Balefires

by David Drake

  Vettius shrugged himself to full alertness and felt within his purse. He hadn't thought to bundle a few coins in a twist of papyrus beforehand, so now he had to figure desperately as he leaned toward the opening to the treasury. He didn't see any way that Pyrrhus could tell if he flung in a couple bits of bronze instead of real payment, but…

  Vettius dropped three denarii and a Trapezuntine obol, all silver, into the stone maw. He couldn't take the chance that Pyrrhus or a confederatewould know what he had done-and at best expose him in front of Severiana.

  He stepped back into place.

  "Marcus Dama!"the Prophet called, to the surprise of Vettius who'd expected Dama to use a false name. Diffidently lowering his eyes, the little man took the notebook Pyrrhus returned to him.

  "God grants us troubling things to learn," the Prophet singsonged."Sorrows both and joys wait your return."

  A safe enough answer-if the petitioner told you he'd left his wife and three minor children behind in Spain months before. Dama kept his eyes low as he paid his offering and pattered back to Vettius's side.

  There were half a dozen further responses before Pyrrhus raised his arms as he had before making an utterance from the porch. "The blessings of God upon you!" he cried.

  A single tablet remained on the floor beside the stone bench. Vettius remembered the well-dressed thug who'd tried to carry in a dagger…

  "God's blessings on his servants Pyrrhus and Glaukon!" responded that majority of the crowd which knew the liturgy.

  "Depart in peace…" rasped the bronze serpent from its cross, drawing out the Latin sibilants and chilling Dama's bones again.

  The doors creaked open and the worshipers began to leave. Most of them appeared to be in a state of somnolent ecstasy. A pair of attendants collected the tablets which had been supplied to petitioners who didn't bring their own; with enough leisure, even the most devout believer might have noticed the way the waxed surface could be slid from beneath the sealed cover panel.

  The air outside was thick with dust and the odors of slum tenements. Dama had never smelled anything so refreshing as the first breath that filled his lungs beyond the walls of Pyrrhus's church.

  ***

  Almost all of those who'd attended the private service left in sedan chairs.

  Vettius and Dama instead walked a block in silence to a set of bollards protecting an entrance to the Julian Mall. They paused, each lost for a moment in a landscape of memories. No one lurked nearby in the moonlight, and the rumble of goods wagons and construction vehicles-banned from the streets by day-kept their words from being overheard at any distance.

  "A slick operation," Vettius said.

  The merchant lifted his chin in agreement but then added, "His clientele makes it easy, though. They come wanting to be fooled."

  "I'm not sure how…" Vettius said.

  For a moment, his tongue paused over concluding the question the way he'd started it: I'm not sure how Pyrrhus managed to appear and disappear that way. But though he knew that was just a trick, the way some sort of trick inspired awe when Pyrrhus stared into the soldier's eyes… neither of those were things that Vettius wanted to discuss just now.

  "… he knew what your question was," Vettius's tongue concluded. "Is the tablet still sealed?"

  "Sealed again, I should guess," Dama said mildly as he held the document up to the full moon. "They could've copied my seal impression in quick-drying plaster, but I suspect-yes, there."

  His fingertip traced a slight irregularity in the seal's edge. "They used a hot needle to cut the wax and then reseal it after they'd read the message."

  He looked at his companion with an expression the bigger man couldn't read. "Pyrrhus has an exceptional memory," he said, "to keep the tablets and responses in proper order. He doesn't give himself much time to study."

  Vettius gestured absently in agreement. The soldier's mind considered various ways, more or less dangerous, to broach the next subject.

  Three wagons carrying column bases crashed and rumbled past, drawn by teams of mules with cursing drivers. The loads might be headed toward a construction site within the city-but more likely they were going to the harbor and a ship that would carry them to Constantinople or Milan.

  Rome was no longer a primary capital of the empire. It was easier to transport art than to create it, so Rome's new imperial offspring were devouring the city which gave them birth. All things die, even cities.

  Even empires… but Lucius Vettius didn't permit himself to think aboutthat.

  "It doesn't appear that he's doing anything illegal," the soldier said carefully. "There's no law against lying to people, even if they decide to give you money for nothing."

  "Or lying about people," Dama said-"agreed" would imply there was some emotion in his voice, and there was none. "Lying about philosophers who tell people you're a charlatan, for instance."

  "I thought he might skirt treason," Vettius went on, looking out over the street beyond. "It's easy to say the wrong thing, you know… But if Pyrrhus told any lies-" with the next words, Vettius would come dangerously close to treason himself; but perhaps his risk would draw the response he wanted from the merchant "-it was in the way he praised everything to do with the government."

  "There was the-riot, I suppose you could call it," Dama suggested as his fingers played idly with the seal of his tablet.

  "Incited by the victim," the soldier said flatly. "And some of those taking part were-very influential folk, I'd estimate. There won't be a prosecution on that basis."

  "Yeah," the merchant agreed. "That's the way I see it too. So I suppose we'd better go home."

  Vettius nodded upward in agreement.

  He'd have to go the next step alone. Too bad, but the civilian had already involved himself more than could have been expected. Dama would go back and make still more money, while Lucius Vettius carried out what he saw as a duty Knowing that he faced court martial and execution if his superiors learned of it.

  "Good to have met you, Marcus Dama," he muttered as he strode away through a break in traffic.

  There was a crackle of sound behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. Dama was walking toward his apartment in the opposite direction.

  But at the base of the stone bollard lay the splintered fragments of the tablet the merchant had been holding.

  ***

  The crews of two sedan chairs were dicing noisily-and illegally-beside the bench on which Vettius waited, watching the entrance to Pyrrhus's church through slitted eyes. Business in the small neighborhood bath house was slack enough this evening that the doorkeeper left his kiosk and seated himself beside the soldier.

  "Haven't seen you around here before," the doorkeeper opened.

  Vettius opened his eyes wide enough to frown at the man. "You likely won't see me again," he said. "Which is too bad for you, given what I've paid you to mind your own business."

  Unabashed, the doorkeeper chewed one bulb from the bunch of shallots he was holding, then offered the bunch to the soldier. His teeth were yellow and irregular, but they looked as strong as a mule's.

  "Venus!" cried one of the chairmen as his dice came up all sixes."How'sthat, you Moorish fuzzbrain?"

  "No thanks," said Vettius, turning his gaze back down the street.

  The well-dressed, heavily veiled woman who'd arrived at the church about an hour before was leaving again. She was the second person to be admitted for a private consultation, but a dozen other-obviously less wealthy-suppliants had been turned away during the time the soldier had been watching.

  He'd been watching, from one location or another in the neighborhood, since dawn.

  "I like to keep track of what's going on around here," the doorkeeper continued. He ate another shallot and belched. "Maybe I could help you with what you're looking for?"

  Vettius clenched his great, calloused hands, only partly as a conscious attempt on his part to warn this nuisance away. "Right now," he said in a husky voice, "I'm looking for a littl
e peace and-"

  "Hey there!" one of the chairmen shouted in Greek as the players sprang apart. One reached for the stakes, another kicked him, and a third slipped a short, single-edged knife from its hiding place in the sash that bound his tunic.

  Vettius and the doorkeeper both leaped to their feet. The soldier didn't want to get involved, but if a brawl broke out, it was likely to explode into him.

  At the very best, that would disclose the fact that he was hiding his long cavalryman's sword beneath his cloak.

  The pair of plump shopowners who'd hired the sedan chairs came out the door, rosy from the steam room and their massages. The chairmen sorted themselves at once into groups beside the poles of their vehicles. The foreman of one chair glanced at the other, nodded, and scooped up the stakes for division later.

  Vettius settled back on the bench. Down the street, a quartet of porters were carrying a heavy chest up the steps of the church. Attendants opened the doors for the men.

  Early in the morning, the goods Vettius had seen in the building's anteroom had been dispersed, mostly across the street to the apartment house which Pyrrhus owned. Since then, there had been a constant stream of offerings. All except the brace of live sheep were taken inside.

  Pyrrhus had not come out all day.

  "A bad lot, those chairmen," the doorkeeper resumed, dusting his hands together as though he'd settled the squabble himself. The hollow stems of his shallots flopped like an uncouth decoration from the bosom of his tunic."I'm always worried that-"

  Vettius took the collar of the man's garment between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He lifted the cloth slightly. "If you do not leave me alone," he said in a low voice, "you will have something to worry about. For a short time."

  Half a dozen men, householders and slaves, left the bath caroling an obscene round. One of them was trying to bounce a hard leather ball as he walked, but it caromed wildly across the street.

  The doorkeeper scurried back to his kiosk as soon as Vettius released him.

  Three attendants, the full number of those who'd been in the church with Pyrrhus, came out and stood on the porch. Vettius held very still. It was nearly dusk-time and past time that the Prophet go to dinner.

  If he was going.

  Pyrrhus could lie and bilk and slander for the next fifty years until he died on a pinnacle of wealth and sin, and that'd still be fine with Lucius Vettius. There were too many crooked bastards in the world for Vettius to worry about one more or less of 'em…

  Or so he'd learned to tell himself, when anger threatened to build into a murderous rage that was safe to release only on a battlefield.

  Vettius wasn't just a soldier anymore: he was an agent of the civil government whose duties required him to protect and advise the City Prefect. If Pyrrhus kept clear of Rutilianus, then Pyrrhus had nothing to fear from Lucius Vettius.

  But if Pyrrhus chose to make Rutilianus his business, then…

  A sedan chair carried by four of Pyrrhus's attendants trotted to the church steps from the apartment across the street. A dozen more of the Prophet's men in gleaming tunics accompanied the vehicle. Several of them carried lanterns for the walk back, though the tallow candles within were unlighted at the moment.

  Pyrrhus strode from the church and entered the sedan chair. He looked inhumanly tall and thin, even wrapped in the formal bulk of a toga. It was a conjuring trick itself to watch the Prophet fold his length and fit it within the sedan, then disappear behind black curtains embroidered with a serpent on a cross.

  Three attendants remained on the porch. The remainder accompanied the sedan chair as it headed northeast, in the direction of the Prefect's dwelling. The attendants' batons guaranteed the vehicle clear passage, no matter how congested the streets nearer the city center became.

  Vettius sighed. Well, he had his excuse, now. But the next-hours, days, years; he didn't know how long it'd take him to find something on this "Prophet" that'd stick…

  The remainder of the soldier's life might be simpler if he didn't start at all. But he was going to start, by burglarizing Pyrrhus's church and private dwelling while the Prophet was at dinner. And if that didn't turn up evidence of a crime against the State, there were other things to try…

  A hunter learns to wait. It would be dead-dark soon, when the sun set and the moon was still two hours beneath the horizon. Time then to move to the back of the church which he'd reconnoitered by the first light of dawn.

  Men left the bath house, laughing and chatting as they headed for their dinners. Vettius watched the three attendants, as motionless as statues on the church porch; as motionless as he was himself.

  And he waited.

  ***

  When Vettius was halfway up the back wall of the church, a patrol of the Watch sauntered by in the street fronting the building.

  Watch patrols were primarily fire wardens, but the State equipped them with helmets and spears to deal with any other troubles they might come across. This group was dragging the ferules of its spears along the pavement with a tremendous racket, making sure itdidn't come across such troubles… but Vettius still paused and waited for the clatter to trail off in the direction of the Theater of Balbus.

  Back here, nobody'd bothered to cover the building's brick fabric with marble, and the mortar between courses probably hadn't been renewed in the centuries since the structure was raised as a temple. The warehouse whose blind sidewall adjoined the back of the church two feet away was also brick. It provided a similarly easy grip for the cleats of Vettius's tight-laced boots.

  Step by step, steadying himself with his fingertips, the soldier mounted to the clerestory windows beneath the transom of the church. Each was about three feet long but only eight inches high, and their wooden sashes were only lightly pinned to the bricks.

  Vettius loosened a window with the point of his sword, then twisted the sash outward so that the brickwork continued to grip one end. If matters went well, he'd be able to hide all signs of his entry when he left.

  He hung his cloak over the end of the window he'd swung clear. He'd need the garment to conceal his sword on the way back.

  The long spatha was a terrible tool for the present use. He'd brought it rather than a sturdy dagger or simply a prybar because Because he was still afraid of whatever he thought he'd seen in Pyrrhus's eyes the night before. The sword couldn't help that, but it made Vettiusfeel more comfortable.

  There was a faint glow from within the building; one lamp wick had been left burning to light the Prophet's return home.

  Vettius uncoiled his silken line. He'd thought he might need the small grapnel on one end to climb to the window, but the condition of the adjoining walls made the hooks as unnecessary as the dark lantern he'd carried in case the church was unlighted. Looping the cord around an end-frame of the window next to the one he'd removed, he dropped both ends so that they dangled to the floor of Pyrrhus's sanctum.

  He had no real choice but to slide head-first through the tight opening. He gripped the doubled cord in both hands to keep from plunging thirty feet to the stone floor.

  His right hand continued to hold the hilt of his naked sword as well. Scabbarded, the weapon might've slipped out when he twisted through the window; or so he told himself.

  Pyrrhus's bronze serpent gaped only a few feet from Vettius as he descended the cord, hand over hand. The damned thing was larger than it had looked from below, eighteen-no, probably twenty feet long when you considered the way its coils wrapped the cross. Shadows from the lamplight below drew the creature's flaring nostrils into demonic horns.

  At close view, the bronze head looked much less human than it had from the anteroom. There were six vertical tubes in each eye. They lighted red and green in alternation.

  Vettius's hobnails sparked as he dropped the last yard to the floor. The impact felt good.

  Except for Pyrrhus's absence, the sanctum looked just as it had when the soldier saw it the night before. He went first to the couch that covered th
e Prophet's strongbox. It was solid marble, attached to the floor by bronze pivots. Vettius expected a lock of some sort, but only weight prevented the stone from being lifted. So…

  He sheathed his sword and gripped the edge of the couch with both hands. Raising the stone would require the strength of three or four normal men, but The marble pivoted upward, growling like a sleeping dog.

  The cavity beneath was empty.

  Vettius vented his breath explosively. He almost let the lid crash back in disgust, but the stone might have broken and the noise would probably alert the attendants.

  Grunting-angry and without the hope of immediate triumph to drive him-Vettius lowered by main strength the weight that enthusiasm had lifted.

  He breathed heavily and massaged his palms against his thigh muscles for a minute thereafter. Score one for the Prophet.

  Vettius didn't know precisely what he'd expected to find in the crypt, but therehad to be some dark secret within this building or Pyrrhus wouldn't have lived in it alone. Something so secret that Pyrrhus didn't dare trust it even to his attendants…

  Perhaps there was a list of high government personnel who were clients of Pyrrhus-or who supplied him with secret information. The emperors were-rightly-terrified of conspiracies. A list like that, brought to the attention of the right parties, would guarantee mass arrests and condemnations.

  With, very probably, a promotion for the decurion who uncovered the plot.

  If necessary, Vettius could create such a document himself; but he'd rather find the real one, since something of the sortmust exist.

  The bronze lamp had been manufactured especially for Pyrrhus. Counterweighting the spouts holding the three wicks was a handle shaped like a cross. A human-headed serpent coiled about it.

  Vettius grimaced at the feel of the object as he took it from its stand. He prowled the sanctum, holding the light close to the walls.

  If there was a hiding place concealed within the bricks, Vettius certainly couldn't find it. The room was large and clean, but it was as barren as a prison cell.