From Unseen Fire

by Cass Morris

  Three bowls they prepared, three bowls of polished bone filled with crimson drippings, and when they bandaged his hands and arms, Ekialde endeavored not to show the dizziness roiling in his head. One bowl they placed over a fire, to heat and bubble; another they poured at the base of a sapling; and the third, Ekialde’s uncle swirled in the bowl, staring at the oscillating liquid for long, long moments. The other magic-men gathered around him, chanting and singing, drawing down the power of Endovelicos, the supreme god in his guise as an oracle, to know a man’s fate and see the future. Then he dipped his fingers, raised them to his mouth, and tasted Ekialde’s life-force.

  Ekialde stood stoic as he watched all of this, ignoring the throbbing ache in his arms. The first magic-man rose from his place near the fire, taking the bowl in his hands with no sign that he felt a burn from the heat. “You have strong blood, Ekialde, and a man with strong blood may do many things.”

  Then it was his uncle’s turn, who stood, still contemplating the taste of his blood. He rose, sinking two fingers in the bowl. With great solemnity, he passed his hand over Ekialde’s head, then smeared his nephew’s forehead with his own blood, drawing a faint reddish-brown streak across Ekialde’s sun-darkened skin. “The gods have picked you out, Ekialde, my sister’s son, to lead our people at this time,” he declared. Ekialde felt his shoulder muscles tense up, heard his wife gasp, heard murmurs from his tribesmen, but he made no response as yet. His uncle continued. “Your strength will unite many tribes, as we were when we first crossed the mountains, so many hundred generations ago. You will call them. They will answer. So the gods speak: Endovelicos tells us this is so. Nabia implores you to protect her people. Bandue, lord of battles, claims you for his own. Erregerra, he calls you. It is written in your blood.”

  The word meant “war-king,” a title only rarely bestowed on any man. Men of legend held it, men who had governed the Lusetani in the days when they first entered Iberia as one tribe, moving south like a massive flock of gulls. Ekialde could not have hoped for more. His closest men, his friends and younger brothers, erupted in whooping cheers; his wife mostly looked pale. But Ekialde, aware of the significance of this moment, maintained an expression of blank dignity. “Then it is well with the gods, that I seek to make war on Aven, to protect our people from their encroachments forever?”

  “The gods have placed their faith in you, my sister’s son. If it is your will, it is theirs.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “And the tree?” Ekialde asked curiously, jerking his head towards the sapling.

  His uncle shrugged. “That has the longest story to tell. The tree’s life or death is bound to yours, now. It may flourish as you do. It may serve as a warning if there is misfortune in your future further than I can see. Or if the gods’ favor alters.” Ekialde tried not to think that the warning would do him small good, if none of his people remained in this place to watch it, but it was part of the ritual, and perhaps they would pass this way frequently enough to check in on the tree’s growth from time to time.

  “Then there is much work to do.”

  III

  CITY OF AVEN

  Ocella’s body made the journey from Puteoli shrouded in gray cloth, laid on a cart drawn by black horses. It meandered the long miles beneath the dappled shade of olive trees, then passed the mausoleums of centuries’ worth of Aventans that lined the road into the city. Word of his demise had officially reached the city only shortly before, though Galerius Orator’s arrival had set the rumors flying.

  “I suppose we’ll have to go, won’t we?” Numerius Herennius asked his wife on the day before the funeral.

  Latona only flicked her eyes up from her book briefly to look at her husband. He was not an ill-favored man, and he did have a thoroughly Truscan nose, but there was still little in him to inspire even casual interest in her. But then, theirs was a match made in haste and out of Aulus’s desire to keep Latona out of the city and out of trouble. Neither romance nor ambition had played a part in her marriage, as had both in Aula’s; Latona was bound to Herennius for security’s sake.

  “I had assumed,” she said, endeavoring to keep impatience out of her voice, “that was why you came back from Liguria.” Herennius had none of her love for the city, attending the Senate as infrequently as he could get away with, preferring to spend his days tending to his vast estates.

  Herennius heaved a sigh, shuffling his feet against the blue-tiled floor as he paced around the atrium. “Yes, yes. It’s only that . . . well, it’s not likely to be a very pleasant affair, is it?”

  “Funerals are rarely occasions for jollity,” Latona said, adding silently, ‘Though this one may be met with more good cheer than most.’ Around her husband, she had been careful not to demonstrate high emotion of any kind in regard to the Dictator’s demise. What Herennius did not know for certain about the nature of Latona’s bargain with Ocella, he certainly suspected, and Latona was loath to give him either confirmation or denial to hold over her head. “Our absence would be remarked on.”

  “Well. Yes, it would.” Herennius furrowed his brow, and Latona could see various considerations knitting themselves together behind his eyes. A familiar expression, when he was arranging some money-making scheme or another. Herennius was not unintelligent, but in Latona’s opinion, he had an unfortunately limited scope of the world, which he then proved by saying, “I wonder if I could pull Licinius Cornicen aside for a moment to speak about some of those tax revenues from Alalia . . .”

  Latona let her scroll furl entirely and slapped it into her lap. “At a funeral?”

  “Yes.” Herennius shrugged. “I know he’ll be there. And it isn’t as though I can ever talk business properly in the Curia, and the Forum’s always so loud and crowded . . .”

  Latona thought about explaining just what a gross breach of propriety it would be to initiate such a conversation on a day of public mourning—even if it were state-mandated mourning for a man she was all too glad to see dead. But Herennius’s face, broad and blank, indicated there would be no way of making him understand. Business took precedence over social niceties for him, and marriage to Latona had done nothing to change that. Besides, from what she knew of Licinius Cornicen, Latona thought he would be unlikely to take offense, since he was among the more mercantile-minded members of Senate. Ocella’s funeral was unlikely to overwhelm him with sentiment.

  So instead, she sighed, rising from her chair. “If you decide to hunt him down then, let me know and I’ll arrange to go to my father’s for dinner. In order to avoid being in your way, of course.” Herennius nodded, fully in agreement that his wife had no place hovering around his business dealings, but as she left the room, Latona reflected with satisfaction that at least she would not have to bear witness to his self-engineered embarrassment.

  Then again, as Ocella had taught a few score senators and mages, it was safer not to be too good at anything. Nor had Herennius himself felt such a burden at first. When their marriage began, he had been so thrilled at the advantageous alliance that he had been gentle and solicitous with his peerless patrician wife.

  ‘Ocella changed that.’

  Against Herennius’s wishes, she had returned to the city to be with her sister, and when that put her in Ocella’s path, he had no power to challenge the Dictator’s summons. When Latona returned, she was brittle and fatigued from the strain of exerting so much control over her magic, her conversation, her smiles, nearly every aspect of her being, as was necessary in Ocella’s court, and she found Herennius no longer so attentive. Their relationship had been cool and formal ever since. At first that had been preferable, a respite for her nerves.

  ‘Now, though . . . ’ The world was changing again, and there would be opportunity in it. Latona could not help wondering what Fortuna might have in store for her—and if she would have the temerity to reach for it.

  * * *

  That afternoon, with the weather dryer and coo
ler than it had been in weeks, Aula and Latona went shopping, ostensibly for fabric for new gowns, but as much to discover what gossip about Ocella’s funeral and the returning Senators could be heard in the marketplace. As was proper and fitting for patricians of such old blood as the Vitelliae, each of the daughters had her own personal attendant. The jewel of the household was Helva, the Athaecan freedwoman who had once belonged to their mother, Vipsania. She was invaluable, not only for her precision, her shrewd bargaining skills, and her ability to dress hair and style clothing, but because she had been blessed by Vesta and Saturn. She had a perfect memory. No need to pay a nomenclator to memorize vast lists of names; Helva could, at a second’s notice, see a face and recall everything she had ever heard or read about that person and every member of his family or political circles. It was a talent Aula had made good use of over the years, employing Helva to keep track of myriad intrigues, shifting alliances, aristocratic family trees, and legal maneuvers.

  In youth, Helva had been quite beautiful, with glossy black hair, creamy pale skin, and sky-grey eyes. Now her skin was no longer alabaster-smooth, and she tended to keep her hair wrapped firmly under a kerchief, but her eyes were still bright and keen. There was an oddity to her, not unlike that which sometimes surfaced in Proserpina-touched Alhena. It happened with those whose talents lay in Time; they saw the world on a different scale than those around them.

  Latona’s Merula was also an unusual attendant. With warm brown skin and a pointed ferocity in her dark eyes, she had a quick and keen look about her, for all that she was also boxy-faced, short, and prone to fidgeting. Among the other qualities which made her undesirable to most noble ladies was an abominable habit of speaking her mind. It had earned her plenty of beatings as a child, in her first household, and was the reason she had found herself on the market. But with that intuition born of Spirit, Latona had seen in Merula someone she knew she could trust implicitly.

  Together, they kept a secret. Years earlier, Latona had made a proposition, and it was one that Merula, athletic and aggressive by nature, had leapt at the chance to fulfill. Latona wanted protection—protection that was inconspicuous and, more importantly, ever-present. Enormous, well-muscled bodyguards were all well and good, but they attracted such attention. Who could object, though, to a refined lady’s handmaiden? Latona had, on the sly and with her allowance, hired a gladiatrix to teach Merula some tricks of her trade. Before her twentieth birthday, Merula was, by Latona’s estimation, probably one of the finer combatants in the city.

  Apart from Helva and Merula, Aula and Latona had a pair of male slaves clearing the way through the street for them. Alhena had declined the invitation to go out, as she often had lately. She gave many excuses, but her sisters knew she wanted to be home in case her betrothed—or, at least, word of him—arrived.

  Perhaps, for the elder two, it was just as well; Alhena could be a little too much sometimes, and there were some things Aula and Latona could only discuss comfortably without their baby sister present. “I think Father might start trying to find me a new husband once the Senate comes back to town,” Aula commented, as they picked over a selection of linens, soft wools, and precious silks at the stall of their favorite vendor, a Palmyrean merchant and his wife.

  “Would that be the worst thing?” Latona asked, rubbing a bit of cobalt fabric between her fingers.

  Aula frowned, considering. “Not the worst,” she admitted. “The city could catch fire. Plague could strike. Tennic tribes could invade.”

  “I’m glad you rate the welfare of the city above your widowhood,” Latona laughed.

  “At least a little.” Aula lifted a swath of cherry-red fabric up to her face. “What do you think?”

  “Too bright with your hair. Ask if she has anything darker.” As Aula gestured to the woman who ran the stall, Latona continued. “Now, speak honestly, Aula. Aren’t you tired of living at home?”

  “Oh, it isn’t so bad, most of the time, apart from Alhena’s mooning. Father’s hardly any restriction to my comings and goings.” Aula lifted the fabric to show the stallkeeper. “Yes, do you have anything like this but a little darker?”

  “I will check, Domina.”

  “Speak even more honestly, then,” Latona pressed, smirking a bit. “Aren’t you tired of an empty bed?”

  Aula heaved a great sigh, casting her eyes heavenward. “Now there, my dear sister, you may have something. Three years alone is . . . well.” Latona smiled, envying her sister’s carnal appetite. Aula and Quinctilius had been extraordinarily well-matched. Passion had blossomed easily between them, and in the days before Latona’s own wedding, Aula had delighted in regaling her sister with tales of rapturous pleasures. Latona had been thrilled, scandalized, and anticipatory, all at once; the reality had rather paled next to Aula’s promises. She suspected she could go three years without Numerius Herennius’s attentions quite easily. “But,” Aula went on, twitching her hips and grinning wickedly, “who says I have to find a husband just to keep from having an empty bed?”

  Prim and pious Alhena would have screeched in outrage, but Latona merely returned her sister’s grin. “You’d hardly be the first widow in Aven to seek that solace.”

  “Perhaps this dinner will bring someone suitable to my attention,” Aula said, as the stallkeeper brought forward a few lengths of cloth, ranging from vermilion to cinnamon to deepest crimson. “Oh, I know I could just go choose some sturdy buck from the markets, but I’ve always thought that a bit of a tawdry way to go about it.”

  “And I somehow suspect you’d have a hard time slipping a prize stud past Father’s notice.” Latona examined a bright fuchsia fabric, wondering if it was too garish or just daring enough to be interesting; she needed a new mantle for this year’s Cantrinalia, and a shocking shade might be just the thing to spice up her typically demure religious garb.

  “Well, if I’m going to go a-hunting, be it for a husband or a lover, I think it’ll have to be the crimson,” Aula said. “Could you be a dear and send the usual length over to Tura Petronia?”

  “Of course, Domina.”

  “And some of that gold trim as well.” She turned back to Latona. “I’ll have to make an appointment with Petronia soon, then.”

  “Better hurry. I’m sure you won’t be the only one sprucing up her wardrobe, and it’ll cost a fortune if you have to ask her to rush anything through.” Latona lifted the bright pink silk for her sister’s inspection.

  Aula’s eyes widened. “Why my darling little sister, are you finally stepping out from those matronly disguises?”

  “How dare you?” Latona said in mock indignation, though she knew the color was out of her normal mode. Since marrying Herennius, she had always dressed well, in fine fashion and quality garments, but without much real flash. Muted tones, modest cuts, splashes of brighter color in the trim and embroidery, perhaps, but nothing so unsubtle as this brilliant fuchsia. “I don’t dress half so conservatively as Marcia Tullia.”

  “Mm, true, but modesty suits her so much better than it suits you. Here!” Aula snatched at another fabric, a lovely, shimmering pale gold, far less ostentatious, but exquisite in its own way. “Buy that pink for a gown, and promise you’ll wear it, and I’ll make a gift of this as a mantle to go with it.”

  Latona looked over at the stallkeeper, who waited patiently for instructions. “How can I refuse? Add the pink to my account and send it to Petronia as well, if you would.”

  “And add two lengths of the gold to mine,” Aula chirped, her cheeks bright with merriment. “We’ll dress to match,” she added, giving Latona a friendly jostle.

  They left the fabric vendors and meandered towards the Forum. They passed a gathering of children at one of the corners, where a magister had set up his school. A knot of boys, both patrician and plebeian, mixed with a few promising girls, sat on stools with wax tablets in their laps, listening with varying degrees of attentiveness to a
togate man lecturing on grammar. “You know,” Latona said as they rounded a corner onto the broad Via Sacra, “Ocella’s death will leave quite a gap.”

  “Yes, I was thinking that as well,” Aula said. “I wonder how it will fall out. So many are dead, and some who were stripped of their fortunes may choose to remain in exile.”

  “The Senate rolls will have to be reviewed,” Latona said, “and I daresay a few new men admitted, to plump out the ranks.”

  Aula giggled. “Plebeians and provincials of all stripes. What a scandal!” It was the sort of adjustment the Popularists frequently agitated for, the better to represent Aven’s growth, and as such, likely to meet steep opposition from the Optimates, who saw such measures as degradation. “Well, the elections should be lively and no mistake. A lot of men missed their first chances under Ocella.” The Dictator had all but abolished elections, filling positions by appointment. “And when you consider that men like Lucretius Rabirus will be running—”

  “Yes,” Latona said. “He could be trouble. If too many Optimates like him get in, we can expect a year of public lectures on morality, tariffs on luxuries, exclusionary voting measures, and anti-Popularist legislation.” Aula pulled a face, then began quizzing Helva’s flawless memory for information on which men were eligible for which offices.

  As they drew near the Forum proper, the preparations for Ocella’s funeral became more apparent. A host of slaves were sweeping the steps of every long-columned temple and chunky administrative building that bordered the open plaza, and the statues lining the dusty pathways were getting a good scrubbing. Aula and Latona fell silent, staring up at the Rostra, the elevated platform in front of the majestic Temple of Saturn. Usually used for political speeches or grand announcements, the space had been cleared for display of Ocella’s body. Latona shivered, pulling her mantle closer about her shoulders.