by David Drake
“You little snip!” she said. “What do you mean by calling him a monster? He was a man, and a very distinguished man at that! Even if he was a foreigner.”
Florina hadn’t been speaking; even so she closed her eyes and began to tremble. Servants were not to talk in the presence of their owners unless they were directed to. Syra was on informal terms with her mistress, but there was no one to protect Florina from whatever torture the daughter of the house chose to inflict.
Syra, however, stood as though she’d been spitted on a javelin. Yes, she knew a great deal about Hedia’s life away from her husband’s house, but she didn’t imagine that would save her if Alphena really wanted her flayed. Alphena was, after all, a fellow aristocrat; and Syra knew that she shouldn’t have been chattering.
Though Syra would wonder—everyone in the Tribunal would be wondering—why Lady Alphena was so exercised at two maids discussing the recent stage presentation. That outside view of her behavior brought Alphena down from the heights of rage that she had climbed unaware.
Alphena relaxed, stepping back mentally from a battle she was losing. She took a deep breath, let it out, and gave a dismissive wave with her left hand.
“Never mind, girls,” she said. Florina was a year older than Alphena; Syra was five or six years older than that. “I’m wasting my time discussing such a thing.”
“I hadn’t realized it was a man in costume myself,” Hedia said from beside Alphena. “To tell the truth—”
She glanced at the maids. They hopped backward to the railing, getting as far as they could from their mistresses. Syra still looked white and tears were running down Florina’s cheeks.
I’d like to slap the little chit! Alphena thought. Then, as sudden as the flash of anger, she felt a rush of revulsion at her behavior. I wouldn’t treat a kitten that way. Why do I do it to a woman? A girl!
“As a matter of fact…,” Hedia said, now that the maids were making a point of being in a completely different world in which they could neither see nor hear their betters. She looked sidelong at Alphena. “I was afraid it wasn’t stagecraft at all. I was afraid that it was a vision of things that might be real if our fates took a wrong turn.”
“I don’t know what it was,” Alphena mumbled, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Daughter,” Hedia said sharply. “Are you all right?”
Alphena came to herself. Her father was going down the stairs; preparing to return home, she supposed. She would like to go back now also, but Hedia obviously had things to say. She owed her life to her mother; and she certainly owed Hedia more courtesy than she had just showed her.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Alphena said, touching the back of Hedia’s wrist contritely. “I didn’t think it was a stage trick either. I don’t think it could have been.”
She cast her mind back to the vision. “Do you recall the walls of the city?” she said. “And the ball on the top of the tallest spire? You saw them?”
“Yes, of course,” said Hedia, her eyes narrowing as she searched for meaning in what her daughter was saying. “They were gold, weren’t they?”
“They were orichalc,” Alphena said flatly. “Not brass like the edge trimming for shields that people call orichalc, but the real thing. I…”
She broke off and glanced toward the maids. Florina closed her eyes, her face scrunching in terror. She at least probably wouldn’t be able to remember her name, let alone what she might hear today in the Tribunal; and neither she nor Syra was close enough to understand anything Alphena said in a normal voice.
“I saw orichalc where I was before you found me and brought me back, Mother,” Alphena said, touching Hedia’s wrist again, but this time not removing her fingers. That had been in a place of magic and terror, to which Hedia had come to rescue her. She saved my life. “You can’t mistake orichalc if you’ve seen it once. Because of the fire in it.”
“Ah,” said Hedia, shrugging. “I thought that might be sunset on gold, but in all truth I wasn’t paying much attention. I was…”
Hedia’s eyes had been unfocused; or anyway, focused on something a great distance away. She turned her gaze on Alphena again. This time she wore a guarded, uncertain—perhaps uncertain; the light was bad—expression.
“You saw the walls, dear?” Hedia said. Her smile was false, but it had a trembling innocence instead of the brittle gloss Alphena had seen her show the world in normal times. “You mentioned that you did. I suppose you saw the people on the battlements, too? The figures, I mean?”
“Yes,” said Alphena. “Some of them wore orichalc armor, yes. And each of the flying ships had a helmsman in orichalc armor, too. That’s what you mean?”
She suddenly felt uncomfortable. There was something wrong with Hedia, but Alphena didn’t know what. Framing the question in that fashion made her realize how much she had come to count on her stepmother’s ruthless calm in the past ten days.
“No!” cried the older woman, her anger as unexpected as Alphena’s own had been some moments earlier. Hedia’s expression chilled; she tapped her left cheek with her fingertips, symbolically punishing herself for a lapse of control.
“I’m sorry, dear, I’m not myself,” she said. “No, I meant the … that is, did you see glass statues on the battlements? And yes, in the ships as well. But they moved.”
“Yes,” Alphena said carefully. “I saw them and I don’t understand. But I saw the ships flying, and I didn’t understand that either.”
She wondered how she could avoid provoking Hedia into another outburst, when she had no idea of what she had done before. She felt a rueful humor, but it didn’t reach her lips: Syra and Florina were probably wondering the same thing about me. Then she thought, I won’t do that again to servants.
“But you saw them and you saw them move,” Hedia said. “As if they were men.”
Alphena lifted her chin in agreement. “Yes,” she said. “But I wasn’t … I was looking at the…”
Varus was still talking earnestly with Corylus and their teacher. The two maids were trying to force their way into the stuccoed brick wall at the back of the box, and the male servants had gone down the steps with Saxa.
“I thought just for an instant I saw a, well, a monster that was all legs and arms,” Alphena said. She didn’t know why she was so embarrassed to admit that. “But then I saw he was a man, wading in the sea. I shouldn’t wonder if he was a king himself, or a priest. He wasn’t a monster, Mother.”
Hedia looked at her and quirked a smile. Suddenly the familiar personality was back, the calm sophisticate who laughed merrily and, in season, killed as coldly as a Egyptian viper.
“If you say so, dear,” she said. “I suppose whether it was a man or a monster doesn’t matter a great deal, given that the rest of what we saw—I saw, at least—didn’t make any more sense than a monster tearing a city apart did.”
Hedia pursed her lips as she considered Alphena. “Once before you came with me on a visit to Pulto’s wife,” she said. “Now I have other questions that a Marsian witch might be able to answer. Would you care to join me tomorrow, dear?”
“To ask about the…,” Alphena said. “About what you say is a monster?”
“No,” said Hedia, suddenly distant again. “To ask about the glass men.”
“I’ll come,” Alphena said. “I’d come anyway, Mother. I want to help you. However I can.”
Hedia patted Alphena’s shoulder and said, “I’ll inform Pulto of what we intend. Up here in front of Corylus, so that he won’t object.”
Hedia stepped over to Syra and gave crisp directions, leaving Alphena with her thoughts.
I don’t know why I care. But he’s not a monster.
* * *
“MASTER?” VARUS SAID. Hedia’s maid had gone down to the stage floor a moment earlier; now she was returning. “Could I—and Publius, if he wishes, of course. Could we help you and Lord Priscus in his library. We—”
Pulto was coming up behind the maid with his head
lowered. He showed all the enthusiasm of a barbarian being dragged along the Sacred Way behind the emperor’s triumphal chariot.
Corylus’ head whipped around; Varus stopped before the next syllable. Pandareus waited politely a moment for Varus to finish, then turned also.
“Thank you for attending me, Master Pulto,” Hedia said, strolling across the Tribunal to where Varus and his companions stood. Pulto turned his head to follow her. At the top of the steps he was already within arm’s length of Corylus; the Tribunal wasn’t meant for large gatherings.
“My daughter and I…,” Hedia said, halting beside Corylus but keeping her eyes on his servant. “Intend to call upon your wife tomorrow morning, while Master Corylus—”
Only now did she glance at Corylus, giving him a neutral smile.
“—is in classes with Lord Varus.”
Another nod, another pleasant smile. When Saxa first brought home his new wife, Varus had been amazed and more than a little disgusted. He wasn’t a member of the fast set or interested in its gossip, but even a bookish youth who spent his time at lectures rather than at drinking parties heard things.
In the past six months Varus had observed his stepmother closely, seeing both her public and her private faces. She was—he was sure she was—everything which rumor had painted her, but she was also a great deal more.
Varus no longer marveled why his father would have married Hedia. Now he wasn’t at all sure why she had been willing to marry Saxa.
“I hope you’ll inform Anna of our intent, will you not?” Hedia concluded.
Pulto raised his head. He lifted his chin in assent, but though he seemed to be trying to speak, his throat swelled over the words.
“Your ladyship,” Corylus said smoothly, “my man and I will be glad to carry your message when we return to the apartment.”
He bowed slightly, then said, “Pulto, you may wait below if you wish. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Thank you, master,” Pulto grunted. He ducked down the steps as though he were avoiding a sleet of German javelins.
He’d probably prefer dealing with javelins to magic. Varus grimaced, feeling sorry for the man. Hedia must have come to the same conclusions about what happened here as Corylus and I did.
There was a surprised yelp from the stairway. Candidus reappeared, rubbing his shoulder with an outraged expression. He must have thought his rank in Saxa’s household gave him precedence on the stairs over a knight’s servant. That neglected the fact that the servant was a freeborn citizen who had an old soldier’s disdain for someone he might himself have sent off for sale as his portion of the loot following a battle.
Varus didn’t resume the interrupted discussion, waiting instead to see why Candidus had returned. The servant bowed low to Hedia and said, “Your ladyship, his lordship your husband wishes me to inform you that he is returning to the house. Do you intend to accompany him, please?”
“Yes,” said Hedia. “Lady Alphena and I will be pleased to attend his lordship. Come along, dear.”
There had been a moment’s hesitation—a conscious weighing of alternatives—before she spoke, but it was so brief that Varus would not have recognized it a few months ago. Nothing Hedia did was simple or automatic, but her mind was so quick that it seemed so unless one paid attention.
“Candidus—” Varus said, then caught himself. He had been about to give a simple, automatic order, when an instant’s reflection on the squabble he’d seen beneath the box would have warned him that there would be a problem if he did.
“My dear sister?” he resumed, smiling broadly because he was amused by himself. “Would you please tell Manetho that I may be up here with my friends for some while? I will call down to him if I want anything.”
Don’t bother me, and don’t try to badger me into rushing back to the house so that my escort of servants can eat and dice and generally relax in the luxury of a rich man’s town house.
Hedia grinned at Varus in delight. She may have been the only person present—besides the servants—who understood what he had done. Alphena didn’t have to maneuver that way, because the staff was too frightened of her temper to volunteer anything, least of all a suggestion, to her.
Pandareus cocked his head to the side as he spoke, looking oddly birdlike. When lecturing or delivering speeches to his class, he had a forceful, direct delivery which made him seem both authoritative and harsh.
“Why is your man Pulto displeased at Hedia visiting his wife?” he asked Corylus.
“Pulto doesn’t like magic,” Corylus said. “He believes Anna is a witch and—begging your pardon, Varus?”
Varus shrugged. He said, “You won’t offend my family honor by speaking the truth, Publius.”
“Well,” Corylus said, “he believes Lady Hedia and her daughter are visiting Anna to get a charm or spell or something. And by implication, I just told him I approve of what Anna will be asked to do.”
“I don’t believe in witchcraft,” Varus mused aloud. He smiled ruefully at his companions. “Given the things that I’ve seen and therefore accept—and the things that I’ve done, for that matter—that is clearly irrational behavior on my part.”
Pandareus shrugged. “Believing in elephants, Lord Varus,” he said, “doesn’t require that one also believe in dragons.”
Varus laughed. “Unfortunately, master,” he said, “I’ve seen a dragon also. And you were with me when it happened, the first time at least. And I very much fear—”
Still smiling—Pandareus’ indirect joke had broken the uncomfortable mood—he looked toward the stage where mere minutes ago he had seen a monster ripping apart an island.
“—that if I spent much time around Pulto’s wife, I would find myself believing in witchcraft as well. Which would distress me, as I consider such beliefs to be infallible proof that the holder is a superstitious yokel.”
Pandareus spoke. Varus heard the sound but not the words. At the moment laughter relaxed him, his grip on present reality loosened.
Varus was drifting into the mist in which he met the Sibyl. His companions continued talking, apparently unaware of what was happening to him.
He was climbing a trail through jagged mountains. The encircling cloud was too thick for him to see much beyond the length of his arm, but the sun scattered rainbows around the edges of outcrops.
Varus trudged on. He was never sure of time when he was in this place—or in this state, for a better word. Something large moved in the bright blur; coming toward him … and it was past, crossing the path ahead of him. It walked on two legs, but even bent over—as it was—it stood twice his height and taller than any man. Its long hair rustled, and it had the sharp, dry odor of fresh sawdust.
Can I die here? Varus thought. Then, smiling like the philosopher he wished to be, Does it matter if I do?
He came out into sunlight so bright that in the waking world, the contrast should have made him blink and sneeze. The Sibyl waited at the edge of a precipice which plunged off in the opposite direction. Every wrinkle of her face, every fold of her soft gray garment, was sharply visible. She had thrown back her hood so that she stood in a halo of her thick silver hair.
“Greetings, Sibyl!” Varus said. He bowed, then straightened. “Why did you call me here again?”
“Greetings, Lord Varus,” the old woman said. “Who am I to summon you? You are real, Lord Magician, and I am only the thing your powers have created.”
Varus looked out toward a great city far below. It was a moment before he recognized Carce, lying along the Tiber River and spreading in all directions from the villages which were its genesis.
Instead of the familiar Alban Hills to the southeast, the horizon lived and crawled forward on myriad legs. Tentacles flayed the ground to rock as bare as this on which the Sibyl stood. Typhon, growing with each innumerable step, advanced on Carce.
“Sibyl…?” Varus said, sick at what he was seeing. How long before that vision is the reality which my neighbors see loom
above Carce’s ancient walls? “What am I to do? Where do we look for the answer, my friends and I?”
“I am a tool that your mind uses, Lord Varus,” the old woman said. Her tone was that of a kindly mother to a child who demands to know the secrets of life. “I exist only through your powers. You know the answer to your questions.”
“I know nothing!” Varus said. “I know—”
Immeasurable and inexorable, Typhon crashed across villas and the tombs on the roads leading out of the city. Varus’ view shifted from the danger to a house on the slopes of the Palatine Hill, facing the Citadel and great temples on the Capitoline across the Forum. It was still luxurious, though it had been built to the standards of an older, less grandiose, time.
That’s the house of the Sempronii Tardi, Varus thought. He had visited it a year past to read the manuscripts of three plays of Ennius which, as best he could determine, existed nowhere else in the city.
“You know all that I know, Lord Varus,” said the Sibyl, smiling. Then she lifted her face and cackled to the heavens. “There is a dear land, a nurturer to men, which lies in the plain. The Nile forms all its boundaries, flowing—”
Varus was in the Tribunal with his startled friends. Corylus held his shoulders; Pandareus had taken his right hand in both of his own.
In a strained voice, Varus heard himself shout, “—by Libya and Ethiopia!”
“It’s all right, Gaius,” Corylus was saying. “Here, lean against the railing and we’ll get a chair back up here for you.”
Varus shook his head, partly to scatter the drifting tendrils of cloud.
“No,” he said. He hacked to clear his throat, then resumed in a firm voice and standing straight, “I’m quite all right.”
The humor of what he had just said struck him, so he asked, “Well, I’m all right now. But thank you for holding me, Publius, because mentally I was in a different place for a time.”
“You were speaking of Egypt,” Pandareus said. He considered for a moment with his head cocked sideways, then said, “A voice spoke which didn’t sound at all like yours but came from your throat. Was speaking of Egypt. What bearing does Egypt have on our situation?”