Out of the waters bote-2

by David Drake

  "May my dick turn black and fall off if it didn't happen just that way!" Lenatus burbled.

  The laughter died away. They're probably hoping I didn't hear that, Alphena thought. Or at least that I'll pretend I didn't hear it, which I certainly will.

  "I understand that the future isn't really predictable," Alphena said carefully. "And I guess we can hope for a lucky dart shot, whatever that may mean now. I just wish I had something better to hope for."

  "Your ladyship?" Pulto said. "We're not laughing at you. And we feel the same way. We wish we knew what was coming. Because we think something is, too."

  "All I can tell you about a battle…," Lenatus said, lowering his cup and looking at her with an expression something between calm and defiance. "Is that what happens is generally going to be worse than you figured it to be."

  "But you deal with it," said Pulto earnestly. "You always deal with it, however piss-poor a deal it is you get handed."

  That's what soldiers do, Alphena realized in a flash of understanding. She had thought being a soldier on the frontier meant fighting… but that was only part of it. They dealt; even though all they knew about the future was it would probably range from unpleasant to awful.

  That was much the same as being a woman in a world which men thought they ruled. Hedia had shown her that. Hedia dealt, and thus far she had dealt successfully.

  There was a bustle of voices in the passage from the house proper. Alphena set the cup down and rose.

  "Thank you both," she said. "You've helped me to understand the situation. And now-"

  She turned to the door.

  "-I believe I'll join my brother for a moment before I dine."

  And just possibly I'll chat with Corylus as well as Varus; but no matter what, I'll deal. Mother will be proud of me.

  ***

  Hedia rose from her bed. A light burned in the alcove where her maid slept. Hedia didn't need the light because she was still asleep. She walked through the door of her suite, then drifted down the staircase.

  Servants sprawled in the portico around the central courtyard. Five or six were dicing by lamplight, laughing and muttering curses. The familiar noise didn't disturb the nearby sleepers.

  In a back corner was the miniature terracotta hill on which snails crawled till a cook's helper plucked them out for dinner. They continued to meander slowly along the molded curves.

  Hedia walked past the doorman and through the thick wooden door. No one saw her. She wondered if she were dead. Part of her mind felt that the thought should make her smile, but her face did not change.

  The sky was moonless, starless. Instead of starting across the square on which the house fronted, she had entered the mouth of a cave as great as all the night.

  The opening was familiar: Hedia was walking down the long slope to the Underworld. In the lowest level she had seen her first husband: Calpurnius Latus, dead for three years.

  She was going back to the place of the dead. She was going to death.

  Hedia heard screams from a side passage. She would have turned to look, but her body could not move; it merely glided forward with no more effort or volition than a feather in a stream.

  But she didn't have to look to see. The screams came from a score of women and girls, all of them familiar to her. Each was the age she had been when she died, of fever or accident or in childbirth; and one, Florentia Tertia, strangled by her husband's catamite while her husband watched, doubled up with drunken laughter.

  Hedia's acquaintances-her friends, as she would have described them in public-were being devoured by a great lizard. Its jointed forearms stuffed the victims into its maw, where upper and lower jaws ground them like millstones. The women were scraped to chips and smears… only to reappear and to wail again, and be devoured again, endlessly. Endlessly…

  When Hedia had come this way before, she had walked on her own feet. Now she was…

  No, I'm not, she realized. I'm not really here. This is a dream, a nightmare if you will, but it isn't happening to Hedia, daughter of Marcus Hedius Fronto and Petronilla, his second wife.

  Again the smile didn't reach her lips. Her lips were with the rest of her body, asleep in a townhouse in the Carina District, rather than slipping with her mind toward Hades' realm. In a manner of speaking, it didn't matter: Hedia wouldn't have run if she could have. But knowing that this was unreal allowed her to feel smugly contemptuous of an experience which until that moment had been frightening.

  Very frightening, in fact.

  When Hedia walked this long corridor before, she had heard terrible sounds from side-branchings as she passed. Only the few paces of sloping track before her had been visible, however. Now she had a detailed awareness of what that was happening to either side of her route.

  Flames that burned men but did not kill them. Insects that looked like locusts but which ate human flesh. Hair-fine quills that pierced to the victims' marrow by the thousands and drew out agonized cries but not lives.

  Always the torture, always the cries, always the agony. And all of the victims were people whom Hedia had known while they were alive, but who had died.

  The passage downward ended where Hedia expected it to, in a glade surrounded by trees with huge leaves. Her first husband, Gaius Calpurnius Latus, stood in the embrace of a plant whose foliage was formed into vast green hands.

  Latus did not see her. Around him, close enough to touch if she wished, were the three glass figures of Hedia's earlier nightmare. Their limbs did not seem to have joints, but the transparent material went milky when it bent and cleared when it straightened. Their eye sockets were indentations, their mouths were short notches.

  One of the figures turned his empty visage slowly toward Hedia. Latus began to scream as though his guts were being wound out on a stick, screaming without hope and without relief. The figure reached toward Hedia's left wrist. She pulled away- She sat upright in her bed. Her throat was raw. Syra stood beside her, her face terrified. Oil had spattered from the lamp in the maid's left hand as she jerked back; her right hand was outstretched. She must have touched her mistress; her mistress, who had been screaming in terror…

  Other servants had entered the bedroom or were peering through the doorway, drawn by the cries. They backed away or lowered their heads as Hedia straightened. They were afraid to be seen, afraid of what was happening, afraid.

  I certainly can't blame them for that, Hedia thought. She smiled coldly at herself.

  She stood up. "I-" she began. Her throat felt as though she had been downwind of a limekiln.

  "Wine!" she croaked, but she reached the bedside table before Syra could. Silver ewers of wine and water stood to either side of a cup whose red figures showed Pasiphae welcoming the bull into herself. She ignored the cup, drinking straight from the ewer instead.

  She lowered the container and looked around the servants. "Go on about your business," she said brusquely. "Have you never had a bad dream yourselves?"

  She lifted the ewer, then paused. "One of you bring more wine," she said. "A jar of it. The same Caecuban."

  It was a strong vintage. The alcohol didn't so much sooth her throat as numb it after a moment of stinging.

  Servants shuffled out, briefly crowding in the doorway. The ones who remained had probably been afraid to call attention to themselves by ducking away sooner.

  Hedia poured the remaining contents of the ewer into the cup. She thought of adding water this time but decided not to. By now it wouldn't shock any of them that Lady Hedia sometimes drank her wine unmixed.

  "Your Ladyship…?" Syra whispered. She didn't know what to do.

  Hedia lowered the cup. She had been holding it in both hands as she drank, because her arms were trembling.

  "As soon as the jar of wine arrives," Hedia said. "Which had better be soon. When it does, you can go back to bed. I may sit up for a little."

  Until I've drunk enough to dull the memory of that dream.

  "I'll stay up too, your Ladyship," Syra
said. "In case you need something."

  The girl wouldn't be able to sleep either, Hedia supposed. Awake, she wouldn't have to worry that her mistress might strangle her in a fit of madness.

  "Yes, all right," Hedia said.

  She looked about her, suddenly aware of what had escaped her earlier in her fear. The walls of this room were frescoed with images of stage fronts: heavy facades above which stretched high, spindly towers. Hedia had had the suite redecorated when she married Saxa: her immediate predecessor had preferred paintings of plump children riding bunnies and long-tailed birds in a garden setting.

  The room from which Hedia had dreamed her descent to the Underworld had been her bedroom also, but not this bedroom. The walls there were dark red, separated into panels by gold borders; in the center of each panel was a tiny image of a god or goddess identified by its attribute. Hercules carried his club, but adjacent to him Priapus gripped with both hands a phallus heavier than that club…

  That had been her bedroom when she was married to Latus, in the house facing the Campus Martius. She had sold the property when Latus died.

  There was a bustle in the hall. Syra took a jar of wine from another servant, then brought it in and refilled the ewer.

  Why did my nightmare show me Latus' house?

  It wasn't an answer, but at least she was beginning to formulate the questions.

  David Drake

  Out of the Waters-ARC

  CHAPTER 5

  Alphena had allowed her stepmother to choose her garments for the outing: a tunic of fine wool, cut much longer-and so more ladylike-than Alphena preferred, with a shoulder-length cape which was quite unnecessary in this weather. She also wore earrings, bracelets, and a high comb, all of silver but decorated with granulated gold.

  The one place that Alphena had refused to give in was her footgear. Instead of delicate silken slippers, she wore sensible sandals with thick soles and straps that weren't going to snap if she suddenly had to run. She didn't expect to run-she couldn't imagine any circumstances in which that would be necessary-but she would not wear flimsy shoes.

  Instead of arguing, Hedia had nodded and said, "Very well," in a calm voice. She had sounded rather like a nurse telling her three-year-old charge that she could bring along all six of her dollies when they walked down to the river to watch barges from Ostia unloading their cargoes of grain.

  In the entrance hall, Alphena turned to Florina and said, "I won't be needing you. Stay here and do whatever you like till we come back"

  "I believe, your ladyship," said Agrippinus, "that it would be better if Florina accompanied you."

  Alphena snapped her head around to face the major domo. He froze; so did everyone else in the hall, which was still crowded even though Saxa had left for the Senate with his lictors and general entourage.

  But Alphena froze also. "Thank you for your concern, my man," she said, choosing the words carefully. That wasn't the sort of thing she was used to saying, but she was determined to learn not to scream abuse whenever somebody tried to direct her. "I believe that mother's staff will be able to care for me adequately, should the need arise."

  She even smiled. It wasn't a very nice smile, she knew, but she wasn't feeling very nice.

  "As your ladyship wishes," said Agrippinus, bowing low enough that he no longer met her eyes. He held the obsequious pose until she turned away.

  Feeling both virtuous-because she hadn't raised her voice-and triumphant-because she had gotten her way nonetheless-Alphena stepped through the jaws of the entrance and into the street. Servants milled there. Saxa's still larger entourage of lictors, servants, and clients, was turning into the Argiletum on their way to the forum and the meeting of the Senate in the Temple of Venus.

  The double litter had arrived from the warehouse on the Tiber where it was stored. Its frame was inlaid with burl and ivory; its curtains were layered Egyptian linen; and the upholstery inside was silk brocade.

  The litter's weight required four trained men to carry it and four more to trade off with the original team at regular intervals to prevent fatigue-and therefore possible accidents to the wealthy passengers. Agrippinus had bought eight matched Cappadocian bearers along with the vehicle itself, all at Alphena's order.

  Though she had demanded the double litter as an angry whim, it had proven very useful now that she and her stepmother had become one another's confidante: they could speak while travelling in as much privacy as anyone in Carce was able to claim. Only the foreman of the Cappadocians spoke Latin, and even then the bearers' deep breathing and the rhythmic slap of their clogs effectively prevented them from listening to those within the vehicle.

  Candidus was in charge of the entourage. He minced unctuously toward Alphena and bowed. "Everything is in order, your ladyship," he said. "I sent a courier to the warehouse myself to be sure that the vehicle would be here at the third hour, as Lady Hedia ordered. Manetho was supposed to have done it, but for your ladyships' comfort I thought it well to make sure."

  Hedia swept through the doorway, turning the facade of Saxa's townhouse into a setting for her jewel-like beauty. She was so stunning and perfect that Alphena's breath caught in her throat.

  Not long ago she would have been furious at her stepmother for being, well, what Alphena herself was not. Now, she just accepted it as a reality of life, like the fact that she would never be Emperor.

  Reality wasn't a wholly one-sided thing, of course. She would never be teasing some other woman's hair, in constant fear of a slap or a slashing blow with the comb, the way Florina did daily. And there were women less fortunate than Florina.

  "You're looking well, daughter," Hedia said, touching the pendant in Alphena's left ear. "You have flecks of gold in your eyes, and these bring it out. Your eyes are one of your best features, you know."

  Alphena felt her jaw go slack if not exactly drop. "I didn't…," she said. Then, "I do? I-thank you, mother."

  "Let's get started, shall we?" Hedia said in her breezy, pleasant voice. She gestured Alphena toward the litter.

  She hadn't bothered to ask whether it was ready. Either she had seen that it was-though the bearers weren't gripping their poles yet-or she assumed that it would be, because the servants were terrified not to have accomplished whatever Lady Hedia expected them to have done.

  "After you, mother," Alphena said, mirroring Hedia's gesture.

  Laughing, the older woman mounted the vehicle, placing herself on the front cushion. She moved as gracefully as a cat, or a snake.

  Alphena got in on the other side, facing Hedia and the route ahead. As soon as Alphena settled on the cushion, the Cappadocians braced themselves and rose.

  Candidus called an order, but that was an officious waste of time. The bearers didn't pass visible signals to one another, but they nonetheless moved as though one head controlled all four of them.

  The litter swayed as the Cappadocians fell into step. The motion wasn't unpleasant-the passengers could have read if they wanted to-but it did serve to separate those inside from the rest of the world.

  Hedia drew the curtains on her end. They were black netting, woven fine enough that they caught much of the dust as well as blurring the features of those inside the vehicle. Alphena quickly pushed forward her curtains also.

  She eyed her stepmother carefully. She had heard-nobody had told her, but the servants had been murmuring about nothing else all morning-that Hedia had had a bad night with all sorts of shouting and threats. There was no sign of that on her face or in her calm, clear gaze.

  Alphena mentally rehearsed her words before saying, "Have you been thinking about the vision in the theater yesterday, mother?"

  Hedia grinned with wry amusement. "Was that what gave me nightmares last night, dear?" she said. "Is that what you mean? No, monsters can destroy all the foreign cities they like without causing me to miss a wink of sleep."

  Her eyes had drifted toward something outside the present. She focused again on Alphena and added, "Or distinguishe
d older men can, if you like. I learned long ago, dear, that two women never see the same thing in any, well, man."

  Alphena blushed, but the comment was kindly meant; and Hedia had been polite to her own clumsy prying. I should have just come out and asked. With Hedia-not with most people.

  Before the younger woman could apologize, Hedia continued, "No, it was seeing the glass men again. Which I don't understand."

  She turned her hands up in a gesture of amused disgust. "I could explain being frightened by dreadful monsters, couldn't I?" she said. "I'm sure people would be very understanding and say they feel sorry for me. Telling people I'm afraid of men would give a very different impression."

  "Well, they're not really men," Alphena said.

  Hedia's laughter caroled merrily. "Neither are eunuchs, dear," she said, "and I assure you that they don't frighten me. And they're not nearly as useless as you might think, the ones that were gelded after they reached manhood, at least."

  The streets were noisy at this hour; they were noisy at most hours except in the heat of early afternoons in summer. The normal racket was doubled by the shouts and threats of the escort-and the curses of the pedestrians, peddlers, and loungers who felt they too had a right to the route that their ladyships wished to travel. Occasionally Alphena heard the smack of blows and answering yelps.

  "Whatever they are," Alphena said, "the glass men, I mean, they must be terrible. I don't think I've ever seen you frightened before, mother."

  Hedia chuckled. "You've seen me frightened many times, my dear," she said. "You've never seen me unable to do whatever was necessary, though; and you're not seeing that now."

  She indicated her calm, disdainful face with one careless hand. "Don't mistake acting ability for my being too dimwitted to recognize danger," she said. "And you should learn to act too, dear. Even though I'm sure you'll live a life with less to conceal than I have, it's a skill every woman needs to acquire."

  They were passing through the leatherworkers' district. The reek of uncured hides warred with the stench of the tanning process. Alphena's eyes watered, and even Hedia's face contorted in a sneeze.