“My lord,” the man said to Feslund, bowing, his voice trembling, “we are so honored.”
“Yes, of course,” Feslund replied, acknowledging the bow. He turned to Liber. “What now?” he demanded.
“Let us see the wound,” Liber said to the doctor.
The doctor turned to the parents. “Perhaps you would prefer to—” he began.
“We will look also,” the man said.
The doctor shrugged and drew back the blanket covering the boy. Then he carefully unwound a bandage covering the boy’s middle. The wound was long and ugly, filled with green pus. The area around the wound was an angry red. It smelled foul. The woman gasped and started sobbing. “I am sorry,” the doctor said.
Liber gestured to Feslund, and they walked a couple of paces away from the bed. Liber had opened the jar with the strange writing on it. It was filled with a white cream. “Put a small amount of this on your hand,” Liber instructed. “Rub the cream into the wound.”
“I don’t want to touch that thing,” Feslund protested, looking back at the boy.
“Rub the cream into the wound,” Liber repeated. “And the people of the empire will love you. There is no danger.”
Feslund stared at Liber, and suddenly he understood. It was all so simple. “Give it to me,” he said.
Liber gave him the jar. Feslund smeared some of the cream onto his fingers, and then returned the jar to Liber. The substance, whatever it was, felt cool on his skin. He turned back to the boy and the others.
“May I touch the child?” he asked the parents.
The woman looked at her husband. The man bowed his head to Feslund. “Of course, my lord.”
“Thank you.”
He went to the boy and bent over him. The boy’s breath was ragged. Too young to die, but he would not see the next sunrise. Feslund reached out and forced himself to put his hand on the ugly, suppurating wound. The skin was hot beneath his fingers. He moved his hand back and forth over the wound, rubbing the cream deeply into it. The white color quickly disappeared, leaving behind a glistening, oily residue. “Enough,” Liber murmured to him after a few moments.
Feslund removed his hand and straightened up. He stood back. The parents stared at him in confusion. Feslund looked at Liber, who was standing there with his arms folded. Now what? If this fellow was wrong…
“Look,” Decius whispered suddenly, pointing to the wound.
Feslund looked. At first he could see nothing in the lamplight that flickered next to the boy’s cot.
But then he thought he saw what Decius was seeing. The redness that surrounded the wound—was it fading? Yes, it was. And then the wound itself seemed to fade, crusting over and thinning, as if weeks of recovery were happening in minutes. And the boy’s breath sounded more regular now. The doctor reached down and placed a hand on the boy’s forehead. “The fever is gone,” he announced. “I do not understand this. I do not understand it at all.”
And then the boy opened his eyes. He looked up at his mother. “Mamma?” he whispered. “What happened, Mamma?”
The mother buried her face on the boy’s neck and embraced him, sobbing uncontrollably. “Publius, my Publius!” she whispered to him.
The boy looked puzzled but happy.
And meanwhile the father had fallen to his knees in front of Feslund. “My lord,” he said, “my prince. Blessed be your name. Thank you. Truly you have been chosen by the gods. You are greater than any priest.”
Feslund looked over at Liber, who had retreated into the shadows next to the windows. Chosen by the gods, Feslund thought. Greater than any priest.
Now, finally, it could begin.
Nine
Gratius
The three of them rode along the King’s Road, heading north.
Gratius watched the boy up ahead. After all these days and all these miles, Larry was still awkward on horseback. It was understandable; he hadn’t grown up with horses on his world. But the girl—Palta—hadn’t ridden before she came to Terra, yet she was fluid and graceful on her horse. And she picked up languages easily and was endlessly resourceful. She would have made an excellent viator; Larry would have been helpless without her.
They had spent months making their way here from Urbis. Back in Roma, as the soldiers closed in on them after the chariot race, Gratius had put Affron and two of the others—Carmody and Valleia—onto a ship heading to Britannia. But Palta and Larry had not been with them. And before Affron set sail he had told Gratius: “Bring me Larry.”
Why? Affron didn’t bother to say. Nevertheless Gratius had striven to obey, finding Larry and Palta in the temple after the Gallians had conquered Urbis, and then convincing them to leave the burning city with him in search of Affron.
But Affron was not at the port in Britannia. Where, then? He and the others had sailed up the coast to Scotia, it seemed. So, the journey had continued. They had stayed at a little Scotian port village called Flendys. But they were there no longer.
Where had they gone?
Larry seemed to know. He said little. Occasionally he looked a little frightened—or perhaps just puzzled, as if he himself didn’t understand what was happening, how he knew what he knew. But he did not falter. They headed north along the King’s Road, as the townspeople suggested, even though it was the dead of winter and few other travelers were headed for the remote highlands of this wretched little kingdom. But as the days went by and they gleaned no information from travelers and inn-keepers, Gratius and Palta became increasingly worried. Was this all a waste of time? Larry didn’t seem to think so.
Now Gratius was tired and cold, and he had no answers to the questions that raced through his mind. “We must stop at the next inn,” he called out to Larry and Palta. “The sun is low in the sky, and it will be bitter cold tonight.”
Palta looked back at him and nodded. Larry said nothing. He seemed not to hear.
They rode an hour longer, and the sun had set before they finally encountered an inn. It was a dreary place, but this was not a surprise; Scotia was filled with dreary places. This one seemed sturdily built of thick logs, at least. Smoke rose from its chimney, and that meant warmth and cooked food, if nothing else. It was all one could expect of Scotia in winter.
They dismounted, gave their horses over to the sullen, dirty-faced stable boy, and went inside.
The inside was as dreary as the outside. They were the only guests, but the unshaven, barrel-chested proprietor seemed annoyed that they had arrived to spoil his solitude. They sat by the smoky fire and tried to eat the boiled meat he set in front of them. “Is this all you have?” Gratius demanded in Erse, the local language.
The proprietor shrugged. “It’s good enough for me,” he replied. “Should be good enough for you.”
“Have you seen two men and a woman pass by here?” Palta asked him. “They’d have a Latin accent, like us.”
The man shrugged. “I’ve not seen anyone like that. Not lately, anyway.”
“In the last few months?”
Another shrug. “We have many guests. I recall none like that.”
Gratius didn’t believe that the place had many guests, but Palta did not press the landlord further.
There was no wine, of course, only weak, tasteless beer. “We cannot go on like this,” he said suddenly.
The other two didn’t respond; they just looked at him and waited for him to continue.
“What makes you think we’re going to find them?” he went on. “We have asked about them all along the King’s Road, and no one has seen them. They could have turned off the road anywhere. For all we know, they could have gone to a port, hired a ship, and sailed back to Roma.”
“They haven’t,” Larry said.
“How do you know this?”
The boy shrugged. “I cannot explain it.”
Gratius turned to Palta. “What do you think?”
But he knew what Palta would think. She believed in Larry. There was a bond of sorts between them—not quite se
xual, he thought, but not the innocent friendship of childhood either. He had saved her life back in Roma, and they had traveled to Gallia together. And from there, of course, they had led the Gallians to Urbis. They had, in fact, helped the Gallians destroy everything that Gratius had lived for. And still he stayed with them.
“We must find Affron,” Palta replied simply.
“But what we are doing now is hopeless,” Gratius protested.
She looked at Larry. “It is not hopeless,” he said. “You can leave us if you want. We are grateful for your help. But Palta and I have been on our own before. We will continue the journey by ourselves.”
Yes, he should simply leave them.
But what then? He thought of the viator Lamathe. In the aftermath of the Gallians’ victory Lamathe had come up with a plan, of sorts. But it wasn’t a plan to defeat the Gallians; it was simply a way of keeping the viators’ dreams alive until Gallian rule collapsed.
Affron was the only one who could save them, who could renew Terra. But perhaps that was a dream too. Gratius had risked his career and probably his life to procure a gant to help Affron escape from jail in Urbis. He had protected Affron in Roma, found him a ship to sail to Britannia as Decius prepared to arrest him, obeyed his instructions as best he could to bring Larry to him….
And here he was, drinking weak beer by a smoky fire in a wretched corner of a wretched country. “Soon the King’s Road will end,” he pointed out. “And then what? Do we find a boat to take us to the Northern Islands? And what if Affron is not there?”
“He is not far away, I think,” Larry responded.
Gratius fumed. He did not understand Larry; he did not understand Affron. He did not understand anything.
He swallowed the beer and finished his wretched meal, and then he went upstairs to the room and bed the three of them would share. They had slept together often on their journey—on the bare ground as they rode north away from the burning wreckage of Urbis, on shipboard as they journeyed to Britannica, and then in inns like this or rooming houses in little villages. Some were better than others, but he’d had no desire to stay in any of them a second night.
The fire burned low in the small fireplace, and the room was cold. The guttering candle revealed a single large bed covered by a few woolen blankets, a white wash basin on a pine table, the usual chamber pot in the corner, and a marble statue of some local cult god on a shelf.
Gratius hung his cloak on a wooden hook by the door, used the chamber pot, put another log on the fire, and then slid beneath the covers. The mattress managed to be both thin and lumpy. The woolen blankets were warm, though. He fell asleep quickly, but awoke when the other two came into the room. They didn’t speak as they got into the bed next to him—Larry in the middle, and Palta on Larry’s other side. Gratius had awakened often to see Palta snuggled up to Larry, her arm around his waist. This usually caused a faint stirring of desire in him. But he wasn’t interested in Palta, who was barely a woman. He was interested in Valleia—raven-haired, quick-witted Valleia, his schoolmate, his fellow viator, his friend. She had rescued Affron with him and now she was probably with him somewhere in this godforsaken land. It was the hope of seeing her again, as much as finding Affron, that kept him going.
Valleia wasn’t interested in him, however. Instead she had been attracted to William Carmody, who like Larry and Palta had come to Terra from another world. The man was good-looking enough, but what did he have in common with Valleia? How could she think that he would be the right companion for her through life?
Gratius lay awake for a long time pondering such things before drifting off to sleep again. When he finally awoke, the sun was up, and Larry and Palta were gone.
He quickly got out of bed, put his cloak and shoes on, and went downstairs. The proprietor said nothing to him, merely gestured outside, towards the stable. Gratius went out. It was cold and bright, although flakes of snow blew through the air. In the stable, Larry and Palta had saddled their horses and were preparing to mount them. They paused when they saw him.
“You’re going on without me?” Gratius asked.
“You’re welcome to come,” Larry said. “But you seemed to think this was a bad idea.”
“Larry knows where they are,” Palta said, excitement in her voice. “There is a westerly road somewhere to the north, off the King’s Road. That will lead us to them.”
“I see.” He did not bother asking Larry how he knew.
“Will you come?” Palta asked Gratius. “We are so close. It would be a shame for you to turn back now.”
Palta had stabbed him in the hand once, back in Urbis—to capture his gant, so she could use it to destroy the fat fool Hypatius, a viator who had probably been doing awful things to her while her protector Affron was in prison. Well, he could not blame her, he supposed. It was good to see her happy.
Was his long journey really about to end? He found himself trusting Larry. Who else did he have to trust?
“I will come,” Gratius said.
And he hurried to join them.
Ten
Palta
Once more they set out—Palta riding in the middle between Larry and Gratius. The day was cold, but every day was cold now. Palta’s belly was full, and her horse, her beloved Renni, was content. And perhaps today was the day they would find Affron, and this long journey would at last come to an end.
And what would happen then?
She had been baffled and anxious for this whole journey. It was good that Larry was still here with her on Terra—that he hadn’t disappeared into Via to return home and left her friendless in this world. But Larry had changed.
He had tried to explain the change. It had begun back in the temple of Via. He had been confronted by an old woman with a gant as he and the Gallian soldiers had tried to take over the temple. And somehow he had used his mind to destroy her. It was a power that Affron possessed as well. Larry was terrified of it.
But why was this leading him to obsessively search for Affron in the far reaches of Terra? This he could not explain. At least, not very well. “There is a…kinship,” he said. “We are the same, somehow. He has sent for me. I have to go to him.”
She didn’t understand this any more than Larry seemed to. And she knew what she wanted to happen when they found Affron: nothing. She just wanted to live in peace with Affron and Larry. She didn’t care about the others. Gratius and Valleia and Carmody could go or stay; it didn’t matter to her. What happened on Terra didn’t matter to her; let Feslund and the rest of the Gallians rule the priests’ empire. She had struggled too much; she longed for the day when the struggle would be over.
But she did not believe that the day would come anytime soon.
The hours passed. The snow fell more heavily; Palta was not used to snow—it seemed unnatural, terrifying. Renni didn’t seem to mind it. They did not come across a westerly road. They stopped at mid-day to rest the horses and eat stale biscuits they had bought at the inn. Larry said nothing. Gratius was becoming agitated. Palta knew that it would not be long before he’d point out the folly of what they were doing. But eventually Larry mounted his horse again and set out, and Gratius followed in silence.
The snow grew worse; the road began to disappear beneath it. They kept going. What else could they do? The sky grew darker. A couple of hours later they came upon an inn. “We must stop here!” Gratius called out. “It is madness to continue.”
Larry paused. Gratius came up beside them. Larry looked at the inn, looked at the road, and slowly shook his head. “We are not far,” he said.
Palta’s heart sank.
“We will die if we spend the night in this storm!” Gratius said.
Larry looked at Palta. “We are not far,” he repeated.
The snow whipped into her face. She was shivering inside her cape. She recalled the sight of Larry, looking down at her as she lay on the floor of the warehouse in Roma, about to be sold into slavery. He had saved her, as Affron had saved her on Gaia.
She owed her life to both of them. Larry would not let her down.
Palta nodded. “Let’s go, then,” she said.
Larry nodded in return and looked over at Gratius. “Will you come?”
“It is madness,” he repeated.
“As you wish.”
Larry flicked his reins and his horse moved slowly forward. Palta followed. She looked behind to say good-bye to Gratius, but after a moment he too joined them. It was madness, but he was still part of it.
The darkness deepened. The snow did not let up. And finally Larry stopped again. Was he going to turn back?
“Here,” he said, pointing to his left.
Palta looked. She saw nothing—perhaps just a wider gap between the tall pines. “Are you sure?” she asked.
He merely shrugged.
They turned. The snow was deeper, along with the darkness. Palta spotted a deer staring out at them from a clearing. Did he too think they were mad? There were no houses, no farms, no signs that humans lived nearby. But they did seem to be on a kind of path that wound through the trees.
They followed it for half an hour or more. If they had to go back to the inn now, they would have to do it in utter darkness.
And then Larry stopped once again. He pointed to the left—to a faint light glimmering in the distance. “There,” he said.
They rode towards the light. The path widened and straightened. The light was in the window of a stone cottage. Palta thought she could see smoke rising from its chimney. Oh, yes! Larry had been right!
They stopped at the cottage and dismounted. Larry went up to the door and knocked, with Palta and Gratius behind him.
The door opened, and they saw Valleia. When Valleia recognized them, she put a hand to her mouth and began to weep. “Oh my friends!” she cried. “You have found us! Come inside!”
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