“Yes . . . well . . . let’s not noise that about, hmm?” Sigrun actually chuckled, and watched, still a little wide-eyed as the creature flew back over to Trennus . . . and then disappeared again.
“Oh ho, so Matrugena’s attendant spirit likes you, eh?” Kanmi’s tone was sly.
Trennus flushed, visibly, and told Kanmi, a little irritably, “Knock it off, Esh.”
Adam wasn’t entirely sure why he was irritated, as well, but also couldn’t help but notice that Livorus’ children, who’d just trooped in from outside with their tutors in tow, had been staring up at them all in abject fascination. “We’re putting on a show here,” he murmured, and cleared his throat. Trennus looked abashed, and Kanmi made a shooing gesture at the children, who scattered, laughing. “Back on topic?” Adam told them all, crossing his arms over his chest. “I agree with you all. We are being kept out of these issues. We’re being told to focus on our job—protecting Livorus. And I agree with that, too.” He paused. “But anything we can do to look into these issues . . . so long as it doesn’t conflict with the main job . . . I’m all for it.” He moved over to stand next to Kanmi, looking down into the lobby. “Though I suppose there’s little enough I can do to help answer any of the questions.”
Kanmi shook his head. “Keep your ears open. Someone could inadvertently say something to you that they wouldn’t think is meaningful to . . . well . . . .” he paused, and actually awarded Adam a faintly apologetic smile.
“A completely nobody like me?” Adam grinned.
“I was going to say a completely normal person such as yourself.” Kanmi bared his teeth.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
___________________
Martius and Aprilis both flew by in a whirl of preparations for the trip. Separate protective details were needed for Poppaea, Marcus, Aquila, and Amantius, the whole of the Livorus family, as well as for the tutors and servants that would be accompanying them on the trip. Kanmi found, to his annoyance, that once his wife, Bastet, heard the few details he was able to offer about the upcoming trip—to include the fact that the propraetor’s family was coming along for it—nothing would persuade her that this wasn’t a golden opportunity for a family vacation. “You do realize that I will be working?” he told his wife, acerbically. “This isn’t a pleasure trip for me. You won’t see me any more than you do when I’m working twelve on, twelve off on Livorus’ detail here in Rome.”
“This barely qualifies as an official trip,” Bastet told him, folding her arms across her chest. “The propraetor’s bringing his family. Why can’t you?”
Kanmi looked up at the ceiling, and took deep breaths to keep himself from snapping at her. Because it’s a sham, was something he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t break security and tell her that the whole appearance of the trip was a deliberate façade. The best he could do was try to present every single disadvantage to her proposed plan that he could. “It’s Judea, Bastet. The climate is just as miserable there as it is in Tyre.”
“Well, we’re all used to it. Hot and miserable. The boys have been a little homesick for Tyre—don’t scoff, I know how you feel about the city, but to them, it’s home . . . .”
“Yes, but this is Judea we’re talking about. They don’t even have a ley-grid there. It’s all electrical power and the gods-only-know what else. The only public baths in the whole of Jerusalem are in the Nipponese and Roman neighborhoods. It’ll be primitive at best.”
“You are aware that where I grew up in Nubia, my family did not have indoor plumbing?” Bastet’s dark eyes narrowed. “I think I can manage the privations of Judea.”
Kanmi thought, desperately. “We’ll be so close to Tyre, we’ll practically offend my mother and father if we don’t bring the boys there.”
“I can tolerate your brothers and sisters-in-law for a day or so, if you can. I actually like your mother, you know.”
“Why are you so determined to go?” Kanmi finally asked, in pure desperation. He didn’t want his family there. It would be one more thing for him to worry about, one more potential distraction.
“Why are you so determined to keep us away?” Bastet’s eyes narrowed further, and her full lips turned down. “Kanmi . . . husband . . . I cannot remember the last time we took any sort of a trip together. Before the children were born, I was busy with medical school and after Himi was born, there was my formal apprenticeship in the hospital . . . now that they’re actually old enough to travel, and before Himi starts school officially . . . this is the best time that we’ll ever have to do something together as a family.”
Yes, but I spend so much time traveling, that the last thing I want to do is more of it. I want to come home, spend my time with you and the boys peacefully, and . . . did you have to choose this trip? Nahautl would have been better. At least once we got past the explosions and the potential for being arrested for defacing a monument and maybe deicide. Kanmi exhaled. “I will ask the propraetor. If he says no, then we must abide by his decision.”
Unfortunately, Livorus noted that having more family along, and not less, might reinforce the perception that this was a trip revolving around pleasure and good-will between Rome and Judea, rather than high-stakes diplomacy, espionage, and the like. “Bring them along, but we’ll assign the same lictor team that looks after my children to yours,” Livorus told Kanmi. “We’ll send them on the same museum trips. Your wife will appreciate it, mine will be puzzled by it, and both families will be well-protected.”
A band around Kanmi’s chest eased. “Thank you, dominus,” he told Livorus, quietly. It was the first time he could remember saying the word dominus and meaning it.
Chapter XI: Cross-Purposes
It is a common mistake made by many scholars of sociology and anthropology, to assume that any culture, past or present, is or was monolithic. One cannot judge the entirety of ancient Babylon by the recorded deeds of her kings; fortunately, many cuneiform tablets remain that show us tantalizing details about the lives of ordinary citizens. We might not know the price of a cup of beer, but we have recipes for how it was made. We might not know how a merchant transacted business, but we know how much he paid in taxes. We might not know what the average person thought about crime, but we know which crimes were prevalent, because we know which crimes had laws enacted to punish them. But to say we know precisely how different segments of their society thought about or felt about anything, beyond what their recorded history and legends have passed down to us . . . is a dangerous set of assumptions to make.
Likewise, in today’s world, no country or culture is an edifice made out of one singular piece of stone. Think of culture, rather, as something that grows, like the slow accretion of a stalagmite mound upon the floor of a cave. Drop by drop, the water from above deposits minerals in one place. The ceiling of the cavern may shift through natural causes, changing the flow of water, and thus, the shape of the mound itself will alter, in turn. The shape we see today may echo what an observer might have seen a century ago, but the color of the sediment may have changed, as adulterations from some other layer of minerals may have been introduced . . . just as influences from other cultures may adulterate a given society.
To see this concept in action, let us examine the culture of modern-day Judea. It is not monolithic. They have records of their history and culture that date back to the Bronze Age, in much the way that Egypt, Persia, and Hellas do. That Bronze-to-Iron-Age culture is the underlying shape of their stalagmite mound. The ceiling shifted and adulterations entered the mix of the water coursing over the stone—Roman governors attempted to enforce Hellenistic values and beliefs, two thousand years ago, without great success, while Antiochus IV made the same effort to enforce Persian beliefs and customs, with the self-same lack of success.
Cultural change is rarely successful when it is forced upon a subject population. The wise edicts of Caesarion I and Diocletian II allowed Judea to maintain its own cultural heritage without feeling threatened by the outside w
orld . . . but trade, commerce, and the exchange of knowledge did a better job of Hellenizing the region than swords ever could.
As such, there are populations within Judea who hold to the underlying shape of their culture and embrace its most ancient forms and formulas. There are portions of the population that are Hellenized, and embrace Roman culture and learning, and have syncretized their own traditions with those of Rome to form unique thoughts, ideas, and a distinctive culture of their own. There are portions of the population, that due to proximity to Little Roma, Little Hellas, and Little Nippon, the areas of Jerusalem dedicated to foreigners, have grown to embrace foreign ways. There are segments of the population that fall along all portions of a continuum between both extremes of cultural openness and cultural conservatism.
And the same can be said of every other culture on Earth. To ask ‘what does a Hellene think of spending tax money on spaceflight?’ or ‘What’s the Judean position on the expansion of the ley-grid?’ or ‘What does a resident of Germania think about maintaining Domitanus’ Wall?” is to ask a question that cannot be answered.
—Janna Magnusson, An Introduction to Contemporary Sociology, pp. 17-18. University of Divodurum Press, 1953 AC.
______________________
Maius 5, 1955 AC
Adam rubbed at his face as he cradled the phone against his shoulder, and peered out the window of his apartment in Rome. His words were a quick, dry rattle in Hebrew. “Yes, I’ll be getting in sometime tomorrow. No, I can’t be more specific than that, Imah.” A pause. “Security. Of course I trust you and my father, but then I also have to trust whoever you trust.” Another pause. “No. Please. Look, I’ll come to the house, but please don’t make a big deal out of this. It’s not a vacation. I’m there to work.”
On the other end of the line, his mother replied, pointedly, “Adam, you haven’t been home in over three years. It is important to me. You’ve missed so much. Your brother just had another son. Rivkah’s just graduated from college. Chani’s finished her required year of service, and just started college, herself. And you’ve missed so many holidays.”
“Imah, please. Don’t invite the entire neighborhood. I won’t have time to be there.”
“No, of course not the entire neighborhood.” Adam interpreted her faintly guilty tone as no, just half of it, and he closed his eyes in annoyance. His mother swept on hurriedly, “And of course, we would love to meet your co-workers. We’ve heard . . . well, not much about them, but it would be wonderful to meet the people with whom you spend so much time.”
Adam put his forehead against the window frame, and rapped it there, once, solidly. “I can’t make any promises,” he said, after a moment. “I will ask them. They will, however, be working, too.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to picture any of his coworkers meeting his family, he found. It was that he couldn’t. The worlds were entirely separate in his mind.
He managed to hang up on his mother politely enough, exhaled, and got his wits back together. He was due at the firing range in a half hour. About four weeks ago, as they worked to get things together for the Judea trip, Sigrun had asked them, as they stood watch together at Livorus’ house, “So . . . firearms in Judea. They’re somewhat different than the muskets and blunderbusses I am accustomed to seeing, yes?”
“Quite a bit more advanced, yes. You’re not going to see any enchanted bullets or cold iron-wrapped-in-silver loads, or whatever it was that Ehecatl was using—”
“He used iron wrapped in tin, actually. Counter-spelling agent, in many cases. But go on.”
Adam had shaken his head. “No derringers. No muskets. Rifles—much better accuracy over longer distances. They’re a perfect weapon for an assassin . . . a high-powered rifle can take someone’s head at a mile out, in the hands of a marksman. No single-shot weapons, either. Everything’s at least a revolver, and I was trained on an assault rifle that is automatic for use on the Wall . . . . ”
“The automatics are belt-fed, yes?”
“Clip or belt, yes. The top rate of fire is over five hundred bullets a minute, but only in short bursts. Damned things overheat.”
Sigrun winced. “I’m glad no one’s really adopted them elsewhere. Imagining a belt of enchanted bullets is uncomfortable. But I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Rome’s enemies copy the design and adapt it for magic.” She sighed, and added, “It might be useful for me to understand how these weapons are used. I could even see carrying one for use inside of buildings, when lightning is impossible to summon, or would cause too much property damage or risk to other lives. Would you mind giving me a few lessons?”
Adam had grinned. She’d come to sparring practice more infrequently than Trennus, but far more often than Kanmi. Trennus had yet to qualify on a pistol, though Kanmi, surprisingly to Adam, was an excellent marksman, but only with an incredibly old-fashioned two-barreled derringer. If Sigrun opted to learn to use an actual revolver, Adam thought he might be able to get their two magic-users to at least consider it more seriously, as well. Of course . . . they all had other options, as he usually had to remind himself. “Sure,” he’d told her. “Not a problem at all. Considering your hand and wrist-strength, I don’t think I’ll even need to start you on a .38 or anything like that. You can just start with my .45. That way, we won’t even need to scrounge for ammunition or anything.”
Sigrun had given him a politely blank look. “And the numbers mean . . . ?”
Adam had opened his mouth to reply, and then paused and squinted. “You’re putting me on, aren’t you?” She’s got to understand calibers, doesn’t she?
Her lips had twitched, faintly. “Perhaps a little.”
At the firing range the next day, he’d insisted that she put on ear protection. Sigrun had given him a direct look. “You do realize that when I’m working, there tends to be a lot of thunder?’ she’d told him, raising her voice to ensure he could hear her through his own ear coverings.
“Yes. I’ve noticed that. Still, you probably want to be able to hear when you’re ninety, right?” He paused. “You’re not ninety already, are you?”
Sigrun’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“Just checking. You refuse to tell anyone when you were born, and there are all these hints and intimations that you’re actually an antiquity, so I have to ask these things just to make sure.” He’d paused. “You’d make it easier on yourself if you’d just admit to how old you actually are. I don’t understand the secrecy.”
Sigrun shrugged. “There is a valkyrie who is over two thousand years old, Adam.” She met his eyes squarely, letting him see that she wasn’t joking. “Eir. She is considered a minor goddess of my people now, and has god-born of her own. Of her line, of her power. She’s worshipped. And she’s also . . . .” Sigrun sighed. “A product of her times, as I understand it. She has no interest in current medical science, for all that she is healing. I . . . have no ambitions of that nature.” A quick, rueful smile in his direction. “My age is irrelevant, except that knowing the exact moment of someone’s birth is almost as good a handle on their identity as knowing their truename, or having a vial of their blood. Have all three, and you’ve got them. Ask Trennus sometime about it. His year of birth was in his dossier, but not the date, if you’ll recall.”
Adam had blinked. That was more information than he’d actually expected to receive. “All right. I’ll bite. Why does blood bind?”
Sigrun looked up at him steadily. “People used to believe it was because it represented the life-force energy of the creature it came from. And, to a certain extent, in sacrifice, that’s still true. A priest sacrifices a heifer or a lamb on an altar, or Trennus hunts down a deer in the forests of Britannia for his bargain with his wood-spirit. And then the spirit or the god consumes the life energy, certainly. But blood truly binds because it identifies who we are.”
“DNA?” Adam guessed.
“Precisely.” She paused. “There’s more to it. Trennus or Kanmi could explain it better, but you
remember how Trennus said that salt water was a good buffer for spirits because it’s chemically similar to blood? The salt is part of it. Water is a purifying element, and that’s a part of blood. Salt is a symbol of purity, but it also helps conduct electricity and even magical power. I’m not a scholar of such things . . . but it all interrelates.”
Adam had shaken his head. “All way beyond me. But I’ll file it all at the back of my head, in case I ever need it.” He’d smiled and proceeded to break down his gun to show her the component parts. How they went together again. What did what. How to load it. “Finger outside the trigger-guard until you’re ready to fire,” he cautioned, out of habit. He’d trained too many people for the words not to cue up by rote.
And since then, once a week, they’d met at the firing range, and he’d adjusted her two-handed stance with light, impersonal hands. Tried not to notice the fact that whatever shampoo powder she used seemed to be apple-scented. Given her suggestions on improving her aim, how to look at the target and the aiming blade on the pistol with both eyes open, and the like. It wasn’t a surprise that she was a natural shot. But it was a surprise how much she seemed to enjoy it and the process of improving her skill. And he enjoyed it, too. She wasn’t particularly talkative, confining herself solely to the topic at hand, but there was companionability even in the silence. And they took to getting coffee after each hour at the range, too.
Today was no different than the rest of their practice sessions, though Sigrun noted that she had to leave early. “I need books for the trip,” she admitted, when pressed. “Long hours with nothing to do and probably being cooped up in between shifts means I’ll need to occupy my mind somehow.” She shrugged.
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