by Cass Morris
This handsome young man, so strong, so promising, had once been hers to love. Every day, he felt farther away and less retrievable.
Sakarbik stood at her elbow, glaring daggers at Bailar. She had tried to persuade Neitin not to watch, but Neitin had insisted. “If he will consign his soul over to Bailar’s demons, then he will do so in the face of my displeasure. I will not allow him to pretend I approve.”
And so, since Neitin had insisted, so had Sakarbik. “If I’m to keep protecting you and the babe, I’ll not let you stand alone in front of that man while he’s working magic.”
Every stab of the porcupine needle pierced Neitin’s own heart.
* * *
“Rest,” Bailar said, laying a hand on his nephew’s head. “I must prepare more of the ink. One more bowl should be enough to finish the design.”
For once, Ekialde was disinclined to argue. His back and shoulders were sore with a thousand pinpricks, and he could feel the magic suffusing through him. ‘Like a river,’ he thought. ‘But rivers belong to Nabia, and this is Bandue’s work. Bandue’s rivers, here in my blood.’
He shivered. Was the fever coming upon him so soon?
Someone drew a blanket over him, soft summerweight wool, loosely woven. His wife’s hands, he realized through the swiftly descending haze, and he reached up for one of them. “My love, my precious rabbit,” he said, bringing her fingers to his for a kiss.
She knelt by his cot. So beautiful, his wife. Those warm brown eyes and gently curling hair, all the softness of her body. He had loved her the instant he saw her, when he first visited her father’s village on a trade mission from his own father. He was a second son, not yet erregerra, but already a warrior who had proved himself. He had returned, again and again, presenting her with hides and meat and bands of gold, until her father was suitably impressed to allow them to marry.
‘I wanted to make her smile. Not cry.’
He squeezed her fingers, little though he could manage the strength for even that much. Then he reached out and tapped the clay pendant that hung about her neck, a protective charm, made from his own blood. No enemy’s blood there, only his own, his strength, to guard her and his son, when he could not be at their sides.
“You need water,” she said. Her voice was yet thick with tears. “Can you prop yourself up enough for it?”
Moving his arms at all was agony, but, after a struggle, Ekialde managed to get his forearms underneath him, pushing himself up so that Neitin could hold a cup of water to his lips. He drank greedily. Perhaps it would help with the fever, with the pain.
Her fingers moved through his hair, stroking softly, and she hummed a little tune. Ekialde thought of a day, not long after they were married, a spring day when the last snows still lent a chilling crispness to the breeze that came down off the mountain. They had lain beside the riverbank, his head in her lap, as she hummed and sang.
Then the tent flap opened. Bailar had returned, and Neitin’s fingers tightened briefly in Ekialde’s hair. She let him go, helped him ease himself flat on the cot again, and then took up her position of vigil a few steps away, where she had waited all these long hours.
‘For you, my love. And for our boy. I seek this glory for you.’
* * *
Ekialde stayed in the magic-man’s tent that night, ostensibly so that Bailar could guide any visions he might have—and so that one of the other magic-men, who had more talent in healing than in summoning and enchantments, would be close at hand. Neitin returned to her tent, which she now shared only with Sakarbik and Matigentis. Her sisters were in their own, close by, but Neitin had long since discovered there was no use talking to them about her misgivings. Two of them were madly in love with young men from Ekialde’s war-band, and the third wanted to join it herself. They were utterly enthralled with their erregerra and everything he did. They had never for a moment questioned the wisdom of the war, nor of any course he trod to win it.
Sakarbik crooned a low lullaby to Matigentis while Neitin paced the room, brooding. “Is he beyond saving?” she wondered aloud.
Sakarbik proved her wisdom by not answering directly. “All men make choices, little wife, and most regret some of them. He makes his choices, and you make yours.”
Neitin snorted. “I? What choices do I get to make? If I had my choice, we’d be back in our own village.”
Sakarbik shot her a speaking glance, then turned her attention back to Mati. “There are still many choices for you, and what to do with this young lad is not least among them.”
With a sigh, Neitin came to Sakarbik’s side. “There is that.” She stroked Mati’s dark hair, soft as a duckling’s feathers. “Bailar won’t have you, my darling. He’ll never touch you.”
The tent flap rustled, and Neitin whipped around, terrified that her words might have accidentally summoned the wretched man into her presence. It was not Bailar, however, but her uncle Otiger who entered, looking somber. “Uncle,” she said, striving to keep acid from her voice, “whatever are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the others, praying that fiends and spirits consent to inhabit my husband?”
“I was with the star-readers,” Otiger replied. A reminder that he always declined to participate in Bailar’s rites. At least he would not participate directly. He cleaved to the older forms of magic, which might sometimes use the blood of animals, but never that of humans. Here, Bailar frowned on that as insufficiently committed, and so it was safer for him to keep his magic to that of the stars and trees.
Too, Bailar was quick to challenge anyone he saw as a threat. The previous year, when a few of the warriors had preferred Otiger’s way to his own, Bailar had not been tardy in making his displeasure known. Otiger, ever a peacemaker, had chosen not to press him.
“And do the stars smile on this deed?” Neitin asked.
“Bailar chose his moment well,” was all the explanation Otiger saw fit to give.
At that, Sakarbik made a derisive noise deep in her throat while she settled Mati down into his basket. She hardly ever spoke directly to any of the men of the Lusetani. Neitin didn’t blame her. They had, after all, subjugated her village and her people. But she seemed particularly contemptuous of the magic-men, though she would never go into a great deal of detail as to why. Neitin got the sense she felt they had everything about magic dead backward.
“I have been asked,” Otiger said, “to relay concern.” He spoke with a deliberate slowness, the sort of tone used with invalids. The condescension of it made Neitin want to scream. “There is a worry that your reactions to Bailar’s methods might be undermining the general effort.”
“I should be astonished to learn that anyone in this camp paid the slightest attention to my opinion of Bailar and his methods.” Neitin tossed her head. “I may be Ekialde’s queen, but I’m little better than a broodmare where most of them are concerned. The warriors have no use for me, and the magic-men think me a nuisance. That, I believe, is the extent of the thought anyone here pays me.”
Otiger’s face was tight beneath his beard. Pained, almost, though Neitin couldn’t imagine why. Then he eased himself down on a cot—a family privilege, even when one’s niece was a queen. “Come sit, child.”
Being called a child set the hairs on the back of Neitin’s neck up, but she obliged.
“You remind me so much of your mother.”
Whatever Neitin had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. The frank change of focus punctured her indignation. “I miss her,” she said. She hadn’t seen her mother in a few years, not since leaving her home village to marry Ekialde. “But I don’t see how I’m like her. Everyone respects her.” Neitin’s mother had always had a quiet dignity, fueled by a serenity that Neitin herself had never been able to master. When things were wrong, she could never just accept them. ‘I am not like the river, for all I try, for all I honor divine Nabia. I cannot flow around an obstacle. I
seem unable to do anything else but smack straight into it.’
“Your mother’s respect was well-earned,” Otiger said. “You may not remember, as you were quite small at the time, but she did a great deal to soothe ruffled feathers between the villages in our homeland. She always had the right words, suited to appeal to the personality of each different chieftain or war-band leader. She kept skirmishes and raids from breaking into all-out warfare more than once.”
Exasperated, Neitin slapped her hands into her lap. “There, you see? I certainly have never demonstrated that kind of skill.”
Otiger reached over and took her hand in his. His fingers were rough-worn, a workman’s hands. His magic was a craft as well as his calling. “You do not have the same gifts as your mother, perhaps,” he said, “but you have the same stalwart spirit. You know the shape you want the world to have. And you have been sorely tested, I can see that. The gods have set you a far different challenge than your mother’s. A harder one.” He gave her a wry smile. “Knocking the heads of chieftains together is one thing. Wrangling magic-men is another, even at the best of times.”
“And these are far from the best of times.”
“They are unusual times, to be certain.”
Another snort from Sakarbik, who was now sitting cross-legged on the rug beside Mati’s basket, rocking him gently. She stared unabashedly at Otiger and Neitin, though Otiger paid her no mind.
“Whatever I may think of Bailar’s methods,” he went on, “they are . . . extraordinary. He has accomplished things that no magic-man in living memory has done.”
“He has accomplished perfidies and abominations that no magic-man in living memory would dare,” Neitin corrected. Otiger’s head wagged in allowance. Too allowing, too complaisant. She had not begged him to join her so that he could be a peacemaker, but so that she would have an ally against Bailar. He had not turned out to be the pillar of strength she had hoped for.
“He has a great many people in awe,” Otiger said. “Not all of those like him. Some are terribly afraid of him. And I think it gives them heart, to know that you are not.”
Afraid of Bailar she was not. Afraid of his influence on Ekialde, certainly. “You think it gives them heart?” she echoed. “Why does no one say? Why does no one else stand up to him?”
“He is kin to your husband,” Otiger reminded her, “and he has a great deal of power—”
“He would have less if everyone did not pay him such deference.” Neitin pushed back to her feet, unable to remain still and sedate any longer. Across the room, Sakarbik was smirking. “He is kin to the erregerra, but you are kin to the erregerra’s wife. You could have power here, too, if you chose to grasp it. You say there are others who feel as I do? Tell them to refuse to obey his orders. By what right does he command you? He is no closer to the gods than you. He is not king of priests.”
“You must admit, niece,” Otiger said, “he is capable of greater magic than we, which may indicate that the gods—”
“Greater!” Had Neitin been outside, she would’ve spit on the dirt. “Is it greatness, to pervert what the gods give us into these horrors?” Infuriatingly, Otiger’s shoulders moved in a slow shrug. Neitin’s lip curled. “I was so glad when you joined us, uncle. I thought here, perhaps, would be someone to counter Bailar’s perversion. What a disappointment you are.” Part of her shrank back from these harsh words, but the blood thrumming in her veins, pulsing at her throat and wrists, reminded her that she was a daughter of a chieftain and the wife of the erregerra. Command was as much her right as Bailar’s, surely. “You may as well return to my mother’s side, for as much good as you’re doing here. At least there, Bailar will not be able to use your blood to raise his wraiths, should an Aventan sword or Arevaci arrow strike you down.”
She could hardly bear the sorrow on Otiger’s face, so she turned her back on him, under the guise of bending to check on Mati. The insouciant glee sparking in Sakarbik’s eyes pleased her no better.
The cot groaned as Otiger rose from it. He shuffled across the room, placing a hand on top of Neitin’s head. “Whatever you may believe, darling niece, I have your best interests in mind. If you truly wish to send me away, then I will go, but I would sooner stay and watch over you.”
Neitin bit back the sharpness that prompted her to point out what little good it had done her so far. She stroked her child’s soft cheek, seeking comfort in his innocence. “Do as you please,” she said thickly.
Once Otiger had left the tent, Sakarbik cleared her throat. She never needed prompting to do or say as she pleased. “I don’t think your uncle is a bad man, little mother,” she said, “and he says nice words. But it’s actions that make us who we are. If a man wants to be good, he must act for good.”
XVI
Stabiae
Rural though the people of the villages and farmlands surrounding Stabiae might have been, they still knew how to pass along gossip. As spring turned to summer, word got out that the Lady Latona, daughter to Censor Aulus Vitellius, and her friend from the city had banished an umbra—and then, it seemed, other villages became willing to admit their own problems. First slowly, then in a seeming flood, messages found their way to the Vitellian villa, asking if the ladies in residence would condescend to visit and sort out their preternatural problems.
In one location after another, they found more of the same: curses bound to the location, tearing open the world just enough to let lemures in. Sachets and curse tablets, befouled groves and mutilated carcasses. Some bore marks of decay, indicating they had been placed longer ago; others were relatively new. Even Vibia could not put names to all of the varieties of lemures that the unknown Discordians were raising. Some manifested as whistling mists or pervasive shadows. Others were umbrae, which Latona dreaded, never eager to face those specters with the shapes of the restless dead. The shape the umbrae chose to haunt her—but she slammed down on that thought every time it came to her, unwilling to give either face or name free access to her mind.
Troublingly, the newer ones were getting harder to dispel.
On the Ides of Quintilis, the ladies set out toward a latifundium where farmers had been reporting strange occurrences. Crops were doing something beyond spoiling: stalks of wheat turning black and flaky, olive trees gnarling and collapsing in on themselves, vines crisping away to nothing. So far, it was only in spots, dotted across the fields—but the farmers were, naturally, wracked with concern. This time of year, many crops were browning in the heat and dry weather, but nothing so natural had blighted these fields. Patches of charcoal-like stalks marred the neatly planted rows.
“It’s as though a fire moved through,” Latona said, examining one of the stalks. “Except it clearly didn’t.” Some sheaves were utterly untouched, while others looked like the crops of Pluto’s realm.
Vibia knelt to the dirt, scraping at it with her fingers. She flicked her eyes up to Latona, then to the latifundium’s overseer, hovering anxiously nearby. Latona took her meaning.
“I think we have the measure of the situation,” she said, turning to the plebeian, “and we may best be able to speak to the gods and seek intercession in private.”
“Of course, Domina.” The overseer looked all too eager to put distance between himself and the cursed vegetation—or perhaps he just didn’t like the way Merula was glaring at him.
Only once he was safely out of earshot did Vibia say, “Thank you. I thought it might concern him unnecessarily to know that his crops have been sown with grave dirt.”
“Grave dirt?” Latona knelt beside her, placing her palm flat on the earth. She could feel the poison in the soil, but unlike Vibia, had no way to determine the components.
“Mm-hmm.” Vibia was frowning, glaring at the dirt as though that might force it to reveal its secrets. “Mixed with some other unpleasant elements. Ground bones, certainly.” Latona resisted the instinct to snatch her hand back; aft
er all she and Vibia had seen, ground bones were no longer out of the realm of the ordinary. “Some other herbs and things, but . . .” She glanced around. “I wonder if it’s the same in all the afflicted patches?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The two mages began picking their way through the field, finding the spots of withered wheat, with Merula prowling warily around them, alert for any mundane threat. Even in the country, the heat by mid-Quintilis was nigh-insufferable, the air sitting heavily on the rolling Truscan hills. Latona dressed in a short tunic with a thin gown overtop, but she had not yet been able to convince Vibia to discard modesty and prestige in favor of comfort. As soon as they were out of sight of the latifundium’s overseer and any other gawkers, Latona tucked the overgown up into her belt, exposing her calves to the wide world.
Vibia, still properly covered shoulder to heel in a tunic and gown of lightweight cloth, tsked audibly. “Honestly, you’re getting as bad as Terentilla.” Latona only grinned in response to that. “At least your hair is still up, I suppose.”
“Too hot to have it down,” Latona said. “I don’t know how Tilla stands having it on her neck in this weather.”
After about hundred paces, they found the next afflicted patch of grain. Vibia bent again, examining the soil. “Same mixture.” Another hundred paces away, however, the stalks looked different. Not flaky and crisped black, but oozing a pitch-like substance. Merula made to prod at one with the tip of her knife, but Latona caught her wrist. A fourth patch had instead gone white, brittle as ice, shattering at a mere touch.
“They’re experimenting,” Latona thought aloud as they moved on in search of the next patch. “Searching for the perfect poison . . .”
“To what purpose?” Vibia asked. “Are the crops their real goal, or are they only testing their methods here?”
Either seemed plausible. If they had a curse that could level entire fields, they could leverage that to wield significant economic and political power. Destroying latifundia would harm not only the smaller cities of southern Truscum, but Aven itself, the heart that required so much of the surrounding country’s lifeblood to keep beating. And that, Latona knew, could have a devastating effect on Aven’s stability.