The woman leaned down, eyeing Tertia’s hiding spot and weaving rod with a conspiratorial grin. “You may as well come out of there; that hiding place is as weak as a new-born calf,” the woman said, still grinning. “It won’t fool anyone, least of all those who come after me.”
“If you attempt to harm me, I will defend myself,” Tertia said, her voice low, thrusting the weaving rod up at the stranger like a sword.
The stranger laughed, a great, booming guffaw. “I do applaud your determination.”
The woman’s lack of concern would bring the invaders down upon them in minutes if not seconds if she wasn’t more careful. “Shhh!” Tertia said, springing forward from her hiding place, attempting to shush the woman’s laugh.
Tertia found herself scooped up into a warm embrace instead, the weaving rod deftly twisted out her grip. The woman hefted Tertia up onto one of her shoulders as if Tertia was a much smaller child.
From that vantage, Tertia found herself staring down at laurel leaves nestled in curling dark-brown hair. The woman glanced up at her with a mischievous smile. How could this person be so calm? Tertia wondered.
The air reverberated with the crack of something sundering much too close, and the smoke in the air thickened. Tertia squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of the smoke, and a tear tracked down her cheek.
“Wipe those eyes, Tullia Tertia Scipiones,” the woman chided, setting Tertia back on her feet, and straightening Tertia’s tunic with an easy twitch of fingers. “Aren’t you so glad all those obnoxious, unimaginative prudes are gone? ‘Be pious!’ they said. ‘You are a Lar. Stop shaming the family,’ they said. Who do they think established this family!” The woman snorted a laugh.
Tertia gaped, unable to look away. No one had used her full name before. She was always just Tertia. The third, the last. The least.
The woman chucked Tertia under the chin and smiled, appearing to ignore the ever-escalating sounds of destruction, now coming from just outside the courtyard.
“Who are you?” Tertia asked. “Are you one of my ancestors? A Lar?”
“Who am I? Why I’m Scipiones, of course. The first. The original. In fact, this family only exists because of me!” Scipiones chuckled, swinging an arm out to encompass the large Roman villa around them. “Which includes you, of course. Tell me, young Tertia: The world is in front of you. What would you like to do?”
“I want to live.” Tertia blurted out immediately. “I want to be reunited with my sisters at the Capitoline and not have any of us be killed.”
“Oh, delightful!” Scipiones exclaimed, leaning in with a conspiratorial grin. “You’ll need to be sneaky. It so happens that particular trait, ah, runs in your blood,” Scipiones winked at Tertia, who could only blink in surprise.
“Shall we start with getting to the Capitoline then?” Scipiones continued blithely, appearing unfazed. “Lesson one: People rarely look up.” She pointed at the villa’s ridge line.
Something that sounded similar to distressed metal squealing reached their ears, followed by the thunderous clap of wood breaking.
Scipiones quickly led Tertia to the sheltered wall of the courtyard just behind the cistern, then jumped and grabbed onto the yellow brick, swinging her feet up so her toes were leveraged into the small gaps, and scrabbled up the vertical wall with apparent ease. The goddess then jumped down, showing Tertia how to cling to the small cracks and crevices in the brick. The goddess then guided Tertia up the wall’s seemingly sheer surface for the first few feet, until Tertia started to get the hang of it.
Scipiones clung to the brick easily as Tertia labored, then flawlessly transitioned to the upper story of the villa from the top of the courtyard, leading Tertia by example on this trickier ascent. The villa’s decorative arches, ledges, and embellishments formed fewer and even more precarious holds, but even so, Tertia persevered.
“Keep your body low, so it’s stable, and stay close to the tiles of the roof itself.” Scipones instructed as they approached the top of the villa. “It will make you much harder to see from below, as well.” With that advice, Scipiones vanished then reappeared, reclining on the roofing tiles—where Tertia would hopefully, eventually, land. Outside the courtyard, the sounds of Rome being breached and looted were becoming deafening, but Tertia could not allow herself to look.
Tertia took a deep breath and slowly, carefully crabbed her way up the rest of the villa’s second story, then finally to the roof, refusing to acknowledge whatever happened below.
Once Tertia lay on the roof next to her, Scipiones pointed across the roofs of the patrician district, toward the hill where the Capitoline sat above the rest. “You can use the canopies or archways between structures to transition from one building to the next.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.” Tertia quavered, her muscles burning and exhausted, as she looked across the narrow alley between the next house over. The distance down to the ground made her stomach jump.
“Then you will die,” Scipiones pointed out, her tone matter-of-fact.
Tertia’s familial villa stood only two stories high, as did the one next to it, but many of the patrician homes were taller than that. Some soared three or even four stories high with pillars under-pinning lower floors, leaving even fewer hand-holds for scaling.
Tertia gritted her teeth, rolling over onto her stomach as she judged the distance to the next house. If she died today, it would not be because she failed to try.
Scipiones nodded in approval. “Now, the trick, young Tertia, is to only allow yourself to be seen when you want to be,” she said, “and if you are seen, only let them perceive what you want them to see. A glint of metal, a bird’s shadow, the rustle of the wind against the sun. Now, show me you’re worthy of my name.” With that, Scipiones vanished like smoke buffeted by sudden wind.
Tertia took a moment to center herself and feel the rough brick and tile under her, then launched herself onto the next rooftop, refusing to look at the distant ground. She felt the mud tile slip under her feet, then pitched her body forward to lower her weight once more.
Then she paused and looked back over her shoulder. Mistake.
Her gaze unwillingly riveted on the alien army flooding up the streets of her neighborhood. She knew she absolutely must keep moving, but fear rooted her body. The Gauls looked nothing like any person Tertia had ever seen. Even the shortest of them stood half again her father’s height, like a giant of legend. Those behemoths came, breaking down the barred doors on the smaller dwellings, then throwing their contents in the street, simply trampling what they did not want, taking what they did.
One Gaul, who stood taller than the rest, shouted directions, loosely appearing to direct the chaos. His pale shoulders were striped with blood and blue paint, his torso covered in a leather breastplate. Checked and striped fabric peeked out from underneath. His long hair, pulled up into a mane behind his head, was blinding, brilliantly white, like linen that had been bleached by the sun—at least where blood had not dyed it scarlet. Around his neck a golden torque glinted in the early evening light and a massive two-handed, iron sword emanated menace in his hands.
Tertia glanced toward the Capitoline. Gathering her strength, she continued scrabbling and launching herself from rooftop to rooftop, trying to stay ahead of the chaos when she could, waiting until the looters were busy when she could not.
Tertia could not help looking down into the courtyards of the last several very affluent villas that lined the road closest to the Capitoline. Elderly patriarchs from Rome’s great houses waited for the barbarians outside their respective domiciles. Just below her and to the left, she could see her father’s friend Marius Papirius, and there were more silent statesmen in the courtyards both ahead and behind her. The statesmen she saw had dressed in their ritual best, their long-silvered beards oiled and curled, their cosmetics flawless, ivory staffs held firmly in their weathered and ancient hands. They sat in the carved ivory chairs that overlooked their courtyards and signified
their station, but the courtyard gates remained unbarred.
In a whisper Tertia wondered, “Have they been judged too old, too infirm to defend the Capitoline?”
Scipiones suddenly materialized in the courtyard nearest to Tertia, sitting in the lap of elderly Marius Papirius. His gaze stayed fixed straight ahead, not paying the goddess any mind.
Scipiones looked up at Tertia and answered her question, “They look to find favor for their families with the gods by offering their lives as sacrifice. They are old, and wise, and perhaps, some of them may become Lares themselves if their will is strong. Their sacrifice is certainly great enough.”
Scipiones kissed the weathered cheek of Papirius above his long, oiled beard and turned back into mist. He did not react; had he not seen the Lar?
Tertia had reached the last mansion before the ascent to the Capitoline. Crouching on that rooftop Tertia considered her options. The thick iron gate into the citadel was only thirty feet away, but the rest of the way was totally out in the open, and it had already been locked and barred. An archway two and a half stories tall spanned the road connecting to the mansions on either side, but nothing connected the archway to the gate.
Behind her, the bulk of the strange warriors had reached the houses of the statesmen. Their footsteps slowed as they stared with awed at the soaring marble mansions. For several minutes, the invading army just milled up and down the street, glancing through the open gates of the mansions, before returning to their fellows as if suspecting trap, instead of continuing their wave of destruction. They stared in seeming confusion at the carved ivory thrones in the elaborate courtyards, at the dignified elderly men who sat unmoving atop them, but they did not attack.
Tertia wondered if the barbarians thought the old men of the city-state looked just as strange, or stranger, than the Gauls did to her, with their blue paint and brilliant-white hair.
One of the Gauls approached Marius Papirius cautiously, walking around his chair of office, inspecting it from all sides. The whole swarming army had come to a hushed stand-still, appearing unsure of what to do with the open courtyards and their silent inhabitants. The barbarians stopped all looting and a strange, tense hush fell. From Tertia’s limited vantage point, none of the Roman statesmen appeared to move, sitting in solemn, formal splendor.
Tertia wondered if the alien army had mistaken the elderly men for Lares in their own right.
Just as she was beginning to hope that the whole invading force might turn around and leave the city of their own volition, the invader nearest Papirius reached out, grabbed a handful of the patriarch’s long beard and yanked. Hard.
Papirius lashed out with his staff, dealing the Gaul’s head an equally hard blow.
The giant roared in anger, unsheathing his sword and drawing it across Papirius’ throat in one fluid motion. Blood splattered on the ground of the courtyard like gruesome rain. Tertia squeezed her eyes shut, queasy. The soft sound of blood spattering across brick seemed to wake the whole army from whatever calming influence they had been under. Descending into a fury of carnage, the barbarians butchered the rest of the statesmen in a matter of minutes, bathing the gutters in blood.
Tertia clamped her eyes and mouth shut, fighting against the nausea in her stomach. If she was ill, the smell would eventually lead them to her, even if the sound did not.
The barbarians dispersed amongst the vast mansions, looting them with abandon. Wonton acts of destruction scattered marble and yellow brick in the street alike. Piles of furniture and household goods were put to the match, sending new gouts of flame and plumes of smoke skyward, blocking out much of the late sun’s rays. It helped obscure Tertia’s hiding place, and she crept out to the large stone arch that spanned the roadway, hopeful she’d find a way to make it the rest of the way to the Capitoline. But her eyes stung with the smoke, making it hard for her to squint down into the ruined streets.
Eventually the commander sauntered under the archway where Tertia hid, surrounded by his cohort of fighters. She breathed slowly through her nose, unwilling to let air pass her lips, lest it somehow alert them to her presence.
Behind the barbarians, the looted wagons carrying all their spoils trundled slowly.
A rain of arrows whistled out of the arrow slits of the citadel, sleeting down over the road and sticking of out of the ground and the Gaul’s shields like a particularly lethal hail. A few arrows whistled terrifyingly close to Tertia, but thankfully none struck her. Someone laughed, seeming to find the defense of the citadel comical. Tertia’s heart hammered in her throat; the efforts of those in the citadel appeared futile to her.
The wagon creaked to a halt in front of the arch, and Tertia crept forward to get a better vantage point. She found the fighters had gathered at the barred gate to the citadel. The commander stood in front, his army arrayed around him. Glancing about, she noticed the arrows had had no lasting effect on the invaders.
“Open the gate and your deaths shall be quick,” the commander called in a heavily-accented voice to those locked inside. Tertia wondered when and where he’d learned their language. “If you do not, we will dismantle your fortress around you, water its stones with your blood, and piss in the dead eyes of your loved ones.”
“We will not allow the City of Rome to be conquered by some nameless invader,” came the return call.
“I am Brennus, and we shall see who outlasts the other, then. I am willing to bet, be it today, tomorrow, or a month from now, I will still have the advantage. After all, I have the whole city at my disposal, and you do not.” The Gaul army spread out, ringing the Capitoline and settling in for a siege.
Scipiones suddenly appeared on the arch next to Tertia, watching the Gauls’ preparations with bright eyes.
“You could walk away now, you know,” Scipiones said to Tertia. “Your family has abandoned you once. You have no obligation to save them or any of the other Roman patricians.”
Tertia looked at Scipiones solemnly. “I know. I could leave; no one would miss me. Perhaps they don’t deserve to be saved.” Her father’s cold words and her mother’s silence still stabbed at her heart. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Perhaps. But my sisters are there too, and they never did anything to me. The Roman patriarchs did nothing, and yet they died horribly. I cannot leave everyone to die here alone. Not even Father.”
“Spoken like a true Scipiones,” the Lar said, smiling. “We’re going to have to train you as we go. To be successful, you will have to be as imperceptible as the wind. Your father will not know you’ve changed his fate. None of them will.”
“I can live with that,” Tertia said.
“So be it. I do so love a challenge,” Scipiones said. “We can start tonight.”
Tertia turned to reply, but the goddess had already vanished.
~*~
Tertia woke abruptly, certain she was about to tumble off her precarious perch. Instead she found herself clinging to a very amused-looking Scipiones.
“Are you ready for lesson two?” the goddess asked her, before standing on the archway and stretching. It was as if Scipiones had no concerns. For all Tertia knew, she might the only one able to see the Lar.
Tertia nodded, her stomach twisting with nerves.
“If you control the pieces, you control the game,” Scipiones said, looking at Tertia expectantly. Scipiones produced a coin out of thin air and handed it to Tertia.
“Close your fist around the coin,” the goddess said. Tertia did so, gripping it tightly.
“That coin is yours now, is it not?” Scipiones asked holding Tertia’s hand lightly in hers. “You have it trapped in the palm of your hand, yes?”
“Yes, it’s in my hand.” Tertia squeezed the coin, feeling it press into her palm.
“Are you certain?” Scipiones asked, nodding significantly toward Tertia’s fist.
Tertia opened her hand to find she gripped a smooth stone. Scipiones snapped and the golden coin appeared between the goddess’ fingers.
>
For the next few hours, Scipiones demonstrated it again slower, patiently showing Tertia how to pick up and move the coin while not alerting the person who held it.
“Now,” Scipiones said, “We’re going to send you down there to play similar tricks. Tiny things at first, larger ones as you improve. The rules are the same as before: go where you will not be seen, move silently like the wind, and always cause as much mischief as possible in your wake.”
~*~
During the next week, under Scipiones tutelage, Tertia became a haunt of the Roman night, creeping silently through the sleeping Gaul army. One of her first acts dyed the city well an ominous, stinking red using pulverized madder root. None of the Gauls had tried to use it in the days since. They had to trek out to the river for water instead.
Then she’d torched the fields outside the city and started stealing the Gaul’s rations. Some she’d kept for her own use. Others she’d trampled into the ground as if a wild animal had roamed the army while they slept. The game the Gauls managed to scrounge was meager, and Tertia took every opportunity to spoil any attempts to preserve it.
As she grew bolder, she started stealing the warriors’ personal items. She stole this person’s sword, that person’s axe, a handy belt-knife, wool blankets, drinking horns, and the list went on. Nothing ever went missing while anyone was looking, but she targeted anything that would be keenly missed soon after the theft. Her stash of stolen items grew and had to be spread out on the forum’s roof to avoid detection.
Under Scipones’ watchful eye, she grew proficient at climbing and spiriting away large, sometimes sharp, objects that the Gauls needed for the siege. She released horses, emptied purses, and then fouled the Gaul’s water, over and over again, with dirt and animal dung, but never when someone might see. Tensions in the camp grew and fights started breaking out at the slightest provocation. Her midnight missions complete, she fell asleep in her eyrie just as the dawn’s golden light brought the first squabbling disagreements from the camp below. She felt a brushed kiss on her cheek, and Scipiones whispered, “Well done, young Tertia.”
Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels Page 24