by M C Scott
He felt the touch of her look and matched it with his free hand, tracing lines in their pooled sweat on her torso, about her navel, across and across the lines of her pelvic bones to her hips, and up to her breasts and then, when she was still looking, he leaned down and traced his lips along the line his fingers had marked, teasing and teasing until she gave the same throaty cry she had earlier in the dark and rolled over, finding him blindly with hands and tongue and teeth and then with all of her, pressing him flat on the goosefeather mattress, rising over him to greet the dawn again in her own way, with their hands entwined, palm to palm, fingers interlaced …
‘What is it?’ He felt the change in her hands first, and then the rest of her. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. Not you.’ They were still locked together. She slumped against him, pressing her forehead to his chest.
‘You don’t want a child?’ He studied her, searching, trying to see inside. ‘There are ways to be sure. We don’t have to—’
‘Hush.’ She kissed him to silence. ‘It’s not about a child, and anyway it’s too late for that. She’s made. What we do now is for us.’ Absently, she smoothed his hair over his brow. He watched her weigh a difficult choice and wished his heart did not crash so hard in his chest.
Biting her lower lip, she said, ‘Did you think of Aerthen when we … earlier?’
‘I tried not to,’ he said, truthfully, and then, because he couldn’t slow the speed of his mind, even when it worked against him, he said, ‘and you thought of Hypatia. But I would be with Aerthen if she weren’t dead, and Hypatia’s still alive, so’ – he pushed himself up on his elbow again – ‘you should go to her.’
Hannah was looking away from him, out of the unshuttered window. ‘I can’t. I don’t know where she is, and in any case we can’t leave. You said so.’
‘I also said that Mergus has orders to do whatever it takes to keep them safe. When he finds them, he’ll take them to the forum.’
‘What if he doesn’t find them?’
‘Tonight, I am prefect of the Watch. As soon as we can leave here, I’ll find them.’
In his mind, Pantera was already out in the charred streets, setting the Watch – his Watch – to find a Sibyl with black hair and the scent of lilies. He didn’t think she would be dead; she was too clever for that.
We were lovers … Earlier, at the height of her passion, Hannah had spoken a word and he had not heard it. Only now did he know it as a name. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, staring up at the ceiling.
‘Don’t. Please.’
Hannah caught his hair, painfully, and brought his head round to hers. A dozen heartbeats ago, he would have loved her for that, and met her with his own power. Now, his gaze skidded over her face.
She pulled him back a second time. ‘Please … I need to be truthful, that’s all. What’s this’ – her sweeping arm took in the bed, and shut out the world – ‘without truth? Neither of us comes to this unscarred, or completely whole. We are who we are. Don’t let it destroy us. Please.’
‘But you love her.’
‘And you love Aerthen.’
‘Who is dead. Hypatia is not.’
‘But here, now, she may as well be. Will you allow me to have a past, and believe me that it is past? Please?’ She said it more quietly this time, and reached across the finger’s-width gap that had become a chasm between them. ‘Some things are always going to be of her. And from tonight, some things will always be of you.’
He was in uncharted water, with nothing to show him the way. His attention was caught by the curve of her collar bones, by the shine of her sweat and his, caught in a stray shard of firelight, by the pool of dark just above it, curtained by the raw smoke-silk of her hair. Unthinking, he asked, ‘Has there ever been another man?’
‘Never.’ She squinted at him. ‘You?’
‘A man?’ Astonishingly, he found himself laughing. ‘I’ll make you a promise,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave your past alone if you’ll leave mine. How does that sound?’
‘It sounds good.’ She glanced down at him. ‘Did you know when Aerthen died?’
‘I killed her.’
She shut her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Are you telling me you’ll know if Hypatia dies?’
‘I hope so. It’s not happened yet, but she thought it would be soon and was trying not to be afraid.’ Her smile was infinitely sad. ‘Can we lie together again? Please?’
He lowered her down to lie on him, sternum to sternum. For a long time, they pressed together, motionless, skin on skin, so that he could feel her heartbeat against his own ribs.
He thought she had fallen asleep until abruptly she roused and, shaking herself like a dog out of water, propped up on her elbows and bent to kiss him.
He said, ‘Hannah, we don’t have to—’
‘I want to. Be still. Let me do this.’ Her kisses drifted down to his chest, to the scar of Mithras, and below it.
For a long time, he did lie still until it became unbearable not to move, and even then he waited until she made it clear beyond doubt what she wanted of him.
Then he was not still at all, and when they linked fingers again they were both aware of what they did, but lost in the wildness, with their pasts kept apart from the present, and when she arced up high over him, taut as a drawn bow, the name she spoke was clearly his, and he did not think of Aerthen.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
‘Hannah? Can you wake? Someone’s coming.’ Pantera touched her shoulder. His face hovered over hers, bright with care, wet from washing in the ewer by the bed. He was sharply awake, scrubbed clean of the night’s fatigue. In the pale morning light, his age had receded ten years. Here, now, he was the man who had filled the quiet of her mind, in the nights of waiting before the fire.
One hand still lay on her shoulder, the thumb describing circles on her collar bone. His other held the knife Hannah had found strapped to his forearm in the early part of their time together. Only later, near dawn, had he allowed her to remove it, and then would not let her lay it far from the bed.
A sound came from the gate outside, of wood being broken. ‘The fire’s gone down enough to let them near the gate,’ Pantera said. ‘Someone’s taking an axe to the beam that’s blocking it.’
Hannah sat up, too quickly. ‘We can hide in the goose-house.’ The thought appalled her.
Pantera laughed, reading her face. ‘Not unless you want to.’ He leaned over to kiss her. The laughter was swiftly gone. He said, ‘I think it’s Ajax. Anyone else would come over the wall. It means we can start looking for Shimon and Hypatia.’
‘And Math,’ Hannah said.
‘And Math,’ he agreed.
She took his hand and let him raise her to her feet. He helped her to wash, found her a fresh tunic and laid it out, the one clean garment in the room. Blue irises worked in silk thread at hem and sleeves said it was Hypatia’s.
Hannah tied the belt of roped silk. From the window, she could see flames stitch the horizon to the south and west. Elsewhere, plumes of smoke bellied on the wind, but the raging fire-storm of the night was gone. Outside, the sounds of breaking wood were growing more urgent.
Pantera stood at the door, looking out. ‘When Ajax went to hunt Saulos, we didn’t know if you were still alive in here.’
‘So it would be a kindness to go to him now.’ The idea made her stomach lurch.
Pantera turned. His eyes sought her face. ‘Have you regrets?’ he asked.
‘None.’ She thought it was true.
He said, ‘It would be better to go out, I think, than to be found sitting side by side on the bed’s edge like errant children.’ Reaching out, he drew her into an embrace. His kiss mimicked Hypatia’s last kiss in the goose-house; full of hope and love and the bittersweet grief of parting.
Seneca saw her first: the dark-haired woman to whom he had lost both Ajax and Pantera.
Had he not been expecting her, he would bare
ly have recognized the quiet physician of Coriallum. Here was a woman wrought fine and new, emerging from the wreckage of the fire as Athena from the waves.
Ajax hadn’t seen her yet. He was wielding the axe with a fury against the beam that blocked the gate. They had found only one axe, and even after the night they had both experienced, he still had more strength to wield it. The difference between them was less than it had been, though.
Seneca had set himself the task of cataloguing Ajax’s waning energy with scientific precision. As Aristotle had examined the bodies of dead and living animals for their secrets, so Seneca was bringing the same objectivity to his study of his night’s companion.
Thus it was that he had moved a little to one side as the beam began to fall from the gate, and so saw Hannah before Ajax did, and saw her see him, and saw the sudden ache written across her face, sharp and sore as a knife’s cut. He saw it wiped clear as fast as it appeared so that when Ajax paused to sluice the sweat from his eyes and chanced to look through the gap, she was smiling for him in greeting.
‘Ajax.’
‘Hannah.’
They were formal as distant cousins. Then Hannah moved and Seneca saw what Ajax had already seen: that Pantera stood beside Hannah, and that he, too, was rendered clean and clear by the dawn, and was just as uneasy in Ajax’s presence.
‘Saulos is still alive.’ Ajax addressed Pantera, sparing them both. ‘He led us back to Math. We had a choice to leave and follow Saulos, or to stay and keep watch over the children. We chose the latter.’
‘Thank you. He’d have killed Math if he could. Where is he now? Is he safe?’
‘Math? Nero has him. Seneca thinks you could negotiate now for his release. He says that after the night’s work, you’ll have best success.’
‘And you? Where will you go?’
Ajax looked at Hannah and then back at Pantera. Seneca, who thought the night had taught him how to read the smallest nuanced changes of Ajax’s moods, read nothing at all.
He said, ‘A merchant ship rides at anchor at Ostia, on the mouth of the Tiber, ready to sail for Hibernia, via Gaul. It has been there since the last month’s end, waiting for word. My uncle is on it. He will wait until the next new moon and then leave.’
‘How on earth did he know to come here?’ Seneca asked.
Ajax’s eyes never left Hannah’s face. ‘My sister had a dream. Amongst my people, she is accorded the greatest of her generation. She said that my brother and I would sail on it together, back to our family.’
Pantera blinked in surprise. ‘And did your sister see more than you two on this ship?’
‘Others were with us. It’s hard to say exactly who. Dreams are rarely explicit; the interpretation is everything.’
‘Like prophecies,’ Pantera said.
‘Exactly like them.’ Ajax’s pale hawk’s eyes were unusually bright.
Seneca thought his head might break under the tension. Tentatively, he said, ‘If I might make a suggestion? The best tide from Ostia is the second hour after noon. The distance from here to there is eleven miles. There is therefore a limited time in which to reach the ship. I believe Pantera alone has the best chance of wresting Math from Nero’s grasp. Ajax can’t risk being seen and moreover he has to get some sleep – don’t argue, you’re only standing now out of pride – before he travels that far. He could perhaps stay here a while with Hannah while I find horses that might take them to the port. Pantera, you can join them there with Math if it is possible. If not, send a message with the necessary information so that the ship might sail.’
‘I can’t leave without Math,’ Ajax said simply.
‘And we can’t leave without Hypatia and Shimon,’ Hannah said. ‘Will you be able to wrest them from Nero too?’
‘If he has them,’ Pantera said, ‘I will certainly try.’
There was a heartbeat of silence, in which Pantera dared meet Hannah’s gaze. Whatever passed between them was private. What was not remotely private was the fact of its passing.
Colouring slightly, Pantera raised his hand to Ajax in the kind of salute Seneca had seen from the older warriors of Britain, brought as captives to Rome. ‘I leave her in your care. We’ll meet you at Ostia with Math and whoever else we can bring.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Math thought the dark-haired woman was Hannah when Libo and his men carried her bodily under the archway into Nero’s private garden. Her face was bright with new bruises, half hidden by hair so full of ash that it looked white, with only streaks of black.
Then she raised her head, and the eyes that met his were not Hannah’s, nor was the hard, angry smile. He could breathe again.
He was breaking his fast with the emperor in the hedged area away from the rest of the morning’s havoc. There were no singing birds here, but wild roses twined over the arch and all around flowers opened to the growing dawn.
Math had not washed on waking, but nor had Nero; he smelled of smoke and grit and a night’s work. He kept his hand on Math’s knee as they ate, and only removed it when Libo ushered in the woman who was not Hannah. The big watchman treated her with respect bordering on fear; Math didn’t think it was he who had beaten her before she was brought here.
After her, other men brought Shimon, who had been beaten far more badly. And then they dragged in someone else, small, wiry, dark-haired, his face purpled by bruises.
Math shot to his feet. ‘That’s Mergus! Pantera took him up on to the Aventine to rescue …’
He tailed to silence. The woman who wasn’t Hannah put a finger to her lips. Math was trying to work out who she could be when a centurion of the Watch marched under the rose arch and stamped to a salute in front of the dining table.
Nero ignored him, pointedly. His gaze was on Mergus and it was not kind. Opening his hand, he showed a fat, sweat-marked ring on his palm. Gold greeted the morning, and a blue cabochon sapphire with stars at its heart. Apollo played his lyre at the sides.
To Mergus, in the stilted voice he had always used to address Akakios, he said, ‘You have used this, our token, against our officer. We might say you have abused our token.’
‘Lord, such was not my intention.’ Wisely, Mergus dropped to both knees. ‘Pantera, our new prefect, gave me the ring and with it your authority. Such was my understanding. His best concern was that the woman and man who had given their services to Juno should be restored to safety and dignity. I was ordered to do whatever that took, up to and including the arrest of Centurion Appollonius.’ Mergus gave the faintest of nods in the direction of the man who had just marched in.
‘He outranks you,’ Nero said.
‘And yet he was lighting fires on the Aventine hill, lord. I have witnesses who will attest to that. He was following his tribune’s orders even after that man had died by his own hand. In doing so, he forfeited his position.’
Nero’s flat eyes swivelled round. ‘Is this true?’
‘Lord.’ The centurion named Appollonius did not kneel, but bowed stiffly. ‘I had information that a Hebrew had ordered the fires to be lit. I was further informed that this Hebrew and his Egyptian whore had evicted the true keeper of Juno’s geese and appropriated her dwelling. I went there and found this man, Shimon of Galilee, known also as Shimon the zealot, long an enemy of Rome. I found also this Hypatia, his whore. She cursed my men in the name of Isis when they arrested her. I am satisfied she is Egyptian.’
Hypatia. That was the name. A friend of Hannah’s. And the centurion was afraid to look at her directly. And he hadn’t denied lighting the fires. Math noticed that. He hoped Nero had too.
The woman had certainly noticed. Under the light of the pitch-pine torches, her caustic gaze would have shrivelled the centurion had he dared to catch her eye.
Math, who did dare, studied the bruises on her wrists and one vivid weal on the side of her face. She saw him looking and shrugged one shoulder, wryly. Math nodded back the same dry appraisal of the lunacy of adults; a secret between them.
Everyone else was watching Nero, whose word could kill them speedily or slowly, or not at all.
He crooked a finger at the guards. ‘Bring the woman. We would question her.’
‘Lord.’ Appollonius extended a warning hand. ‘She is dangerous.’
‘Then we look to you to keep us safe.’ Nero’s smile was thin as a snake’s. ‘She does not appear to us dangerous.’ Three men of the Watch brought her forward. ‘Who are you?’
She stood straight and tall and beautiful. ‘I am a Sibyl, lord. Keeper of the flame of Isis.’
A Sibyl! The word hissed around the garden with no one giving it voice. Math thought his own eyes might start from his head from shock.
‘A Sibyl?’ Nero spoke what everyone else dared not. ‘One of those who wrote the prophecy?’
‘Lord, I ordered that the prophecy be copied, nothing more. The words were spoken a hundred generations ago and circulated widely at that time. We released them again now in such a way that those who cared most for Rome might have an opportunity to prevent the conflagration and all that it prefaced. Our intent was honourable.’ Her voice was the perfect chime of a cymbal at dawn, but Math caught the fine edge of a tremor in her hands and her shoulders.
‘You could have come directly to us with the information.’
‘No, lord. Akakios prevented it. We had to use subtlety to find who else was a traitor.’ Her eyes strayed to Appollonius. He flushed a deep, unfetching crimson.
‘Nevertheless …’ Nero tapped his lips. ‘The conflagration was not prevented. We hold you responsible for this fire and will exert our justice. You will be taken from here and—’
‘No!’ Shimon stepped forward – and collapsed on to the hard earth as three watchmen clubbed him to the ground.
Math turned away.
‘Leave him!’ Nero snapped his fingers. ‘Let the Hebrew rise.’
With noticeably less enthusiasm, the men who had knocked Shimon down levered him up. His nose bled messily down his chin. Fresh bruises purpled both arms. He stood erect, held by his own pride, and made no effort to clean himself.