From Unseen Fire

by Cass Morris

  “Rumors. From the west.” Helva blinked, rather than verbally entertaining Merula’s desire to bait her. “Some grand new warrior stirring up trouble in Iberia. His name . . .” Merula paused to wrap her tongue around the name, its syllables and cadence unfamiliar to her in either Truscan or her native Phrygian. “Ekialde.”

  Helva’s nose wrinkled, for it sounded as exotic to her as it did to Merula. “What sort of a name is that?”

  “Iberian, I suppose,” Merula said, a touch tartly. “West, far west, the boy is saying. Almost to the Endless Ocean.”

  Helva frowned. Her grasp of geography was superior to Merula’s—she remembered every map she had ever set eyes on—and so she wondered what news of interest could be coming from such a far-flung territory. “And did this boy’s trader know anything about what sort of trouble he’s causing?”

  Merula laughed. “What other trouble on the borders? Rebellion, of course. Stirring up all the tribes, talking about throwing the Aventans out of Baelonia and Cantabria.”

  Nearby, little Mus stirred. Merula and Helva had, as usual, nearly forgotten her presence. She was so small and quiet, always happiest when standing in the shadows, and since she belonged to the youngest daughter, Alhena, she was of less consequence in the household hierarchy. Merula had caught her attention at the mention of Ekialde, though. Mus knew of no individual by that name, but it had the sound of her homeland, rocky and uneven like the mountains that jutted up above her village.

  “Not just talk, either,” Merula continued. “Already he is attacking some villages, taking some plunder. No Aventans killed, but Tyrians and friendly tribes. More than a few, the boy is saying.”

  “It isn’t that unusual,” Helva said. “The inland regions aren’t nearly as well-settled as the coasts. Every few years, some young buck or another conducts a few raids, causes a panic, and then usually gets himself good and swiftly killed.”

  “Ah!” Merula said, her dark eyes shining. “But this one, he is making a pact with those blood-drinking priests they have. This one, they say, he is being something special. They are naming him leader of all Lusetani, not only his own people.”

  “Erregerra,” Mus said, then, startled at herself, immediately bit her lower lip and cast her eyes down at the ground. Helva and Merula both turned, nearly as bewildered to hear her speak as she was to have done it.

  Helva reached out, firmly lifting Mus’s chin, forcing the young slave to look her in the eyes. “Say that again, and what it means.”

  Easily intimidated, Mus trembled. “Erregerra,” she said. “They name him . . . if he leads . . . then he . . . erregerra.” She whimpered in frustration at her inability to find the right words, terrified of what Helva might do if she could not explain. Mus’s Truscan was worse than Merula’s, less frequently-practiced, and even more fractured when she was frightened. “He is . . . he is . . . Mars-king!” she gasped, finally seizing upon some construction of the correct concepts.

  Merula scoffed. “Mars is not being king. Jupiter is being king of the gods, everyone is knowing this.”

  “Perhaps it’s different for the Lusetanians,” Helva said, still boring into Mus with her pale eyes. “I don’t think they actually worship Mars, for one thing. But a king who is like Mars, perhaps?” Mus nodded frantically. “Blessed by a god like Mars, the way our mages are blessed by our gods?”

  “Yes! Yes!” Mus nodded with frantic relief. “Mars-god is Bandue. Chosen of Bandue is erregerra. Blessed. Special.”

  Helva cut her eyes sideways at Merula, who shrugged, and then she released Mus with a sigh. She never had much patience with the girl, whom she considered an unfit attendant for a lady of an ancient house. She had been Domina Alhena’s own choice, however, plucked from the market by some vision driven by Proserpina’s blessing, and so Helva would tolerate her, though she felt the girl should have been relegated to kitchen drudgery or service in the fields of a country estate. “How did this trader come to know of it, then, Merula?” Though she turned her attention away from Mus, Mus continued to stare wide-eyed at them both, fascinated by Merula’s story.

  “Soldiers’ gossip from Nedhena,” Merula said. “Men who’ve been still and quiet too long, spoiling for a fight. All hoping for a transfer to Lusetanian border, to put down this Ekialde-king. Is causing discontent in the legions, they are saying along the roads. I ask the boy if he is knowing which legions. He does not, but might be the young master, I am thinking.”

  Helva nodded. “Very like,” she said, closing her eyes to think for a moment. The benefit of her magical gift was obvious; the downside, less so. Her mind worked like one of the catalogs kept in the temples, rows upon rows of pegged holes in which to slot information. Finding one particular fact was always easy. Drawing connections between them took more skill. There were legions stationed on the Vendelician border in three Aventan provinces. Gaius Vitellius, the eldest child and only son of the Vitellian house, was with the Eighth Legion in Albina, where there had been no real action for quite some time. If they had heard of skirmishes going spare across the Pyreneian Mountains, they would be sure to want some part of it. “Have you told Domina Latona yet?”

  “No chance yet,” Merula said. “She is being mewed up with Dominus Herennius all morning, before Domina Aula come to fetch her. And then we come straight here. Did not want to holler about it in the streets.”

  “That shows some wisdom,” Helva said. While Merula tried to decide if Helva’s tone had implied an insult, Helva continued, “I expect if it’s true, we’ll hear from the young master soon enough.”

  And that, it seemed, was to be the end of it, for the ladies returned then, Aula half-dragging a sullen-looking Alhena. “At least you’re clean, even if you will insist on moping through the whole thing,” she was saying, fairly pushing her sister at Mus. “We’ll have word from Tarpeius, I’m sure, but your mooning about won’t make news come any faster. You’d do better to be helping me prepare this feast—” While Aula went on chiding her sister, Helva set to dressing Aula with brisk efficiency. Merula tsked over Latona’s damp hair, and Mus gently wrapped her mistress up, all the while thinking of the erregerra Ekialde, and what might be going on so many hundreds of miles away.

  * * *

  Latona parted ways with her sisters at the base of the Palatine Hill, continuing on with Merula to her husband’s house. As she turned up towards the Caelian Hill, she saw a knot of girls giggling by a market stall, its shelves stacked high with amphorae of olive oil. Two looked to be sisters, with ebony curls and identical strong hooked noses; another was a dark Numidian with coltish long limbs; the last plump and fair with rosy cheeks. They were about Alhena’s age: common girls and all Aventans now, no matter where their families had come from. ‘The beauty of Aven, there.’

  They seemed happy. Had they been lucky enough that Ocella’s reign had not touched them or their families? Latona hoped so, but she knew how few in Aven, patrician or plebeian, had truly escaped unscathed. Ocella may have focused his attention on bolstering his power against the wealthy and powerful, but plenty of his minions had taken advantage of his tenure in office to play tyrant in their own smaller circles: families evicted from their homes so a landlord could profit, girls and women snatched for a magistrate’s personal pleasure. ‘Just acting in the image of their great dictator,’ Latona thought, anger burning inside her chest. ‘And who protects them, when another Ocella comes along?’ She, at least, had been able to make some sort of bargain out of it. Those who had nothing to trade fared less well.

  As she and Merula continued towards the Caelian Hill, and her thoughts churned over the injustices she hoped would never visit Aven again, Latona began to feel slightly ill. At first she thought it might be a delayed effect of leaving the warmth of the baths for the rawness of the outdoors, but then she realized that the source of her discomfort was magical in nature. When she had first begun to stifle her talents as a child, then suppr
essed them further during Ocella’s reign, she often came down with stomach cramps, as though her body revolted against the idea of holding so much inside of herself. The sensation had dulled, with time, but Latona was reminded of it now. ‘But this is not the same.’ This was less a twisting pressure and more a rising, not of bile but of power, determined to retch out of her.

  The pain grew stronger when they were still a few minutes’ walk from the Herennian domus. Staggering slightly, Latona clutched Merula’s shoulder. “Domina?”

  “I need to get inside, Merula . . . fast.”

  Merula slipped an arm around Latona’s back, draped Latona’s arm over her own shoulders, and quickened their pace towards the Herennian domus. “Can you tell me what is wrong, Domina?”

  “No . . . not really . . .”

  “Am I needing to send for a physician? The Temple of Asclepius is—”

  “No,” Latona said. Her skin felt as though it was on fire, a sizzle that coursed from her fingers, up her arms, and all the way down her spine, burning inside her blood and setting a hot flush on her chest and cheeks. Despite the heat, she lifted her free arm and weakly dragged her mantle forward to obscure her face, so that no one they passed might recognize the Lady Vitellia Latona in such an undignified state.

  As soon as they reached the house, Latona ran for the atrium, craving the coolness of water on her face. She fell to her knees by the impluvium pool in the center of the room, her stomach in a nauseated roil.

  Then it happened in a rush. There were only a few small lamps lit in the atrium at that hour, standing at the shrine at the far end. But it was enough. Latona’s fingertips burned, the prickling sensation crawled all the way up her arms, and then a blast of power erupted out from her, fanning the tiny glowing licks from the lamps into an enormous, gulfing flame. The spindly cypress next to the shrine caught fire immediately, as did the decorative fabric hangings draped above it. Latona was too startled to scream and too dizzied to try and use her magic to calm the flames.

  Merula, however, suffered no such petrification. “Bring buckets!” she yelled, then snatched the mantle off Latona’s shoulders and threw it into the impluvium pool. She jumped in, stomping on the fabric to submerge and saturate it more quickly, then dragged it out and flung it over the burning tree in the center of the conflagration. Sparks had already set on the vines beside the cypress, and the hangings were still blazing. One of Herennius’s household slaves came in with a bucket, another with a large bowl, and they worked together, scooping water from the pool and flinging it at the fire.

  Latona’s skin was still overheated, but after a moment, she was able to control herself enough to try and exert some influence over the flames. Fire was ever more difficult to rein in than to ignite, but Latona forced herself to think extinguishing thoughts, turning the fire back in on itself. Then, once she felt sure that the slaves were beating out the last few smolders, she thrust her hands into the pool. It hurt, the sudden immersion in the inimical element, and she hissed through the pain, waiting for the sizzling energy coursing through her body to abate.

  When Latona withdrew her hands from the water and stood up, her skin was raw and chapped. The backlash of dousing the magical energy seemed to have had a physical effect. Gingerly, she rubbed one hand against the other, and the redness faded. Her heartbeat slowed, and she felt entirely drained, as though she could fall asleep standing up.

  “I think we are putting it all out, Domina,” Merula said, coming over to her, the sodden remnants of scorched fabric still in her hands. “My apologies.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Latona said, as out of breath as though she had run a race in the Circus. The air, still smoky and acrid, didn’t help. “If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking, the whole house might have gone up. And it’s not as though I can’t buy a new mantle. You’ll be getting one as well.” She nodded at the other two slaves who had rushed in to control the damage. “As will you. Cloaks, tunics, shoes, whatever you would prefer, with my gratitude.”

  “Thank you, Domina,” all three replied, and while the other two set to assessing the damage to the atrium, Merula considered her options. “Something new and warm for winter would be nice. In blue, maybe. I like blue.”

  “I’d give you Tyrian purple if you asked for it,” Latona said, collapsing onto the nearest bench. She sighed heavily, as though she were breathing for the first time in minutes. “Oh, how am I going to explain this to Herennius?”

  Merula snorted. “You are thinking he’ll notice?” She dropped the ruined mantle and sat down beside Latona. “Domina, you should be going to a temple, if not to a physician. They have much knowledge. Perhaps it is . . . not unusual.” Merula bit her lip, then pressed on. “For Venus’s Fire, it is Ama Rubellia you would be wanting, yes? She is a kind lady, Domina.”

  The last thing Latona wanted to do, however, was to admit her deficiency to a priestess, not even one as effusively accepting as Ama Rubellia. She could picture how the High Priestess of Venus would react: her soft brown eyes would swim with empathetic concern, she would press Latona’s hands in her soft fingers, and there would be naught but compassion writ on her lovely face.

  To admit that she had lost control, though—a lapse she had been guarding against her entire life—struck her as intolerable. Rubellia might treat her kindly, but if anyone else in the temple carried tales of an undisciplined Fire mage whose emotions were getting the better of her . . . ‘The repercussions to my reputation and my family’s could be too much to bear. I can control this. If I must go to Rubellia, I will. But only if I must.’ She drew herself up, despite the lingering pain in her chest and tingle in her fingers. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Merula. I’m sure it’s just . . . just that I’m overtired,” she said.

  Merula’s lips twisted. For a moment, Latona thought she might hold her tongue, but Merula had always been given much liberty by her mistress, and she rarely missed opportunities to exercise it. “Let us hope, then, this passes before your sister’s party,” she said pointedly.

  “Yes,” Latona agreed. “I suspect we’ll have quite enough to manage without unexpected conflagrations.”

  * * *

  One image had haunted Rabirus since the funeral. Not the grey-wrapped shroud. He knew too well what was beneath that. Not the well-rehearsed mourners or the flocks of citizens, few of whom had any real grief to spare. Aven loved a spectacle, whatever its cause. Not the rain clouds that had gathered as the cart rolled out of the Forum. All the better to wash away what was no longer useful.

  No, what kept prodding at the edges of his awareness was the image of a stricken and confused child, trailing behind the cart—and the uncle standing behind him.

  The Dictator had left children behind, too young to be important in and of themselves, but each a prime opportunity for political advantage. Rabirus had to consider the men now controlling them: how ambitious they were, to marry the women of their families to Ocella; how appropriately aligned were their sympathies; how well would they honor and defend the mos maiorum.

  How much of a threat they might be to Rabirus’s own ambitions, particularly with the possession and raising of a dictator’s brats.

  Rabirus did not come to a conclusion swiftly. He contemplated, observed, and analyzed the situation and the players. And then he gave his steward instructions.

  V

  The Vitelliae had lived in the same location on the Palatine Hill since the age of the kings, when the city had begun to expand from the increasingly crowded Aventine to the higher hills in the north. The domus itself had been torn down and rebuilt by the current Aulus Vitellius’s father, and as a result, the interior was spacious and modern. Just beyond the entry hall, the atrium boasted a fantastically detailed mosaic floor and paintings by Athaecan masters all over the walls. The impluvium pool, a tribute to the late Vipsania Vitelliae’s Water magic, was immaculately free of algae and grime, with small fish swimm
ing above the tiled representation of the goddess Lympha bathing in a stream.

  In the peristyle garden, a dozen couches had been set up for the evening—the usual triclinium dining room being, though spacious enough for family affairs, too small to accommodate all the guests expected for the evening’s reception. Crimson-painted columns stretched up to a gilt ceiling, and Alhena kept songbirds in ornamented cages hanging from the row of fruit trees at the far side of the pool. Their cheerful melodies echoed throughout the space. Though the day had been warm and humid, the evening turned mild, and late-blooming flowers lent a sweet and inviting fragrance to the air. The sun had just gone down, and a heavy golden moon was curving into the sky, as though the Vitelliae had ordered it just for the occasion.

  Sempronius, his sister Vibia, and his brother-in-law Taius Mella arrived just late enough that several other guests were already ahead of them in the receiving line, chatting with their hosts before proceeding into the garden. Vibia fidgeted impatiently, but Sempronius didn’t mind; it afforded him the chance to observe the Vitellian family in action, playing host. Close friends that their families were, he was eager to discover whatever may have changed since his exile.

  Aula, the widowed eldest daughter to whom welcoming responsibilities had fallen, was bright and cheerful, beaming smiles at each and every guest. Her copper curls were arranged in a new style, with tendrils dropping daintily in front of her ears. Sempronius guessed it would soon become the new rage; Aula had ever been a trend-setter. She held herself well, proud but not haughty, elegant yet approachable. Sempronius had always sensed there was more to her than fashionable vapidity. Her eyes were a little too keen, and her mouth sometimes twitched in a way that suggested it held back less-than-polite commentary. ‘And no surprise,’ Sempronius thought. She had been serving as lady of one house or another since her mother’s death, many years earlier.