by David Drake
“Ah!” Varus cried. He flinched back against the shelter and had to grab it to keep from falling over the rail. The boat wobbled, then steadied.
Varus got his breathing under control. Lucinus didn’t seem to have noticed either the snakes or his companion’s reaction to them, but Varus no longer doubted that the magician was aware of his surroundings.
The sun had set, leaving a red smear on the starboard horizon and smooth purple-blackness to port. Neither stars nor moon was visible, at least this early in the evening.
They were approaching an island covered with pine trees. As best as Varus could tell in silhouette against the dark sky, it was larger than the isle of serpents.
The magician was motionless. Varus pursed his lips and half-knelt, gripping the railings. He could only assume that Lucinus knew what he was doing. Certainly shouting in panic wasn’t going to improve the situation.
The invisible oarsmen shipped their oars. The boat crunched up a shingle beach and stopped. Varus rocked forward, but the impact was gentle.
Lucinus let go of the tiller and slumped forward. Rather than crawl under the shelter, Varus climbed over the railing and splashed to the magician through the water. The sea was no more than knee-deep even at the stern.
“Help me,” Lucinus whispered. His head and forearm rested on a thwart. “Carry me into the woods.…”
Corylus would be better at this, Varus thought as he lifted the magician as high as he could. He backed away from the boat. Lucinus tried to swing his legs over the railing, but in the event Varus simply dragged him.
Varus staggered upward, supporting the magician as best he could. The trees made a thick wall at the tideline, ten feet up from the edge of the sea at present. Varus pushed between what he thought were two of the smaller ones, crackling through branches that scratched his arms and calves.
He tripped over a tree root and fell. After panting on the ground for a moment, he lifted himself onto his elbows to take stock of the situation.
The magician’s feet were into the brush, though barely. It would do.
The sky was purple velvet, but the sea was taking on a yellow-green phosphorescence. The boat rocked slightly now that the weight of its passengers no longer weighed it into the gravel.
I’ll have to pull it higher up the beach, Varus thought. In a moment.
He was seeing images in the ship’s hull. They were becoming clearer and beginning to move.
* * *
“YOU CONFER A GREAT HONOR on our ancient family, Lady Alphena!” said Aulus Collinus Ceutus, bowing as deeply as his paunch allowed. He was short, broad, and—despite having put on weight since the time he stopped commanding his own grain ships—looked impressively muscular. “Whatever your noble self desires will be done!”
Ceutus was his Illyrian birth name. He had tacked it onto the name of his wife’s undoubtedly ancient family, while Aulus would be the first name of the citizen of Carce who had freed the slave Ceutus, or possibly the citizen who had freed the slave ancestor of Ceutus.
To receive a senator’s daughter, Ceutus had dressed in a scarlet cloak with gold tassels, a toga—an uncomfortable garment that hardly anyone wore except in Carce, and even in Carce only on formal occasions—and cutwork sandals of red leather. The leather verged on orange and clashed with the cloak, which had a purplish cast.
Mother would say Ceutus looks vulgar—as of course he is, Alphena thought. She grinned. I like the outfit. And so would most gladiators.
“My father and I thank you, Ceutus,” Alphena said, hoping to sound dignified if not regal. “I believe you already know my colleague, Master Pandareus? And Master Paris, of course.”
Queenliness was for dignified beauties like Hedia, but Alphena had begun trying to act like a lady instead of a tomboy. Or like a gladiator, if she’d been having a bad day.
“Good to see you again, Pandareus,” said the shipowner with a touch of reserve. “I’m glad you thought again about editing our family papers.”
He paused and his eyes narrowed slightly. “That is in the plan, right?” he said.
Before Pandareus could decide how to answer, Alphena said, “My father has undertaken to publish the letters of Collinus Laethius. Master Pandareus will oversee the scholars involved in the project. But what we are here for, Ceutus, is the tomb.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Ceutus said, bowing in agreement. “We can do this right now, if you like.”
Alphena gestured with her left hand. They set off along the left side of the original house; a wing had been added to the other end. It stretched forward, turning what had been a rectangle into an L shape.
Women on the portico paused in their weaving to watch Alphena and her retinue with silent fascination. I’m probably the first noblewoman they’ve ever seen. Most of them won’t ever have left the estate.
When she next talked with her father, Alphena would tell him that he was to pay for the editing of Laethius’ letters. The money meant nothing to Saxa, and he might even find the project interesting.
She had a sudden vision of Saxa not as her aloof, disinterested father but as a would-be scholar perpetually saddened by his failure to achieve any respect from real literary figures, a later, equally laughable, version of Collinus Laethius himself. He tries very hard, and he’s unfailingly generous—with his money and with any other help he can give. I should be nicer to him.
A dozen estate laborers carrying digging tools, and an equal number of Alphena’s attendants, tramped along with them. Her escorts wore their swords openly here.
The open-fronted shed with a manger along the back was shelter for the oxen in bad weather, judging from the manure washing into the ruts in the road. Alphena’s boots were better suited to the footing than the owner’s expensive sandals, though he didn’t seem disconcerted.
Paris walked separately, disregarding both the road and his companions. Ceutus had nodded acknowledgment, but Paris hadn’t bothered to respond. The priest projected contemptuous anger at the world and at his presence in it.
“I’m really glad you told me about this, Pandareus,” Ceutus said cheerfully. “I know right where you mean, but I wouldn’t have thought of there being a tomb back of it in the hill. I just restored the temple, you know?”
Pandareus looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “You restored the Shrine of Inuus?” he said. “I didn’t realize from what your wife said that anything remained of it.”
“Well…,” Ceutus said. “There was a stone pillar that’d been built into the wall of the old sheepfold, you see. It said Sacred to the God on it, or anyway that’s what my secretary puzzled out. So I figured the bits of old brick in the mud right there to the side was the foundation of a temple, and I built it back.”
Ceutus led them past a pair of outbuildings. The hearth of the smithy was cold, but three men were repairing an ox yoke in the woodwrights’ shop. They stared at the procession as fixedly as the weavers had done.
“That’s a temple of Vesta,” Pandareus as they turned to the right and approached a small, round temple. The building was so new that workmen were still plastering one of the six wooden pillars to give it the look of stone.
“Well, the inscription didn’t say which god,” Ceutus muttered defensively. “And, you know, I always liked that little round temple in the Forum, so I thought, ‘Herakles, it mighta been Vesta, right?’”
Even Alphena knew that if the shrine had been to Vesta, the legend would have said Sacred to the Goddess rather than God. Alphena wondered if Ceutus could read and write in Latin. It wasn’t a skill that an Illyrian shipowner was likely to need. His secretary wouldn’t have tried to change his boss’ assumption.
“Very sensible,” Pandareus said in what sounded like approval. “And that may be the hillside behind it.”
The hill was really a relatively gentle rise beyond a three-foot face of coarse limestone, sheer enough to be blotched but not covered by vegetation. A yew tree, ragged and gnarled, grew midway up the slope. Though the
tree was only thirty feet high, its thick trunk and general appearance made Alphena guess that it had been growing on the poor soil for a very long time.
“I didn’t have any notion of it till Collina’s letter came, but we can chop back into this hill till we find the entrance,” Ceutus said. “Do you think there’ll be any jewelry?”
He looked at Pandareus and added, “Or pots, that’d be great! I’m going to build new cases into the office to hold whatever we find. The ancestral relics!”
“That’s blasphemy even to think!” Paris snapped. “Would you desecrate the tomb of a man who was a prince when your ancestors wore skins and dressed their hair with sheep fat?”
“Well, I guess that’s my business, isn’t it?” Ceutus said, bunching his fists as he turned to face the priest. “I been pretty lax with you and your airs, Paris, you being a priest and all. But if you don’t watch your tongue I’ll put you off the estate right now. And I won’t need help to do it!”
He smacked his right fist into his left palm. Alphena didn’t doubt that Ceutus knew how to enforce his will: Illyrian sailors were pirates whenever they thought they could get away with it.
“Lord Saxa greatly appreciates your allowing Lady Alphena and myself to pursue our researches on your family estate, Master Ceutus,” Pandareus said quickly.
A poor scholar who teaches the sons of noblemen learns diplomacy in a hard school, Alphena realized with a hidden smile. Pandareus had learned well.
Aloud she lied, “Yes. My father commented on your generosity as we were leaving this morning, Master Ceutus.”
“Ah!” said the shipowner, smiling broadly again. “Well, that’s very nice, him thinking about little people like us. Most great men like him wouldn’t be so gracious.”
He cleared his throat. “So, Master Pandareus. Have you got any special instructions, or shall we just start taking back the slope from, say, here—”
He pointed to a point on the edge of the low escarpment. One of his workmen, unbidden, notched the coarse stone with his mattock.
“—to there?”
Two men with picks followed the lead of their fellow, marking the other end of the section their master had indicated. The ancient yew tree grew twenty feet up the slope from the middle of the notches.
“Your practical eye…,” Pandareus said. “Has done a better job of translating the information in the letter to the ground than anything I could do, Master Ceutus.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” the shipowner said. He turned to his foreman and said, “Harpax, keep cutting back till you find something that looks like a tunnel mouth. If you need heavier tools as you get deeper into the rock, we’ll find some.”
The laborers got to work with enthusiasm. This was a different and therefore more interesting job than their normal tasks, and they were under the eye of the master himself. Ceutus didn’t seem the sort to let his men slack off.
While the owner watched his crew with satisfaction, Pandareus moved close to Alphena and said in a low voice, “Your Ladyship? There may be some objects or even a book in the tomb which bears on our concerns.”
“Don’t worry,” Alphena said. “In Father’s name I’m sure that I can offer Ceutus something that he’ll find more valuable than the grave goods, whatever they may be. Or I suppose—”
She grinned to make it clear that she was joking.
“—I could have our escort massacre everybody on the estate so that we can make off with the loot unhindered.”
“If I thought that were necessary to save the world, Your Ladyship,” Pandareus said, “I would ask you to do it.”
He smiled too, but he wasn’t joking in the least.
CHAPTER X
Hedia sneezed. Half-burned foliage oozed bitter smoke, and powdered ash rose from the figures Melino was drawing on the ground with the tip of his staff.
Frustrated by the heavy undergrowth, the magician had clenched his left fist and nodded to the demon. She said, “Burn!” and his ruby ring sprayed a fan of scarlet light. The blast cleared a six-by-ten-foot hole and shriveled the vegetation at its edges.
When the light flared, the dog had stalked stiff legged from the cave. It paused at the edge of the semicircle it had trampled barren, glaring at Melino and growling in three different registers. The chain stretched tight behind the middle neck, but the dog didn’t rush hard against its limit.
Hedia tried to meet the beast’s stare for a moment but quickly turned away. It was disconcerting to be the focus of three sets of eyes, and the way the lips curled back from long teeth was stressful. She was mentally willing to face a vicious dog, but facing a pack of them was … well, it was unnecessary at present, so she chose not to do it.
Hedia glanced toward the demon and found that it—that she—was gazing back. What if I told you to do something?
But the demon would ignore her, and Hedia had nothing to tell the being to do anyway. She felt helpless and useless and frightened.
She quirked a superior smile toward the demon and immediately felt better. Pretending to be what you wanted to be—here pretending to be a gentlewoman fully in charge of the situation—was often the best way of becoming that very thing.
The demon smiled back and turned to face the snarling dog.
“There!” said Melino, straightening from his handiwork. Hedia couldn’t tell what the symbols he’d drawn were. If she hadn’t watched his staff moving, she would have passed off the markings as whorls left by a breeze.
Melino met Hedia’s eyes for the first time since he had explained what her part in the enterprise was to be. He looked away just as quickly, though, before he said, “Take your place in the middle of the figure, Your Ladyship. If you’re ready, I mean.”
Hedia stretched very deliberately, reaching as high as she could, then bending her arms and torso backward. Settling back, she said, “I’m always ready, dear boy. Anyone could have told you that.”
She stepped deliberately into the center of the burned patch, thankful for her sturdy sandals. Her calves felt the heat of the ground, but the thick soles protected her feet.
“Turn so that you’re not facing me,” Melino said in a peevish tone.
Without comment, Hedia presented her back to him. She suspected that he wanted her to turn not for any magical reason but because he would stumble over his spell if he had to look at her face. The thought made her smile.
Hedia was now facing the demon, who had somehow moved to the opposite pole from Melino. The demon was expressionless. Together, she and the magician chanted, “Though her face be that of a young woman…”
Hedia let her eyes drift away from the demon. She felt odd, though that might be from trying to hold still as she stood in this bitter atmosphere.
The dog had stopped barking; Hedia wasn’t sure when that had happened. Nothing seemed right, neither time nor her surroundings nor her own body.
I know my body very well. I knew my body.
A thick-bodied snake lay in curves along a branch behind the demon. It watched Hedia. It must be twenty feet long. It didn’t seem hostile or hungry, just interested.
“But her body is that of a savage dog!” Melino shouted. The demon’s voice was a knife-blade echo to the magician.
Hedia fell into blackness and landed on all four feet. The three-headed dog began howling in frantic desperation. The world was shades of gray. The movement of a fly’s wing or the antenna of a locust on a blade of grass was sharp beyond anything in Hedia’s previous awareness.
She launched herself triumphantly past the guard dog, passing just close enough to brush his foreleg with her tawny flank. She yipped teasingly as she raced for the cave mouth.
A greyhound, part of her mind realized. He’s made me a greyhound.
But that thought and all other conscious thought was submerged in anticipated delight. Such a great, powerful male!
The dog caught her before she reached the cave entrance—He’s so big!—and shouldered her to throw her down. She ducked. He
overran her, tripped, and tumbled with a chorus of startled yips. Hedia darted through the entrance.
He’s so big!
She skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into the seated figure ten feet into what was a chamber rather than a cave. The walls were mirrors, but for an instant the dog perceptions overlying Hedia’s human awareness were badly staggered.
Then she noticed the figure as something more than an obstacle in her path. It looked like a scowling man in dark robes with a beard that curled over its chest. It sat on a throne that Hedia perceived as an absence rather than a substance. Held by both hands in the figure’s lap was a massive ironbound codex.
Figure, not man. It had no smell at all, not even the chalky dryness of marble or acrid tinge of bronze. It was not a man now, whatever it might have been at one time.
The guard dog burst through the entrance in a storm of yelps and growls. He bent toward her from the left. Hedia sprinted to the right around the figure. He caught her on the other side of the throne, nipping her neck with two of his three heads.
She rolled, onto her back and then to her belly again. The cave—the chamber—continued unguessably far back, but this was far enough. She lifted her muzzle and whined longingly.
Holding her neck now with all three sets of jaws, the great dog mounted her. She began to howl.
So big!
Hedia was vaguely aware that Melino had entered the chamber behind them, then scuttled out carrying the Book. She didn’t care, not even the human remainder of her awareness.
So very big!
Hedia howled in mingled pain and delight, and the great dog bellowed above her.
* * *
ALPHENA’S STEWARD HAD BROUGHT skins of wine mixed with water, but the wagon was parked half a mile away on the graveled apron of the main building. Alphena had stepped toward Ceutus to ask if he had something to drink closer to hand when metal clinked on stone with a distinctly different note.
“Hey, we got something!” a workman cried. His pick had bit deeply and stuck when he tried to lever it back. “Master, there’s a crack or something!”