“What am I to do with these?” asked Repana, bending her head to sniff their fragrance.
“I don’t know. I just thought you would enjoy … something beautiful, after looking at my scarred old face all winter.”
“I stopped looking at your face a long time ago,” Repana said quietly. “My people worship beauty in all of its forms, but you have taught me that there is a deeper beauty, a beauty of spirit. I think our people lack that, and we are the poorer for it.”
Wulv bowed, his cheeks flushed. He did not entirely understand what Repana was saying, but he understood the emotion behind the words.
“You like him very much,” Vesi remarked.
The older woman shrugged and concentrated on gathering the flowers together. “He is good to us.”
Pepan also was aware of a burgeoning affection between Wulv and Repana. In the Otherworld the emotional attraction was expressed as a lyrical strand of melody whenever their eyes met. The former Lord of the Rasne was astonished that Repana could so react to a primitive woodsman. He was not exactly jealous; the longer he was in the Otherworld, the more such emotions seemed irrelevant. Rather he felt a fading, wistful envy. Life was going on without him. How strange.
Yet he remained involved, watching with something akin to paternal pride as the infant Horatrim crawled, then stood, then took his first precocious steps. There was no doubt the boy was developing with astonishing rapidity. One could almost see him grow.
Meanwhile Vesi’s youthful face took on more matronly plumpness, and a sheen of silver frosted Repana’s hair.
Because in the Otherworld Pepan had no sense of time, each change took him by surprise. The swiftness of the changes surprised him even more. During his life in the Earthworld, had things altered so quickly? Had time passed with such extraordinary rapidity? Perhaps it had … and perhaps he had been too busy to notice the changes.
Eventually he realized he was having his own effect on the Earthworld. The energy of his hia, remaining in one place as it now did, was causing an explosion of growth most clearly demonstrated by the vegetation surrounding Wulv’s lake. Ancient marsh willows that had been on the verge of dying reclothed themselves with new leaves. Spindly seedlings developed into luxuriant shrubbery in less than a season. Vivid, fleshy orchids of gold and azure blossomed along stems the length of a spear shaft, while from early spring until late autumn the air was perfumed by masses of white roses.
And day after day, Wulv brought Repana flowers. When she took them from him, their hands touched and lingered. In the morning there would be more blossoms for the Teumetian to bring to Repana.
Horatrim continued to grow with astonishing rapidity. The first words he spoke were, “Give me!” as he reached for his grandmother’s flowers, displaying early the Rasne passion for beauty.
The three adults laughed with delight.
In the Otherworld Pepan laughed too, a rich warm sound.
Laughter was not irrelevant, for while it lasted the sound of joy acted as a shield that kept dark forces at bay. The musical chord of Horatrim’s spirit had the same effect, Pepan observed. In the immediate vicinity of the child no siu lurked; no corrupted hia sniggered. But he knew they were not far away, circling, stalking. Rapacious.
There were other watchers as well. He was aware of them as vast shapes on the horizon emitting a sound like the ringing of silver bells, a barely perceptible tintinnabulation that underlay all other sounds: this was the song of the Ais, the music of the gods. Their looming presence made Pepan uneasy. He was willing to challenge a siu but he had no illusions about his strength compared to one of the Ais. They could crush him without a thought if they chose, if his actions displeased them. So far they had not interfered, but he had no way of knowing what they might do in the future.
He wondered why they were also taking an interest in the demon-sired child.
SEVENTEEN
The half-human child of a siu has always been considered an abomination, a creature who belongs in neither world.
Yet would we be justified in destroying such a child?
He is innocent of his father’s crime. Because of her own sense of outrage, Pythia wants the boy Horatrim killed. But if we do so, we will be no better than the siu, matching one destruction with another.
There is also the matter of the child’s exceptional heritage.
A powerful spirit, newly entered into the Otherworld, gave the unborn infant an assortment of gifts donated by older, even more powerful spirits from the Netherworld. Thus the child is special to Veno, Protectress of the Dead. Veno argues for the boy’s survival as forcibly as Pythia argues against it.
We, the Ais, shape all three worlds according to our own designs, which humankind can never understand. Humans have their own effect on the Earthworld, of course … and on us, who conform in some degree to the images they give us. So one influences the other.
The outcome is not certain.
Wild forces and inexplicable energies are gathering about the boy called Horatrim. We feel their power but are uncertain how to proceed. Although we pretend to omnipotence, we have to admit among ourselves that even we do not know everything.
Therefore we agree that it would be a mistake to move against these forces until we understand them better. Such an action might not only destroy Horatrim, but also destroy the delicate balance he represents between the three worlds. The risk is too great.
We shall content ourselves with watching, and waiting … for a while.
EIGHTEEN
“Romax!”
Even before Wulv reached his native village, he heard the first shouts. Those living in outlying areas were swiftly passing the word.
“Romax,” they warned, using the Teumetian name for the most powerful tribe in Latium. “Romax warriors are headed this way!”
It was high summer and Wulv was making a rare journey to his birth village to trade pelts from the forest for wool and linens with which Repana could make new clothes. Three years had passed since she and Vesi had fled the Rasne spura, and the gowns they were wearing had long since worn out. They were, as they frequently told Wulv, tired of improvising with scraps.
Little Horatrim was happy enough to wear furs and leather like his hero Wulv, but women required something more.
As time passed Wulv was learning quite a bit about women—and small boys. They had become his family, the only family he would ever know. Whatever any of them wanted, he felt obliged to provide. But for their own protection he had never told anyone about them and allowed no one from outside to approach the island.
For once, when he entered the village no one called out, “Here comes Scarface. Hide the women so he doesn’t frighten them into fits.” It was an old joke and not a funny one. But this time the Teumetians had something more urgent on their minds.
“Five or six raiding parties have been seen in our territory,” Wulv was told by the headman, a grizzled veteran of many battles. “As usual they’re looting and burning, then trying to claim the land for their own. But they won’t succeed here!” The headman brandished his favorite battle-ax by way of emphasis. Several strips of dried and blackened skin were knotted together just below the ax head, trophies taken from the backs of old enemies.
The Romax were the most hated enemy of all, the mere sight of one arousing the Teumetes to blood-fury.
“Stay here and stand with us,” the elders implored Wulv. “There will be plenty of good fighting.”
“I can’t. I have to go back.”
“Go back to what? That swamp you live in? You stupid maggot. If you stay here and fight with us, you can have your pick of the Romax weapons we capture. Forged metal!”
But Wulv was stubborn. “I don’t need metal. I have this great lump of precious metal right here to use for trade.” He held out the ring Pepan had given him. “I want to exchange this for wool and linen to make clothes.”
The headman sneered, although he took the ring readily enough, holding it to the light before pressing
it between the nubs of his worn teeth. “Wool and linen?
Why? What happened to that filthy bearskin mantle you usually wear? Getting soft in your old age, eh?”
“The weather is too hot now. Besides, I need something better than that for my women.”
“Your what?” The elders gaped at him, but the headman burst into laughter. “Wulv, with women! I don’t believe it. Who would have anything to do with you? Your scars aren’t even wounds of victory; you got them in some battle you lost.”
“A fight with a bear,” Wulv corrected, “which I didn’t lose. I made his pelt into that mantle you mentioned, and he’s kept me warm every winter since. But Rasne women are used to finer fabrics so I need—”
“You don’t have any Rasne women. You’re lying.”
Wulv growled and locked his fingers around the other man’s throat, but at that moment a cry from the sentry at the gate rang through the village. “Smoke! There’s a fire in the distance. The Romax must be heading this way.”
Dropping his hand, pushing the headman away from him, Wulv whirled around to look. A column of black smoke was rising toward the sunny sky—from the direction of his lake and island. Without a word, he turned and fled.
Horatrim had been disappointed that morning when Wulv refused to take him to the village. “I’ve never met any other people,” he had complained. “I’ve only heard you talk about them. I want to know what they look like. I want to see how they live.”
But his grandmother was adamant that he be kept hidden away. With the passing of the seasons Repana had grown accustomed to their isolation and increasingly fearful of any exposure. Meanwhile Vesi’s bright, adventurous spirit had been subdued by her misfortunes, leaving her content to bow to her mother’s authority. She rarely spoke and was content with sitting quietly by herself, humming tunelessly. At night, her dreams were often troubled.
“You’re better off here,” Repana told Horatrim, “where you are safe.”
“Wulv can keep me safe,” Horatrim had insisted. “Wulv can do anything. Tell them,” he appealed to the Teumetian.
“Your grandmother’s right,” Wulv affirmed.
But in the end Wulv went off without him, leaving the little boy to amuse himself. His mother and Repana were busy grinding emmer wheat in a stone quern that they had set out in the sunshine, so for want of anything better to do, he ambled over to watch them. The ground wheat would make dumplings for the main meal of the day, but that, Horatrim thought regretfully, was a long time away.
His small round belly rumbled. “Dumplings taste better with meat,” he remarked to his mother.
There was no response and although Vesi’s hands were busy, her eyes were distant and lost, seeing another time and another place where her dream lover took her to his couch of silken sheets.
Horatrim appealed to higher authority. “Grandmama? I can get us meat.”
“You’re too little,” Repana said automatically.
He thrust out his lower lip. “Am not.”
The pouting little face was so comical Repana bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. He had the appearance of a boy of seven or eight, though only three years had passed since his birth. The three adults were with him all the time so hardly noticed how exceptional his growth was. But once in a while his grandmother took a long, serious look at him and marveled. Life was, indeed, full of mysteries, including the mystery of the way her own feelings toward the child had changed.
It was impossible to continue to resent such an engaging little fellow. Sometimes Repana just wanted to grab him in her arms and hug him. She did not always resist the impulse, but today she was trying to be serious. “You’re just a child, Horatrim. Providing meat is man’s work.”
“I am a man!” he flung at her, standing with his legs wide apart and his pudgy fists braced on his hips. “Almost.”
Repana shook her head. When the boy was in a stubborn mood, there was no dissuading him. “All right then, bring us a bit of meat if you can. But don’t wander far away and be careful in the forest. If you see any strangers, hide, or I will never let you go off on your own again.”
Horatrim ran to collect the slingshot and miniature fishing spear Wulv had made for him before she could change her mind.
He was still a child. When he he stood on tiptoe the top of his head came only to his mother’s breast. Yet under the tutelage of the Teumetian he had learned to kill hares and spear fish in the streams that fed into the marsh. He was not big enough to hunt for the venison and wild boar that Wulv brought down, but he could pretend they were his quarry.
The day was blindingly hot. Almost every afternoon in summer a spectacular storm would erupt somewhere in the area, sending great white spiders stalking across the land on their long legs. The touch of one of those legs was known to be fatal. Each morning Vesi and Repana offered a sacrifice of burned feathers to Tinia, the deity of lightning, to spare their home, and whenever he left the island they warned young Horatrim to avoid the trees if a storm broke.
But he was a boy who tended to forget the warnings of women.
Now, carrying his spear lightly balanced in his hand, the boy trotted along the bank of his favorite fishing stream. The stream was not swift running but quite deep and snaked its way in and out of the edge of the forest. Where it ran close to the trees, fat fish lurked in caverns beneath thirsty roots reaching down into the water.
Today Horatrim had decided to trace the water all the way to its source. He had never seen the birthplace of a stream before and the prospect excited him. He had a remarkable ability to find adventure where no one else thought to look.
A sturdy little boy with dark hair and eyes and the olive complexion of the Rasne, Horatrim himself did not appear remarkable—except to the watcher from the Otherworld.
Pepan could see the hia encased in the boy’s body and there was nothing childish about that spirit. Enriched by the talents and abilities of a pantheon of gifted ancestors, Horatrim’s hia was already more powerful than Pepan’s. A hundred forms of genius fed its flame.
You do not yet know what you are, Pepan thought. When you do, that body will be too small to hold you.
He watched in fascination as the child painstakingly traced the stream. At one point Horatrim picked up a large piece of bark and, using a sharp stone, began drawing a map of the watercourse with all the detail and accuracy of an adult planning a drainage system for a city. As he worked he hummed to himself in a childish treble. But the tune he was creating was one of the ancient love songs of the Silver People, a song the boy had never heard before.
Pepan was aware of the Roman scouting party long before Horatrim was. A brazen clanging rang through the Otherworld, destroying harmonies.
Beware! he called silently to the boy.
Horatrim tensed.
Throughout his short life he had been aware of certain intuitions he could not explain, of half-glimpsed images, barely heard sounds, snatches of conversation, the intentions of animals. Now, suddenly intuition was warning him to hide, so without hesitation he abandoned the open ground beside the stream and ran toward the nearby forest. Panting, he dived into the first thicket.
No sooner had the child burrowed into the undergrowth than the leaves swelled and expanded, hiding him.
He heard the invaders coming long before he saw them.
Tramping feet, marching to a rhythm. They too were following the open ground beside the streambed but approaching from the opposite direction.
Cautiously, the little boy parted the leaves and peered out.
A company of men was passing no more than a spear’s throw from Horatrim’s hiding place. Could they be the Romax Wulv spoke of with such loathing? They wore molded tunics of boiled leather and metal helms with flaps that protected the backs of their necks. They walked two abreast, each carrying a round shield on his back and wearing a short sword in a scabbard at his hip. In front of them their captain marched alone, with sword drawn.
“Are we near Etr
uria yet?” a man in the third row called up to the first. His clipped, abrupt speech was unfamiliar, yet to his surprise Horatrim could understand the language. “I want to see one of those rich Etruscan cities.”
“Forget about the cities; I want to get my hands on one of those perfumed Etruscan women,” remarked another man. “They have skin like thick cream, or so I’ve heard. Can you imagine nuzzling into …”
“You think their fathers and husbands will just hand them over to us?”
“I don’t mind fighting for a woman; I’ve done it often enough before.”
The captain said over his shoulder, “You won’t have to fight for women. I know the Etruscans; their men have become as idle and pleasure loving as any female. There was a time when they joined with the Hellenes to extend their influence from the Darklands to the Sunlands. But success went to their heads. They stopped trying so hard and devoted themselves to wine cups and banquet tables and dancing. Now it takes intervention by the gods to force any of them to fight. The Etruscans are said to be the most religious people on earth,” he remarked as an afterthought, “for whatever that’s worth.”
There was coarse laughter from the rear. “They’ll be praying to their gods right enough when we get through with them!”
“We won’t see them for a while,” retorted the captain. “We’re in a pocket of Teumetian territory now and those square-headed bastards love to fight, so keep your weapons at the ready.”
Hidden by the sheltering leaves, the little boy watched the company pass by. He found them very strange. They made no effort to muffle their footfalls. Twigs snapped loudly beneath their tramping feet. Their leather creaked, their metal clanged. Since earliest childhood Horatrim had been taught by Wulv to move as silently as any forest creature, and he found the actions of these strangers disturbing, a desecration of the peaceful countryside. One even took a swing with his shortsword at a little willow sapling, cutting the young tree in half for no reason. He brayed with laughter.
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