Unfettered III

by Shawn Speakman (ed)

  “So you did as she asked? And the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers have not discovered the truth?”

  “They have no reason to suspect the boy still lives. No one in the whole of the Westland knows the truth.”

  “You are certain of this?”

  “As certain as I can be. You will have to determine if I am right or not for yourself. The boy’s name is different now. He is called Shea Ohmsford. He was given his uncle’s surname. He resides in the village of Shady Vale in the forests south of the Border Cities.”

  Derrivanian gave a weak smile and a shrug. “I have done what I promised myself I would do if you returned. It is the only thing I can offer as recompense for my behavior. I hope you can understand.” Then he gestured toward the door. “You should go now. Find the boy. Save him.”

  Allanon rose. “You should take you own advice, then. Leave here immediately. Take your wife to Arborlon and ask the King for protection.”

  The old man shook his head. “I sent her away to stay with friends the moment the Skull Bearer left to follow you. I asked them to hide her until they heard from me. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Then join her. Do so before the Skull Bearer comes for you.”

  The other man smiled, but there was no warmth. “No, it’s too late for that. It was always too late.” He took the glass of ale he had brought for himself and drained it. His eyes fixed on Allanon. “Do you really think we would be safe from the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers in Arborlon? Do you think we would be safe anywhere?”

  “Eventine Elessedil is not his father. He harbors no bitterness toward you. He is dedicated and compassionate. He will do his best to protect you.”

  “I am the only one who can do what is necessary to protect Collice, and I have done it.” He gestured toward the glass. “You see this? A permanent sleeping potion. The kind you hear about all the time. I am putting myself beyond the Warlock Lord’s reach. I know myself. I am weak, and if pressure were brought to bear, I would give up everything I know. But if I can’t talk, I can’t tell.”

  Allanon stared. “You took poison?”

  “I have betrayed you once. I would do so again. I would betray everyone. But I could not bear to let such a thing happen.” He shrugged. “I have lived my life doing the best I could. I would like to think I died in the same way.” He was already slurring his words. “Maybe, if you have the time, you could tell Collice . . .”

  Then his eyes fixed, his head fell back, and he was gone.

  Allanon rose, lifted him out of the chair, and laid him on the mattress in the corner. He placed a blanket over the body. It was the best he could do in the time he had. He couldn’t stay longer. He would tell someone about Derrivanian on the way through town.

  He stood for a moment, looking down at the body. The old man had ended things on his own terms. He was probably right about his wife. Once he was dead, the Skull Bearers would not bother hunting her. There was no longer a reason.

  He went outside into the twilight, wondering if Eldra and Collice Derrivanian would have found sanctuary in Arborlon as he had advised, or if they were both better off now.

  He was uncertain, but the choice had not been his to make.

  Minutes later, he was riding east toward the Borderlands and the hamlet of Shady Vale.

  DAVID ANTHONY DURHAM

  AFTER MY ACACIA EPIC FANTASY TRILOGY, I TURNED BACK TOWARD historical fiction, wanting to write something along the lines of Pride of Carthage, my novel about Hannibal’s war with Rome. I had another enemy of Rome that I was keen to write about: Spartacus.

  Alas, this writing thing is a funky beast. When I wrote Pride of Carthage, I’d only written literary historical fiction. When I began The Risen (the Spartacus novel), I’d written three epic fantasies and a bunch of science fiction stories for George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. In the process, I’d mutated. I was weird and geeky in a way I hadn’t been before. This manifested in a desire to write The Risen as a horror/fantasy novel. My publisher wanted the straight historical novel that I’d signed up for. Ultimately, I delivered that. But the monsters didn’t sleep.

  When I had the opportunity to contribute to another of Shawn’s wonderful anthologies, I knew that I wanted to write a sample of the dark places my mind went with an alternative version of ancient Rome. That’s what I’m offering here.

  David Anthony Durham

  Kneeling Before Jupiter

  David Anthony Durham

  It was to be the best day of my young life.

  The first fifteenth of March since I had turned sixteen. The day on which I officially—before the eyes of all of Rome—became a man. And not just any man, but one of the nobilitas who truly ruled Rome. I had slept the previous night in a white woolen tunic. I strived to keep it immaculately clean. I ate my evening snack with my head jutting far out before my body, and I drank water uncolored by wine. I didn’t pull Thana, the chamber slave that had my ardor then, into bed with me. I didn’t even give in to the desire to bring myself to climax. Such sacrifices, but worth it. I had made it through the night unstained.

  In the early hours of the morning, family and friends, senators and merchants gathered to honor me. As they milled about, slaves washed and dressed me in a purple fringed tunic, a garment of youth and one that I would wear for only a few moments more. When my father called my name, I entered the crowded room. I strolled in, as composed as I could manage, to applause and shouts of my name. My mother’s eyes fixed on me with admiration. And my younger brothers? Their eyes shone with envy, which to me was just perfect.

  I carried to the altar the golden ball that had been mine since childhood. I pushed it away, a thing belonging to a boy, something I was to have no need for anymore. I stepped up onto the dais where my father waited for me. Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, greeted me stern-faced. He was always stern-faced, his head as solid as a boulder, his features carved of stone. He motioned for me to disrobe. I shrugged my tunic from my shoulders and took the white toga from my father’s fingers. I stood awkwardly as various hands draped and tugged the garment into place.

  The journey to the Forum was a mad festivity. At first, I made sure to keep my eyes from rising to the bright, cloud-studded spring sky. A few days previous my father had an augur read the skies for me. The motion of the birds in flight, the man ruled, were most favorable. Hoping to keep it that way, I made sure not to see any signs that might revise my fortunes. I didn’t want an errant pigeon to put my future in jeopardy.

  I forgot my trepidation soon enough. The streets thronged with revelers. I walked at the vanguard of my own procession. Strangers shouted my name and sang my praise. Some tossed flower petals to soften the way before me. Behind us, a throng of the impoverished followed, bellowing the loudest of all. I knew they were hoping for a meal at my father’s expense, but no matter. The moment buoyed, pushed me forward.

  In the Forum, they spoke my name. It rang out in the center of Rome, just as the names of famous men had before me. Despite the tumult, I could hear the tribunes inscribing my name on the tabularium, where it would be forever. Already, I was part of the history of the nation.

  From there all of us new men traveled in a boisterous pack to the Temple of Juventas. We bowed before the goddess of youth and offered her a coin for her grace in seeing us from boys to men. Nor did the banquet back at our city estate disappoint. I had worried that my father’s thrift would make for a Spartan affair. Marcus Crassus had simple tastes and cultivated the same in us, much to my dismay. This time, however, the food and drink was all I could have hoped for. The slaves anticipated every desire.

  Cassius Longinus, one of the serving consuls, stopped in to raise a glass to me. He declared me the foremost of the new men in terms of potential. “I have high expectations of you,” he said. “You will have a fine military career ahead of you. And then . . . the Senate and high honors. I see it all quite clearly.”

  Outwardly, I accepted this with the stern humility
appropriate for a Roman. Inside was a different matter. Inside, I hid layers of fears. How was I to ever live up to what was expected of me? I had trained as hard as any of my peers, but none of them had achieved the physical prowess, the stamina and speed and bravery common to nobiles. I had marveled at displays during various games. I had seen men—even old men to my eyes—lift weights above their heads that I could not even budge, or leap over walls taller than several men’s height. I had watched Actorius Naso best Gaius Pompey’s fastest stallion. A man outpacing a stallion! And he was not the only one who could do it. At the games celebrating the end of the campaign season, I had watched nobiles officers move at incredible speed when dueling captured Bithynian prisoners. They struck blows that lopped off limbs and set heads spinning in the air. The foreigners didn’t stand a chance against them. It had been incredible to behold, skills seemingly the sole province of nobiles.

  My uncle had once told me how, on campaign in Spain against a Carpetani rebellion, he sensed an ambush that his scouts had missed. The Carpetani were well-hidden, in a perfect spot to shoot down on them as they passed through a narrow defile. If he hadn’t spotted them, many lives would have been lost. “It was a cold morning,” Uncle Lucius said. “I could see the heat their concealed bodies gave off.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “That is the benefit of nobiles eyes. You’ll have them as well when you’re a man.”

  Such feats had left me burning with envy, yearning for the day I would receive the training to make me a comparable warrior. I was plagued by the fear I would not be up to it. How was I ever to reach their standard? Why were my eyes like any other eyes, no better suited to spotting an ambush than the lowliest beggar on the streets? I feared my vision wasn’t even very good. The world blurred in the distance, and I couldn’t make out objects that others could. I took some comfort in the fact that my peers all seemed equally mediocre compared to their elders. But it was a thin comfort, a sheet instead of a blanket against the cold.

  When I went to my rooms to change from my wine-stained toga into a fresher garment in preparation for one last meeting with my father, a welcome distraction presented herself. The slave girl, Thana, had been arranging my pillows and sprinkling the sheets with scented oil when I stepped in. Seeing me, she bowed her head and moved to flee. I almost let her, but as she turned, the fabric of her tunic flared. I caught sight of one of her bare breasts. What a breast it was. I had strived for views of them from her first days in the household, nearly a year now. More recently, I had attended to them with much more familiarity.

  Emboldened both by my new status and by the wine sloshing in my belly, I grabbed her and slipped my hands inside her tunic. “Not now!” she exclaimed. “There are too many guests.”

  The fact that she attempted to refuse me was a sign that we had grown too familiar. I didn’t mind, though. I’d never in my life wanted a girl as much as I wanted her, all her softness and curves, the pleasures she’d been giving me the last weeks. The things we did together in the dark stunned me to think about in the morning. With her, I truly was a master. That was something I rarely felt in my father’s shadow. I knew my father wouldn’t care for my fondness for her, if he knew of it. But that mattered less now. I was a man, wasn’t I?

  There was a sharp rapping at the door. A slave called my name, saying my father awaited.

  “Can it wait a moment?” I snapped, trying to stop Thana from pulling away.

  “Master, your father himself sent me to fetch you.”

  That wasn’t good. Thana got to her feet. I grabbed her before she could leave and, pulling her against me, whispered the things she should be ready to do for me when I returned.

  Walking down the corridor behind my father’s upright, prim slave, I hoped it would be a brief meeting, and then I’d return to Thana and complete the evening in the manner I most preferred. When the servant turned out into the courtyard instead of taking the stairs to my father’s rambling offices, I called, “Where are you taking me?”

  “Master, your father awaits you in the temple.”

  The temple was a small structure built in the round, a personal tribute to the goddess Juno. My mother, Tertulla, had convinced my father to dedicate it, arguing that the goddess’s blessing would be a boon to the family’s prosperity. It sat somewhat lower down on the grounds, on the far side of the gardens, past our private bathing pools and near the southern entrance gate. A back entrance, as it were. The spring night had gone chilly. The sky above—which I looked up into without fear of seeing omens, for such things weren’t augured in the night heavens—had blown free of clouds and twinkled coldly, as if each star was a gem of ice. Trudging down the stairs behind the slave, I had half a mind to chastise him for not having suggested I wear an outer tunic. The walk was short, however, and brisk, enough so that I stood a moment outside the small structure, catching my breath.

  The slave, having delivered me, took his leave and withdrew.

  When I pushed the door open and entered, I found that my father was not alone. In the warm, dim candlelight, a dozen or so senators mingled about the room. They all wore the togas of their status, all of them my father’s age or older, grey-haired or soon to be so. The murmur of their conversation vanished as I stepped into the room. The men turned to study me, their faces funereally grave. Not one of them held a wine cup, and no slaves were to be seen. A room full of nobiles. No servants to attend them? That was passing strange. It was such a marked change from the euphoria of the day that my pulse quickened.

  Most confounding of all was the presence of a woman. She wore a woolen palla, pinned with little adornment at the shoulder. The garment hung bulky enough for an old maid to hide herself beneath. And like one of those, a veil draped her head. If there was any doubt as to her office, it was dispelled by the red and white ribbons woven around her shoulders. A Vestal Virgin. Her face was lovely, round and ripe with youth. I could see nothing of her figure, hidden as it was by the voluminous folds of her palla, but from the slim contours of her arms I imagined that the folds of her gown hid a figure that should not be hidden.

  “Publius, my son,” Crassus said, “come stand before us.”

  I did so. The men and the lone woman arrayed themselves around me.

  My father continued, “You might have expected to meet with me alone.” He bowed his head, acknowledging, it seemed, that secrets had been kept, ones that were now about to be revealed. “We have among us ten senators, representing various tribes.” He named them in turn, illustrious names from prominent nobiles families. “We have a representative of the Flamines, the order of priests that keep Rome in the favor of the gods. They are here as witnesses.”

  I asked, “Witnesses to what, Father?”

  Crassus cocked one of his prominent eyebrows. He held me in his gaze long enough to convey his displeasure at being interrupted. “They are to witness your entry into the nobilitas. There is one last stage in your transition to manhood. In the house of each new nobilis this same ceremony is taking place this night. Listen carefully to me, son, for this—now—matters more than all of it.”

  “He must swear secrecy,” the priest said, “before you say anything more.”

  Several others murmured agreement.

  I restrained the urge to roll my eyes. I assumed my friends Sextus and Volero would be going through the same tiresome ordeal. I looked forward to joking with them on the morrow.

  “Swear to keep what passes here secret,” my father said. “For all the days of your life, you may only speak of this to other men of the nobilitas, and to the Vestals, should you have occasion. Swear now, on our ancestors’ spirits.”

  I did so.

  “You know of how Numa Pomplilius created the college of the Vestals long ago, during the time of the kings,” my father said. “You know that the Vestals worship the goddess Vesta. You know that they keep alive the flame of the sacred hearth. You know that they have many duties, and that their service is at the heart of Rome’s good fortunes. You know that they
are vowed to chastity, and that no man can claim to have taken blood from the womb of a Vestal.”

  The virgin accepted the praise as her due, with startling composure for one so young.

  “There are some things you do not know about the Vestals. Indeed, about what it means to be a Roman nobilis at all. There is a reason Rome has become a great power, a reason our village beside a river crossing came to be a great city, with a glorious past and a future too bright to behold. Our gifts have been given to us directly from Jupiter. It is through him that we triumph against all that face us. Hannibal came at us with the rage of Ba’al to aid him, and yet we defeated him. So it’s been with all the others. Only once have we been truly defeated, by the Gauls that sacked our city and defiled our treasures. But that is a discussion for another time.” The man’s eyes flicked to the other senators, making him look momentarily ill at ease. “Yes, that’s for another time. Tell me, Publius, have you heard of the feats of Roman senators in battle?”

  “Of course, Father. Every boy wants to achieve such victories himself.”

  “You have seen the speed and strength of our nobiles warriors? How no regular soldier—no matter how gifted—can stand against one of our own? How even gladiators of the arena are no match for a Roman nobilis?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I’ve told you it was Roman discipline and techniques that account for this. That’s true, but there is another reason for it. We are blessed with the blood of Jupiter.” A platitude, I would have thought, except that he looked deadly serious and full of import. “The ancients don’t tell us when we received this gift or exactly how. They say only that it is our duty to honor it, and to never forget it came from Jupiter himself. Numa Pomplilius, in his wisdom, saw that the gift was too powerful a thing to go unchecked. He established the rules by which it’s passed, and initiated the college of Vestals to keep it pure. Since that time, only Vestals have made new men. Have you heard and understood everything I’ve said so far?” Crassus asked.