“How convenient for them.”
“Please do not speak so. The Fates brought me to this place, Marcus. Whatever you think of vengeance, in my homeland we are bound to it still. And I do not know if you know it, but this man Odberht, before the gods, is the true slayer of my father Baldemar. I am his closest living kin still fit for battle—the five sons of his sister Sisinand were slain in the war. There is no one left to avenge my father, except me. If I fail, then I leave the task to my daughter, Avenahar. And if she despises weapons when she is grown, then she must raise a son to do it. I will not put that upon her. I will not have her whole life corrupted by seeking vengeance, as mine is.”
“Ah, the perfect snare. You are enmired forever in your people’s beliefs. Nemesis!” He strode off and stopped, silent for a time, unable to believe he could not find a breach in her resolve. Then he swung about; his tone harsher now. “What of your people? Are you not abandoning them?”
Again he saw a shift of uncertainty in her eyes.
“They love you and are sustained by you,” he pressed on. “The greatest good you can do for them is to preserve your own life.”
“But…to save my life that way is to lose it. That is a niding’s path. And…and there is this, too, Marcus,” she said, keen to find a reason that would claim his sympathies. “Odberht is amassing wealth. It is rumored that he sends money to the Cheruscan king. When he quits this place, he expects to establish himself in their lands and rule over those people. The money he sends, I’ve heard from fresh captives, is being used to pay Cheruscan raiders to attack my tribe. My people are being harried again, now that they are sick and bowed down.”
“There is a law against sending gold and silver across the frontier, and it is strictly enforced.”
“And yet we are certain this is being done—those who know have sworn by their own mothers, before the gods.”
He paused, realizing what Auriane said might well be true in this case. Aristos’ gifts to the Cheruscans, particularly if they were used to attack her tribe, would be so much in the interest of the Roman government that there was a fair chance Domitian’s parsimonious officials might look the other way. They would view it as rather like having someone else pay their bribes for them.
“Auriane, I cannot accept this. Can you understand? It is like standing idly by while my mother, my child, is sent off to slaughter. It is monstrous. And how did you imagine you’d carry out the deed? Have you some plan to fall on him at dinner with a stolen dagger, then be slain at once by the guards?”
“That would not fulfill the requirements of the rite,” she replied with weary determination. “First, a declaration must be made, and he must acknowledge it. The battle must take place beneath the sun, preferably on an island in a stream, but any circular enclosure focuses the power of the gods. It must be carried out with honorable weapons of war. I am a prisoner and he is well guarded. So I see but one way to do it according to sacred law—in the arena.”
“Good, that’s the end of the matter, then. You’ve no notion of what you’re saying. You—and Aristos—matched together? Has the world been turned upon its head? No sane trainer, no giver of shows would allow it. Erato will forbid it. And even if Erato did allow it, Aristos’ faction would rise up in outrage—he would lose status. So you’ve no choice but to give in to reason.”
To his alarm, she hardly seemed to hear this.
“Your power is greater than any man’s…. You could arrange it.”
“Madness!” he exclaimed softly. “Do you truly believe I would arrange your murder?”
“You are certain, then, I will die. You must not believe I am innocent.”
“Innocent? What has that to do with it? Of course I believe you are innocent. If innocence is all that is needed to preserve life, why do newborn children commonly die? Do you not see, all about you, blameless people meeting hideous ends? By all the gods, I can listen to no more of this,” he exclaimed with anguished finality. “This is a man, Auriane, who is twice your weight, who could cleave you down the middle with one blow. A man who has been over thirty times a victor. Not even the gods would assist such a foolhardy endeavor. And for this pathetic madness you toss aside my plans. And do you really think Domitian has had done with you? If you stay here, he’ll kill you in some barbarous way, eventually. I’ve seen him behave this way before. He pretends to be indifferent to your fate, but he plays a part. I offer you freedom. You fling it off and choose slavery and degradation!”
He turned sharply from her, eyes brilliant with wrath; the heavy cloak flared, then settled about him again. “You will not move, I will not move. There is nothing to be gained by speaking of this more.” For long moments he remained in furious silence.
Auriane was very still, numbed with despair.
He despises me. I have lost him.
She felt she fell from a horse and knew the fright of the ground rushing up. She realized, amazed, that facing Aristos in the arena caused her less anxiety than being the object of this man’s wrath. But she was long used to forcing herself on despite panic and desolation.
“You will not help me,” she said, her voice frail. “Then I must find some other way.” She edged toward his back. Hesitantly, she took his shoulders in her hands. His body was wooden and without feeling. She said, her voice tentative, like a creature testing the strength of the ice before attempting to cross a frozen stream, “Do not turn from me, Marcus. Please. I cannot do other than what I do.”
He turned to face her, and she felt a sickness of heart as she looked upon him. Those eyes, earlier so direct and clear, were muddied with defeat. He seemed a powerful creature tensed to spring, but there was no place for him to go. She felt she committed some unforgivable act—trapping a magnificent animal in a snare or giving it poison—and she looked down, unable to bear the sight of its futile struggles.
“I count you already among the dead,” he said with weary pity. “Farewell to you.”
“Farewell,” she whispered, swallowing hard to contain a rising tide of feeling. She interpreted his words literally. “You are leaving me?” she asked then, watching him intently; in her face was a mix of vulnerability and courage as she waited for the death blow.
Julianus knew then just how futile all argument was. She perceived this not as a battle of beliefs, for she did not separate herself from her beliefs. She saw it as a repudiation of all she was.
“Of course I am not leaving you,” he responded with tender urgency, drawing her tightly to him with impassioned desolation. “I forbid you to think it.” He felt the small shudder of relief run through her body and was sorry for his anger.
“Fortune owes you better,” he said after a time. “What destiny would you choose for yourself, were you able?”
“What an odd notion, to think anyone can choose. Now that I am old—”
“Come—you cannot be much past twenty and five.”
“I am old, to me. I would want…safety enough to watch and consider things—study, as your people would say—to have time to ferret out why things are as they are.”
“Witness the antic humor of the Fates,” he said, smiling sadly at her. “They take a philosopher’s soul, better suited, the world would say, to a young aristocrat preening about the porticoes of a school in Alexandria, and give it to a barbarian woman imprisoned in a gladiatorial training school.” He savored the sight of her for long moments, suffused with pride. “My curious, eager lamb with claws of steel. Was there ever such a creature?” Then he fell into more somber thoughts.
“You’re being devoured by people who want parts of you—and none has the wit to see the whole. To your tribesmen, you’re a goddess without a human heart, and they expect you to live and die for them. To Erato, you are a performer—an astonishingly good one, but still, a performer. To Domitian, you’re a reminder of his deficiencies and, I suppose, the promise of their cure. To the rest, you are a fleeting amusement. When they’ve all had done with you, what will be left?”
&n
bsp; She realized, sadly, she might have added: And to Decius, I was but a clever, promising child that had better not shame him—or grow to womanhood and no longer need his teaching. Auriane understood in that moment one reason why she felt such solemn unity with this man—he alone strove to see all of her. She had not realized what pleasure and contentment lay in being seen whole.
They held each other in silence for long moments, not wanting to speak of matters that would separate them, miserably aware of how little time they had left.
“Marcus,” she said after a time. “Everyone in this place writes, not just the keepers of words of power….”
He listened with a puzzled smile.
“Write my name.”
“Your name? By sound, I suppose it can be done.” He took a volume of legal formulae from his cloak and looked about for a writing utensil, settling on a bit of charcoal. “Keep in mind it’s foreign, so no two people would write it the same way.”
Slowly he formed the letters. “That is my name?” she said eagerly. “It takes so many runes to write it?”
“Letters,” he corrected.
“Now write yours.” When he had done so, she said, “You have used some of the same letters. Our names are intermingled.”
“To be truthful…it happens commonly. We’ve not that many letters to start with.”
But he could see she was not ready to believe him. She looked for long at the carefully written names, as if they were the most potent of magical charms. “Might I keep it for an amulet?”
“No, I am sorry, the risk is too great. We must burn it, lest anyone find it and see our names linked.” He tore off the portion on which he had written; as he touched the bit of papyrus to the flame, they heard Harpocras’ key furtively entering the lock.
“That was not an hour, curses on him!” Auriane whispered.
“It could mean someone comes.” He grasped her shoulders firmly and said in a voice tender on the surface but with a core of iron, “Auriane, I cannot force you to come, and I am not certain I’d want to. But I warn you—I’m not the sort to sit by and watch unnecessary tragedies unfold before my eyes. It will take much more than your belief in your supreme god, vengeance, to keep me from striving to halt this. It’s my intention to see you get what you said you want—a safe place, in which you can examine the world in peace.”
“Marcus, you must not suffer over this. Our seeresses say, all life is one weaving, and the web is beautiful.”
“You mean that!” he said with grief. “You poor orphaned creature. You would see beauty in maggots on meat.”
The door made its cat-cry. The incoming draft animated the lamp flames; light and shadow lurched about in a macabre dance. Harpocras spat a curse when he found them in close embrace.
CHAPTER XLIV
ON THE FOLLOWING DAY JULIANUS WAS tormented by a solution that was brutal and obvious—why not put Aristos out of the way by murder, thus neatly eliminating Auriane’s reason for refusing to flee? The life of a man many times a murderer himself, even before fate brought him here, seemed more than a fair trade for Auriane’s.
But by day’s end he had ceased to let grief blur his reason. It was not so simple to murder a man who was an integral part of the vast machinery used to pacify the mob. A dangerous disequilibrium would result. Who could calculate whom Aristos’ supporters would blame for the murder, and what damage they would wreak? In Domitian’s mind an attack on Aristos would be counted a strike against himself, and his vengeance on parties both guilty and innocent would be swift and cruel. And Aristos was excellently guarded, for the Palace found him useful—not only did he help distract the people from Domitian’s increasing ruthlessness; he saved the government great sums of money as well, for when the crowd was given Aristos they needed little else. Marcus Julianus had once heard old Musonius Geta, Domitian’s miserly Minister of Finance, assert that Aristos was the equal of a year’s supply of zebras, ten rare Volga tigers and a hundred Mesopotamian lions. Tasters sampled Aristos’ every meal, and a contingent of the school’s guards accompanied him whenever he demanded trips to his favorite brothel. His ruffians stayed as close about him as hornets round their nest.
By nightfall Julianus had set himself a different course. After all it seemed impossible Auriane would ever succeed in arranging the bout with Aristos, and so he turned his efforts to ensuring her survival until the assassination freed her from her sentence. On that fortunate day he would buy her from the school—Erato dared not refuse him this—and grant Auriane her freedom. For the present he would conspire with Erato to see her undermatched and exceedingly well prepared. The following morn, he summoned from the gladiatorial schools of Capua a certain Trebonius, a trainer famed for his skill in teaching swordfighters techniques for overcoming disadvantages of height and weight, and paid a great sum to have him brought to the Ludus Magnus.
Erato did wonder at Julianus’ interest in the woman. But a sense of dutifulness prevented him from voicing his curiosity to Julianus or anyone else; he owed his unprecedented good fortune to the man, and it would not have occurred to Erato to betray him. It was not wise to question the eccentricities of the powerful; all his life he had heard the adage, guard well their secrets and they will guard you.
In the matter of the assassination plot all progressed well, if with disheartening slowness. Julianus was encouraged by the fact that he had enlisted an influential Guards’ centurion, who induced five of his subordinates to follow. Caenis’ letters were powerfully persuasive, and the more so in his hands. When he took his first sampling of the opinion of the Senate concerning the choice of successor, second after his own name—which they continued to put forth in spite of his firm refusals—came the name of Licinius Gallus. He thought he had much cause to rejoice, until the night he summoned Gallus to tell him of this. And he then knew all that was bestial in Domitian was rising again, growing in strength, straining at fast-fraying bonds.
Gallus refused to come to him in person. His steward came in his place, bearing a frightfully familiar tale. Gallus was being followed in the streets. The documents and letters in his records room had been rifled through; much was missing. Men who appeared to be soldiers in civilian dress skulked about whenever he made a public sacrifice, doubtless seeking to learn if his offerings were dedicated to some disgraced person or treasonable cause. His servants were steadily disappearing—a reliable sign that they had informed on their master. And Veiento had haughtily refused to return Gallus’ greetings when they encountered one another at the Emperor’s morning audiences, a sure sign Licinius Gallus was a current victim. The tale was so similar to that of Junius Tertullus, the third man on the infamous list, that Julianus felt he had been shown Gallus’ death warrant.
He began a grim battle to keep Gallus alive. The sense of futile struggle called up the desolate days when he fought to protect his father against Nero, and he found himself committing the same sort of desperate acts. He believed he survived these lapses into audacity only because he drew on the last measure of that great store of good will he had won for himself on the night he saved the Emperor’s life. In the Senate he gave a speech in praise of Gallus’ life and deeds, for which his colleagues thought him a reckless fool since it was counted fatal to praise a man Domitian had abandoned. He published and distributed anonymously a small volume of essays that included a work attributed to Gallus; in it Gallus praised Domitian’s recent social reforms. And he even laid his suspicions openly before Domitian, implying the harassment of Gallus was the act of some enemy who wished to make Domitian look the tyrant. Domitian seemed to listen, delivering one of his cleverest performances of the part of the faintly wounded, well-meaning ruler befuddled because he does not know how to manage his pesky subjects.
“Never forget,” Julianus warned once, “the Senate will outlive you. It would be tragic if you played into the hands of your critics and gave their historians reason to vilify your name.”
As he spoke, Domitian examined him with those cold, stale
eyes that were not so much organs of perception as voyeurs of the soul, restless to uncover the secret shame of others. Julianus was not encouraged.
On a chill, clear evening in the month of Aprilis the novices learned their fate. All were assembled in the yard. A somber scent drifted indolently over the high wall in the wake of a passing funeral train—an essence thick and sweet as nectar, with an underlayer of rotted musk. It was the melancholy time when mourning shadows gathered at the base of the walls, and Auriane felt the old forlornness rising in her and knew it could only be healed by hugging close to Ramis’ hearth with Avenahar at her breast.
Avenahar, why do I see you in the mind’s eye as the babe you are no longer? You’re a child now, not a babe, with your own fate. You are old enough to know your mother left you, but not old enough to understand why.
Acco, the trainer who had replaced Corax, approached with a rolled document in hand; a torch-bearing assistant followed close behind. Auriane tensed as if at a warning rustle in high grass.
Acco was as unlike Corax as a graying dray-horse is unlike a disgruntled boar. He was a placid beast who never fretted over the size of his pasture; no one ever saw him in a state of agitation or anger. As he read the document, he masticated his words slowly, showing all the enthusiasm of a grazing animal. “Let it be known that on this day, the third before the Nones, you have been consigned”—Sunia gripped Auriane’s hand so tightly she feared the bones would crack—“to appear in the three days of games commemorating the victory of the Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus over the rebellious Chattians, to commence during the festivities of Ceres…, it being thought fitting by Annaeus Verus, Imperial Procurator of the Games, that on these days honoring our Divinity’s glorious victory the greater part of the Chattian prisoners should be exhibited before the grateful people of Rome.”
Auriane saw several of the novices seemed unconcerned. The Sarmatian tribeswoman yawned, and the Numidian called Massa bent over to rub his leg, seeming more bothered by a blister caused by the greaves than the news that he was soon to fight to the death. But for most, Acco’s words simply meant their date of execution had been announced. It was the end of the frantic hope that somehow this day would not come. For her own part she restlessly cast her gaze down to conceal her eagerness. She felt her fate had caught her and hurled her forward with exhilarating force—odd and unaccountable fate that it was, to be charged by the gods to fulfill a sacred oath of vengeance in a Roman sand-pit with half the world looking on.
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