by Cass Morris
She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing herself to breathe in the slow patterns that Rubellia had recommended. The invading sense of pandemonium was hideously dizzying—but she realized she could keep it from swamping her entirely. The ferocious influence fought her, though, buffeting her whenever she tried to grasp hold of the strand that might lead back to the instigators. Each time she thought she was getting close, some new burst of turbulent rage would spin her off in another direction. Of one thing she became sure, however: there was magic at play. Whether creating, enhancing, or directing, she could not tell, but something beyond natural human emotions was present.
Merula trotted back a few minutes later. Latona, her eyes still pinched closed, felt rather than saw her approach. “Is a fight in the Forum, Domina. Looks ugly. Many men, no weapons that I am seeing, but they are doing plenty of damage with fists. And—” She hesitated, ruffling a hand through her short-cropped dark curls. “I could be mistaken, Domina, but I am thinking I see . . .” Her lips twisted in a brief hesitation. “Er, friends of yours, taking part.”
Latona’s eyes shot wide. “Who?”
“The young handsome one. Golden-haired.”
“Publius Rufilius.”
“His face might be getting more interesting, if you understand me, Domina.”
“Who else?”
“The rough pleb. The one they call Felix.”
Latona grasped Merula’s arm. “Go—Go to that college, on the Esquiline—Sempronius Tarren’s friends. They’ll know what to—”
“I will, Domina,” Merula said. “But Pacco is taking you to Ama Rubellia, now.”
* * *
By the time Merula reached the Vatiniae collegium, her lungs burned from effort, and her legs felt weak and shaky. Still, she held her shoulders straight and her chin up as she pushed through the tavern’s paint-stripped wooden door and cried, “I seek the master of this collegium!”
Even at this early hour, the tavern was full of the college’s men, business associates, and attendant hangers-on. Most glanced up at her only briefly, then returned to what they had been doing. One man near the door put his hand on her shoulder. “Think you’re in the wrong place, mouse. Let’s go—”
“No!” Merula dug in her heels, struggling as he attempted to usher her out. “This is important, you stupid—” She lapsed into a string of descriptors in her native Phrygian, none of them complimentary.
“Hold up.” A man rose from a nearby table—and seemed to just keep on going, tall well above the average. Merula thought him familiar; a man of that bulk was hard to forget. He stepped closer, waggling a thumb at her. “I recognize you. You belong to that patrician lady, with the golden hair and the, ah—” He started to make a gesture approximating the lady’s figure, but seemed to think better of it upon seeing Merula’s glare. “The— religious garb, yeah? All in pink?”
“Yes!” Merula exclaimed, pushing the other two men unceremoniously aside. “You are one of the Vatiniae, yes?”
“I am. Vatinius Nisso. But if it’s the college’s master you want, it’s my brother you mean. Hey, Obir!” he hollered over his shoulder. “He’ll be out in a minute.” Nisso folded his arms over his massive chest, grinning as his brother approached. “What’s the trouble, little bird?”
“Fighting in the Forum. My domina—the Lady Latona—she tells me run here quick, get you to help.”
Obir, though elder, was shorter than his brother, but they shared the same short noses, coiling dark hair, and mirthful brown eyes. He listened as Merula told them everything she knew about what was going on in the Forum, then flicked his eyes over at Nisso. “The Senator did say for us to look out for the Lady.”
“Forum’s not our turf,” Nisso said, shrugging. “We get involved there . . .”
“Then the Senator will likely be all the more grateful to us. C’mon, brother. A powerful patron’s gratitude is nothing to shrug off, as we know already.” He jerked his chin meaningfully up at the ceiling. Merula followed his glance and observed that the roof had been recently re-tiled. “Besides, you might get to break a few bones, and won’t that be fun?”
“I think,” Merula broke in, “that my mistress means for you to be stopping the fight.”
“Easiest way to do that is to drop a few of the combatants, birdie,” Nisso said, tweaking one of her curls. Merula swatted at him.
Obir turned to the room, and at a whistle, three of his mean leapt to attention. “Round up a few more of the boys. We’ll see if we can’t knock some sense into those fools down in the Forum. Nisso, go to the Aventine and find Sempronius Tarren. If he’s not home, one of his slaves should know where to find him. You, girl.” Obir gestured at Merula as he threw a cloak over his shoulders. “Show me what’s going on, then you can scurry back to your mistress, eh?”
XXIII
By the time Obir and his men arrived on the scene, the brawl had grown, as the initial combatants had been joined by other partisans or by passers-by simply interested in a good fight. Felix looked possessed, his eyes wide with fury yet unseeing as he slammed his fists again and again into the other man’s face. Blood poured from his own nose, but he hardly noticed. Rufilius, Proculus, and the other Popularists in the fray also bore a similar violent vacancy.
Obir waded into the fracas, heading straight for Felix—a man well-known to him from his frequent carousing in the Subura as well as his association with Sempronius Tarren. “All right, lad, that’s enough—” Obir went to grab Felix’s arms, to drag him off of his opponent.
Felix rounded on him, knuckles impacting Obir’s jaw with a loud crack. He showed no awareness of who Obir was or that he meant no threat, but fought like a demon. Whatever their initial instructions to subdue the fight, the men of the college weren’t about to stand for an attack on their master. The fray surged with new energy, some men yelling “For the people!” and others “For Aven!” and others yet their own personal battle cries, to the legions they had once served or the collegia that owned their allegiance now. Fists flew and elbows smashed into noses, knees rammed into soft bellies and heels drove into ankles. And through it all, Felix fought with no sign of slowing, never so much as flinching in pain, nor recoiling from a single blow.
“Enough!”
Sempronius had finally arrived, though the shout did not come from him. Felix’s brother Marcus was at his side, face red and fists clenched. He made a swift, pounding gesture down towards the earth—a grounding spell that rolled through the combatants like a tide. Some froze in place. Others sank to the street as though suddenly overcome by the desire for sleep. Felix straightened slowly, leaving off the bloody pulp of a man beneath him. He swayed drunkenly, then crashed to his knees.
Sempronius rubbed at his forehead, mastering the urge to start bellowing recriminations. They would do him no good now. Felix and the others were clearly still insensible.
Obir approached him. “Sir, we tried to do as we thought you’d want, just subdue them, but . . .” He made a helpless gesture. “Like demons, they were. Nothing would stop them.”
“I understand, Obir.” Sempronius murmured.
“And I’ll thank you for bearing witness to that effect if I get hauled before the Augian Commission for use of magic in the Forum,” Marcus added, massaging one hand with the other.
“Obir, if you and your boys could see Rufilius and Proculus to their homes, I would take it as a kindness.”
Obir snorted. “That’s the pretty boy with the bleeding nostrils, and the short thick one what got kneed in the goodies? We can manage them.”
“Come to me in the morning and I’ll see you properly thanked for your troubles.” Sempronius glanced sideways at Marcus, whose nostrils flared as he struggled to calm himself. “Marcus, think we can wrestle your brother to my domus? I should like to ask him a few questions.”
“And I’d just as soon our father not see him like this,” Marcus
said, “though I’ve no doubt he’ll hear tell of it soon enough.”
Sempronius and Marcus were both strong men, but Felix was built like a bull. Each of them heaved one of Felix’s arms over his shoulders, and together they began to stagger their way out of the Forum.
As they started up the Aventine, Sempronius turned back, glancing over the crowd. With the fighters dispersing, the Forum swiftly returned to normal operations. Soon, not even the spray of blood in the sand would stand witness to the fight. Obir and his men led a dazed Proculus in the direction of the Palatine, while Nisso and others ushered a wobbling Rufilius towards the Caelian.
Beyond them all, standing in the shelter of the marketplace, Sempronius saw a golden-haired woman, supported by her slave-girl, watching the combatants as they dispersed. ‘I should have known,’ he thought, with a warmth in his chest that surprised him. ‘That’s another one I owe you, Lady.’
* * *
Vibia had been visiting when Nisso burst in with news of the brawl, and she was hardly about to leave without the full story. When Sempronius and Marcus hauled Felix in, her eyes went wide, and she barely let them settle him into a chair before rushing forward. “Let me see him.” Her nose was crinkled as though offended by a putrid smell. With the flat of her hand, she pushed Felix’s head back, her fingers flexed to keep them out of contact with him. She rotated his head from side to side, then she fixed him dead in the eyes. “Ugh.” Vibia stepped back, shaking her hand vigorously. “Fracture magic. The nasty kind. He reeks of it.” Her irritated gaze fell on Marcus. “I’d have expected you to know that.”
“Earth can’t see the workings, Vibia,” Sempronius reminded her. Whatever it was had been subtle enough that it hadn’t prickled his own Water-based sensing abilities, but of course, it was always easier to pick up something within one’s own element. “She meant no offense, Marcus.” Beside Sempronius, Vibia sniffed, as though to say Sempronius had no idea what she intended. “Vibia, do you think this is what instigated him to fight?”
“Him and all the others, I’d guess. Someone wanted blood in the streets.” She sniffed a few times, then knelt by Felix’s feet. Her fingers rubbed briskly at his calf, and came away coated with a thin umber powder. “Wanted it badly,” she said. “Wash him, please. In a basin. Catch every bit of it that rinses off and throw it in the river. And someone bring water for me. I don’t want this putrescence in the house any longer than I must.” As Corvinus and another slave hauled Felix off towards the kitchen for a good dousing, Vibia held her dirtied hand far away from herself, pacing in the atrium. “Filthy magic,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. “Literally and symbolically. At least if I’m going to curse someone, I do it properly, with a tablet. This is just . . . ugh.”
“Vibia,” Sempronius said, settling his arms across his chest. “Explain, please.”
She turned back to him and Marcus. “It’s old Truscan magic, really. Hardly anyone uses it anymore, but they do teach us about it. It pollutes the senses. Will pollute the soul, given long enough.” With loathing, she raised her fingers to her nose and inhaled carefully. “Yew bark. Anise. Mustard seed. I’d guess burial ashes and possibly crushed bones, too. From a crucified slave, if the caster could get a hold of such.” A slave came in with a dish of water for her, and she gestured impatiently for it.
“Can you figure out who did it?” Sempronius asked. “Or ought we to call in the Augian Commission?” The same men who guarded against the use of magic in the Senate could also be summoned to investigate crimes of a thaumaturgical nature.
“If I went to where they were dusted, I might be able to trace it.” She looked sharply up at Marcus, still rubbing her hands clean. “You said he was in the Forum?”
“Yes.”
“Sons of Dis.” Vibia shook her head. “With all the people tramping through . . .”
“Like trying to have a dog scent across running water,” Marcus said, understanding. “I doubt there’d be a strong enough signature left for even the Commission to piece anything together.”
‘Just as well,’ Vibia thought. She loathed the idea of bringing the Augian Commission anywhere near her brother and his close-guarded talents.
“Should we be worried about the cursed dirt affecting other people?” Sempronius asked. “If they’ve stepped in it?”
“Hard to say.” Vibia’s face was screwed up in concentration. “It would depend on how the mage bound the spell—if it was intended for Felix and his friends or not.”
“It didn’t seem to affect Obir and his men,” Marcus offered.
“Or you two, for that matter. I’d guess we’re safe.” Vibia rubbed at her forehead. “I’m going to have a headache for days, Sempronius, you do know that?”
A moment later, Corvinus escorted Felix back into the atrium. Still mildly disoriented, but lucid now, he stammered, “Brother— Senator— I . . . I can explain.”
“I very much doubt it, lad,” Sempronius said, gesturing for Corvinus to help Felix sit. “You were cursed.”
“Thoroughly,” Vibia put in, still pacing around the border of the impluvium pool.
Felix looked back and forth between them, eyes innocent and astonished. “Cursed? But— Why? Who’d want to curse me?”
“Been trifling with some priest’s daughter?” Marcus asked, scowling.
“What? I— No! Not that I know of, anyway.”
Sempronius put a hand up to quiet his protests. “What’s the last thing you remember before the fight?”
Felix cast his eyes from left to right as though hoping to find the answers etched on the walls. “I was in the Forum . . .”
“Yes, Felix, we’d figured that part out on our own,” Marcus said. “And?”
“And I was talking with the lads about the Iberian campaign . . .” Felix made a vague gesture in the air. “Some ugly bastard came up to us, face like the wrong end of a camel . . . started in on us about . . .” Clarity suddenly blossomed on his face. “About you, Senator.” Sempronius said nothing, but gave a small nod. “And then everything sort of went blurry.”
Sempronius and Vibia exchanged a small, significant glance. Then Sempronius helped Marcus haul a yet-unsteady Felix to his feet. “We’ll straighten this out.”
“And wreak some vengeance, I hope,” Felix said. “Being cursed . . . and in the Forum!”
Marcus put an arm around his brother’s back to support him. “Look at it this way, brother—Perhaps you were just receiving payback now for something you did earlier in life.”
“Or something I’ve yet to do?” Felix said, managing a small grin.
“Take him home, Marcus,” Sempronius said. “Though you may want to stop by the Temple of Asclepius on the way and have someone see to his hands.”
Felix looked at his knuckles as though just realizing they were raw and bleeding. “Yes . . . I think that’d be good . . .”
Sempronius and Vibia stood alone in the atrium for a few minutes after the Autroniae departed. Vibia had her arms folded across her chest, staring blankly at the door. “I didn’t like to say it in front of everyone, brother,” she said, “but what happened to Felix was highly illegal.”
“Of course it was,” Sempronius said, confused. “The use of magic to incite—”
“No,” Vibia said. “Not just the leges tabulae magicae,” she said, referring to Aven’s body of laws that pertained only to those with magical blessings. “That was not only Fracture magic. That was Discordian.” Sempronius’s head jerked towards her sharply. Vibia nodded. “To go after the emotions like that, to incite violence in a public place . . . That was bread and oil to the Discordian cult.”
“There aren’t meant to be any left in the city,” Sempronius said. He had no praise for most of Ocella’s pronouncements, but banishing the Discordian cult had been one of the Dictator’s finer notions. He had done it because he feared their disruptive power, n
ot out of piety, but the effect was beneficial nonetheless. Discordia represented the darker aspect of Fracture, the uncontrollable chaos beyond the neat lines of Janus and the circling wheel of Fortuna.
“Someone forgot to tell them that, then,” Vibia replied. “I’m not mistaken.”
“I had not assumed you were. I am merely surprised.”
Vibia snorted. “You hide your nature. Is it so surprising they might hide theirs in order to practice in secret?”
“Fair enough.”
Vibia regarded her brother for a long moment. However traditional her typical inclinations, in this, she heartily agreed with Sempronius. A man should not be barred from the full expression of his abilities by ancient restrictions. She could never quite feel as calm about the threat of discovery as Sempronius did, though, could not shrug off the terror she felt whenever she contemplated his exposure. But Sempronius, as ever, would do as he willed. “I assume that you’ll be conducting your own investigation.”
“Of course,” Sempronius said. “I imagine I’ll be able to track it. It will be weeks before I can use the mirror, though.” Vibia nodded. Shadow magic did best at the dark of the moon, and the new moon had passed at the end of October, a few days previous.
“Well,” she said, “give me a target. I’ll prepare a most . . . appropriate response.”
XXIV
TAGUS RIVER, IBERIA
Neitin knelt hip-deep in the water near the shore, letting the cool water ripple over her thighs. Her hair was pinned atop her head to keep it dry, and the sun warmed the back of her neck. She cupped her palm and poured water over her shoulders, rubbing at her skin to sluice off a thin layer of gray dust.
They were near a town that had once belonged to the Vettoni, their allies, but had been taken over by the Arevaci. No longer. Ekialde and his men had waited until the people were in their fields, bringing in the last harvests, then laid waste to the unprepared populace. All the men were slaughtered, and most of the women. Some children were spared, but only those who showed promise as warriors or armorers, or who were pretty enough to keep as slaves. They were Arevaci, the enemy. Ekialde assured her they deserved no better.