by Cass Morris
“We have to act. We are out of other options.” Sempronius’s hand clutched hard around the edge of his desk. “The only thing worse than breaking ourselves against the Lusetani would be having the Tartessi fall upon us while we break ourselves against the Lusetani.”
“We could try to get a bird into the city, to let them know what we intend,” Hanath suggested. “Perhaps, if we can distract the Lusetani enough, Tribune Vitellius and my husband could evacuate. Cross the river to the south, get somewhere safe.”
Sempronius nodded, considering. A town of a few thousand, likely weakened by hunger, desperate from long months of living under siege. ‘Not to mention the effect of the akdraugi . . .’ Demoralizing enough on first encounter, their effect accumulated over time, and the cohorts inside Toletum had been afflicted far longer than the legions north of the forest. “The idea is not without merit,” he said, “but I feel it’s too much of a risk. The Lusetani could fall upon them as they tried to cross, or they might run straight into the Tartessi on the other side.”
He straightened. Hanath’s posture was as firm and resolute as always, but the deep blue color beneath her eyes spoke of her weariness. They were all weary. ‘And waiting any longer won’t make us less so.’
“Send messengers to Calpurnius and Onidius. We attack on the morrow, in full force. Another messenger will follow an hour from now with the battle plan—or as much of one as we can create, taking the akdraugi into account. Any legion targeted by the fiends should focus on taking out the magic-men. If we can break their magic, we can break through their lines. That, I am sure of.”
* * *
City of Aven
If a party could be made out of something, Aula Vitellia would make a party of it. She needed to speak with Maia Domitia about the Discordian matter but had determined to do so only after having Maia—and a few others—over for a fine dinner. “We’re asking something unusual and potentially perilous of her,” Aula had justified. “The least we can do is feed the woman first. And anyway, I haven’t seen her since she returned from Baiae. It’d be terribly awkward to spring all of this on her without preamble.”
Latona arrived early to help Aula prepare, already dressed in her finery, a soft lavender gown over a crimson tunic, fastened with pearl-studded brooches. Her hair had been artfully arranged with pearls threaded around her crown, the strand that her father had given her for her birthday, with the matching earrings from Aula. A well-put-together outfit always helped Latona feel better prepared to face the world.
She needed that. As reports and rumors grew of strange occurrences all over the city, her nerves felt raw. Only twice had she been able to slip out of her husband’s house and meet up with Vibia at the Esquiline Collegium. All the other cries for help had gone unanswered. That she could not have answered them all even if she had unencumbered liberty was not much of a balm. ‘Vibia’s right, and you know it. You have to kill this hydra at the heart, not keep lopping off heads and hoping they stop re-growing.’ But her heart ached, and her magic grew hot and restless in her blood.
‘Well. At least I can use some of the energy this evening.’ A fete was always good fodder for practicing her empathic talents, both reading and projecting. Aula certainly never complained if she used her skill to make sure everyone had a pleasant time.
Aula, still occupied with preparatory details, had not yet achieved her own desired affect of elegant carelessness by the time Latona arrived and found her in the peristyle garden. Her hair hung low in a frizzy knot, and she was still wearing a loose tunic and gown that Latona was quite certain she would never allow anyone other than the household to see her in. “I think we need to try adding a few more lamps along that wall,” she said to the girls who were hanging decorations, fluttering a hand toward the eastern side. “The trellises have grown more ivy since last year, so the usual sconces aren’t giving us enough light.”
“Yes, Domina.”
“The tri-nozzled ones, I think, every few strides.” Her nose crinkled impishly as she cut her eyes over to Latona. “Wouldn’t want anyone taking to the dark corners for illicit assignations.”
Scowling faintly, Latona pinched the underside of her sister’s arm, but before either of them could say anything else, Lucia came barreling into the room. “Mama, Mama—Oh! Hello, Aunt Lala. Mama, Gera says I have to go to bed early tonight, which means I must eat early, which means I must have my bath now, and I don’t want to!”
Tucking her skirts under her knees, Aula bent down to be on eye level with her daughter. “Now, darling, we talked about this earlier, don’t you remember? You don’t have to go to sleep. I’ll tell Gera to leave a lamp lit, and you can play with your kitten and your new dolls or practice writing on your wax tablet. But we’re having quite a lot of people over.”
“For a party.” Lucia gave a sigh with the long-suffering air that only a six-year-old could manage. “A party you’re having without me.”
“I know, poor pet, it’s monstrously unfair,” Aula agreed. “But that’s why you must learn those letters and do as Gera says, and before you know it, you’ll be grown enough to come to all the parties.”
“Aunt Alhena used to have to do the same, you know,” Latona said, “when she was small but your mama and I were already grown.”
“Aunt Alhena doesn’t like parties,” Lucia said, in a more astute observation than Latona would have expected from so young a child. “I do!” She flung herself on the nearest couch, which was high enough that she had to take a little leap in order to make her dramatic pronouncement. “I like to lie on couches and eat food and tell stories, just like you, Mama!”
Latona couldn’t help laughing. “She has you exact, Aula.”
Aula narrowed her eyes up at Latona. “Careful, or you and I shall go pinch for pinch,” she said, then turned back to Lucia. “I’m afraid we’ll be up much, much too late for you, little love. But I tell you what: would you like to stay up long enough to say hello to Lady Maia when she arrives?”
Lucia swung her shoulders from side to side, considering. “Will Neria and Nerilla be there?”
“No, my darling, this is an adults’ party. But—” Aula continued, cutting off Lucia’s pout. “If you think you can do it nicely, like a little lady, you can ask her if they may come over tomorrow.”
Lucia bounced up from the couch excitedly. “Oh! Oh, yes, I can! Lady Maia’s always so nice to me, so I should be quite nice to her. Especially if it means Neria and Nerilla can come to play.”
“Very well. You may stay up until she arrives, if you go with Gera and have your bath now, and don’t give her another bit of trouble.”
“I will!” Then Lucia got a very Aula-ish spark in her eyes. She pressed her lips together thinly before asking, “But may I run ’round the garden three times first?”
Aula petted her hair, standing up. “Very well. Thrice ’round the garden, then straight to Gera!” As Lucia shot off, Aula shook her head. “Why she wants to run around the garden is anyone’s guess, but nothing wrong with a bit of exercise, and if it gets her to her bath faster . . .”
“Do you remember what it was like to have that much energy?” Latona watched as Lucia darted in and out of a line of potted plants, clearly taking a wide interpretation of “three times around the garden.”
Aula settled her hands on her hips. “I do. I wonder where it all went?”
“I think you’ve still got plenty. You just focus it differently now.”
“Ha! True. When you’re all limbs and instinct, it’s hard to know what else to do with it but run and run.”
“Such long legs she’s got,” Latona said, watching as Lucia rounded the end of the garden and started charging back toward them. “It’s a marvel how much she’s grown since spring.”
“Yes, well, she’s at that age—Lucia, be careful!”
But the girl turned too swiftly, knocking over a table and spil
ling its contents onto the rugs beneath them—including a pair of blazing oil lamps, which a servant had put down while arranging a hook to hang them on. Aula shouted for help, and Latona dove to her knees, stretching out a hand—
The bronze lamps hit the rugs and tumbled, spilling hot oil everywhere. But the flames never touched the fabric.
They had, instead, leapt to Latona’s outstretched fingers.
Latona, Aula, and Lucia all stared, transfixed by the gently waving flames dancing along Latona’s skin. She felt the heat of them, but no pain; they seemed to be having no effect on her flesh. Her magic had formed some sort of protective barrier.
“Latona?” Aula’s voice was high-pitched to the point of squeaking. “How are you—”
“I don’t know.”
“B-Because—”
“If I think about it too hard,” Latona said, shaping each word warily and eyeing her own hand as though it were a venomous snake, “I’m afraid it may stop.” She gave her hand an experimental roll, cupping her fingers. The flames tumbled down into her palm. “Can someone bring me a fresh lamp, please? I’m not sure how to extinguish this . . .”
One of the servants brought a lamp forward, but she hesitated a few steps away from Latona.
Latona flicked her eyes up. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’ve got control of it. It’s not going to leap up at you.”
Swallowing, the girl came close enough to set the lamp down in front of Latona, then skittered back. Latona watched the light flickering in her palm a moment longer, then put her hand alongside the lamp. ‘Back where you belong.’ With a thought, she nudged the flames along, reaching for the same magic she had learned to use to shape a blaze. She felt them start to leave before she saw them move, a strange, dragging sensation, followed by a snap of release as the fire threaded itself onto the wick of the lamp. It burned over-hot for a moment, but Latona coaxed it down.
With delicate precision, Latona set the lamp on the nearest table that Lucia hadn’t overturned. She glanced at the girl, standing stock-still a few paces away. “You’re all right, little bee?” Lucia nodded dumbly, her blue eyes stretched wide. “The oil didn’t splash you?” Her head wagged side to side. “Good.”
Latona sat back on her heels, carefully placing her hands in her lap. Then she met her sister’s eyes. There were tears in them, and Aula’s pretty rosebud lips hung agape.
“So,” Latona said. “That’s new.”
XXXI
The next day, Alhena sat at the loom in the garden. She wasn’t supposed to weave alone—and, technically, she wasn’t. Aula napped on a long couch, and Lucia was nearby, playing a game of tali with herself, tossing knucklebones in the air and trying to catch them on the back of her hand. Her efforts were somewhat impeded by her little brown kitten, who thought the knucklebones were provided entirely for his amusement. At the other end of the garden, an artist and his apprentice were painting a new fresco. Mus sat close at hand, working on some mending.
‘Plenty of witnesses,’ Alhena thought, ‘if something should happen. Plenty of people to pull me out of a pit.’
Repetitive movements could, for some Time mages, prompt prophecy. It was easy to fall into a trance state, when one’s hands formed the same motions so often that one’s mind could drift away, but Alhena wondered if there weren’t more to it. Perhaps performing the same movements over and over again was almost like halting time, or trapping it, and that created the magical power.
Alhena’s hands moved swiftly, drawing the heddle rod to her breast, pushing the weft bobbin through the rows of soft blue wool, then drawing the next rod forward and pushing the bobbin again. She was getting to be a better weaver than Latona, who tended to be more utilitarian about the task. Latona didn’t hate weaving the way Aula did, but for her, it was a means to an end—a way to bleed off her excess power, or the only way to create the necessary enchanted garment. For Alhena, the action itself was the purpose, and her fingers had grown deft with much practice.
Weaving, she thought, might be of some use, if she could convince her magic to take her into a vision. Her sisters needed information, and Alhena desperately wanted to give it to them. ‘And Latona might need it more than ever . . .’
Alhena had not seen her sister’s feat the night before. Aula had moved swiftly, swearing all the witnesses on the souls of their ancestors to utmost secrecy. Even little Lucia had been lectured until she was more afraid of her mother’s wrath than she had been to see her aunt holding a fistful of flames. Alhena had only gotten the full story after their dinner guests had departed. ‘This time, at least they told me as soon as they could.’ She could find some comfort in knowing they had not kept it a secret from her, even as they tried to do so from Aulus.
Alhena had to admit, too, that she was avoiding her responsibility to find them a new ally. Aula had laid the groundwork for sounding out well-connected Maia Domitia, she knew, and Latona was aiming for Davina of the bath-houses, who as a mage of Water might be able to see charms or curses at work—and who, as a plebeian whose work catered to high and low alike, would be well-placed to hear rumors from across the Seven Hills.
Alhena knew who she intended to ask for aid, and she would do so. She would. She just needed a little more time to work up the nerve. ‘Tilla wouldn’t need the time, if she was the one trying to ask you something,’ she thought, as she paused to beat up the weft, tightening the fabric’s weave. ‘Tilla’s not scared of anything.’
At some point, her father came into the garden, though Alhena only glanced at him through peripheral vision. The threads hummed beneath her fingers; magic was beginning to build. This was the progress she’d been working toward—to be able to call the visions to herself, rather than being at their mercy to show up whenever they wished, with no forewarning.
She did notice, though, that Aulus was still dressed in the toga of his censorial office, with two thick purple stripes as borders, so he must have spent the morning on official matters, and likely intended to return to them later in the day, if he had not troubled to change into something less cumbersome. Lucia immediately set upon her grandfather, begging him into playing a few rounds of tali with her, while Aula stirred enough to ask how his day had been.
“Full of tangles, I’m afraid,” Aulus replied, but his voice held satisfaction, not frustration. “Oh, it’s easier than it would have been two generations ago—yes, darling, very good!—but the tax rolls are still a mess. So many men undervalue their estates in order to shirk their responsibilities.”
Aula had questions for him about the particulars, which Alhena only half-heard. Something about a trio of tax-dodging equestrian brothers. Far more Aula’s domain than Alhena’s, gossip and politics. ‘It’s good to see Father so well-contented, though.’ The office of censor sat well on him, and he looked the part: a solid and hale man, sharp-eyed and direct, authoritative yet fair, with just enough gray streaking his sandy hair to lend him the weight of dignitas.
“But the ones I’m most concerned about,” he said, “are those who are actually entitled to more than they’re taking. Some of the poorest farmers haven’t the faintest idea what their rights are. I met a man today, wealthy enough for the Third Class, mind you, who didn’t know where or when he should turn up to vote.” The rattle of knucklebones, followed by Lucia’s giggles. Aulus had evidently thrown quite poorly. “The Senate and Assemblies really must come up with a better system for communicating with . . .”
As her sister and father chatted, Alhena’s mind wandered until she hardly heard them any longer, nor the clatter of the knucklebones or Lucia heckling her grandfather’s lack of dexterity. The noises faded to the back of her awareness, as though she had a blanket over her head. Alhena moved to beat up the weft again, but her hands drew back covered in blood. ‘Oh dear.’
Strangely, no fear welled in her chest, no alarm whatsoever, and no pain. The blood simply was. Alhena looked pas
t her hands, and saw that the loom had disappeared, and along with it, the frescoed garden wall. She sat not on a carved bench, but on ocher earth.
A city rose up in the distance beyond her. Much smaller than Aven. A single hill, if that, not seven, with low walls that looked a patchwork of brick, timber, and earth. As Alhena watched, with ongoing peculiar calm, a tide rose out of the dirt and lapped at those walls. Not water, she realized, but thick red blood.
She came back to her true surroundings with a short cry. ‘I lost it!’ she thought. ‘But you had it,’ came a second thought, swift on the heels of the first. ‘You opened the door and ushered the vision in, rather than forcing it to break the barrier down.’
Alhena became dimly aware that Aula and Aulus were both at her side, Aula having seized her hands and squeezed them. “What’s wrong, my honey?” Aula asked, voice tight with concern. “Did you—”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten anyone.” A flash of bright blonde hair caught her eye, and she saw Lucia, standing a little further away, hugging her kitten to her chest. “I’m all right. I am. But something’s happening. Or already happened. Or is about to . . .” She shook her head. “Hard to say.”
Tentatively, Aulus reached out to stroke her shoulder. “Do you need anything?” he asked, so much more at a loss than when discussing the vagaries of citizenship rolls. “Water, or—”
“No, thank you, Father.” Alhena offered him a weak smile. “I’m just . . . not sure what to make of it. I-I saw a tide of blood, lapping all around the walls of . . . well, I think it must have been Toletum.” Aula’s fingers pressed hers even harder. “But I don’t feel nearly so frightened as that image would suggest.” She looked up to her father. The last traces of the magic were fading, the threads pulling away from her. “If anything, I feel . . . heartened. By blood.” Her nose crinkled. “Odd.”