by David Drake
“I’ll pour the wine, Anna,” Alphena said, forestalling their hostess as she started toward the little kitchen of the suite. She and Hedia knew that the old woman had better days and worse ones. Even at her best now Anna had no business struggling with a tray of wine, water, and the paraphernalia necessary for drinking it.
“You said that the gathering was for Master Corylus?” Hedia said, letting her very real confusion show in her voice. “I had the impression they were expecting my daughter and myself.”
“Oh, that, yes, of course they were,” Anna said, obviously unaware of Hedia’s suspicions. “Do sit down, won’t you? I’ve gotten new cushions. The blue one is stuffed with goose down, so why don’t you take it, your ladyship?”
Hedia settled carefully on one end of a clothes chest being used as a bench. She said, “I don’t see, then…”
“Well, it’s like this,” said Anna, lowering herself onto a stool of polished maple. “The boy grew up in camp, you know. He’s used to fetching for himself and he likes it that way, so it’s just me and Pulto does for him—and I get the neighbor girls to fetch the shopping, since I’m such a clapped-out old nanny goat myself.”
Hedia opened her mouth to protest; Anna waved her blithely to silence. “It suits me better that way too, to tell the truth,” she said, “because, well, you know the stories that go around about Marsian witches. If we had servants, they’d be making up tales to cadge drinks and the like. That can get pretty nasty, as I know to my sorrow from when we lived in Baiae before the boy come here to school.”
The small round table between the stool and the chest was cedar with a richly patterned grain, oiled and polished to a sheen like marble. Alphena set the tray on it and handed out the cups, already filled.
“I mixed the wine three to one,” she said, a little too forcibly. That was the normal drinking mixture which she was used to, and she was making a point that she didn’t intend to get tipsy by drinking to limits that her companions might be comfortable with.
“Thank you, my dear,” Hedia said, taking her cup—part of a matched service which impressed her as both stylish and beautiful. Clear glass rods had been twisted, slumped together in molds, and polished.
She sipped; it was like drinking from jewels. She wondered if Corylus had chosen the set. Certainly Anna had not, given the taste shown by her garments.
“I’m not clear what the crowd down there…,” Hedia said, nodding toward the window onto the balcony, “has to do with Master Corylus, however.”
She wasn’t on the verge of anger anymore. Clearly she was missing something, but she now knew that Anna hadn’t turned Lady Hedia into a carnival for plebeians as a way of bragging to her neighbors.
“Oh, well, you see…” Anna said. Her face was so wrinkled that Hedia couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to be making a moue of embarrassment. “Because we don’t have servants and because we’re up on the third floor—the boy said he liked to be able to look out at the Gardens of Maurianus, and you couldn’t from any lower down—folks don’t really believe he’s quality.”
Ah! The higher levels of apartment blocks were successively flimsier in construction and—of course—that much farther to climb on narrow stairs when coming and going. Lower rents reflected this. Corylus apparently wasn’t concerned about whether the neighbors thought he was an impecunious phony who only pretended to be a Knight of Carce, but his old nurse cared on his behalf.
“I’ve been having dreams, Anna,” Hedia said. “Bad ones, of course, or I wouldn’t be seeing you. And I suppose you heard about what happened yesterday in the theater?”
Anna had been using “their ladyships” as a status tool, but Hedia couldn’t be angry about that now, however much she wished it hadn’t happened. The old servant was completely absorbed with her boy. No objection, no threat—nothing but death itself—would change that focus.
And Hedia wouldn’t have forced a change if she could. Oh, it was excessive, no doubt, but Master Corylus was certainly an impressive young man.
Hedia let a smile play at the corners of her mouth. Corylus even had the good judgment to refuse to become entangled with his friend’s beautiful mother. Which was a pity, though Hedia was no longer concerned that a physical relationship would be necessary to bind the boy to her. He would support her for so long as he believed that she had the best interests of the Republic at heart.
“I didn’t hear much,” Anna said with a sort of smile. “A sight of a monster, is all. The boy won’t talk, which is as should be for an officer. My Pulto was afraid to talk; afraid of what he doesn’t know, pretty much, and I don’t blame him. But I could guess things, and—”
She shrugged.
“—I could feel them, too, when they’re as strong as what happened yesterday.”
“Mistress?” Alphena said. “Anna? Do you know what it is that we saw in the theater?”
“No, dear,” the old woman said, “no more than I knew what made the ground shake so one winter in Upper Germany. It wasn’t for two weeks that we learned that the snow had come down the slopes in Helvetian territory and buried a thousand people in a village.”
She looked at Hedia. “You’ve been dreaming of this monster come up from the sea, then?” she said. “Is it the same as it was in the theater?”
“Nothing like that,” said Hedia, more sharply than she had intended. “In the theater, though, there was a city and there were glass men on its walls. Does that mean anything to you?”
Alphena sat down, offering the older women a burl walnut tray of small sweet cakes. There wasn’t room for it on the table with wine containers.
Hedia had emptied her cup. She hesitated—she never ate sweets; she loved them and knew she would bloat like a dead cat if she didn’t exercise rigid control over what she ate—but finally took a cake and nibbled. It was delicious.
“I’ve never heard of glass men, Hedia,” Anna said, reverting to previous familiarity now that they were completely alone. “Real men, moving you mean?”
“Moving, certainly,” Hedia said, forcing herself to visualize the images that terrified her without reason. “Real, I don’t know. Certainly not real men; but they acted like men.”
She took a deep breath. Her eyes were open, but for the moment she wasn’t seeing anything beyond her memory.
“I dreamed of them in the Underworld, Anna,” she said. “I dreamed of them with Latus, where I visited him before. I couldn’t hear them, but I think they were questioning him. He was screaming.”
She sniffed with bitter amusement. “Screaming like the damned, in fact,” she said, “which is likely enough with Latus.”
Hedia forced her eyelids closed, then opened them and met Anna’s calm gaze. “I think they’re hunting for me,” she said. “I don’t know why or why I feel that. But I feel it, and I’m afraid.”
“When we opened the passage to the Underworld,” Anna said, “it couldn’t be closed again. I’m sorry, but that was one of the risks.”
Her face twisted into a smile. “It wasn’t one of the risks that I worried most about,” she said. “I didn’t expect to see you ever again.”
Her gaze flicked to Alphena. She added, “Either of you.”
Hedia laughed, finding the humor of the thought. “Rather like virginity, you mean?” she said. “Well, that wasn’t much good to me either. Perhaps keeping the passage to Hades’ house open will turn out to be just as pleasurable in the long run.”
Alphena’s lips pressed together, but she tried to smile when she felt Hedia glance at her. She’s really everything one could wish in a daughter. Even her playing with swords turned out to be useful.
“Is there anything you can suggest, dear?” Hedia said. Then, blurting, “Can you do anything? Please!”
Alphena had refilled her cup. She drank, to hide her embarrassment and to soothe her throat. She was dry, and her thoughts were dry and withered.
“A charm, you mean?” Anna said.
Hedia waved her hands, disgusted a
t her own weakness. “No, of course not,” she said. “I know better, but I’m … frightened.”
“Some of my charms do help,” Anna said. She spoke softly, but there was rock not far below the surface. “Some help, and more help because people think they’re being helped. But not for this, no. My usual work is for sick people; and sometimes for girls who want something or want to get rid of something.”
She spread her hands. “I won’t lie to you, your ladyship. Love charms and abortions. But what happened in the theater is beyond such neighborhood business.”
Hedia opened her mouth to object, but Anna stopped her with a raised hand. “You may not be concerned with what happened in the theater, dear,” she said, “but I am. It reeked on my men when they came home last night, and it’s nothing I’ll pass over lightly.”
Her tone was polite but no longer obsequious. They were in Anna’s realm now, and however much she might respect Lady Hedia, she wouldn’t leave any doubt about what she knew.
Hedia’s cup was empty again. She thought for an instant, then covered it with her hand as Alphena reached to refill it from the mixing bowl.
“I think that’s enough for me,” she said, rising smoothly. She might feel as though she should hang herself; but if she did, she would expect to writhe gracefully. “Thank you, Anna. You’ve helped me understand the situation better.”
Anna struggled to rise from her stool. Alphena braced her while she got both her sticks planted.
“I told you I’m not passing over this, your ladyship,” Anna said. “I … I won’t promise you. But there’s another thing that might be tried. It means danger for those I would die to keep from danger, but I fear—”
Her eyes locked with Hedia’s.
“—that there’s no safety anywhere if this thing isn’t scotched. So I’ll try.”
“Mistress,” said Hedia. “He’s a soldier, in his heart at least. He’ll understand.”
Anna laughed. The sound would have been appropriate at a funeral. “Aye, we all understand,” she said, “but it’s still bloody hard to send them off. Well, we women know about that kind of hard, don’t we?”
“Yes,” said Alphena unexpectedly. “We do.”
She reached out; for a moment, the three of them linked hands. It didn’t make any sense, but Hedia found herself more hopeful than she had been since she awakened from her nightmare.
* * *
AS CORYLUS AND PULTO approached the apartment block, one of the daughters of the cobbler on the fourth floor leaned out the window and called, “Hello, Master Corylus! I’m glad you’re back!”
Corylus waved a halfhearted acknowledgement and tried to smile. He probably didn’t succeed very well.
“I wonder if that’s Tertia or her sister?” Pulto said, sounding mildly curious.
Corylus looked at the older man, uncertain whether the implication was a joke. He said, “Quartilla’s pretty young, Pulto.”
“Well growed, though,” Pulto said. “And from the way everybody on the street’s looking at us now, you could probably parlay one visit into a two-fer.”
Then, with the break in his voice he’d been trying to avoid with the crude jokes, he said, “I wonder what it is my Anna said to everybody to get them so excited? Well, there’s nothing to do about it now.”
“Ah,” said Corylus, who now understood a great deal more than he had a moment ago. Yes, a parade with elephants could scarcely have drawn more attention than he and his servant were getting right now.
Corylus had been thinking about the oration his fellow student Clementius had given today, urging Hannibal not to storm the walls of Carce. Pandareus had responded by “predicting” all the disasters which had beset the Carthaginian cause when Hannibal marched away without attacking.
Corylus would be speaking tomorrow. His set subject was to advise the imprisoned Socrates either to flee to Macedonia or to stay and drink the hemlock poison. He had planned to argue that Socrates should stay, honoring his principles—but that would give Pandareus the opportunity to blame Socrates for all the misfortunes “the gods” had heaped on Athens after his execution. Perhaps Corylus should argue that from exile in Macedonia, Socrates could foment a revolt of reason within the body politic.…
But Publius Corylus had duties and obligations in the real world also, as Pulto had just reminded him. Hedia and her daughter had visited Anna today, and the visit apparently had consequences here in his neighborhood on the Viminal Hill. Now that Tertia—or Quartilla—had addressed Corylus directly, a score of other people were calling to him also.
Hercules! Some are even cheering! He waved again as he ducked into the staircase behind Pulto.
“I’ll just have something light to eat and go straight over to Saxa’s,” Corylus muttered to the servant’s back. “Ah—Pulto? You don’t need to come with me tonight. There’ll be more than enough attendants, I’m sure.”
“I guess I do have to come, don’t I?” Pulto growled. “I would if you were heading for a dustup, wouldn’t I? And this is a bloody sight worse, the way I look at it.”
The way I look at it too, old friend, Corylus thought. But though Pulto wouldn’t be of the least use in a situation where the danger was from magic, it was his duty. That was a way a soldier had to think, and it was the way Corylus thought as well.
The door opened before they reached it. “Anna, my heart!” Pulto said, his voice much harsher than was usual when speaking to his wife. “What in buggering Mercury did you say that’s got them so worked up down in the street?”
“Never mind that now, Marcus Pulto,” Anna said. “You’ll give me a hand up to the roof where I’ll talk to the master, and you’ll stand at the bottom of the ladder making sure other folks understand that he wants his privacy. Do you understand that?”
I do not, Corylus thought. But it took his mind off a quick dinner and what they were going to find in the home of Sempronius Tardus.
“Yes, ma’am,” Pulto said in a tone of supplication. That was even more unusual when he talked to Anna than the anger of a heartbeat earlier.
Corylus had wondered how long it would take her to reach the fifth-floor landing, let alone mount the ladder to the roof. Pulto must have had the same thought, because he took her arm as directed, but even that was probably unnecessary.
Anna clumped up the stairs in normal fashion, without pausing or slowing. The doors on the upper landings were all ajar, but nobody actually stuck her head out as they normally would when strangers passed.
“Anna?” Corylus said. “Let me go up ahead of you.”
“I can still climb a ladder, master!” she said.
“So that I can help you out over the coaming,” he replied, keeping his voice artificially calm. She must be very upset. “And there may be somebody on the roof already.”
“There’s not,” Anna said, her tone contrite; she stepped aside on the narrow landing to let him pass. “But I shouldn’t wonder if they’d lift the trapdoor and listen in once we were up there. I reckon my Marcus can take care of that, won’t you, dearie?”
“I guess I could if I needed to,” Pulto said. “Which I won’t, since nobody in this building is going to show his ass to you. Me included.”
He gave his wife a peck on the cheek. Things seemed to be back to normal between them.
The roof was empty, as Anna had claimed. It was tiled, but the pitch was so slight that it was easy to walk on. A poulterer on the second floor supplemented his merchandize by keeping a large dovecote here, and there were eight or ten terra-cotta pots with flowers and vegetables growing in them.
There was even a spindly orange tree. Corylus lifted Anna from the third rung down, then touched the tree trunk while she closed the trapdoor. He thought for an instant that flesh wriggled gratefully beneath his fingertips.
“I don’t like what I’m going to ask you, master,” Anna said. “But sometimes ‘like’ don’t make no nevermind.”
She was standing beside him, looking southeast toward the ce
nter of Carce instead of meeting his eyes. He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. He didn’t speak.
“Aye, you know,” Anna muttered. She gave him a half-hug also. “You’re a soldier’s son, and anyway, you’re a good boy.”
She turned her head to look at him. “It’s her ladyship,” she said. “She needs something I can’t fetch her and I won’t ask my Marcus to go for. He’d try, but I think it’d kill him, stop his heart. He’d be that fearful.”
“Tell me what you need, Anna,” Corylus said. He felt calm. Tell me what the Republic needs, or so I think.”
He had been very young, certainly no older than three, when his father came into the room Corylus shared with Anna one night. Something had happened, though at the time he hadn’t known what.
Later Corylus learned there had been a battle—not the kind that the historians wrote about, but the sort of little skirmish that happened regularly on the frontier. A party of young Germans had crossed the river for loot, but they got too drunk to return after they captured a handful of wagons loaded with wine.
They were too drunk to surrender also, but Germans never seemed to get too drunk to fight. It had been a nasty one, because the Germans had the wagons in a circle and horses wouldn’t charge home. Cispius had dismounted his troop and stormed the laager.
Cispius had taken off his armor before he shook his son awake, but his tunic reeked of sweat and blood. In a voice as rough as stones sliding, he had said, “Don’t ever let them know you’re afraid, boy. And by Hercules, if you play the man, you’ll find you really aren’t afraid. Don’t let your troops down, and you won’t let yourself down either.”
Corylus hadn’t understood that at the time. He understood it now, with his arm around his old nurse.
Anna nodded and stepped away, visibly calmer. “Lady Hedia came to see me today,” she said in the same normal voice in which she would have discussed taking her sandals to be mended. “It isn’t her coming, though, because I already knew I’d have to do something.”