The Emperor's Games

by The Emperor's Games (retail) (epub)

  “They are still afraid,” she said. “A leper wouldn’t make them more nervous. You had better go, child. Your father-in-law won’t like this at all.”

  Ygerna wriggled up in the cushions until she could sit up straight. “No one ever won a war with Rome. Or with my father-in-law, either, I expect. But I don’t tell him things I think he wouldn’t like.”

  Berenice laughed. “I forget. You aren’t a Roman, either.”

  “It can be very lonely here,” Ygerna said, “not being a Roman. Things… go away from you. The Goddess, the Great Mother… I used to be her priestess. I was Goddess-on-Earth, and when she spoke, she spoke through me. She left me when I left Britain. My husband says the Jews only have one god and won’t worship the others.” That seemed odd to her. I am very insular, she thought. I don’t know anything. “Does he go away from you, too, if you leave his place?”

  “Our God never goes away,” Berenice said. “But it grows harder sometimes to find him, especially if you doubt how well you’ve served him. Our priests would tell you that I’ve served him ill indeed, but I don’t know… I tried… There was no winning that war for my people. Titus knew it. We tried so hard to make them see, my brother and I. But they didn’t understand. They thought that God would strike the Romans down with a blast of fire and an angel with a sword, and save the city. My people have never understood the Romans. And no matter how much I explained them to Titus, he couldn’t understand the Jews. So much tragedy from that.”

  And now she lives here by herself and can’t go home again because the priests don’t like her, Ygerna thought. I have been lucky. Helva didn’t like her, but Helva wasn’t the Senate. Correus could marry whom he wanted. Felix was fidgeting with the tassels on the cushions, and Ygerna poked her head through the curtains to Cottia, standing outside. “Go and get us something to eat, and take Felix with you and feed him. I am always hungry,” she explained to Berenice as she handed Felix down from the litter, “and I thought it would be as well if Cottia went away for a minute. Are you being polite?” she asked seriously. “Will it make trouble for you if I stay?” Berenice smiled. “My dear child, no. I could have very little more trouble than I have already. But I didn’t want you to stick your head in something you didn’t understand.”

  Ygerna nodded. “I only thought that maybe you were lonely, too.”

  Berenice smiled. “Less lonely now than I was. I have lived with men too much, I think. A woman needs another woman for a friend.”

  Ygerna smiled back. “There are too many women in my father-in-law’s house, but no friends.”

  “Will they let you come to see me?” Berenice said. “If you don’t tell them you’re coming?” That didn’t make much sense, and she giggled. It was a low, amused noise, and it sounded like she hadn’t done it in a long time.

  So sad to be trapped here, after the man she had come to Rome for had left her, Ygerna thought. “Do you live in Veii?”

  “No, I have a house in the country where I won’t be… such an embarrassment,” Berenice said. “Send your maid to let me know when you’re coming. It will be nice to have company again.” She put a hand on Ygerna’s and smiled.

  Her age showed in her hands, Ygerna thought, but when she smiled, her face was still beautiful enough to take your breath away. How could a man give up beauty like that? And then the thought came to her, very quietly: He couldn’t. And that was too dangerous a notion even to think about, so she put it quickly into the back of her mind.

  Cottia came back with a straw plate of figs and olives, and they ate them, and then Ygerna collected Felix from behind the litter, where he was putting olive pits in the gilded fretwork that decorated the frame. They had better find Julius, she thought, before he settled in at a wineshop… if he hadn’t already. Julius was drinking too much lately, sitting in the stables with Forst and a wine jug, Cottia said. Although maybe that was mostly Forst. Correus had told her about the German chieftain and Forst, and Ygerna thought it was little wonder Forst was drinking. So many people who couldn’t go home again, she thought, all caught in Rome now, trying to grow into Romans and not mind.

  Julius saw them coming and was waiting at the carriage. Ygerna settled Felix inside with her – it was beginning to grow cool – and he snuggled into the cushions beside her, with his head on her knee.

  “That was a very beautiful lady,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Did she make you feel better?”

  “Yes,” Ygerna said, “a lot better.”

  “That’s good.” Felix wriggled deeper into the cushions, his eyes half closed. “I’m glad you aren’t sick, Mama,” he said sleepily.

  VI The Man in the Office

  When winter came to the Rhenus delta, it came with a hand as cold as Hel’s. They were only on the edge of it, but already the sour, salty grass was frost-tinged, and in Theophanes’s camp, they had to knock the ice off the water barrels with a knife hilt in the morning. They began to keep most of the food taken in their raiding, building up a store against the bad weather when the autumn storms would finally grow too strong and the shipping would cease altogether until spring.

  This must be the worse time of the year, Correus thought, when there was no raiding to be done, and bad weather would block the roads inland, even if a man was willing to show his face in the towns. There was always the chance of meeting a man whose ship had been raided, who would scream for the soldiers if he saw a face he remembered. Theophanes’s crew would spend the winter in camp and grow bored and quarrelsome with it, like any winter-bound village. He hoped they grew bored enough to talk.

  Ranvig, at any rate, was willing to talk. He rarely stopped, chatting cheerfully about hunting and women and his father’s vineyards near Augusta Treverorum.

  “We had a good year this season – dry summer, you know – good for the wine. So I suppose he’ll be willing to pay Theophanes to get me back.”

  There was something slightly forced about Ranvig’s inconsequential chatter. It occurred to Correus that it reminded him of his own.

  “How did you happen to land in Theophanes’s net?”

  “I was supposed to be hiring on with a winegrower in Gaul. For the experience, you know. Parents always think you’ll learn more if you make a long, uncomfortable journey and live in a hut for a year. He’ll have hired someone else by now, I expect,” he added philosophically.

  “Bit old, aren’t you, for taking up an apprenticeship?” Correus said.

  “That was my thought,” Ranvig said. “But my father built his vineyards up from not much. He hadn’t enough to worry about until now.” He looked at Correus and said frankly, “You don’t look like the type to choose the provinces for a pleasure trip.”

  “I’m not,” Correus said gloomily. “I have an old aunt who inherited property out here, and the family decided that I was the one to come and deal with it for her. They seemed to feel I had time on my hands.”

  Ranvig’s crooked face looked amused as he passed Correus the wine jug. He had been lying down, and there was straw in his hair. They were drinking out of the jug. “It’ll be a long winter with nothing to do but drink and prowl around after the slave women,” Ranvig said. “I’m afraid Gaul will look good by spring.”

  “Will it take your father that long to pay?” Augusta Treverorum was in Upper Germany, a fair-sized city on the Mosella River. Theophanes’s ultimatum should have been there and back by now.

  “Oh, I expect so,” Ranvig said. “He’ll have to sell up a few things, you see, and that’s not so easy in winter.” He didn’t sound worried, though. He took the wine jug back and raised his arm to take a swallow. There were old scars on it, just visible where his tunic sleeve fell back.

  Correus thoughtfully pulled his own sleeves down. He had packed his togas back in the trunk once he had made a sufficient nuisance of himself over them, and had asked Theophanes for the shirt and breeches and fur leggings that the pirates wore. It was cold.

  Ranvig h
anded back the wine jug and crossed his arms behind his head, lying back in the straw. However much Ranvig drank, Correus thought, he never seemed drunk.

  The door latch at the far end of the longhouse rattled, and four or five of Theophanes’s crew stamped in, shaking away the mist and drizzle like wet dogs. One of them kicked at the fire to stir it up. Another rummaged in the sleeping cubicles at the far end and came up finally with a length of rope.

  “Hah! I knew I had it. Come on, I want to get that last lot tied on and gone before Theophanes starts yelling. Ranvig, is that beer?”

  Ranvig shook his head. “Wine. Out of deference to the gentleman here.” He nodded his head at Correus. “But it’ll warm you just the same.”

  “I want beer,” the man said. “Wine is for Romans and women. No offense meant,” he added with a grin at Correus.

  What he meant was that wine gave him a hangover. They thought it unmanly to water it the way the Romans did, and consequently it made them very drunk indeed.

  “Where in Hel’s name are the thralls? BEER!” he shouted at the top of his voice. After a minute a sleepy slave came from a cubicle and trudged out through the door. She came back with a pitcher, and the man picked it up and drank from it.

  “We’ll be back. Bring some more. And get this fire going.”

  He kicked it, and a shower of sparks spat at him. The thrall girl gave him a sour look and went to get more wood.

  “You stay here,” the man said to Ranvig and Correus, and they all went out again, taking the rope with them.

  “There must be a packtrain tonight,” Correus said when the men had left. “Where do they come from, do you know? They just pop up out of the fog, as far as I can tell. Sometimes the only way I know they’re here is one of Theophanes’s men comes along and shoves me in the first handy room and says to stay put.”

  “I expect maybe some of the pony drivers are a bit more respectable by day than by night,” Ranvig said. “They wouldn’t want you to put the finger on them in the market square one day.”

  “Do they think I’m a damned owl?” Correus said grumpily. “I wouldn’t know my own mother in the dark in this fog. And I don’t care who distributes their damned loot for them. What I want is to go home and have a hot bath, preferably some time in the next six months.” He leaned back in the straw and frowned at the opposite wall.

  The thrall girl, prodded along by the returning pirates, came back with more wood.

  “Cheer up, friend,” one of them said. “There’s a ship on its way with a nice lot of slaves on board, and we’re gonna make a bid on ’em, like!” The others laughed, and Correus thought they were all a little drunk. “Ought to be some women among ’em – we’ll lend you one! A gentleman needs something better than this!” He smacked the thrall girl on the bottom. “Where’s that beer, girl?”

  They sat down around the fire and poured their beer horns full from the pitcher. Someone brought out the harp. Ranvig inspected the wine jug and eloquently held it upside down, and one of them passed him a beer horn. The beer horn was a point of pride. A man had to finish it or sit holding it – it couldn’t be set down. Ranvig, who didn’t seem to be feeling any ill effects from switching drinks, drained his. His long-fingered hands reminded Correus of Flavius’s. Flavius would have his letter now, the fact that Correus needed more time carefully encoded into his plea for ransom. Flavius would tell their father to promise to pay it, and stall. Then they would wait for Correus’s next letter, and Correus could hope Theophanes didn’t get impatient in the meantime.

  Correus was almost sure now that someone was feeding Theophanes shipping schedules – they seemed to know not only when a ship was due, but what she carried. But no amount of careful questioning or outright eavesdropping had given Correus a clue as to who was at the other end of those messages or even how they were sent. And there was the matter of the pony drivers no one would let him see. There had to be a reason for that. Otherwise, Theophanes let him run free in the camp. Correus looked at Ranvig thoughtfully. Was it Ranvig who was less respectable by night? Smuggling was always a problem – very few traders saw any reason to give Caesar his due unless forced to. If Ranvig had been smuggling, it would be easy enough for him to have fallen afoul of Theophanes’s raiding parties – the pirates were no great respecters of other outlaws’ liberty. And if Theophanes was also using a smugglers’ band to transport loot, he would be careful to keep Ranvig out of their sight, and anyone from mentioning his presence, until his ransom had been paid to some unidentifiable third party. Theophanes was perfectly capable of dealing with the smugglers with one hand and kidnaping their associates with the other. And it would explain why Ranvig was lying to him – he wouldn’t admit his smuggling to a Roman. Correus was almost sure Ranvig was lying. He wondered if Ranvig knew he was lying. And if so, would Ranvig feel inclined to point that fact out to Theophanes? Correus ran a hand through his hair, which was beginning to get too long. Ranvig gave him a headache.

  The door opened again, and Eumenes came through it on the toe of Cerdic’s boot.

  “Stay where you’re told next time!”

  “It was colder than a witch’s backside in there!” Eumenes sat down by the fire, looking aggrieved. Cerdic stood over him with his hands on his hips. “Why are you so touchy?” Eumenes growled.

  “You know the rules,” Cerdic said. “One more time, and I’ll have you tied up.”

  Eumenes got up and gave him a black look. He went and sat by Correus. Ranvig appeared to have gone to sleep.

  “What did you do?”

  “Got too close to their precious ponies,” Eumenes said in a low voice. “They hauled me into the first place handy when the pony drivers showed. It was a storeroom and the roof leaked, and after I’d sat in there for a while I thought it was as good a reason as any to go someplace else. They were loading the ponies in front of that house by the fence, and I went in the back door and through to the front and stood close enough to hear things. That was when Cerdic came through. I thought he was going to kill me.” Eumenes looked a little unsettled.

  “Next time do what you’re told,” Correus said in a loud, disgusted voice. “If Father pays your ransom and you aren’t available because you’ve made that hothead Cerdic mad, I doubt Theophanes will send your price back again.”

  “Huh.” Eumenes shot Cerdic a black look. “Ever hear of a tribe called the Chatti?” he asked under his breath.

  Correus looked at Ranvig and lowered his own voice to a whisper. “They’re the pony drivers?”

  Eumenes nodded.

  “Go get me some beer.” Correus leaned back against a post. Around the fire, the group had grown to a dozen and started to sing. Theophanes slept in the largest longhouse, where most of these men belonged. If they wanted to drink the night before a raid, they knew better than to do it in his presence. Eumenes handed Correus a horn with the strong, heavy beer brewed in the village, and he sat drinking it and considering.

  The Chatti held land across the Rhenus in Barbarian Germany, in the Taunus Forest district, and of late the frontier scouts maintained that the Chatti were getting entirely too powerful. Correus put a lot of faith in the frontier scouts. They looked like brigands, lived off the land, and found out things that the army needed to know. Occasionally they got caught, and then the army either never heard from them again or they found them in pieces in a tree. When the frontier scouts handed in a warning, a commander with brains paid attention. If the Chatti were acting as middlemen, it explained why a lot of the loot was disappearing out of the Roman zone into the wilds. It also meant that the Chatti were taking a cut, and it might mean that the cut was going into a war chest. When a tribe like the Chatti grew rich, the Rhenus commanders started posting extra pickets. And with the pirates keeping the Rhenus

  Fleet occupied… Correus thought he had part of his answer for the emperor. But it wasn’t the Chatti who were sending Theophanes Roman shipping schedules.

  The singing waked Ranvig, and he sat up and pulled
the straw out of his hair. He seemed disinclined to join in, and Correus, eyeing him in the firelight, thought suddenly that Ranvig might be older than he looked. There was something in his face that Correus, try as he would, couldn’t equate with a man who had spent his life growing vines in Augusta Treverorum. Tonight, Correus thought, he looked a little lonely.

  Ranvig caught him staring, and gave him his odd, crooked smile. He didn’t seem offended. “If you are bored now, it will get worse over the winter.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Correus said gloomily. “I had some books in my trunk, but I’ve read them all four times.”

  “What do you do in Rome, for amusement?”

  “Read, hunt, drive – my father raises chariot ponies.” He felt inclined to be truthful, insofar as he could. It was simpler. Or maybe it was just that he liked Ranvig and was tired of telling lies. “Go to the theater.” He cast about him for some other harmless amusement. “Here, I will teach you a game. It’s called Wisdom. I learned it from a slave of my father’s, a Briton.” Admitting to a British wife didn’t accord with his carefully built character. He rummaged around in the straw for pebbles and bits of mud, and laid out a board with straws to mark the squares. Ranvig leaned over and looked interested.

  He proved to be a quick pupil. They played several games, and Ranvig won the last one. He picked up the stones and laid them out again while Correus watched him, out of the corner of his eye now, still trying in some fashion to take his measure. Chatti boys wore an iron collar, like a torque, until they had killed their man in battle. Some continued to wear it afterward, a sort of reverse badge of their ferocity, to show that there were more enemies left to kill. Generally it left a gall mark. Correus looked at Ranvig’s throat, where it was bare above his tunic neck, but he couldn’t see any marks. Maybe it had faded since boyhood. Or maybe he wasn’t Chatti. But more and more Correus was sure that Ranvig wasn’t a winegrower’s son from Augusta Treverorum, either.