by Cass Morris
Aemilia frowned. “And how do you imagine your magical gifts could aid you in this?”
Latona refrained from pointing out that since Aemelia had none of the blessing herself, she had no idea what it might or might not help with. “The empathy to know where suffering is, certainly. The compassion that points towards healing. Whether they need further counsel or a place to go, or another kind of help, I can let the Spirit of instinct help me to better serve them.” She spread her hands in an open gesture. “The truth is that I do not know the full extent of how my blessing might help me or the women of Aven. That is why I want to research and further develop my skills, as Gaia Claudia intended I do. I need to know what may be possible from the examples set by my forebears.”
“Charitable donations,” Aemilia said pointedly, “have been a fine enough show of philanthropy for many of your forebears.”
Latona could feel the muscles in her neck and jaw tightening. “I believe I can do more. The magic will be my—” She almost said servant, but no, that was not the right sense of it. “—my partner in this.”
Aemilia shook her head. “This is an irrational and unnecessary proposal. If the women of this city have troubles, they can—and do—come to the temples for aid.”
“With all respect, honored lady,” Latona said, “if the temples could do enough to fix all Aven’s troubles, we would not still have so many hungry children, desperate widows, and beaten wives.” She ought to have left it at that, but Aemilia’s petty obstruction was wearing at her nerves. “You deal with the problems that are brought to you, here, and I have no doubt you do so commendably.” Whatever else she thought of Aemelia Fullia, the woman was precise and thorough. “But not everyone brings their troubles here. Not everyone has that temerity. Pluto’s hellfire, Aemelia, not every woman in the city is healthy enough to drag herself up those steps!”
All that earned her was a scowl. “You will watch your language in Juno’s house.”
Latona ignored her; Aemilia’s stubborn and short-sighted self-preservation had ignited her temper. “You fix what is in front of you, but when was the last time you went walking through the city, Aemilia? I don’t mean being carted to a dinner or a ritual in a curtained litter. When did you last see what Aven’s people endure?”
“Enough!” Aemelia said, her raised voice echoing off the painted temple walls. “I have heard quite enough. I cannot in good conscience offer you assistance, Vitellia Herenniae, nor anyone else who would seek to usurp this temple’s rightful role in serving the women of Aven.”
A thousand words were in Latona’s mind, trying to break onto her tongue: that she had no wish to usurp, only to supplement; that charity need not belong to the religious orders alone; that it was a civic duty, and that mages, with their blessings, had more responsibility to the public than most; that anyone who could do good, ought to. But with an ache in her chest, she realized none of it would matter to Aemilia. Not coming from her, not when she was proving the very fear of usurpation that had prompted Aemilia to bully her from the temple in the first place.
“You chose your path long ago,” Aemilia went on. “You determined, as was entirely proper, to return to the domestic sphere and serve Juno within the bonds of matrimony.”
Latona wanted to scream: ‘I was a child! I was lonely and unwanted! Of course I decided to leave this place where I was no longer loved!’ She bit the inside of her cheek; Aemilia did not deserve to see that vulnerability.
“It is a noble thing, to do Juno’s work as a wife and mother. A holy thing. If you feel unsatisfied . . .” Aemilia nodded towards Juno’s statue. “Reflect on that. Perhaps your unwomanly ambitions have affected the balance of your womb. Attend to your domestic concerns and put these inappropriate political urges aside. Then, I am sure, your humours will balance and Juno will see fit to allow you to give your husband his heirs.”
Aemilia turned neatly and started to stalk away from Latona, clearly considering the conversation over.
Latona’s jaw was clenched so hard her head ached as she searched for words that would not cause her to blaspheme herself in Juno’s house. “Forgive me, honored lady,” she ground out at Aemilia’s back. “I should have realized you would not be capable of helping me.”
* * *
As Latona stormed down the Capitoline Hill, Merula trotted in her wake. “Domina— Domina— I am wishing you would— Domina, if you are not slowing down, you may trip—Domina, please.”
But for once, Latona had little attention to spare for Merula’s concerns. The fury born from Aemilia’s words still stung, and each time her foot stamped down, another castigation echoed in her mind. ‘Usurp the temple’s role . . . affected the balance . . . unwomanly . . . The nerve of that woman, blocking my path to preserve her own self-important sense of stature!’ Latona felt a heat growing in her fingers, and she shook her hands irritably, as though it might dispel the compulsion. ‘Oh, sweet Juno, I’m going to set a tree on fire again . . .’
The warning built as she stalked home, her footsteps treading ever quicker. ‘All my life,’ she thought, ‘someone has been telling me what I must not do. Mother, father, husband, priestesses . . . How did it take me till now to realize how heartily sick of it I am?’
Her father’s home was closer than her husband’s, and so it was to the Palatine Hill that Latona stormed after leaving the Temple of Juno Maxima, hoping a sympathetic ear and a glass of wine with Aula might quell any incendiary impulses. When she arrived, however, she learned that Aula had accompanied their father on a visit to the College of the Augurs. “Damn.” She tugged the mantle from her hair in frustration. “Do you know how long they’ll be, Paenas?”
The steward shook his head. “Regrettably, no, Domina. Would you care to wait? I’ll send a boy with water and anything else you might—”
“Wine,” Latona said, raising a finger. “Half-watered, please, Paenas, and whatever fruit looks best. I’ll sit in the peristyle.”
As soon as she settled herself, Merula started fussing at her hair and clothes, muttering in Phrygian. Latona had not said anything to her yet about the confrontation with Aemilia. She would get the story eventually; she always did, but she lacked the patience to wait for it, and polylinguistic grumbling was her way of encouraging Latona to speed the process along.
While Merula played at detangling Latona’s wind-tangled curls, Latona reached for the bolster pillow on the bench beside her. At first she was only squeezing it, feeling the stuffing squash under her fingers, but soon she was smacking her palm hard against it, then punching it outright. “Domina!” Latona felt Merula’s hands on her shoulders, but she kept pummeling the pillow, with both hands now. “Domina, you are growing warm—”
Merula was right. Latona felt again the sizzle on her skin and in her veins, warning of Fire magic, heating fit to burst. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’
She gave her head a little shake, trying to bring herself to rights. She pointed at a decorative dish resting on a plinth in the corner. “Water, please.” Merula was moving before she had even finished asking, filling the dish with water from the garden pool and bringing it back to Latona.
Latona tossed the pillow aside and shook her hands a few times, trying to clear the hot tingling. Then she plunged both hands wrist-deep into the water.
The pain was sharper than it had been after the fire in Herennius’s atrium, when causing a conflagration had at least bled off some of the energy first. The shock of the slippery water helped Latona to refocus her thoughts. Merula held the dish, still as a leopard in the stalk. Latona took several long, deep breaths, letting the cool air fill her up from nose to gut.
‘Tamp it down, tamp it down . . .’ But rather than crashing the gate of her power shut, as was her usual recourse, Latona tried, instead, to adjust the flow more smoothly. ‘Relax . . . Relax and release it . . .’ After a few moments, as her white-hot fury towards Aemilia cooled, so did her skin
. The impulse to act, the sparking inclination of her Fire magic, tempered itself down until Latona felt it safe to pull her hands out of the water.
As Merula scurried to dump the water back in the pool, a head of curly red hair appeared around a column. “Latona?” Alhena said. “You sounded— Uhm . . .”
“Alhena, darling!” Wiping her hands dry on her mantle, Latona blushed to realize she had not thought to ask for her other sister. It had been Aula she wanted to rant to and commiserate with, and her rage at Aemilia had overshadowed any other concerns. She smiled nervously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Alhena padded forward. Her feet were bare, and Latona thought she saw ink smudges on her arms. Alhena curled up on the bench beside Latona, tucking her feet up under her. “What happened?” Latona hesitated, not wanting to burden her younger sister with her problems. But Alhena’s azure eyes were earnestly wide, and Latona reminded herself that the baby of the family was swift becoming an adult. ‘She deserves my trust as much as Aula.’
She sighed, pushing her hair back with both hands. “I seem to have had a . . . sharp disagreement with the High Priestess of Juno.”
“With Aemilia Fullia?” Alhena said. “I thought you two weren’t on, uhm . . . the best of terms to begin with.”
“Mm. And I suspect we’re unlikely to become so anytime soon.”
“So why did you . . .”
“I wanted access to the temple’s library.” Latona flexed her fingers, which were cold and stiff from the water. “I’m trying to . . . that, is, I want to . . .” Alhena took her hand, and somehow Latona found herself spilling the entire story to her baby sister—her loss of control, the desire she’d been feeling to use her magic, the urge to claim what had been denied her. Alhena knew some of her history with Aemilia, but she had only been four when Latona’s service at the Temple ended, and so was hearing many of the details for the first time.
Brow furrowed, she said, “I don’t understand why she’s so afraid of you.” Latona started to shrug it off, but Alhena squeezed her hand. “I know that look. You’re going to pretend it doesn’t matter.” Latona blinked at her a few times, wondering when little Alhena had become so observant. “It does, though. Tell me.”
Their entwined fingers reminded Latona that just a few minutes earlier, hers had been burning with unspent energy, primed for destruction. “I scare me sometimes. Why shouldn’t others be afraid?”
Alhena snorted in a way that reminded Latona of Aula. “You’ve been listening to the wrong people.”
“You may have a valid point.”
“Not everyone’s as fearful as Aemilia, is what I mean,” Alhena went on. “Claudia wasn’t. And in Stabiae . . .” Her lips twisted in consideration. “This city. It does something to people. Everyone’s tense and scared and fighting for position.” Latona stroked the back of her sister’s hand with her thumb. She could feel the confusion of Alhena’s emotions: sensations of feeling out of place, fear of failure, discombobulation, but beneath them all, something Latona recognized viscerally—the desire to do something, to be useful, helpful. But Alhena shook her head, as though dismissing that line of thought, and said, “So. You were looking for more information about Spirit magic?”
“I know there are texts there that would be useful. Claudia had started me on some of them before she died. But Aemilia refused me, and then—” She pulled her hands from Alhena’s to gesture at the dented bolster pillow. “I lost my temper, a bit. But I didn’t set anything on fire this time, and I don’t want to worry you, little bird,” she said, teasing out one of Alhena’s curls. “I’ll figure something out.”
Frowning, Alhena leaned closer to Latona, searching her face as though she could read auguries in it. ‘Maybe she can . . .’ Before she could share any insights, however, the door creaked open and slammed shut—Aula and Aulus returning.
Alhena stood up. “She’ll want to talk politics with you,” she said, “and I’m just not sure I have the energy.”
“You’re always welcome, you know.”
Alhena smiled. “I know. Thank you.” She started off toward her room, but paused, turning back over her shoulder. “It wasn’t wrong, you know, leaving the temple,” Alhena said. “You, I mean. That’s not . . . that’s not where your path goes. I don’t think it ever was.” Her eyes, Latona noticed, were slightly unfocused—and when Latona reached out with a tendril of Spirit magic, she felt the cool, slippery sensation of Time magic at work. It faded quickly, however. Alhena gave her head a little shake, then rushed back to Latona and bestowed a swift kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry, sister,” Alhena said. “We’ll figure something out.”
XVIII
“Damn the man! Damn him!”
Buteo had stormed his way from the newsreader’s rostrum to the other end of the Forum, where Cornicen and Rabirus stood beneath the shade of the Temple of Castor, listening to the gossip from the lawyers and bankers as they conducted their business.
“I take it you’ve heard about Sempronius Tarren’s latest plot, then?” Rabirus said, his expression calmer but no more pleased than Buteo’s.
“Damn him!” Buteo rubbed at his thinning hair. “He’s a menace. A damned menace. We’ve barely started campaigning, and he charges in with these, these grain doles and building projects!” He waved a hand back at the newsreader. “And now he’s announced a feast!”
“Yes, it is damned menacing of him, to take the initiative on actually governing this city we’re all squabbling over,” Cornicen said, without any of Rabirus’s evident concern. Cornicen seemed more interested in digging through his pouch of almonds. “The nerve of the man. Oh, don’t make that face at me, Buteo. He’s not doing anything the rest of us couldn’t, if we chose—and if we had the wit to think of it.”
Buteo’s face grew ever more florid in his rage. “It’s beyond highly irregular. He is—” Buteo waggled a fist mid-air, searching for the appropriate invectives. “He is usurping duties that do not belong to him—the duties of an aedile or urban praetor. It’s a gross violation of precedent, an offense against the mos maiorum!”
“I don’t see what the fuss is, really,” Cornicen said. “It’s not as though he’s undermining any elected official’s authority, since we have none at the moment. He’s simply filling a necessary gap.”
“It is highly irregular!” Buteo repeated.
“And the man has a point,” Cornicen went on, unperturbed. “He was exiled in the middle of his term as aedile. This is really just paying the city what he owes.”
“But no one sees it that way, Cornicen.” Rabirus shook his head, disappointed by his friend’s lack of vitriol. “The people will see this attention as a gesture of great generosity.”
“Magnanimous.” Buteo’s face was creased with sour mockery. “The good Sempronius, the noble Sempronius, unjustly exiled and returned now to bestow his largesse upon the people of— of the Subura and the Esquiline!”
“Where’d he get the money for it, is what I want to know,” Cornicen said, leaning back against a column and popping another almond in his mouth. “Building projects are expensive.”
“He did well in Abydosia,” Rabirus said. “Cozied up to the Menaphon’s cousins and all manner of eastern merchants.”
“Foreign interests,” Buteo said. He jabbed a finger towards the Basilica that loomed above the north-eastern side of the Forum; people of all sorts poured through the yellow-veined marble archways of its long arcade, seeking or offering legal and financial services. Once, none but freeborn Aventan citizens would have been allowed to set foot there. “Corruptive influences.”
“And I believe he’s taking some loans from Galerius Orator.”
“In return for using his influence with the mob to get Galerius elected consul, no doubt,” Buteo sniffed. “Popularists everywhere. And he’ll want the office for himself in time, don’t mistake that.”
“Of course he does,” Cornicen said with a dismissive laugh. “That can’t surprise you, surely. He’s a man of good family, adequate income, and some intellect.”
“What will surprise me,” Buteo said, “is if he’s satisfied with that. I wouldn’t put it past him to do as Ocella did, make a Dictator out of himself, with all of that pandering he does— Would you desist?” Buteo said, glaring as Cornicen cracked down on another almond. Cornicen grinned irreverently.
Rabirus paced a few steps, envisioning the damage a man like Sempronius Tarren could do with the power that Ocella had wielded. Aven had seen demagogues before. They usually came to swift and bloody ends, and more often than not, through their own missteps and poorly calculated maneuvers.
Rabirus did not think Sempronius would be quick to stumble in that way. ‘With the backing of the populace, the lower Classes, and the Head Count . . .’ They were easy to lead by the nose, loving a good show and empty charisma, and Sempronius had already shown himself willing to pander to them. ‘If he has Ocella’s instincts . . .’ Ocella’s true genius, the quality which had brought him to power and kept him in it, was an instinct for knowing when the people were about to turn against him and then forestalling it. Ocella would push them to the brink of outrage, but whenever he went beyond the brink, he would distract the masses with a feast or games or races. Even on the occasions when riot erupted, he would find a way to turn the people’s fury on someone else—a scheming senator, a corrupt adviser, an ambitious legate. Anyone but the Dictator, who acted, he assured them, for their own good. He would remind them why they had once loved him and handed him the power he wielded so viciously, and the trinkets he threw would quell their tumult, bringing their discontent back to manageable levels.