by David Drake
"I'll try, mother," Alphena said, barely mouthing the words. She was afraid her voice would tremble if she spoke loudly enough for the older woman to hear.
She had faced demons, faced them and fought them. She had a sword that seemed to be able to cut anything and had certainly sent fire-demons to bubbling death.
She didn't know what they were facing now. That was the frightening thing. What use was the keenest, best-wielded sword if you had nothing to turn it on except the ghosts in your own mind?
"I suppose Pulto thinks that we're visiting his wife in order to buy charms," Hedia said. Her voice fell naturally into the rhythm of the Cappadocians' pace.
"Aren't we?" said Alphena. "That is, well, I thought we were too."
"If I believed that a sprig of parsley wrapped around a human finger bone would keep away those walking statues from my dreams," Hedia said tartly, "I'd be far less concerned than I am."
Her lips twisted into another smile. "I don't believe there's a charm to keep away distinguished older men with braided hair either," she said. "But as I told you, I'm not worried about them."
She's mocking me! Alphena thought. But that wasn't really true, and if it was true, it was good-natured. Hedia had risen from her bed screaming this morning. If she could smile and compliment and plan when she was under that much strain, then her stepdaughter could smile at a harmless joke and go on without snarling.
The litter continued pattering forward, but at a minutely quicker pace: the teams of bearers must have changed places. Alphena would not have noticed the difference had she not spent so much time studying swordsmen. Tiny patterns of movement indicated alertness and fatigue, victory and death.
"What do you want from Anna, then, mother?" she said aloud.
Hedia looked momentarily weary, though her cheeks quickly sprang back to their normal buoyant liveliness. "Advice, I suppose, dear," she said. Her smile was real, but not as bright as usual. "Or at any rate, someone besides one another to commiserate with. I…"
She paused, then wriggled her shoulders as if to shake away a locust that had landed on them. "Dear," she said with renewed confidence, "I want to discuss the matter with Anna because she's the closest thing to an expert whom we have available, even though I don't really believe she can help. If she says she can't help, when she says that, I'm afraid, then we go on to the next possible pathway to enlightenment."
Alphena opened her mouth to ask the question. Before she could voice the first syllable, the older woman continued, "We'll determine what that next possibility is when we reach that point."
"Your Ladyships, we are arriving!" Candidus cried. He sounded on the verge of collapse. Even though the Cappadocians had a heavy litter to carry, the pace they set through the streets had strained the deputy steward almost beyond his capacity.
The vehicle swayed gently to a halt. There was excited babble outside the curtains.
"Yes," said Alphena, trying to sound as assured as Hedia did by reflex. "We will determine that."
***
Hedia swept the curtains back but allowed the younger woman to get out of the litter before she herself did. She had been puzzled by the cheering, but it wasn't until she stood up that she could see past the wall of attendants surrounding the vehicle.
When she did, the slight smile that was her normal expression vanished. She wasn't angry, yet; but her mind had slipped into a familiar mode in which she decided how to deal with a problem-and absolutely any answer was acceptable if cold reason told her that it was the correct choice.
The apartment block in which Corylus and his household lived was the newest in the neighborhood and the tallest-at five stories-this far out the Argiletum. Anna-Corylus' nurse from the day he was born and his housekeeper here in Carce-was waving from a third-floor balcony. Arthritis made it difficult for her to navigate stairs; otherwise she doubtless would have greeted the litter on the street.
Scores of other people were waiting, however. At a guess, every tenant in the building who was home this morning stood outside, waving scarves or napkins and cheering, "Hail to their noble Ladyships Hedia and Alphena! Hail!"
"I didn't expect this," Alphena said, edging close when Hedia walked around to her side of the litter.
"Nor did I," said Hedia. The background commotion probably concealed the flat chill of her voice; but if it didn't, that too was all right.
There were relatively few men in the crowd, but those present were neatly dressed. The women wore their finery and all the jewels they possessed. The children were clean and wore tunics, even the youngsters of three or four who would normally run around in breechclouts or nothing at all.
This litter would draw a crowd anywhere in Carce; it was exceptional even in the Carina District where Saxa and similarly wealthy nobles lived. This demonstration had been prepared, however, which was a very different thing.
Anna has bragged to her neighbors that she's so great a witch that noblewomen came to visit her. She's trafficking on my name-and perhaps my secrets-to raise her status in the neighborhood.
"Candidus," Hedia said, "you and the escort can remain here with the litter. All but one, I think."
The deputy steward didn't object as she had expected him to. He must have understood her expression.
Hedia looked over the entourage, then said, "Barbato?" to a footman whom she thought would set the right tone. "Precede Lady Alphena and myself to the third floor."
The name-Bearded, with a rural pronunciation-was a joke; his whiskers were so sparse that he could go several weeks between shaves by the household barber. He was a slender, muscular youth from the southern Pyrenees, with clear features and a good command of Latin.
He wasn't a bruiser, but he could take care of himself. Because this was daytime, the escorting servants didn't carry cudgels as they would at night, but Barbato wore a slender dagger in an upside-down sheath strapped to his right thigh where the skirt of his tunic covered it
"Come along, my dear," Hedia said, stepping off with a pleasant smile. Barbato was swaggering pridefully; the crowd parted before him, still cheering.
"Anna must have said we were coming," Alphena said quietly.
An eight-year-old girl offered Hedia a bunch of violets, wilted because she'd had nothing to wrap the stems in to keep them wet. Hedia took them graciously and continued into the stairway entrance. To the right side was a shop selling terracotta dishes; on the left-the corner-was a lunch stall and wine shop.
"Yes," Hedia replied. "That's something I'll want to discuss with her."
To her amazement, the stairwell was not only empty but clean. When she had visited the building before, there was litter on the treads and a pervasive odor of vomit and human waste. There were benefits to Anna having turned the event into a local feast day.
The door at the third level opened. Barbato called pompously, "Make way for the noble Hedia and the noble Alphena!"
Anna waved him aside with one of her two sticks. "Bless you both, your ladyships!" she said. "Welcome to the house of my master, Gaius Corylus!"
She wore a long tunic which wavered between peach and brownish yellow, depending on how the light caught it, under a short dark-blue cape to which leather horse cut-outs had been appliqued; Celtic work, Hedia guessed, and probably a very good example of it. She herself couldn't imagine anybody finding it attractive; but then, she wasn't a Marsian peasant who had spent decades among barbarians on the frontiers.
"Thank you, Anna," Hedia said. She turned and added in a sharper tone, "You may wait on the landing, Barbato. We'll call you if we need you."
She shut the door firmly, then slid the bar across. The panel was sturdier than she would have expected on a third-floor apartment. Not that she spent much time entering or leaving third-floor apartments.
"I hope you didn't mind all the fuss below, your ladyship," Anna said. "It's for the boy, you see. How would you like your wine? Oh, and I had Chloe from the fourth landing, right above you see, fetch some little cakes from Damas
cenus' shop in the next building. I do hope you'll try them, won't you?"
"I'll pour the wine, Anna," Alphena said, forestalling their hostess as she started toward the little kitchen of the suite. She and Hedia knew that the old woman had better days and worse ones. Even at her best now Anna had no business struggling with a tray of wine, water, and the paraphernalia necessary for drinking it.
"You said that the gathering was for Master Corylus?" Hedia said, letting her very real confusion show in her voice. "I had the impression they were expecting my daughter and myself."
"Oh, that, yes, of course they were," Anna said, obviously unaware of Hedia's suspicions. "Do sit down, won't you? I've gotten new cushions. The blue one is stuffed with goose down, so why don't you take it, your Ladyship?"
Hedia settled carefully on one end of a clothes chest being used as a bench. She said, "I don't see, then…"
"Well, it's like this," said Anna, lowering herself onto a stool of polished maple. "The boy grew up in camp, you know. He's used to fetching for himself and he likes it that way, so it's just me and Pulto does for him-and I get the neighbor girls to fetch the shopping, since I'm such a clapped-out old nanny goat myself."
Hedia opened her mouth to protest; Anna waved her blithely to silence. "It suits me better that way too, to tell the truth," she said, "because, well, you know the stories that go around about Marsian witches. If we had servants, they'd be making up tales to cadge drinks and the like. That can get pretty nasty, as I know to my sorrow from when we lived in Baiae before the boy come here to school."
The small round table between the stool and the chest was cedar with a richly patterned grain, oiled and polished to a sheen like marble. Alphena set the tray on it and handed out the cups, already filled.
"I mixed the wine three to one," she said, a little too forcibly. That was the normal drinking mixture which she was used to, and she was making a point that she didn't intend to get tipsy by drinking to limits that her companions might be comfortable with.
"Thank you, my dear," Hedia said, taking her cup-part of a matched service which impressed her as both stylish and beautiful. Clear glass rods had been twisted, slumped together in molds, and polished.
She sipped; it was like drinking from jewels. She wondered if Corylus had chosen the set. Certainly Anna had not, given the taste shown by her garments.
"I'm not clear what the crowd down there…," Hedia said, nodding toward the window onto the balcony. "Has to do with Master Corylus, however."
She wasn't on the verge of anger any more. Clearly she was missing something, but she now knew that Anna hadn't turned Lady Hedia into a carnival for plebeians as a way of bragging to her neighbors.
"Oh, well, you see…" Anna said. Her face was so wrinkled that Hedia couldn't be sure, but she seemed to be making a moue of embarrassment. "Because we don't have servants and because we're up on the third floor-the boy said he liked to be able to look out at the Gardens of Maurianus, and you couldn't from any lower down-folks don't really believe he's quality."
Ah! The higher levels of apartment blocks were successively flimsier in construction and-of course-that much farther to climb on narrow stairs when coming and going. Lower rents reflected this. Corylus apparently wasn't concerned about whether the neighbors thought he was an impecunious phony who only pretended to be a Knight of Carce, but his old nurse cared on his behalf.
"I've been having dreams, Anna," Hedia said. "Bad ones, of course, or I wouldn't be seeing you. And I suppose you heard about what happened yesterday in the theater?"
Anna had been using "their ladyships" as a status tool, but Hedia couldn't be angry about that now, however much she wished it hadn't happened. The old servant was completely absorbed with her boy. No objection, no threat-nothing but death itself-would change that focus.
And Hedia wouldn't have forced a change if she could. Oh, it was excessive, no doubt, but Master Corylus was certainly an impressive young man.
Hedia let a smile play at the corners of her mouth. Corylus even had the good judgment to refuse to become entangled with his friend's beautiful mother. Which was a pity, though Hedia was no longer concerned that a physical relationship would be necessary to bind the boy to her. He would support her for so long as he believed that she had the best interests of the Republic at heart.
"I didn't hear much," Anna said with a sort of smile. "A sight of a monster, is all. The boy won't talk, which is as should be for an officer. My Pulto was afraid to talk; afraid of what he doesn't know, pretty much, and I don't blame him. But I could guess things, and-"
She shrugged.
"-I could feel them, too, when they're as strong as what happened yesterday."
"Mistress?" Alphena said. "Anna? Do you know what it is that we saw in the theater?"
"No, dear," the old woman said, "no more than I knew what made the ground shake so one winter in Upper Germany. It wasn't for two weeks that we learned that the snow had come down the slopes in Helvetian territory and buried a thousand people in a village."
She looked at Hedia. "You've been dreaming of this monster come up from the sea, then?" she said. "Is it the same as it was in the theater?"
"Nothing like that," said Hedia, more sharply than she had intended. "In the theater, though, there was a city and there were glass men on its walls. Does that mean anything to you?"
Alphena sat down, offering the older women a burl walnut tray of small sweet cakes. There wasn't room for it on the table with wine containers.
Hedia had emptied her cup. She hesitated-she never ate sweets; she loved them and knew she would bloat like a dead cat if she didn't if she didn't exercise rigid control over what she ate-but finally took a cake and nibbled. It was delicious.
"I've never heard of glass men, Hedia," Anna said, reverting to previous familiarity now that they were completely alone. "Real men, moving you mean?"
"Moving, certainly," Hedia said, forcing herself to visualize the images that terrified her without reason. "Real, I don't know. Certainly not real men; but they acted like men."
She took a deep breath. Her eyes were open, but for the moment she wasn't seeing anything beyond her memory.
"I dreamed of them in the Underworld, Anna," she said. "I dreamed of them with Latus, where I visited him before. I couldn't hear them, but I think they were questioning him. He was screaming."
She sniffed with bitter amusement. "Screaming like the damned, in fact," she said, "which is likely enough with Latus."
Hedia forced her eyelids closed, then opened them and met Anna's calm gaze. "I think they're hunting for me," she said. "I don't know why or why I feel that. But I feel it, and I'm afraid."
"When we opened the passage to the Underworld," Anna said, "it couldn't be closed again. I'm sorry, but that was one of the risks."
Her face twisted into a smile. "It wasn't one of the risks that I worried most about," she said. "I didn't expect to see you ever again."
Her gaze flicked to Alphena. She added, "Either of you."
Hedia laughed, finding the humor of the thought. "Rather like virginity, you mean?" she said. "Well, that wasn't much good to me either. Perhaps keeping the passage to Hades' house open will turn out to be just as pleasurable in the long run."
Alphena's lips pressed together, but she tried to smile when she felt Hedia glance at her. She's really everything one could wish in a daughter. Even her playing with swords turned out to be useful.
"Is there anything you can suggest, dear?" Hedia said. Then, blurting, "Can you do anything? Please!"
Alphena had refilled her cup. She drank, to hide her embarrassment and to sooth her throat. She was dry, and her thoughts were dry and withered.
"A charm, you mean?" Anna said.
Hedia waved her hands, disgusted at her own weakness. "No, of course not," she said. "I know better, but I'm… frightened."
"Some of my charms do help," Anna said. She spoke softly, but there was rock not far below the surface. "Some help, and more help beca
use people think they're being helped. But not for this, no. My usual work is for sick people; and sometimes for girls who want something or want to get rid of something."
She spread her hands. "I won't lie to you, your ladyship. Love charms and abortions. But what happened in the theater is beyond such neighborhood business."
Hedia opened her mouth to object, but Anna stopped her with a raised hand. "You may not be concerned with what happened in the theater, dear," she said, "but I am. It reeked on my men when they came home last night, and it's nothing I'll pass over lightly."
Her tone was polite but no longer obsequious. They were in Anna's realm now, and however much she might respect Lady Hedia, she wouldn't leave any doubt about what she knew.
Hedia's cup was empty again. She thought for an instant, then covered it with her hand as Alphena reached to refill it from the mixing bowl.
"I think that's enough for me," she said, rising smoothly. She might feel as though she should hang herself; but if she did, she would expect to writhe gracefully. "Thank you, Anna. You've helped me understand the situation better."
Anna struggled to rise from her stool. Alphena braced her while she got both her sticks planted.
"I told you I'm not passing over this, your Ladyship," Anna said. "I… I won't promise you. But there's another thing that might be tried. It means danger for those I would die to keep from danger, but I fear-"
Her eyes locked with Hedia's.
"-that there's no safety anywhere if this thing isn't scotched. So I'll try."
"Mistress," said Hedia. "He's a soldier, in his heart at least. He'll understand."
Anna laughed. The sound would have been appropriate at a funeral. "Aye, we all understand," she said, "but it's still bloody hard to send them off. Well, we women know about that kind of hard, don't we?"
"Yes," said Alphena unexpectedly. "We do."
She reached out; for a moment, the three of them linked hands. It didn't make any sense, but Hedia found herself more hopeful than she had been since she awakened from her nightmare.