by David Drake
A company of Praetorians was forming on their standard to the right. Though the light was fading, their armor and the steel points of their weapons caught the sky’s red glow. The cornicine, wrapped in the tube of his curved horn, blew signals to the other scattered companies of troops.
“They’re treating this like a riot!” Corylus said. “They’re in a single rank. From what Manetho described, there’s too many coming for one rank to stop!”
“Who spread ’em out by companies?” Pulto said. He didn’t sound winded, but Alphena thought she heard a touch of pain in his voice. “By Hercules’ balls! In woods like this!”
The cornicine blew again as Corylus led his group around the right edge of the armored line. The Praetorians held their javelins ready to throw. Alphena heard non-coms snarling commands to individual soldiers, dressing the line.
They seemed ready for a fight. There was none of the nervous anticipation that had radiated from the company Alphena had seen earlier. Perhaps those troops had settled also, now that they had a real enemy to fight.
A wild whooping and yelling burst from the woods. Alphena looked over her shoulder. Pulto wore a grim expression and carried his sword openly in his right hand; he too was glancing back. Pandareus—I forgot him!—was only a stride behind the veteran. Though old, the teacher was wiry and in good condition. He walked between libraries in Carce and lived in a fourth-floor tenement. His expression was interested rather than concerned.
Pouring from the wood line was the horde that Manetho had described: humans wearing mottled animal skins, mixed with fauns, satyrs, and at least one centaur. They shouted in delight, waving pinecones mounted on fennel stalks—thyrsi, which Alphena had seen in processions to Isis through the streets of Carce.
Leading the mob was a man in a chariot. The pair of leopards that drew it were bigger than any lion that Alphena had seen in the arena.
The charioteer waved a torch that lit the whole scene as brightly as the sun, throwing knife-sharp shadows behind the Praetorians. Alphena threw her hand up to shade her eyes.
“There!” cried the charioteer. “That’s the woman Rupa described. Bring her to me!”
He’s pointing the torch at me, Alphena realized. For a moment her eyes locked with those of the man in the chariot. A tiny jolt touched her mind, the mental equivalent of a spark jumping from silk to her finger on a dry day. She jerked her head around.
“Run!” said Corylus, but Alphena was sprinting for the woods ahead. She wasn’t wearing a sword—her role today was to be Lady Alphena—but she would grab one when they reached the vehicles. There was one in the coach for her and a store of extra weapons in both the wagons.
She didn’t think a sword would do much good against this army, but it would make her feel better.
The wind had sprung up from the east, bringing perfumes fuller than those of flowers. She had heard Corylus and her brother talk of Alexander’s army marching back from India through fields of frankincense and myrrh. Perhaps that was happening here: the invaders had come from a land of incense, and the breeze carried the crushed memory of their passage.
“Ready spears!” shouted the centurion in command. Despite the uproar, his deep bellow was clearly audible. “Loose!”
From the corner of her eye Alphena saw the Praetorians’ right arms swing forward; nearly a hundred javelins flickered out in flat arcs. A satyr leaped into the air, spinning end over end like a circus act before he fell back. A javelin had transfixed his body just below the rib cage; the point and half the shaft stuck out from his back. As he pirouetted, the metal butt spike protruding from his belly winked also.
There were other wounds in the Bacchic flood—a Maenad pinned to the Bassarid behind her in a terrible parody of lovemaking, a faun who continued to play his pipes for long seconds after a javelin had transfixed his skull. Half the spears twisted into vine shoots in the air, though, and struck harmless blows. When they fell to earth, they immediately began to sprout.
A seed of emotion had sprouted in Alphena’s soul since she locked eyes with the charioteer. As she breathed the rich electric wind, the feeling inside her swelled like the branches budding in the woods through which they ran, pink and white and the tiny yellow-green flowerets of oaks.
“There’s the bridge!” said Corylus. “The running water may help!”
“I’m not going,” Alphena said. She wasn’t sure whether she spoke the words or they just formed in her mind. “I belong here.”
She turned and would have run back to the vine-crowned god in the chariot, but Pulto wrapped his left arm around her. “Careful, girlie,” he said.
Corylus grabbed Alphena’s wrist as he’d done when they saw the portal begin to form. “Alphena!” he said. “Come on now!”
People, some of them Praetorians who had thrown away their shields and helmets, boiled from the woods. The men and women who had come through the portal waved thyrsi; some of the Praetorians brandished flowering branches that they must have ripped from trees as they danced past.
They know! Alphena thought. She turned—Pulto willingly let her go; he must think she had stumbled—and threw her right arm around Corylus.
“Yes, take me!” she said. She tried to kiss Corylus. The red pulsing flame of lust was devouring her body.
Corylus let go of her wrist and caught her by the neck from behind. He peeled her off him one-handed and pushed her into Pulto.
“Get her out of here!” Corylus shouted. “Now! The spell has her and if we don’t stop her I’ll be lucky to be crucified when it’s all over!”
“No, don’t leave me!” Alphena said, straining toward Corylus with both hands. Pulto’s arm had no more flex than an anchor line does.
Pulto sheathed his sword with a skill that Alphena would have appreciated in other circumstances. Holding her with both arms, he lumbered onto the suspension bridge, causing it to pitch wildly. Pandareus was already across.
Alphena screamed with frustration, but nothing she could do affected the veteran’s obedience to his commander’s son. When she last saw Corylus, he was on his knees beside one of the suspension hawsers of the bridge. He’d drawn his big army dagger.
* * *
RAMSA LAL AND MOST of the remaining troops trotted toward the structure ahead, but a horseman rode back to Varus. He said in bad Greek, “Come along, you. The rajah wants you in his private reception room when you arrive.”
“We will be glad to see the rajah when we arrive,” Varus said, deciding to be polite. “If you’ll bring us a skin of wine, it will speed our steps.”
“If I tie your wrists to my saddle horn, it will speed your steps!” the horseman snarled. “Or perhaps I should borrow a lance and prick you on?”
“Did your master the rajah tell you why he wants to meet with this foreign wizard?” Bhiku said. He added something in Indian; Varus suspected that he was translating his own question to make sure that the horseman understood the warning.
“I am too pure to soil my spirit by riding on a lower animal,” Varus said, trying to sound lofty through a dry throat. “Therefore I travel at the speed of my legs.”
Bhiku’s quick jingle of Indian was certainly a translation this time.
The horseman jerked his hand away from the pommel of his sword where it had strayed. “I will find wine,” he said. He rode after the remainder of the squadron at the best speed his tired horse could manage.
“I wonder if he’ll be back?” Varus said. “Do you suppose he thought I was going to turn him into a toad?”
“I’ve never seen that done,” said Bhiku. He raised an eyebrow.
“You’re not going to see me do it, either,” Varus said drily. After a moment’s thought he added, “And I’m not too spiritual to ride a horse, either. I’m just too awkward to do it without falling off.”
The battlemented walls were eight feet high; the square towers on either side of the gateway rose four or five feet higher. The whole structure was built of red sandstone blocks a foot in eithe
r dimension.
The double gates were fully open, probably their normal state. The squad of spearmen on guard lounged under a marquee strung from three trees outside the gate; the only sign of anyone in the towers was the end of a long bamboo bow propped against the battlements.
To Varus’ surprise, the horseman who had been their escort reappeared leading a pair of servants in bleached white garments. Their clothes were clean and new in contrast to the foot soldiers’ garb, and silk sashes held up their loose trousers. They were carrying a brass bottle wrapped in what seemed to be sacking.
The horseman pirouetted in front of Varus and Bhiku, then drew his sword and gestured with it as he shouted to the servants in Indian. “They’ve brought wine cooled in wet moss,” Bhiku explained. “Apparently Hanwant, our escort, wasn’t looking forward to the chance of seeing the world through the eyes of a toad.”
“There are so few enlightened men nowadays,” Varus said, taking the cup a servant offered him. The pale yellow wine made his mouth tingle pleasantly. There was only one cup, so he passed it to Bhiku still half-full.
“You don’t need to do that!” the horseman said.
“I choose to share with my colleague…,” Varus said, wondering if Hanwant could catch the haughty tone he was using. “As we share the dangers of the powerful magic we work.”
The servants were ready to refill the cup. Varus checked with Bhiku by raising his eyebrow, then waved them off. They walked through the gateway together; Hanwant hesitated a moment, then rode past so that he could guide them through the courtyard.
“I was tempted to have another cup of wine,” Varus said quietly. “But that had been enough to clear my throat, and I don’t want to be muzzy when I talk with our host. I normally drink my wine mixed with two or three times its volume of water.”
Bhiku laughed. “I normally drink my water stagnant,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve had wine a dozen times in my life. But it certainly made me feel better today.”
The outer wall enclosed a grassy park in which horses grazed and trees of shapes unfamiliar to Varus grew. There were outbuildings—stables and sheds, but also a dome of colored marble supported by slender pillars. The massive two-story palace ahead would be the focus of any visitor’s attention, however.
The horsemen were dismounting at the arched double-height gateway. Grooms led the horses toward the stables at right angles to the palace facade, while the soldiers themselves went inside.
On the ground floor the palace windows were small, perhaps only arrow slits. Those on the upper floor were larger but were shaped into twin arches separated by a pillar so that only a child or very slender adult could slip through the openings.
“Do you have any idea what Lal wants me to do?” Varus asked quietly. Hanwant was well ahead and anyway seemed completely disinterested in what the magicians might discuss among themselves.
“I do not,” said Bhiku. “I have been away for many months, remember, as we traveled to Carce by ship. Only after we reached Polymartium and planted the vine were we able to enter the Otherworld and return home more quickly.”
To the right of the palace was a low featureless wall that stretched over a greater width than the building proper. Bhiku noticed his companion frowning toward it and said, “That is the tank which fills in the monsoon season and supplies the palace now during the dry season. I didn’t notice reservoirs in Italy, but I wasn’t looking.”
“We have aqueducts from springs in the hills,” said Varus. “The winds don’t bring rains to Italy as writers say they do here.”
I wonder if I’ll still be in India when the monsoons come? I wonder what magic Ramsa Lal wants me to perform?
Varus laughed. He grinned at his companion and said, “I don’t believe that I’m a wizard in the sense that Mistress Rupa is or even you are, Bhiku.”
Varus was answering a question the sage might have been too polite to ask. “I couldn’t have opened a gate to the Otherworld as you did or one from it. But regardless of whether or not I’m really a wizard, I can say with certainty that I’m not a fortune-teller. The only way I can learn the future is by living into it.”
Hanwant waited for them impatiently at the courtyard entrance. When they joined him, he drew his sword and turned, bellowing something in Indian. Occasionally he used the flat of his sword to bat someone out of the way—or to bat someone who was possibly close enough to have gotten in the way.
“He’s telling everyone to make way for the great foreign wizard,” Bhiku said. He wore a slight smile.
“I notice that he’s picking particularly ragged spectators on whom to demonstrate his importance,” Varus said. “I’ve noticed similar things in Carce when my servants are escorting me through a crowd.”
The rectangular courtyard was bare earth, more than half-covered by shanties and traders’ kiosks. The stonework on the interior was plastered white. There were only a few places where the covering had flaked away from the red interior.
Porticos encircled the inner face of the walls; the pillars on the upper level stood in slender pairs instead of the massive single columns below. The archways throughout were formed in multiple scallops instead of the single smooth arc with which Varus was familiar.
Hanwant was leading them to an exterior staircase at a corner of the courtyard. Two men with drawn swords—they might have been members of Lal’s mounted escort—guarded the base of the stairs under a marquee of blue silk with gold tassels.
“This way, honored lord,” Hanwant said as they approached the stairs. He spoke to the guards in Indian. Their replies were curt, and the verbal temperature rose abruptly.
Bhiku leaned close to Varus and said, “Hanwant wants to take you in to the rajah. They say they’re to admit the foreigner—the rajah didn’t tell them you were a wizard—but he said they know nothing about rabble from Nivas’ troop, which would be Hanwant. Let alone filthy beggar scum.”
Bhiku bowed to Varus, grinning.
“Then I’d best see if I can get us all out of the sun,” Varus said. Raising his voice, he said, “Noble Hanwant! Noble Hanwant, step aside if you please!”
Pandareus would be pleased with my tone of authority, Varus thought. Training really did count.
Hanwant did step back, looking surprised. In a normal voice, Varus said, “Thank you, Hanwant. Your dedication will be noted.”
The guards were watching in puzzlement. To them Varus said, “You may escort me to the rajah.”
They looked at each other in hesitation. Do they even speak Greek?
“You may guide me, or I will turn you into toads and find my own way,” Varus said, still calmly. He raised his hands at shoulder height, palms toward the guards. They scrambled in opposite directions. One of them dropped his sword in haste.
“Lead me and my colleague to Lord Ramsa Lal, Hanwant,” Varus said, nodding.
I’ll be lucky if I don’t burst out laughing when we meet the rajah, he thought. And Bhiku seemed to be in the same state.
* * *
CORYLUS PLACED HIS LEFT FOOT on one bridge hawser and drew his dagger upward in a sliding stroke with both hands. The dagger jerked free, having severed most of the several cords twisted to make the rope; a few strands remained, but Corylus ignored them to shift to the undamaged hawser.
He rotated the dagger to bring the other edge up. Sawing rope—these appeared to have been woven from rye straw—dulled a blade almost as quickly as trying to cut stone.
Since the light of the charioteer’s torch had bathed him, Corylus saw everything with unnatural sharpness. The fibers of the rope were individually clear, as were the beard hairs of the Bassarid a hundred feet away.
The latter shouted, “Io, Bacchus!” between gulps from the wineskin in the crook of his left arm. His right hand held a thyrsus. Corylus was in no mood to mock that as a weapon, having seen a Maenad plunge her similar pinecone through a Praetorian’s shield.
Despite the clarity with which he observed his surroundings, Corylus fel
t that his mind was clouded by a red haze. It brightened and sank back as his heart beat. He was keyed up, blazing with emotion but focused on his task. Nothing mattered but his task.
He was blazing with lust.
Corylus drew up on the dagger. For a moment nothing moved; a straight pull was useless on this hawser, even with a sharp blade wielded by a strong young man. He tipped the point slightly down so that the edge would saw upward, but his nervous jumpiness caused him to tilt too much. He cut through only half the rope’s thickness. He replaced the blade to finish the cut.
“Io, Bacchus!” warbled a chorus of voices. Corylus looked up as he finished his cut. A Praetorian carrying a wineskin staggered toward him. His free arm was around a naked Maenad, and a blond-bearded faun hugged him close on the other side.
Behind Corylus, the bridge rattled into the gulley. The stream wasn’t a real barrier, but the previous Bacchic incursion had stopped at running water. Corylus could at least hope that this one would also. Pandareus and Alphena would be safe.
“Drink with the god!” the Praetorian said, thrusting his wineskin toward Corylus. The man was in his mid-thirties. Though he had lost his helmet, he wore his sword on his left hip instead of his right like a common soldier: he was a centurion, very possibly the centurion commanding the company that the throng had overrun.
“Not tonight, friend,” Corylus said, pressing the man back with his left hand. Corylus already felt drunk from the perfumed atmosphere; the gods alone knew what a draft of this magical wine would do to him.
Corylus sheathed his dagger without looking down at it, then groped for the cornelwood staff he’d dropped to free both hands. He felt no desire to kill anything at this moment. Logically considered, being given wine was only a slight problem compared with what could result if he offered lethal violence to a thousand or so drunken revelers—but logic had nothing to do with what he felt.
“Well, put this in your mouth, then!” the Maenad cried, lifting her right breast and pushing the erect nipple toward him. She wasn’t young, but she was fit and her eagerness itself was a drug.