and found I could tread on the solid earth that had been liquid mud mere seconds earlier. I ran to him and frantically, with my bare hands, dug him out of his confinement. He was in shock. He had been facing downhill, and so he’d heard and seen the mudslide envelop everything, felt it dry immediately around his body—but he never saw the fire. I could not find the words to describe it to him.

  We staggered away from the compound, which was now trapped under six feet of dried mud. It was now a crypt for scores of people. We crossed through the passway that had been torn in the slope by the supernatural forces and made our way up-mountain to the town of Armerina. Here we rested for a day, afraid to tell anyone what we had seen. He would have fasted until death, but I implored him to take heart and to travel with me back to my former master, Emperor Constantine. The prisoner himself—clearly pardoned and protected by the gods—was already expected there for reasons of his own.

  This is how Hanno Gisgon, savior of our Emperor, came to Rome.

  UNCLASSIFIED DOCUMENT, PINE-SOOT INK ON MULBERRY PAPER, STORED IN A LACQUERED BOX IN NAMONAKI VILLAGE, NEAR KYOTO, 1450 CE (CONT.)

  We returned to our home in terror and shock at what had befallen Oda-san. I brewed the kanpo tea of saiko and gypsum, as medicine for our distress. In silence, staring together into the coals of the hearth, we each drank a cup of this bitter brew. We sat there for perhaps an hour, too disturbed to speak or even think. Then we were distracted by a noise outside. I glanced at Seiko. She nodded, so I rose and went to the door. It was irrational, but part of me hoped that I would find Oda-san standing there.

  Of course it was not Oda-san. There was a much younger man with a very strange haircut, extremely pale but very muscular. He was frowning.

  He was naked.

  “It is another one,” I said.

  “I will get kimono for him,” said Seiko.

  The young man was called Yamamoto Akifumi. Unlike Oda-san, Yamamoto-san did not look happy to be here. Seiko sensed he was from the same else-when as our earlier visitor, but to me he felt as if he were from some other universe entirely. He was uncomfortable in our home and in the spare kimono, and he had no idea how to interact with Seiko, and he refused our tea.

  “Fifty thousand pardons, but I am in a great rush and cannot stop to speak,” he said. “I have three things to ask you, if I may be so rude, and then I will leave again.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Is one thing the request that I Home you?” asked Seiko.

  He looked grudgingly relieved. “Yes,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said. “What is the second request?”

  “I’m looking for a painted box that was given as a gift to a nearby shrine,” he began, but Seiko cut him off by rising suddenly and walking away, waving her arms, and saying, “No, no, no!”

  “Have I committed a rudeness?” he asked. “I am extremely sorry.”

  “The last person who came seeking the box experienced the displeasure of the gods,” I said. “My wife is loath to see another honored guest fall into such difficulties. Please, it is dangerous and you must not pursue it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  I shook my head. “Either you trust us or you don’t. But we are not leading anyone to the box.”

  He frowned, then said, “Am I free to look for it myself?”

  “I cannot stop you, but I hope you will not,” I said heavily. “What is the meaning of the box?”

  “In my era, where I am a student of your era,” the man said carefully, “there is a myth associated with this box—”

  “You mean the myth that the witch-goddess gave it as a gift to the shrine?” I said.

  “Well, yes, of course, but something more than that. It is known among students of mythology as the Dilemma Box. You haven’t heard that phrase?” he asked, seeing the confusion on my face.

  “Sorry, but I do not know it,” I said.

  “The internal walls of the box are believed to be saturated with a colloidal compound of sugihira mushrooms. That is poisonous. Nobody understands the ur-story—sorry, that’s a difficult phrase to translate—I mean nobody knows the origin or nature of the myth. The belief is, if you place a small animal into the box, it either will or will not lick the walls of the box, meaning when you open it, the animal might be dead or it
might be alive. Some scholars believe this was used as a betting game in taverns. Others believe it was a form of fortune-telling. Some believe it was intended as a philosophical teaching tool.”

  “Perhaps that is why Oda-san wanted it,” Seiko said quietly from the far side of the room, where she had retreated into the shadows.

  The young man’s face brightened for the first time. “Oda-san!” he said. “Yes. You’ve met him? Do you have news of him? That’s my third question. His family is desperate to find him. Where is he? I’m here to bring him home.”

  Seiko returned to the hearth. She knelt beside me and rested a hand on my wrist. “Tell him,” she said quietly. “And then I’ll Home him.”

  ROBIN’S AFTER ACTION REPORT, STRAND 2, NEW PLAN (CONT.)

  Will’s hand clutched in mine, I beat tracks back to the Banqueting Hall, almost dragging him.

  The play had finished, but people were still banqueting gleefully. Will, pale and trembling, rushed to the Lord Chamberlain and whispered to him. The Lord Chamberlain sent various fellows in various liveries rushing out of the hall. Will followed in distress.

  I was haunted by the image of Ned disappearing into the dark. I tried to push it to the back of my attention so I could focus on finding Tristan.

  Immediately, I found him. With Gráinne.

  He was dressed nondescriptly but very much as a commoner, so I couldn’t guess under what pretense he’d been allowed inside. Gráinne had successfully strayed from Lady Emilia. I don’t know if she’d been seeking Tristan, or if he’d taken aim at her, or if their meeting was a surprise to them both—I missed that part. By the time I returned to the Banqueting House, Gráinne had him under some kind of horrific spell: she had woven a shimmering, pulsing cocoon around him, I don’t know how else to describe it. She was holding him by the wrist and making direct eye contact. Tristan, who could so easily have overpowered her, was just standing there, a thick mantle of black wool bunched at his heels, as if he’d been holding it by the clasp and dropped it. I was at an oblique angle to him, so I couldn’t see his expression, but he was unnervingly still. I ran toward them, my rage drowning out my thoughts. Gráinne’s eyes were flashing with triumph and she was muttering. As I arrived at a gallop, I heard a phrase from the spells Tilney had copied into the Macbeth book—she was using the actual spell on Tristan, right now. That shimmering was part of the spell. She was literally killing him with words, right in front of me.