Adam winced as he watched the ornithopters on the far-viewer perform their last banking maneuver, and then come right back at the camera’s position, bomb bay doors opening in their bellies. He knew his reaction was irrational. This had all happened sometime yesterday, according to the reports. Knowing that didn’t help. Every muscle in his body tensed as he watched the payloads drop, and the first explosion rocked the camera . . . and a fireball rent a Median building, possibly a barracks from the look of it. The camera tipped to its side from the force of the explosion . . . and out of the center of the fireball, a pillar of flame emerged, with enormous ruby eyes that looked vaguely like Lassair’s. Only this spirit stood two stories tall, and was roughly man-shaped. “Like a golem made of flame,” Adam muttered. “I think they’re using the chemical reaction of the explosives to feed the damned things.”
“What a bargain,” Sigrun agreed, grimacing and leaning forward to study the images more carefully.
The reporters on the Roman station stayed remarkably silent through the footage. Only as a half-dozen fire-elementals began to rage through the marketplace, and people ran in every direction, overturning their own stalls and trampling one another, did the commentators speak. “This was the scene in Rhagae at just past two postmeridian yesterday. We have unconfirmed reports of over five hundred people killed. Median magi are on scene, and have apparently bound the elementals unleashed on their city, while local emergency response teams have worked around the clock to put out the fires and dig through the rubble, looking for survivors.”
“The question on many people’s minds right now, is this: What is Rome going to do about this atrocity? More on that, after these commercials.”
Sigrun leaned back against the back of the couch in his apartment. “Gods, Adam. I am . . . not entirely certain that we’ve spent the last eight months doing the right thing, encouraging them to secede. I saw children running out of one of those buildings. It was a school.”
Adam’s stomach tightened. Missed bombing runs happened. No one in their right mind wanted to hit a civilian target. Codes of warfare had changed a bit since the earlier Imperial period, after all. But for all he knew, the Persian general could have ordered the school as a target, deliberately, to break the Medians’ will. “I hope it was an accident,” he said, quietly. “It’s horrible to have to live with, but I’d much rather that, than that it was intentional.”
Sigrun turned and looked at him. “That sounded like the voice of experience.”
“It is, and it isn’t. I was a pretty young optio at the time, but . . . my unit was setting mines just over the Persian side of the Wall. It’s in disputed territory, but they’re supposed to keep people and vehicles back from the Wall itself.” Adam realized that his fingers had stopped moving in Sigrun’s hair, and had to will them back into motion. “I spotted a vehicle, an old, broken-down, kerosene-powered truck, coming our way. Loaded down with people. Couldn’t tell at that range if they were soldiers, farmers, refugees, what. And they were heading, at full clip, right for the area we’d just mined.”
“Oh, Hel’s frozen heart,” Sigrun murmured, her expression horrified. “This story cannot end well.”
“It doesn’t.” Adam grimaced. “We waved them off, fired a warning shot, everything. I had a sniper rifle with me. My centurion ordered me to try to shoot the driver. Better one man, than the whole truck full of them getting killed, if they hit the mines, if they turned out to be refugees, trying to defect, right?” He rubbed his free hand over his eyes for a moment. “So, I looked through my scope. Got a good look at everyone. The driver wore a uniform. Everyone else wore civilian clothing. I told my captain, he confirmed his order to kill the driver, and I shot him. Truck came to a halt just outside the mined area, and the people aboard were all screaming and acting panicked, and then they shoved his body over, took over the wheel, and got out of there.”
Sigrun frowned. “That doesn’t end as badly as I expected it to,” she admitted.
“Oh, well, the bad part was two days later, when the tribune of the entire southeastern zone ordered my centurion and me to appear before him. And showed us what was being broadcast on Persian far-viewer stations. According to them, the soldier had been a deserter who’d forced a bunch of civilians to come with him, under threat to their families, and intended to sell military secrets to Rome and Judea in exchange for sanctuary, but was shot by the Judean military. Thus the fate of all defectors and deserters is death.” Adam paused. “Oh, and they had footage of the whole incident. Minus us trying to wave them away. Though they did have shots of us digging the mines in place. It was interestingly edited film.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Sigrun leaned into him. “Can’t people tell the truth from a lie when they hear it?”
“Propaganda doesn’t have to make sense. It just has to instill fear. But I get to wonder, every so often, for the rest of my life, if they all really were trying to defect, or if they were just trying to get close enough to the Wall for an attack. I’ll never know if I shot a desperate man or an enemy that day. And while I don’t wish that feeling on the Persian pilot who dropped the bomb on that school . . . I’d much rather that, than know it was deliberate. Know what I mean?” Adam nuzzled his face into her hair. He hadn’t entirely been joking to Kanmi, months ago, about having noticed an improvement in his sense of smell since the Tlaloc incident. It made him rather hyper-fastidious about cleaning his apartment anymore—which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—and it made the smell of clean skin and hair and Sigrun’s core scent absolutely intoxicating to him. “Mmm. You used a different brand of shampoo today. Apple is your usual, but this is . . . .” He inhaled again. “Cherry blossom. That Nipponese stuff my parents sent you for Hanukah.” His parents were adapting to Sigrun’s presence in his life, if slowly.
“I think you are, perhaps, turning into a wolf,” Sigrun told him, laughing, and Adam snuffled more audibly against the back of her neck and mock-growled. He didn’t tell her, because he didn’t want to worry her, that he could tell that she’d showered two hours before coming over to see him, by how much dampness smell was left in her hair. That he could tell she’d had lamb kebabs with garlic, cumin, and cinnamon for lunch. The smell was still on her skin, shower or no. As unintended side-effects go, I really can’t complain. So what if it makes me clean the lavatory daily? It beats being dead.
He’d even seen a doctor in Judea, quietly, for a CAT scan of his brain. The technology was in its infancy, but no tumors or anything else had been detected. They’d crammed a scope up his nasal passages, too. He just, apparently, had had enough of a shock to his system, that his brain was treating smell as a more important sense. The doctor had likened it to someone who’d been blinded, suddenly having to focus on the remaining senses.
The minimal advertisements, mostly for brands of olive-oil based soap, a new Hellene variety of motorcar, and a brand-new Qin restaurant that had opened in the Field of Mars area came to an end, and the news broadcast resumed. “Rome’s response to the attack on the new subject nation of Media began today with twenty-five thousand troops being moved into the area, and a retaliatory strike being launched against Persepolis itself,” the anchor informed them, as footage of Roman armored personnel vehicles rolling through gates in the Wall showed on the screen . . . followed by images of Judean jets being scrambled from airfields in the Sinai. “The Judean Air Force launched a series of bombing attacks directly on the seat of the Persian government today. However, the government of Persia is, de facto, in the hands of Tiridates X’s second son, Mithridates, self-styled seventh of that name, but he is being pressed on the west by his elder half-brother, Antiochus, self-styled twelfth of that name, and to the east by Pharnaces, his younger brother by one of Tiridates’ concubines. It is hoped that they will not unite in common cause against Rome as the result of this direct retaliation.”
The footage of the Judean fighter jets and bombers did Adam’s heart good to see. They were capable of flying so
high in the atmosphere, that the Persian ornithopters simply couldn’t reach them; the wing design and propulsion systems of most ornithopters gave them a flight ceiling comparable to that of a helicopter. Specially designed, extremely lightweight ornithopters could be used in high mountain reaches, but they weren’t combat-rated, by any stretch of the imagination. The jet fighters were present solely to escort the bombers . . . and the bombers had bomb-bay door cameras, some of which caught the city below erupting into flame. No elementals. No djinn. Just raw, chemically-powered explosions. Somehow, this seemed a little cleaner to Adam. Not by much, but a little. “Hard to tell what altitude they’re at,” Sigrun noted.
“I know. They’re flying high enough that not even a god-born should be able to get into the sky with them. Most people can’t breathe at that altitude without special gear.” Adam poked her lightly in the ribs. “And even you need to be able to see a target to hit it with lightning.”
“And the Persians don’t have a lot of god-born. They’re Zoroastrian, in the main, besides a few in Babylon who still follow Marduk.” Sigrun stared at the screen for a moment, and then reached to turn it off. “Enough depressing news for the time being, I think. This is going to take years, I think.” She grimaced.
“If the Persians have been saying for decades that West and East Assyria should have the right of self-determination, and that they should be allowed to exit Rome’s domains if they want to be one single country, then logically, they can’t oppose Chaldea and Media for choosing to use their own right of self-determination and leaving,” Adam told her, in a tone of pure reason.
“Since when does logic have anything to do with governance?’ Sigrun asked him, dryly, and they got up to work on cooking dinner together.
___________________
Martius 5, 1956 AC
“So, you do realize,” Adam told Sigrun that morning, as she pulled her swan cloak over her shoulders to get ready for work, “that we’ve spent the night at each other’s places . . . pretty much every single day that we’ve been in Rome, yes?”
Sigrun thought about that. “Which day did we miss?”
“Probably none, but I’m allowing for faulty memory.” Adam’s dark eyes lit up with his smile. “I’m thinking that one or the other of our leases is probably coming up for renewal soon. And it would certainly be less expensive to live in one place, rather than in two.” He gestured around his small apartment. Sigrun liked it, but found it heartlessly plain. He did have the larger bed, but very little other furniture. A couch, a far-viewer, a kitchen table and two chairs, and vast expanses of plain white walls unadorned by absolutely anything. After the first few visits, Sigrun had, pointedly, bought him a small lemon tree in a pot and put it in his balcony window, so at least the place smelled redolently of citrus most of the time, and there was something alive in the confines of the apartment. Adam hadn’t minded, and usually sniffed appreciatively every time he walked in the front door with her.
He had a shelf full of books on space and rocketry, however. He’d even started taking correspondence courses with the University of Jerusalem, starting in Ianuarius. Their schedule didn’t really permit him to attend full-time classes, so he was doing the reading, writing essays, and completing the tests before sending them back by mail, for grading, while they sent him another packet of work in exchange. It looked painfully dull to Sigrun, but Adam seemed to be enjoying himself as he worked through his first courses in physics and chemistry. “The good news is,” he’d told her, shrugging, “no junk courses. No ‘you need to be well-rounded, so take something totally at random from art history.” He’d given her a kiss. “Besides. Every night I sit up reading with you, there’s a better than average chance I’ll get a graduate seminar in archaeology or something anyway.”
Sigrun had snorted a little at the thought, and looked over his shoulder at the physics textbook. Most of it had been written in numbers. Roman numerals and Hellene numerals were still extensively used in common writing, and both systems had added the convention of a zero, but an Indian numerical system had actually been adapted for most advanced mathematics, on the grounds that it was more economical and easier to write in. It also made adding machines, or calculators, much easier to build, apparently. Adam had actually purchased one for this course, in addition to a slide-rule, but the bulky contraption was used, primarily, to check his work. “Looks like magic spells to me,” she admitted.
“Kanmi looked over my shoulder last week and said that this equation right here,” Adam pointed at it, “was the basis for his ability to warp gravity, very slightly, around himself, so he doesn’t take too many bad falls. So it is magic. But it’s also science.” Adam made a face. “And Kanmi does this in his head. I’ll admit . . . I’m envious.”
“Inaccurately, he says,” Sigrun reminded him. “He does a lot of rounding in combat, and it makes his spells nowhere near as efficient or accurate as they could be, if he had them all worked out ahead of time.” She’d kissed the back of Adam’s neck. “I’ll hush so you can concentrate.”
Two months later, he was still grinding away at the work patiently, almost every night. She didn’t mind. She liked it quiet, and going out every night would have been pointless. Curling up with a cylinder of music turning in the machine providing a little background noise as she, too, read, made for a perfect ending to what was usually a long and stressful day.
Looking around his apartment now, however, Sigrun raised her eyebrows. “You’re suggesting that we should move in together?” She was secure enough in the relationship now to tease, “Why, this is so sudden!”
“Actually, I was thinking of a little more than that,” Adam told her, picking up her hand to kiss the backs of her fingers. “I was thinking we should get married.”
Sigrun was surprised enough that she couldn’t even answer for a half a minute. She started to answer, realized that she couldn’t even shape words, and then just smiled at him, reaching out to wrap her arms around him, before pulling back with as a worried frown creased her brow. “Are you even allowed to marry me?” she asked.
Adam looked up at the ceiling. “Yes. Well, technically, there are a few impediments. Officially, women are highly discouraged from marrying outside of the people. Men have a little more leeway in that area.” He grimaced. “Just as technically, when we get married, the wife is supposed to convert.” He coughed a little as Sigrun pulled a little further back and gave him a look. “I didn’t say I expected you to do so. I’m not sure there’s anything we could do that would break more rules.”
Sigrun tipped her head to the side. “Like killing an entity?”
“It’s not a hobby! And it’s not likely to happen again.” Adam gave her a look in return. “So, yes, there might be a few issues. Children, too, might be an issue. They’re supposed to be raised in the faith.”
Sigrun blinked. She’d been wandering around in a happy daze in her off-hours, and hadn’t given much thought to the future. Adam, apparently, had. Then again, he often comments on the fact that there’s no future tense in Gothic. “Children . . . .” Sigrun shook her head, wide-eyed.
“You don’t want any?”
“Oh, I do. It’s just . . . I never really thought they would be possible for me.” Sigrun grimaced. “Between my sister prophesying . . . well . . . end of the world stuff that doesn’t matter . . .” she looked at the ceiling, “and well, never really finding a man whom I loved until now—“
“I heard that. You said it.” Adam picked her up in his arms and kissed her. “God knows, it’s taken you long enough.”
That’s because I say things without saying them. Sigrun returned the kiss, and then pulled away. “I don’t have any objection to them being raised in your faith, if they’re not god-born. If they are . . . they’re subject to Tyr. The same as I am.”
“Sounds fair to me.” He gave her another kiss. “And now that that’s settled . . . I love you, too, by the way . . . we should get to work.” He tugged at her cloak. “You going to
talk to Tyr about letting you wear a flak jacket with the feathers?”
“It remains on my list of things about which to ask him when I next receive an audience,” she returned. “I hesitate to schedule those without good reason.” She opened the door. "Shall we?"
___________________
Aprilis 3, 1956 AC
Sigrun sat in the tiny kitchen of her apartment, going through the stack of mail that had been shoved through the slot in her front door over the course of the past week, while Adam paced around behind her, the cradle of her phone in one hand, the receiver in the other, and an exasperated look on his face. She was picking up Hebrew at a fairly good rate, because they alternated evenings speaking exclusively in each other’s native language, but his tone was annoyed, and he was speaking at a very rapid clip. This, and the word Imah, meant that he was speaking with his mother. Probably about the wedding.
She did her best not to listen, and picked up a letter postmarked in thick Gothic letters, from Marcomanni in Caesaria Aquilonis. Tearing it open, she produced two closely-written sheets in runes that curved a good deal more than was normal, suggesting a young female hand had penned them.
Waes hael, Sigrun Caetia, god-born of Tyr, law-giver of Nova Germania and lictor of the Praetorian Guard.
I hope this letter finds you well. It has been two months since I received your last letter, and I wish to apologize for not responding more promptly. I have been very busy, though that is not an excuse for ignoring the duty that is courtesy.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 79