B007IIXYQY EBOK

by Gillespie, Donna

  “Well, he’s a prince to us. He’s—”

  They heard fast, clipped steps on stone.

  “Fabatus,” Justus muttered.

  Auriane hid the dice cup in the straw. Both guards sprang back to their stations along the wall. But their Centurion was in an affable mood; he strode up to them and put a hand on each of their shoulders.

  “Aristos won!” Fabatus said loudly, and slightly drunkenly, Auriane thought. She felt a line had been pulled taut; she stood very still, struggling to catch every word, full of a shadowed sense that it was important she understand this.

  “He saved us and half the city, praise be to Bellona and Mars!” Justus responded.

  “He’s to be formally given his freedom tonight,” Fabatus went on, grinning proudly as if he spoke of some great achievement of his own son.

  “He’s signing on again, I hope,” the gnomish one asked, true alarm in his voice.

  “Of course. Kings don’t step down.” Their Centurion added in a covered voice, “Torquatus opens the School to the public tonight. There’s to be a banquet celebrating Aristos’ freedom—five hundred sesterces apiece gives you both leave to go.”

  After this, they said no more. And so she learned little more from this baffling exchange than what she already knew—that bribery was rampant at all levels of their army.

  The next day these two Praetorians were replaced with others, and when their festival time had come to a close, the Guards played dice with her no more.

  Auriane recorded the number of days by scratching marks on the wall with a copper coin the Guards forgot. It was on the eleventh day that Sunia threw herself on the straw, convulsed with hard sobs. Auriane went to her and knelt down, taking her shoulders in her hands.

  “Sunia, Sunia,” she said softly as if to a lost child. “I feel as you do—”

  “You! You seem quite at home in this place—playing dice with them! I have not your nature—I can only live in one place. Let me die.” Sunia began clawing at the straw, groping for the surgeon’s tool, which Auriane had hidden because they were regularly searched.

  “Stop this! Sunia, you must have patience. Fate always turns. When they play dice, they talk, and when they talk, we are given weapons and tools so we can live in this place. Sunia, I need you with me. I’m reaching my mortal limits…”

  “That is kept well concealed!”

  “Then you’ve no eyes to see. I awaken each morning and I feel my whole soul battered and broken and left for dead by the roadside. I am nothing but a wretched body with severed limbs—one limb is Decius, one is Avenahar, one is my mother, one is our land…. I bleed to death slowly, with no draughts for the monstrous pain. I am close to madness, Sunia. I need your strength as much as you need mine.”

  Sunia sat up slowly, looking faintly bewildered. The notion that anyone, much less Auriane, might need her was a novel one, and it temporarily distracted her from her misery. Auriane lifted the last of the watered wine the Guards had stolen for her to Sunia’s lips.

  As she watched Sunia drink, Auriane thought grimly—I truly am starving for lack of hope. If I am not soon given more reason to live, my life is done.

  At dawn on the seventeenth day, Auriane started as if a spirit-hand shook her to wakefulness. She sat up, feeling expectant. The sun streamed in as always through the high, narrow window, but this morning it seemed to be the steady golden finger of a divinity, indicating her time. She looked over at Sunia, a comfortable dark mound sunk into the straw in animal contentment.

  She does not feel it. Whatever has come, has come for me.

  A lukewarm porridge of barley was brought. Then at the morning’s first guard change, the cell door was loudly thrown open.

  Two ladies’ maids entered. They were startlingly brilliant in multicolored garb, and, Auriane thought, haughty enough to serve an empress. One was an Arabian girl in a tunic of saffron, with mysterious smudges of darkness beneath great shining eyes. The other was an Ethiopian maid swathed in crimson, with brilliant beads of glass woven into her hair. Both wore great hoops of gold in their ears and smelled of cinnamon and hyacinths. They were followed by four slaves bearing an ornate bronze jewel case, a chest of cedar, a bucket of water and several rolls of linen. The captives watched all this in silence, puzzled and alarmed.

  The Arabian girl addressed Auriane in her high, strident Latin—Auriane found it easy to follow; slowly, she was becoming adept at the tongue. “We are ordered to prepare and dress you. If you make it difficult for us, then we’ll call the Guards to dress you.”

  “Dress me?” Auriane said in a low voice. “For what purpose?”

  The two maids looked at one another, as if uncertain whether they should reply. Then the Ethiopian girl said with an impish smile, “For the pleasure of a god.”

  Auriane felt a low shock pass through her, followed by dark excitement. They were giving her to someone of importance, and if the Fates were with her, perhaps it was the Emperor himself. She had not expected to be so soon granted a chance to exact vengeance.

  While Sunia looked on like a cornered beast, the Ethiopian girl threw open the cedar chest and swiftly began taking out a collection of terra-cotta pots; the multiple gold rings about her upper arms made a rhythmic jingling sound as she worked. With nimble fingers the Arabian girl removed Auriane’s prison rags and started scrubbing her with pumice. Then, with quick, deft hands, she massaged her all over with hyacinth oil. The maids chattered happily as they worked, but they mixed their oddly accented Latin with an unknown tongue and Auriane understood little of it.

  “Don’t look so, they’re not torturing me,” Auriane said once to Sunia as the maids fastened what they called a breastband about her chest and pulled a tunica of thin, fine white wool over her head. Then the Arabian girl, while humming an eerie, amelodic tune, began lightly dusting Auriane’s face with powdered white lead.

  Next she brought out a jar of purpurissum, with which she rouged Auriane’s cheeks. Then she darkened Auriane’s brows with antimony and smoothly shaded kohl beneath her eyes to make them appear round and brilliant, her fingers moving with the quick, polished delicacy of an artist. Finally she blotted Auriane’s lips with wine lees, rendering them startling and dark.

  The wondering silence of the women captives was broken by Sunia’s high nervous laughter.

  “Don’t laugh at me, Sunia, please,” Auriane whispered tensely, beginning to feel uneasy about it all.

  They are mocking me. They are making me grotesque. What sort of cruel game is this?

  “Forgive me, it is just that it is…different,” Sunia said. “No, Auriane…it’s beautiful…in a slightly overmuch sort of way.”

  Next the Ethiopian maid gathered up Auriane’s hair and bound it loosely back, securing it with two tortoiseshell combs. Then she divided the free-hanging hair into three plaits. Working together, the two maids wove seed pearls into the plaits, then loosely entwined the tresses and twisted them into a serpent-coil atop her head. This was secured with silver netting.

  At the last they sprinkled the whole creation with gold dust.

  Sunia drew in a breath, envious now rather than amused. She edged closer, extending a hand to touch Auriane’s hair but one of the maids slapped it down. The Ethiopian maid then drew from the cedar chest a garment of shimmering white cloth so fine it seemed to be made of some fiber woven with mist. Auriane shivered as it slid like cool water over her skin.

  The Arabian maid said irritably, “Don’t tear this, or you will be punished. It’s worth more than you are—it’s silk, and it’s sold for its weight in gold.”

  Sunia had always thought Auriane pleasing to look on, but this…it was still recognizably Auriane, but she glowed softly like the moon. This clever exaggeration of her beauty made it seem some sylph possessed her, gently altering her soul.

  While the maids were carefully positioning a chaplet of golden vine leaves on Auriane’s head, Sunia moved stealthily up to the cosmetic case and purloined several small squat jars
, stashing them in the folds of her rough wool dress. Later she would practice this magic on herself.

  The maids then put gem-encrusted sandals on Auriane’s feet, remarking unkindly on how large they were. Then they stood back to admire her.

  “She is perfect,” said the Ethiopian girl. “A barbarian Aphrodite!”

  “No, a wood nymph, that’s what she’s supposed to be. Wait—the woodland scent.” The Arabian maid reached into the cedar chest and brought out a slender-necked bottle of blue-tinted glass. She moistened a finger and daubed the oil-based pine scent onto Auriane’s throat and temples.

  Auriane thought miserably—how will I win vengeance in these flimsy shoes, these filmy clothes?

  “Come, Niobe!” the Arabian girl exclaimed, handing Auriane a bronze mirror. The two maids looked at each other and giggled. “Behold yourself!”

  Auriane started at the sight of herself, then felt relief. No, they had not made her ugly. It was just, as Sunia had said, different. And a little overmuch. She might have been wearing a translucent mask: She could still see herself beneath, peering out behind a bold, frozen, high-born Roman matron’s face.

  This, then, is what is pleasing to their men. What an odd people. What is wrong with a woman’s face as it is?

  When they prepared to take her out, Auriane signaled to Sunia with a furtive glance. Sunia understood. What she must do, she must do now, before everyone’s eyes. Slowly Sunia edged toward the back of the cell. One hand fumbled in the straw, seeking and finding the surgeon’s tool.

  Auriane heard then the angry mutterings of the men in the cell beyond. They could see little, but by now word of this sinister ritual had spread to every cell.

  “Swine! She is our holy woman, not a present for one of your soft, lazy noblemen!” Auriane heard one voice above the others and recognized it as Coniaric’s. She feared they might throw crockery and garbage at the Guards. Swiftly she moved to the bars and spoke rapidly in their own tongue, knowing the women in the next cell would relay her words to them.

  “All of you! Do not fight for me. You will only bring grave trouble on yourselves, and you have already endured the sufferings of world’s end. If I don’t return, then rejoice—for it means I have claimed holy vengeance.”

  The women in the next cell watched her sadly. Two softly cried.

  Then four Praetorians came to take her off. The one who opened the cell door proved to be the same black-haired Guard with whom she once played dice. He grinned broadly as though this were all a lascivious joke. But he betrayed no sign that he had ever seen her before.

  Sunia knew she could delay no longer. She rushed at Auriane, crying piteously—“No! Do not take her!”

  Auriane whirled round to meet her. For a brief moment, her back was to the Guards. As they clung to one another, Sunia brought the surgeon’s tool up, slipped it beneath Auriane’s tunica, and secured it in the breastband.

  “Well done, extremely well done,” Auriane whispered in the Chattian tongue.

  “If they search you again—”

  “They will not.”

  “Get that she-ass off her before she smears her paint,” shouted a Guard.

  The maids seized Auriane and jerked her away. Swiftly the Guards manacled her wrists.

  She is a strange and heartbreaking sight, Sunia thought. A chained nymph, a fettered goddess.

  They led Auriane out into the waiting afternoon.

  When Auriane saw the bewilderingly ornate carriage into which they put her, the plumed Praetorians who served as outriders, the monumental city with its endless ribbon of wall, and the brilliantly garbed footmen shouting at the wheeled traffic, ordering it to make way for them, she felt she floated into a lovely, lurid nightmare.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  DOMITIAN’S HUNTING GARDEN, THE JEWEL OF his sumptuous villa tucked into the side of the Alban Mount, was stocked this day with ostriches. The Emperor stood on the hunting platform that overlooked the rambling gardens. A gently fluttering canopy of checkered aquamarine-and-rose sailcloth protected him from the dying sun. Beside him brooded his ascetically thin Councillor, Veiento, concealing boredom and distaste with a cold, courteous smile, and Veiento’s partner in informing, Senator Montanus, who was often cruelly reminded by Domitian of how happily apt his name was, for he was a small mountain of a man who got his bulk about with difficulty. Montanus was propped precariously between two Egyptian slave boys, who served him as crutches.

  Veiento sensed Domitian was strangely unnerved on this evening. In the midst of the seventh course of a dinner honoring the return of the Governor of Hispania, the Emperor had risen restlessly, ordering them to follow. Veiento saw that the guard about the hunting garden had been doubled. By Minerva, he wondered, what was afoot? And what was the meaning of the satyrion dissolved in white wine the Emperor had called for an hour ago between courses? Did he need an aphrodisiac to help him kill an ostrich?

  Montanus noticed none of this—he was in mourning for the seventh course, his favorite quince pastries. Petty overindulged tyrant, Montanus thought. The ostriches will be here tomorrow. The quince pastries won’t.

  Leonidas, Master of the Gardens, appeared promptly with quiver and bow. Domitian took them in a manner that was studied and grave, as if even this small act would be recorded and cherished by the historians.

  Domitian drew the bow, impatiently scanning the shifting green shadows and rambling undergrowth of the vast garden. It had been planted with an eye to imitating the random work of nature. The confusion of acanthus, myrtle and Mediterranean fan palms, the masses of oleander, stately plane trees and dwarf pines were roped with serpentine paths. The whole abounded in wild and secret places. Playful statuary loomed throughout—here, dancing Satyrs playing panpipes with wineskins slung over their shoulders rose unexpectedly among fragile blooms of autumn crocus, artemisia, and lilies of the Nile; there, a bronze dryad fled through yellow cyclamen, while an antic Pan strove to mount a she-goat cavorting among the flowering dianthus. A brook had been diverted through the garden; it looped around, pooling in granite basins, trickling beneath stone bridges, rippling down artificial waterfalls. Rosemary, basil, lavender, and other herbs selected for their scent were planted throughout; the garden’s perfumed breath enveloped them with each gust of wind.

  Quite suddenly an ostrich emerged from behind a rose bush. The creature gave them a befuddled look, then abruptly turned, as if realizing it had made a grave mistake. As the ungainly bird attempted to speed away with long, floating strides, its questing head thrust forward, Domitian aimed and shot. The small head snapped back; huge feathers scudded upward. The creature’s neck was broken.

  Montanus and Veiento clapped noisily. “Well done!” Veiento exclaimed, the studied modulation of his voice the only sign that such blandishments did not come easily to him. Veiento was not in the habit of using flattery for survival. “And at such a great distance.”

  “Incredible!” Montanus sputtered. “You should hold a competition open to the whole of the city and enter it in disguise so your majesty would not frighten them off. You would win!” Montanus did employ flattery as a first line of defense, but his taste for it was crude and exaggerated as his taste in food. Domitian gave Montanus a pitying look and ignored Veiento completely.

  “Leonidas,” Domitian called out sourly. “How many of these bungling birds are left?”

  “Six, my lord. You killed twenty today, I believe.”

  “Well then, where are they? I despise it when creatures get clever. Go and flush them out!”

  “At once, my lord.”

  “Veiento, amuse me now with what those quibbling old women prattled on about today.”

  Veiento concealed the flash of hatred that filled his eyes. As he drew from his tunic a copy of that day’s proceedings of the Senate, he thought—grandson of a mule-driver, do you think we do not know your need to make the Senate look like a pack of fools is envy and jealousy?

  “They opened with another prayer of thanksgiving f
or your glorious victory,” Veiento reported with his usual dry efficiency. “The very first order of business was to vote you the title Germanicus. The whole world now hails you as the conqueror of Germania. The vote was unanimous—and sincere.”

  “This is where Marcus Arrius Julianus is worth ten palaces and you are worth dung,” Domitian said lightly. “He would have told me every man as he voted had one eye on his neighbor to see how he voted. But then, that’s not why I keep you. By the way, where is that man tonight?” A genuinely wounded look came into Domitian’s eyes. “This is the third banquet of state he’s missed in as many nights.”

  “He chose at the last moment not to come,” Veiento said with silky malice. “He disliked what you were serving tonight.”

  “It’s irritating when someone with no sense of humor tries anyway.” Domitian seized Veiento with dark brooding eyes.

  “He will be here,” Veiento amended hurriedly, regretting that even for one rare moment he allowed his hatred for Julianus to show. “He sent word. He was detained at the investigation of evidence in that business of the counterfeit Parian marble. It seems he’s the only man in Rome who can tell what quarry it comes from.”

  “Much better. Show the man a thimbleful of respect. You’ve a talent for courteously slitting throats, my dear Veiento, but admit it, he has all nine Muses on a leash. What is that man not expert in?” Domitian smiled blandly at Veiento. He took great pleasure in keeping the two Councillors at each other’s throats. It was a delicate business. Causing Veiento to despise Julianus was almost too easy. But the reverse required more expertise; Julianus was not naturally inclined to think ill of his fellows.

  “And what else?”

  “They proposed and passed every measure you wanted.”

  “How surprising. I do like a well-trained Senate.”

  “There was one unpardonable moment of insanity. Young Lucilius must have been off his head—it’s stupidity, not ingratitude, I think—but he proposed that the rebel leaders be pardoned and pensioned off, including even the Amazon. ‘Are we to show less clemency in this enlightened age,’ or some such thing, he finished off.”