“That sounds . . . very fair,” Adam told her, and grinned to himself. Either I’m having an effect on her, by telling her she can use her discernment, just like every other human, or Kanmi’s rubbing off on her. That was sneakier than I anticipated.
Within four hours of that, they’d met with Livorus, and then they’d had an emergency meeting with Livorus and the Imperator. This was conducted in the imperial palace itself, after having their identification checked . . . and at least one of the Praetorians on duty, a tall, almost cadaverously thin Nubian . . . came over to give Sigrun a wrist-clasp. “Zoskales Ezana,” she said, smiling slightly. “It’s been a while.”
The Nubian smiled, a white flash of teeth. “I regret that I missed the wedding. The emperor had received several new and fairly credible assassination threats. My services were needed here, in Rome.” The sorcerer, Sigrun’s first partner in the Praetorians, traded wrist-clasps with Adam, and saluted Livorus, tapping his fist to his heart with emphasis. “Propraetor. It is an honor to see you once more.”
Then he escorted them into a small study, walls lined with bookshelves and scroll racks, and a single, recessed window that overlooked a pleasant formal garden. A line of phones stood along the antique wood desk . . . and the man sitting behind that desk had a face familiar from any handful of coins that someone happened to spill out on a counter, anywhere in the empire.
Adam had never met Caesarion before, and he was startled to realize that the emperor of Rome and all her holdings was only about six years his senior. Caesarion had taken the throne in 1948, which meant that the pressures of ruling approximately half the globe—and nearly a billion people, in total—had already weighed on him for twelve years. But Caesarion was also god-born, so his hair remained dark, without traces of gray, and his brown eyes, behind that patrician nose, were piercing as he accepted Adam’s salute. He even offered a wrist-clasp, surprisingly, a gesture of extreme generosity. For Sigrun, the Imperator had a charming smile. “A pleasure to meet you. I understand that you are more recently derived of godly blood, than I am?” A delicate question, that. Adam wasn’t sure what the courtesies were, here, or what entirely what it meant to be more recently descended from a god.
“Dominus.” Sigrun lowered her head in respect. “I am told that my father’s mother’s mother, Solveig, was very fair indeed, and just, and wise. That she was a law-giver in 1840 or so, when Tyr listened to her judgments and gave to her some of his power. Their daughter, my grandmother, Saga, was born mortal, however.” Sigrun’s tone was detached. “Solveig was not a warrior from birth, but she felt it was her duty to fight in the Caspian Crisis, and she died there, in 1860. Her daughter was my grandmother; her son, Ivarr, my father. Though I may call Tyr my grandfather, I am descended from but one god, dominus, and you are descended from many.”
A ghostly flicker of amusement crossed Caesarion’s face. “You are fair-spoken,” he congratulated her. “I see now why my father’s old advisor has kept you to himself. Would you not prefer to come and work for me?”
A flash of unease across Sigrun’s face, there, then gone. “Rome has my loyalty and my allegiance, Imperator. But I feel a personal bond to the propraetor, which I do not give lightly. I would prefer to remain in his service for the duration of my time in the Guard.”
“Well enough,” Caesarion replied, and looked at Adam now, piercingly. Adam wondered what was behind those eyes, and imagined, for a moment, the wheels of a jewel-pointed watch, all churning and spinning. “So your richly talented lictors found the tail end of another, similar plot, and decided to pull on it, Livorus? If I were to turn this over to the rest of the Guard, they would undoubtedly begin to wonder if any of your lictors have some involvement in a massive global conspiracy against the state and the gods.”
Adam stiffened. It wasn’t an insult. The tone was matter-of-fact. And then the Imperator waved it away. “I don’t believe it. I’ve met you both, now. But that is almost certainly what someone will, at some point, choose to believe, and attempt to prove.”
“You’ve learned much, dominus,” Livorus murmured.
“All at your knee, friend of my father.” Caesarion’s tone shifted slightly. “Livorus, my friend . . . I’m sending you with them. It will be a pleasant change for you, I think, to be away from Raccia, Chaldea, and involved in affairs other than that of the infernal Caspian region.” He glanced up. “To expedite matters, I will empower both of your senior lictors temporarily as special envoys. This will give them ambassadorial rank, privileges, and protections. Try not to abuse the power I have given you.” That last was directed at both Sigrun and Adam. He scribbled on two pieces of paper, signing each of the letters that named both of them diplomats. Adam’s lips twitched a little as he held the parchment between his fingertips; he’d been called many things in his life. Diplomat wasn’t one of them. It could be worse. He could have handed one of these to Kanmi.
He looked up as the Imperator went on. “I would be obliged if you might remind the Emperor of the Inca of the treaty provisions between his empire and mine. To whit, that human sacrifice is forbidden in all of Rome’s holdings, of which his empire is a part, as a subject nation and ally.” Caesarion’s expression didn’t change, but his tone inflected slightly on the word ally, and Adam could hear the irony there. “If he will not hear your words, you are authorized to meet with the governor and enact any measures you deem necessary to make him hear, up to and including martial law. What they do with their own gods is, by law and necessity, their own affair. There is nothing technically illegal about binding an . . . entity.” Caesarion’s mouth pursed slightly, as if he’d bitten into a sour fruit. “However, if what they are doing threatens the safety and well-being of the subject nations around them, who also look to Rome for protection, then it does become the business of Rome. Investigate before you confront. And now . . .” he flicked his fingers at them, and turned back to the stack of papers on his desk.
Four hours after that, they were on a trans-oceanic flight, one of them on either side of Livorus, and two additional lictors from his overall squad with them, as backup. At least one thing can be said of this job, Adam thought to himself. You definitely get to see the world. They’d be in the air for at least twenty hours; between the flight to Tenochtitlan, and the ornithopter flight to Cuzco, and any transfers or delays, they were going to be out of contact for almost twenty-four full hours. Hold it together, he thought, at Kanmi and Trennus. We’re getting there as fast as we can. The pair could call in local gardia, using their Praetorian rank, but god only knew the loyalties of the local gardia. And there was no way of knowing, at the moment, who was behind any of this.
___________________
Maius 19, 1960 AC
Kanmi had recommended, that for safety’s sake, they all stay in the same room. “Matrugena, you and Lassair can have the bed. Dr. Sasaki? You’ve got the couch. I’ll take the floor. Won’t be the first time. Also, I’ll take first watch.”
Trennus hadn’t actually raised any objections to that, and neither had Lassair; Trennus was clearly worried about his spirit-wife, and Lassair had no concept of privacy that Kanmi could detect. For his part, the floor was fine. At least on the floor, he was less likely to catch the scent of Minori’s skin on the sheets and absently think, Smells nice, before he woke up all the way.
Minori, for her part, however, objected, at least a little. “Part of what protects us here,” she pointed out, raising her fine brows, “is the appearance of normalcy. The lie. The cover. If we suddenly all take to sleeping in the same room, it will attract attention, certainly.”
“Only if the hotel staff takes up opening locked doors in the middle of the night to check on our location.” Kanmi’s tone was sharp. “In which case, we’re perfututum.” Totally fucked out.
Her lips thinned. “Part of the briefing I was given was on the importance of living the cover. Something that you in particular have had some minor difficulties doing, Master Eshmunazar. Already, you’ve returned
to referring to me as Doctor Sasaki.”
Kanmi looked at the ceiling for patience. She was right, in a sense. In undercover work, it was absolutely vital to believe your cover story, and try to maintain it even when you thought you couldn’t be seen or heard. On the other hand, he desperately needed to maintain mental space, and having Tren and Lassair in the same room? Created even more space. Even if the room suddenly felt half its previous size. “Minori,” he said, catching Lassair’s fascinated glance out of the corner of his eye, “I’ll work on that. In the meantime? Everyone needs to stay as safe as possible. We’ll move Tren and Lassair here after they’ve visibly gone into their room every night. I’m not really good with light yet, though it’s something I’m studying, so I can’t make them invisible, but Lassair can disguise herself—”
“Invisibility is very difficult,” Minori said, frowning. “I could arrange darkness—”
“Yes, but—”
“Hold on,” Tren told them, dryly. “Don’t get bogged down in the details. Once we wake up in the morning, are we going everywhere together, too?”
Kanmi exchanged a long look with Matrugena. “Exactly my plan.”
The argument had gone on for a while after that, but Kanmi had won it. And had lain on the hard, cold tile floor, barely padded by a blanket, and reminded his body that it was hardly the first time he’d slept on the ground. About a half hour before he was due to call ben Maor, Minori draped an extra blanket over him. “Thanks, but I don’t need it,” Kanmi murmured.
“It is quite warm in the room, for me. You are from a milder climate.” Minori’s words were just as soft as his. “You slept on the ground often, when you were on the Mongolian border?”
Kanmi shrugged, and sat up to arrange the blankets under him. It wasn’t the air temperature that was getting to him; it was the cold in the tile, sucking the life out of him. “There. Elsewhere. My parents had a two-room apartment for six people when I was a child. My brothers and I slept on the floor of my parents’ room. The three of us had one mattress. I usually got knocked off in the middle of the night. My grandfather slept out in the family room, because he’d be up before dawn to go to his fishing boat. My father, when he was home, slept in the bedroom, but if he had to leave on his ship in the morning, he slept on a cot by the kitchen stove. It was crowded.”
She’d stopped moving, and Kanmi tilted his head to look at her. “What?” he asked. “Surprised that my family was that poor? That I wore clothes my brothers had worn, before me, mended three times over before I got a chance to grow into them? That the building was rat-infested, and I could hear them rustling through the walls every night, squeaking and chittering? That sometimes, my brothers and I would be bitten by the rats, in the night?”
She shuddered. “And your sons?”
Kanmi shrugged. Turned away. “When they were born, my parents didn’t have the care of three boys and a grandfather. They also had my paycheck, and Bastet’s. Better apartment. Better food. Better clothes. No rats.”
Minori dropped to her knees beside his pallet, bending surprisingly close to his ear. “So when you had a chance to go to school, on scholarship, you did the very best you could.”
He closed his eyes. Sleep was finally beckoning, but it was too damned late for it. “Yes. At school . . . I shared a room, but I had a bed. Three meals a day. Books. Clothes that weren’t rags. It was paradise. I’d have done anything to stay. Well . . . almost.” Some of the older boys had thought they could use that in him. Had tried to tell the twelve-year-old wharf rat that if he didn’t do what they wanted of him, that they’d go to the pedagogues and that they’d ensure he’d be thrown out. Kanmi had had a slightly better understanding of the world than they had, however, and enough experience fighting dirty on the docks to know precisely where to grab, twist, and pull. As he’d told Adam ben Maor many times, he had no chance against a larger opponent in a straight fight. His only chance, really, lay in dirty tactics, followed by sorcery.
And his gift for sorcery had also been enormous, and he’d been motivated to learn. Quickly. A group of four or five upperclassmen had urinated blood for a week. And when the pedagogues had asked what had happened, how one apprentice student had first, managed to beat five upper-tier students, and second, why he’d felt the need to do so . . . the truth had come out, and all five had been expelled, summarily.
“Is that why you hate me? Because I wasn’t born into those circumstances?” She sounded distressed.
Kanmi opened his eyes, surprised, and rolled over. “I don’t hate you, doc—Minori. I hate the nobility. I hate the wealthy. The haves, who were born to it, and haven’t worked a day in their lives. The ones who couldn’t hold anything more challenging than a job operating a cash register, but still have more money than they can count. Them? Yes. I hate them. People like Livorus . . . no. I don’t hate him. I respect him. He works, Minori. He works every day, like a dog.”
“But you don’t respect me, do you?” Again, the quiet tone. Not quite reproachful, nor really angry. Just . . . matter of fact.
“I don’t know you.” Kanmi shrugged. It wasn’t quite true. He’d been rapidly getting to know her. At least as much as she let him know. He therefore knew she had twelve brothers and sisters, all of them half-siblings, ranging in age from twelve years her senior to fifteen years her junior. He knew that her face softened whenever she was around his sons. That she found Lassair almost overwhelmingly beautiful. That she had a gift for sorcery probably equal to his own, but largely untested. That she enjoyed food, savoring every bite. That she, like the rest of them, hadn’t entirely known what to do with Tawantinsuyan cuisine. Ben Maor is going to get here and between the cuy—guinea pigs—cooked with a hot stone shoved in their abdominal cavities, the mayfly larva flour loaves, the alpaca jerky, and everything else, he’s going to settle for potatoes. Probably just potatoes, for the duration of his stay. Kanmi’s thoughts had wandered, just for an instant, and as a result, he smiled faintly as he reached out, and took her hand in his. “For a noble-born, you don’t actually seem that bad,” he told her.
“How magnanimous of you,” she told him, a prickle in her voice, which made him laugh, though he choked it down, in deference to Lassair and Trennus, who were trying to sleep.
The morning of Maius 19, Kanmi and the others were preparing to leave the hotel to start checking into the tower locations, when the attendant at the front desk beckoned Trennus and him over. “You have messages,” the man behind the desk noted, and handed each of them a slip of paper.
Kanmi read his rapidly. Excellent Latin, neat, educated hand. “Micos Cornelius,” he muttered. “That’s a patrician gens, if ever I heard one. Could be related to Sulla, for the gods’ sakes.” But, more likely, one of the governor’s family members. He’s definitely a Cornelii.
The note was brief, and to the point. It is my understanding that you are a technomancer, Agent Eshmunazar, and a sorcerer of some repute. I believe we may claim mutual acquaintance with several mages, including Lady Erida Lelayn. It would please me to make your acquaintance, and the acquaintance of your fellow travelers. You may find me at my home in the Court of the Golden Sun today, postmeridian. —MC
Typical patrician, expecting people to dance attendance, Kanmi thought, and shoved the note in his pocket. “What have you got? Dinner invitation, too?”
Tren’s face had turned stony. “Not quite,” he said, and handed the note to Kanmi, glancing around the room lobby. “Is the person who left this, still here?” he asked the attendant.
“She said she would stay outside the main doors. She looked to be very highly ranked. I did not dare say anything to her.” The attendant’s eyes widened.
Kanmi’s eyes skimmed over the paper. The lettering was good, but the writer was unused to penning Latin, evidently. I had to find you, and your goddess. You were not hard to track. You should be careful. Bad things have happened here in Cuzco of late. My lady and I owe you gratitude, priest. And, grateful though we are, we must ask
of you more aid.
The Carthaginian lifted his head and scanned the lobby, catching Minori’s eye from across the room and nodding to her; she and Lassair crossed from the stairwell, joining them. “We’re popular,” Kanmi said, derisively, as they stepped away. “Matru, you know who this is?”
Tren covered his mouth with his hand, as if coughing, and muttered, into his hand, “God-born, probably,” before pulling Lassair’s hand through the crook of his left arm.
Yes, Lassair told them all. The one who watched us at the place of lines is outside the door. She wears no masks. She does not conceal herself, or her intentions, but she is afraid. The spirit tipped her head, looking towards the rotating glass door.
Kanmi pulled up defensive constructs in his mind, and felt Minori doing the same thing; hers were a little different than his, but rock-solid spell-craft, nonetheless. Mouthing the words under his breath, he extended his personal constructs out to cover her, and the corners of his mouth quirked up, faintly, as he felt her shift, and extend her barriers out to cover him.
Outside, there was a single Tawantinsuyan woman, sitting on the edge of a planter in front of the hotel, watching the passers-by with wide eyes. The local empire was made up of literally hundreds of smaller tribes and ethnic groups whose differences were, unfortunately, rather lost on Kanmi; he did think that most of the women here were among the most beautiful he’d ever seen, with dark brown eyes and straight black hair that they usually wore braided. But the higher-ranked castes still occasionally bound the heads of their children, contorting the skulls into conical shapes as a mark of distinction. Modern medicine suggested that this could result in a variety of ailments and potentially even reduced cognitive development, but common sense had never stopped anyone in history from body-modification in the pursuit of beauty.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 99