by Cass Morris
‘But you were not discovered,’ she thought. ‘Lady Venus smiles on this.’
“I dare not kiss you again,” Sempronius said, though his lips were at her ear, and his hand lingered at the small of her back. “Not so near the house.” He smiled. “I was not mistaken in you, Lady Latona. You are an unparalleled glory when you are brave enough to allow yourself to be.” Whatever his intentions might have been, his lips dusted against her temple once more.
And then he was gone, melted back into the colonnades, moving to rejoin the party. Latona took several long, deep breaths, smoothing her hair back from her face and willing the blush to leave her cheeks before she also returned, hoping that their long absence had not been noted.
The mood of the party had mellowed, as the degrees of drunkenness slipped from revelry into lethargy. Aula had left off gambling and was lolling on a couch next to Maia and Rufilius, all three of them looking half-asleep. The poet Urbanus seemed to have given up ribaldry in favor of something more lyrical. However adeptly his words might skewer, the doggerel belied the extent of his true talent. His voice was smooth yet commanding, not a soldier’s voice, to be sure, but no weak piping, either. It was a voice to make the Muses themselves sit up and take notice. ‘Small wonder that they all look rapt,’ Latona thought, glancing at the assembled congregation as she picked her way back to her sister’s side. Even some of those whose eyes had drifted closed were nonetheless nodding along with the rhythm of his verse. Only after a moment did his words manage to penetrate through the fog of her mind:
Love is ardent when discovered;
When the misfortune of lovers is made dually yoked,
They persist in that which brought about their own sufferance.
There is a story, well noted in heaven,
Of Mars and Venus captured by the ruse of her husband.
Father Mars, mad with love for Venus,
From the grim duke of war became an entreating lover,
And Venus proved neither resistant nor mocking,
For never was there a goddess bearing more tender a heart.
It seemed a cruel jest, that Latona should walk back in to the middle of this particular story. Rufilius stirred himself as she drew close, and gave up his place on the couch so that Latona could nestle in next to her sister. She dropped her head on Aula’s shoulder, breathing in the rosy scent of her hair, as Urbanus told of the lovers taken in adultery, exposed, mocked by all the rest of the gods. It ended well for love, though; when Neptune’s pleas for dignity finally freed the pair, they no longer had the need for subterfuge or shame and could live together openly.
‘And no one thinks the less of Venus for it,’ Latona thought, silently contemplating while her sister sighed dramatically over the story. ‘The other gods envy Mars his good fortune, all admitting they would trade places with him in an instant. And she goes on being “laughter-loving Venus,” cherished and adored by all.’
There was a moral in it, somewhere, but Latona’s heart was too troubled to sort out what that might be.
XLVIII
TAGUS RIVER, IBERIA
“You promised!”
Ekialde, erregerra of the Lusetani, was in a towering rage. He had dismissed all of his war-band from his tent but his uncle Bailar and was now storming in circles around it. His uncle knelt to one side, staring down at the dirt, though Ekialde was far from certain that he was displaying the shame he ought to feel. Bailar always had an answer. Probably he was just composing himself to deliver it.
Ekialde wasn’t certain he wished to hear.
“You swore to me that it would work. My own blood, your workings—I did as you said. It spattered his skin, his face. I think it even went into his eyes and mouth. So why is he not now my slave?”
“You knew this was untested magic, sister-son.”
“That you said would work!”
Bailar raised his head slowly. “I was not mistaken. It would have. But from what you said, it sounds as though the Aventans have protective magic of their own. If I had known, I might have been able to prepare—”
“Excuses!” Ekialde spat. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed. The shame of the entire endeavor scorched at him. Not only to lose a battle, but to have his supremacy as erregerra falter. Worse still, to second-guess himself, to wonder if he had done well in following Bailar’s advice and experimenting with such unusual magic. ‘What if Neitin was right? I thought I was doing what was best for my people . . . but does this show that the gods disagree?’
Bailar rose and came to sit beside Ekialde. “Sister-son,” he said, his voice softer than before. “Neither you nor I could have foreseen this. You are Bandue’s representative, not Bandue himself. And the Aventan magic is clearly that of cowards—held close, not openly declared. We did not know this before. We do now.”
Ekialde rubbed at his dark hair. “But will we have the time to correct our approach? Will my people still have faith?”
“Of course they will—if you remain their strong leader. Do not allow this to trouble you. Stride out in the morning and show them that the god still walks with you.” Bailar grasped his nephew’s hands, squeezing them to just before the point of pain. “And there is more. We can do more. If you are willing.”
Ekialde’s eyes blazed as gold as the coals in the brazier. “I want to win. I want to chase these Aventan bastards from the mendi.”
“Then listen. We will have to learn more of them, first. More of their magic. Once we know how to work around their defenses . . .” Bailar drew a deep breath. “You would have to be strong for it. It would take much of your essence, and some of your own people might call it a perversion of the gods’ will. But I think, with Bandue’s own permission, we could wreak untold havoc. Blood does not only convey strength, after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Blood can do so much. It can thicken and stop up the veins. It can swell the brain, madden a man. It carries disease. We could turn the Aventans’ own bodies against them. If you are willing—if you are brave enough, to stare into deeper mysteries than any leader in our memory—there is much we can do.” Bailar’s hands moved to his wrists, feeling the pulse there. The pressure made Ekialde aware of its thrum. “Are you willing? Willing to use not just magic of the blood, but of the bone? Willing to yolk your strength to the powers of Endovelicos as shadow, not sun? To summon his workers from the netherworld and use your strength to control them?”
Ekialde pursed his lips, weighing the matter. He could not be naive; there would be those who said Bailar intended dark magics, such as the Lusetani had not employed for generations. His wife would be among those critics. ‘But if it would work . . . The gods wish me to rid our land of foreign influence, of that I am sure. To restore the purity of our people, I must do whatever is necessary. And if Bailar is brave enough, then so must I be.’ The role of an erregerra was to risk himself for his people, and that meant his soul no less than his body.
“Tell me, uncle,” Ekialde said. “If it helps us defeat the Aventans, there is nothing I’m not brave enough for. Tell me everything.”
* * *
Neitin had waited outside the tent, hugging her belly and listening. When she heard Ekialde making his promise to his uncle, she rose, tears dewing her cheeks, and walked a little ways into the forest. She could move silently when she chose. Only her sisters noticed her passing by, and they were not about to call Ekialde’s war-band on her.
The night sky was an empty slate, moonless and starless. Neitin fell to her knees, splaying her hands against the dirt. She scratched the top layer of soil loose. It was hard with the cold, but she wanted to reach something softer, more alive, not the earth that was whipped and chafed by the wind.
The dirt was even colder further down, but malleable. Neitin curled her hands into fists, then cast her gaze up to the sky. “I have no magic,” she said. “I can work no great wonder
s. But I beg you, gods of my people, keep him safe.”
They had seen the might of Aven now, had pitched the best of theirs against only a small faction of the invaders. What would happen when Aven came against them in full force?
For Neitin, the solution was simple: go home, back to the lowlands near the ocean. She longed for familiar terrain. ‘What will happen if my child is born here, so far from our people’s home?’ But Ekialde would hear none of this. He had set himself a course and would not swerve, not even if it meant sinking into his uncle’s blood-mania.
So all Neitin could do was pray. “Nabia, for the sake of our child, do not let him fall into this darkness. Trebarunu, let us come home safe. No more of this. No more blood. No more of his uncle’s wickedness.”
She hung her head, dark curls falling like curtains on either side of her face. The amulet Ekialde had given her swayed between her breasts, clacking against the other charm she wore—a smooth stone with a natural hole in it, taken from the river where she and Ekialde had played. She wanted to have it blessed, but there was no magic-woman to do so, not here in this masculine wilderness of war.
♦ JANUARIUS ♦
XLIX
690 AB URBE CONDITA
CITY OF AVEN
The six hundred and eighty-ninth year since Aven’s founding drifted into the six hundred and ninetieth, the priests made their sacrifices to Janus, the new magistrates took their offices, and Sempronius Tarren, officially invested as the praetorial governor of Cantabria, could now travel north to rally his legions.
He would not be making the journey alone. Recruits from Samnium and Apulia had mustered on the Campus Martius, and these would be heading north as well, along with the non-combatants and administrative staff who had not yet departed for the training camps in Campania. Most of the Tenth was already there, in the foothills, and Sempronius’s new recruits would bring the legion to full numbers. They would move farther north, into Liguria, and stay there through the winter. It was Sempronius’s hope that training there, rather than on the Campus Martius or elsewhere in Truscum, would better prepare the legions to fight at the higher elevations of the Iberian plateaus.
The legions readied themselves to depart on a cold morning in the first week of January. Frost crisped the grass, and soldiers and commanders alike had donned extra togas and thick woolen socks to stave off the chill. Marching would, at least, warm them up, and so despite the early hour, most of the men were anxious to depart.
* * *
Latona did not know what it was that compelled her to bundle into a plain green gown and fawn-toned mantle, hours before most of the women in Aven’s polite society would be awake, and slip out of her house with Merula at her side. She did not know why her feet carried her down the Palatine Hill, through the Forum, near-deserted except for crumb-picking birds and a few public slaves, sweeping the steps of the temples. She did not know why she proceeded around the Capitoline to the gate that opened out toward the Field of Mars. Or rather, though she knew the reason for all these actions, she did not know why she allowed the impulse to rule her, rather than defeating it and staying home in her warm bed.
Her husband would be furious, she knew, if he were aware of it. It would never occur to him to look for her when he rose in the morning, though; she never went anywhere so early. Still, the risk of it thrummed in her heart.
The Campus Martius was swarming with men, some lined up in their rows, prepared to march, others still dousing campfires, packing up tents, swearing at each other, at their horses, at their inferiors, about their superiors. Mostly the men ignored her; some few, perhaps those with better manners bred or beaten into them, tugged their forelocks or gave her little nods. She did her best to stay out of the way of anyone who looked like he was moving with purpose as she wandered towards the command tents on the far side of the field, hoping she wasn’t too late, hoping that the commanders had not yet assembled themselves at the head of the ranks.
Latona saw, as she approached, the nervous look of the tribunes in their early twenties heading out on their first campaign, unblooded men younger than most of the legionaries. One looked particularly pale and sweaty. Moved to pity by the nauseated expression clouding the young man’s face, Latona sent a little boost of encouraging magic his way as she passed.
Latona also passed two men she definitely recognized: Felix and Rufilius. As she passed, Rufilius offered her a jaunty salute, and Felix actually winked. She smiled politely and nodded at them, but went along her way, hoping they did not attach too much meaning to her presence in the camp. And then, standing in front of a crimson-bannered tent, she found the man she had crept out of her house in the early hours of the morning to see.
Sempronius Tarren cut a fine figure in his military kit. Not all men did. The paneled kilt and short red tunic made a man with scrawny or ill-proportioned legs look positively ridiculous, and of course not everyone had arm muscles impressive enough to show off the bands around wrists and biceps to their greatest effect. Sempronius looked as fit as any of the relentlessly drilled legionaries, and Latona did not feel the slightest bit ashamed for noticing. His steel cuirass fit him perfectly—specially crafted, then, not a family heirloom. Some patricians took great pride in wearing the same armor their forefathers had worn; Latona thought that foolish, considering how poorly fitted some of those hand-me-downs could be. His segmented armor gleamed in the sunlight, polished with devoted care. He had not yet donned the shining helmet, impressively crested with stiff black horsehair; it was stuck atop a post next to him while he adjusted the saddlebags on an uncomplaining mule.
When he saw her approach, he handed the mule-tending to an eager young tribune. He stepped a little ways away from the tent and made a very correct nod of greeting, in deference to any observation by the milling crowd. She bobbed her head in reply, allowing the dull brown mantle to slip off the back of her head, draping down her back. “Lady Latona,” he said. Though he looked unflustered, there was a tightness in his voice. “Have you come to see me off?”
“I— Yes, yes, I have,” Latona said, feeling foolish. She realized that, absurdly, she was looking down at the red dust, not at his face, and she remedied that immediately. Unable to come up with any plausible excuse for being about this early in the day, she settled on simply telling the truth. “I wanted to say farewell.”
“That’s kind,” Sempronius said. A smile quirked his lips. “My own sister quite declined to get up so early in the day, and bade me her fond farewells last night.”
Neither of them mentioned that seeing a man off personally was the action of a wife, not a friend. Less than one, more than the other, Latona hardly knew what it might be appropriate to say and could barely master the impulse to reach out and touch him. To do so would be dangerous. Her body remembered his too well; feeling it again might undo her composure entirely.
So instead, Latona reached for her waist and tugged on a small square of fabric which she had tucked into her belt. A focale, largely unornamented, except for a few embroidered designs at the corners. “I’ve been weaving a lot lately,” she explained, holding it out to him. “And I thought . . . well, I want you to have this.”
His fingers brushed hers, light and brief, as he took the focale from her. “This is very good of you, my lady,” he said. He tilted his head to the side, considering. “There is Fire magic in this, unless I miss my guess?”
“There is.”
He cut her off by closing the distance between them, and Latona felt her heartbeat jump. Eyes locked on hers, he seized one of her hands in his, bending the fingers gently. He lifted them to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Latona had guessed rightly. Her heart ached to feel his warmth again, and the heat in his eyes, focused and hungry with some nameless need, showed that he felt it, too.
“This is a special gift, Latona, and you honor me by giving it,” he said. “I thank you, most deeply. I shall wear it in battle and take heart,
knowing that your magic protects me.”
“It seemed right,” she said. Socially inappropriate, perhaps, but right, in her bones. The scrap of crimson fabric was a connection that could link his life’s blood to her talents, and thus to her strength. It was a gift she should never have had the audacity to bestow, yet here she was, and Sempronius promised to cherish it. His forefinger stroked, almost imperceptibly, against her palm, over the pad at the base of her thumb, and Latona felt her pulse leap. No onlooker could find anything improper by glancing at them, but the gesture was maddeningly intimate, sending a thrill down Latona’s spine.
He pulled her close—too close, dangerously close if anyone should see them and recognize her. “Not a dozen women in all Truscum could create something like this.” His lips brushed her cheek, barely pressing against the corner of her mouth, and Latona realized she was holding her breath. From afar, it might have looked like the farewell kiss a brother would give a sister, but Latona felt a heat in it that seared her to the core. He rested his head against hers, temple to temple, and murmured in her ear, low and urgent, “See yourself.”
What might have happened next, Latona would never know, and she was spared the trial of having to find words—or of having to keep herself from twining her arms around his neck and scandalizing herself there in the Campus Martius. A horn echoed its signal across the Field, and Sempronius stepped away from her—though it seemed, to Latona, that he did not release her fingers until the last possible moment.
“I must be on my way,” he said, looking off towards the edge of the field, where the men were assembling. The heat had left his eyes; he was, again, the unflappable military officer. There was still sincerity there, though, as he said, “May I write to you?”
“I hope you will.” Latona felt the desire to touch him in every inch of her skin, even in the smallest, most casual way. She wanted to brush his hair back from his eyes. She wanted to go up on her toes and kiss his cheek and tell him to be safe. She wanted to press her fingers against his again, just to have one last tangible moment before he left.