None of the elders rose to greet them. A silent cue as to how much respect would be given to Rome in this meeting. Adam stepped out of the way, falling to the right, standing beside Sigrun now, even as Ehecatl and Ptah-ases stepped to the left, forming a V-shape around and behind Livorus. Honor-guard and body-guards, at once. Ptah-ases even carefully set the curule chair in place for Livorus on the hard-packed floor. And Livorus sat in it, with his back straight, suddenly far more regal than any king. The chair itself was an unspoken message, really. I am not here as a petitioner. I am here, sitting at my ease, not standing before you uncomfortable on my feet. And more: I am not here alone. I bring Rome with me.
There was almost a minute’s pause. “Why does Rome come to us today?” one of the younger men asked, finally breaking the silence. He didn’t look any older than eighteen.
Livorus looked at the young man for a moment, his face expressionless. Then he turned and looked directly at Lesharo. “I am Antonius Valerius Livorus, and I am a propraetor of Rome. I was elevated to that post by the personal hand of Caesarion IX, long may he reign. When you speak to me, you speak to him, and Caesarion is Rome. I come today to speak with the king of the Chahiksichahiks, Lesharo, and to treat with him honorably and fairly, as men do.”
The chieftain’s face shifted slightly, and he flicked his eyes in the direction of the adviser who’d spoken. The younger man cleared his throat, and replied, “Then, Antonius Valerius Livorus, propraetor of Rome . . . know that we will hear your words. Why would you treat with us today?”
Ah. Their king does not wish to speak with Livorus today. A calculated slight. Is it to reinforce his power within the tribe, by staging a deliberate provocation, to the face of the Roman envoy? Adam thought. He hated not understanding the nuances of the people around him.
Livorus sighed. Turned, and looked at Ehecatl. “Itztli? If you would be good enough to speak for me?” Still in the Latin that everyone there clearly spoke. But also, it was clear that if the chieftain wished to play games, Livorus could play them just as well, if not better.
The Nahautl man straightened, a flash of amusement touching his dark eyes. He clearly saw all the delicate maneuvering for what it was. Power, prestige, position. Jockeying for dominance. “As you wish, Propraetor,” he said, and turned to face the tribal chieftain directly. “I am Ehecatl Itztli. I bear one of the lesser names of Quetzalcoatl, in his aspect of the gentle and merciful west wind, Ehecatl. I honor all of his faces, even the terrible visage of the vengeful morning star.” Adam could see a ripple go through the crowd at those words, though he did not understand why. He hoped Ehecatl was catching the subtexts. “I am a Jaguar warrior among my people, and dedicated myself to the defense of Nahautl and the service of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca nineteen years ago.” All amusement left his face. “Your people, it is said, once lived far south of here, perhaps among my people, and wandered north, when a great flood came. We are cousins, and I ask that you greet me as such.”
“You are a slave of Rome,” the young advisor said, and Adam watched the chieftain’s eyes flicker to the young man again. Adam was uneasy, and he couldn’t put his finger on precisely why. Then, realization hit. Wait. All the dossiers said that these people revere age and wisdom. If the chieftain is listening to this youngster . . . there’s something important about him. But what? Is he a shaman? I can’t tell by his clothing . . . .
Ehecatl’s expression tightened faintly, but he exhaled, and tried again. “I am a Praetorian in the service of Rome. But I have also fought in the service of my people for longer than you have been alive, young one.” His dark eyes glittered in the low light. “Is respect for age and experience dead among the Chahiksichahiks? I would not have thought it possible. Not among a people so attuned to . . . tradition.” His glance swept around the dark interior of the mound-house. Adam thought the words a fairly stinging rebuke, though quietly spoken. Ehecatl turned his attention back to Lesharo, ignoring the young man completely now. “Chieftain and elders, a young woman of Marcomanni was kidnapped four days ago. She was seen being dragged into a vehicle, and that vehicle was spotted several times between here and Marcomanni.” He paused, and Adam wondered if his fellow lictor would mention that they’d received a tip, apparently from someone within the Chahiksichahiks’ kingdom, stating that the girl had been brought there. He was relieved, however, when Ehecatl went on, mildly, “It is in the interests of Rome, and of everyone in the region, to see if this account can be verified, and to see to the young woman’s safe return. Have you seen her, or do you know of her whereabouts?” Ehecatl produced a black-and-white photograph. Adam already knew what it looked like—a young Marcomanni woman, with dark hair for one of her people, laughing as she leaned against her horse.
The various leaders barely glanced at the picture, before shaking their heads in the negative. “No,” the young man replied, for the others.
Which was when Sigrun dropped the tip of her spear into the hard-packed earth of the mound floor, and a distant clap of thunder accompanied the gesture. Looking up, Adam could see the round patch of blue sky above rapidly beginning to gray over.
Livorus looked at Ehecatl. “Would you be so good as to introduce my other lictor, who is also present as a representative of Nova Germania today?”
“We know what she is. Woman. Outlander. Goth.” The young speaker cut in. Each word served, in a way, to denigrate Sigrun’s status. At least, to categorize it, by sinking it, strata by strata, below his own. And in responding directly to Livorus, rather than to Ehecatl, he broke the façade of polite disengagement by the leaders.
Livorus, for his part, didn’t deign to look at the young man. Ehecatl smiled without mirth. “Yes, and again, no. You see, Sigrun Caetia is a lictor of Rome—”
“What manner of man requires a woman to guard him?” That was marked with a sneer.
Livorus sighed. Adam was tempted to do so, himself, but kept his eyes on their surroundings, and the movements of the people around them. Checking their body-language. “Ehecatl?” Sigrun said, quietly, and took off her helmet, the rune-born light beginning to shimmer under her skin, as thunder once more shook the earth. Closer, this time. “I’ll finish the introductions, if you don’t mind.”
Wearing that nimbus of light like a cloak, and her spear still in her right hand, point down, grounded on the earth, Sigrun stepped forward. “You were given the opportunity to deal with us fairly, and in Roman fashion. With civility. With words. With reason. I am god-born. Tyr One-Hand is my grandsire. God of justice. God of laws. God of war and of storms. I know when lies are spoken before me, and lies have been spoken here. You have seen this girl. She is of my people, and thus falls under my protection. Now tell me where she is, before the civility of Rome falters further.”
Adam gave the elders credit. They flinched, but they didn’t give ground. But this time, it was their leader who spoke, directly. “And what would you do, god-born? Fight us?”
“It always amazes me,” Ptah-ases commented, once more in Hellene, “how quickly they stop seeing her as a woman.”
Livorus held up a hand to still his lictors. Sigrun stared at the chief, and replied, calmly, “Dueling with you would be dishonorable, but if you attack me, I am well within my rights to defend myself.” Her eyes narrowed. “Where is your shaman? I do not see one here. Is he with the girl, perhaps conducting rituals meant to purify her?”
A flicker of glances, and then, hastily, another lie. This one evident even to Adam. “There is no reason to be alarmed. There was no kidnapping. She wished to marry one of our tribe, and she is considered underage by Gothic law. She feared her family’s anger—” This, again, from the young man off to the side.
“If that one opens his mouth again to lie,” Livorus said, conversationally, gesturing at the young man, and speaking to Ehecatl, “please tell the king and his elders that I request that they remove his tongue and present it to me as a gift. In reparation for my time . . . and Rome’s time . . . that his words waste.�
� Unease in the faces of the elders on the council. Clearly, they didn’t think that they could reprimand the young man. Not even the chieftain looked ready to chastise him yet.
Livorus exhaled and abandoned the pretense, looking directly at Lesharo now. “I would have asked for permission to search your lands. To speak with your people directly. You are leaving me very little in the way of choices, King Lesharo.” Again, the very careful application of a title that the Chahiksichahiks did not themselves use. But in using it, Livorus was according the man the respect due to a sovereign head of state. And also, at the same time, holding him accountable for all the doings of his people. A delicate thing, that. “You have the reputation of a reasonable and good leader of your people, if one bound to ancient traditions. Do I need to demonstrate the traditions of my people? Would you see the iron fist of Rome? Or can we come to an agreement that allows the girl to walk free?”
Another flicker of a glance between the old chief and the young man, and the chieftain, reluctantly, it seem, opened his mouth to speak. “It is the demand of the gods,” he began, lifting his hands and spreading them. “We must obey.”
“And it is the policy of Rome,” Livorus said, grimly, “and has been for over fourteen hundred years, to allow subject nations freedom to worship their own gods, but with one caveat: that there will be no human sacrifices made. That is the sole exception to the Edict of Diocletian.” He paused, for a moment, and said, quietly, “Ehecatl? Would you please enlighten these good people as to what happened when the Nahautl rose in rebellion four hundred years ago, and some of your priests wished to go back to making sacrifices of captives taken in border skirmishes with Novo Gaul?”
Ehecatl’s expression didn’t change. “The regional militia based in Novo Gaul and Nova Germania marched south, with several full Roman legions alongside them. The entire town in which the sacrifices were being performed was razed to the ground, not one stone left standing atop the others. The children and women were taken as slaves back to Rome. Every man was executed, and the priests of Tlaloc and the other gods who had cut the hearts from the sacrifices? They were crucified, along the road leading away from the city.”
Adam spoke then; it was out of turn, but he had to say it. “There is honor in showing courage,” he said, distantly, keeping his hands at his sides. “There’s a value in showing your people your courage, your willingness, to slight Rome to keep their traditions alive. My people have walked that path before. But it’s the courage of a man approaching a tiger’s cage, and turning to tell others, ‘Come and see! I defy its claws, and it does nothing!’” He paused. “Is it wisdom to poke the beast with a stick?” That’s what it really struck him as. The chieftain might have been convinced to go along with this as a way of uniting other tribes behind him, impressing allies among the other petty kingships of Caesaria Aquilonis . . . who seemed to take turns daring each other to go closer and closer to the caged beast . . . but sooner or later, the tiger would lash out with a heavy paw, and then what?
Livorus passed a hand over his brow, wiping away sweat. They were working to redirect the chieftain’s mind here. Negotiations were always tense business. And in this case, half the people in this large room were armed. “You can tell your priests and shaman,” he said, not unkindly, “what we told the people of Nahautl and Tawantinsuyu and the Quechan provinces, hundreds of years ago. That the gods of Rome are more powerful than their gods.”
“I don’t see your Roman gods here,” the younger advisor replied, sharply, before the chieftain could answer.
“Shiriki! Be silent!”
It was the first time the chieftain had shown any temper at all, but his words didn’t stop the younger man from continuing on, his eyes narrow, “I dreamed the dream, Lesharo! I saw the Morning Star, and he told me it was time for the sacrifice. The shaman and I performed the divinations. We listened to the voices of the gods on the wind, and they told us that the true sacrifice was needed, not just the ritual one that we perform every year.” He turned his head aside and spat, a calculated insult. “I don’t see the vaunted gods of Rome. I see only a Goth woman who dares to speak for the feeble gods of her people.”
Sigrun’s attention had been captured. “Do you challenge me?” she said, quietly. “And which god is yours, that I might know my opponent?” It sounded . . . ritualistic. Formal.
“Shakura, the sun, is my grandfather, and I speak for him here.” Flash of pride there, as the man lifted his head . . . and the sun suddenly pierced down through the gray haze of clouds overhead. Blinding shafts of light pierced through the mound’s smoke opening, as if the sun had suddenly reached its zenith.
“Harah,” Adam swore, grimly. He’s god-born. No wonder he can speak so far out of turn. No wonder the elders are deferring to him.
The man lifted up off the ground, hovering in mid-air, his body suddenly suffused by flame. “Sigrun—” Adam started to move towards her.
“Formal duel,” she called back. “I have to answer his challenge. Find the girl!”
And with that, she, too, lifted off the ground, a cold wind racing in through the mound’s tunnel and smoke opening, racing around in a circle, coiling tightly, and dousing the drowsing fire in its pit. “Outside!” Lesharo, the chieftain, shouted, and the younger man, Shiriki, laughed and rose up through the smoke vent, into the sky above . . . and Adam flinched and looked away as a golden pillar of fire descended from on high, slamming down into Sigrun’s form, showering past her to land on the packed earth floor.
Almost everyone inside screamed and ran for the single tunnel exit; Adam had to drop his shoulder and stand against a tide of humanity, to avoid being trampled, and squinted up at the hole in the roof, tears in his eyes from the searing light that had just shone into the darkness, and dazzling violet afterimages obscuring his vision. He could just make out two tiny figures in the sky overhead.
Livorus, for his part, had stepped in front of the council of elders once more preventing them from joining the exodus for the entrance. He held the fasces still in one hand, loosely. “I rather take that as an admission of guilt,” he said, dryly, sidestepping the rush of fire as neatly as if he were merely out for an evening stroll and wished to avoid a bucket of water being thrown at a yowling cat. “Where’s the girl, King Lesharo? No more games, if you would.”
The chieftain raised both of his hands, frustration and anger written plainly on his face now. “She’s being prepared for the ritual, over a mile from here,” he admitted, grimly. “I told them that the yearly symbolic sacrifice to the Morning Star should be enough. They said this would be a spiritual reawakening for our people. Like the Ghost Dance of a century ago, only . . . more true. And necessary.”
Ehecatl stiff-armed a fleeing person away from Livorus, and snapped out, “Your Morning Star is much like Quetzalcoatl’s dark aspect, yes? Somehow, my people still believe in him without sacrifices!”
Livorus made a dismissive gesture. “To be honest, I don’t really care right now. Have some of your men take us to where she is, or just point in the general direction.” Livorus’ eyes were glacial. “But rest assured, we will revisit this subject at another time.”
Lesharo grimaced and pointed to the southwest. Livorus snapped his fingers, and he and the lictors broke out of the mound, just as white light split the sky, simultaneous with a clap of thunder, and rain poured down, lashed by wind. Adam stared upwards, seeing a roiling mass of clouds seethe in from the east, misty tendrils reaching out like grasping hands, encircling the pair of aerial duelists . . . and then the clouds tore apart as another beam of fire poured down from the heavens, and the pair, who were almost wrestling in mid-air, vanished as the fire concealed their forms. Ptah-ases cursed in Egyptian. “That . . . is not good.”
“She can hold her own,” Livorus said, sharply. “The girl’s our priority! Move!” The propraetor, pushing fifty years of age, kilted up the heavy hem of his formal toga, and, with the speed of a younger man, began to run through the increasingly slippery m
ud, in the direction that the chieftain had pointed. He was an ex-legionnaire and still in good trim, but his three lictors rapidly began to outpace him.
Adam glanced to see which of them should hold back and protect the propraetor, and Ehecatl waved him on. “Go! I’m with him!”
Adam took the man at his word, and increased the length of his strides. He easily outpaced Ptah-ases; the sorcerer was in good shape, but he was in his forties, and had spent much of his life locked in study and contemplation, honing and shaping his mental gifts. Adam, on the other hand, was just twenty-five, and had spent the last six years of his life in daily training for just such activities. As such, he was the first over the small hill, rain soaking his body, and another vivid white flash of light throwing the world into stark relief as he looked down into the prairie beyond.
A wooden scaffold had been erected off to the south, about three hundred feet away; three wooden supports, all leaning in on each other, but driven firmly into the earth. He could just make out the squirming, fighting body of a girl there, her arms over her head, tied to the supports of the scaffold. From her jerking, erratic movements, she was probably on her tip-toes, at best.
All too aware of the target he made at the top of the hill, against the sky, Adam dropped to a crouch, drawing his pistol and cocking it as he surveyed the area; there was a group of men there, not far from the scaffold, trying to keep a bonfire lit in spite of the driving rain, and taking torches from it. He wasn’t close enough to make out what they were saying, but it surely looked as if an argument was breaking out, from the gesticulations.
Ptah made it up the hill next, breathing hard. “I thought,” the Egyptian shouted over the howling wind, wiping at the rain that had made the kohl around his eyes run, “that they were supposed to time the sacrifice with the rising of the morning star on the fifth day.”
“This isn’t the purification part?” Adam asked, his head jerking up.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 8