by David Drake
They walked up the stairs together, as they had gone down.
***
"This is the place?" Corylus said. Pulto had stopped at a sunken place on the hillside, but he hadn't said anything for the long moments while his master waited politely for him to speak.
"It's where Anna showed me this morning," Pulto agreed in a dull voice. He turned to face Corylus. They carried a lighted lantern, but there was moon enough to show their features clearly.
"Master," Pulto said, "we shouldn't be doing this. I'm not a god-botherer, you know that, but it'd be better to lose than to win by the kind of magic that you find in graveyards. Though it was my own Anna as sent us here."
Corylus thought about the vision of Typhon, wrecking the world it crawled across. "No, old friend," he said. "Losing would be worse, for the Earth, at any rate. For me personally-"
He shrugged. "I don't know what it means for me personally. It doesn't matter. But Pulto? You can wait for me back where we crossed the old wall. I won't think the less of you if you're unwilling to be involved in this sort of thing."
That wasn't really true, but Corylus knew that it should be true. He'd known a man, a centurion with scars marking every hand's-breadth of his body-he couldn't remember the tale of half of them-who had frozen in mumbling fear when a wolf spider ran up the inside of a leather tent and stopped directly over him. If magic disturbed Pulto in the same way, well, there was more reason for it.
Pulto snorted. "I'm afraid," he said, "but I'm a soldier, so what's being afraid got to do with anything? And I've done plenty of things this stupid before, begging your pardon, master. Only-"
His smile was forced, but the fact he could force a smile spoke well of his courage and his spirits both.
"-this time I'm sober. Which is maybe the trouble, but it's one I plan to solve right quick when we're done with this nonsense."
Corylus grinned. "I'll split at least the first jar with you," he said. "Now let's get to work."
The tombs of Carce's wealthy ranged along all the roads out of the city. The great families had huge columbaria, dovecotes; so called because the interiors were covered with lattices to hold urns of cremated ashes.
Lesser, more recently wealthy, households had correspondingly smaller monuments. Often there was just a slab with reliefs of the man or couple and a small altar in front to receive the offerings brought by descendents.
But the poor died also, and even a slave might have friends and family. The slope of the Aventine outside the sacred boundary of the city received their remains. Small markers, generally wooden but occasionally scratched stones, dotted the rocky soil. Badly spelled prayers or simple names which were themselves prayers for survival, lasted briefly and were replaced by later burials and later markers, just as other wretched souls had moved into the tenements that the dead had vacated earlier.
By day this end of the Aventine was a waste of brush which feral dogs prowled and where crows and vultures croaked and grunted. Fuel for pyres was an expense which the poor skimped on, as they skimped on food and clothing during life. At night occasional humans joined the beasts, witches who searched for herbs which had gained power through the presence of death; and who sometimes gathered bones as well, to be ground and used in darker medicine.
No one would disturb Corylus and his servant, but Pulto had brought swords for both of them among the other tools: the mattock and pry bar, ropes and basket. By concentrating on the thought of human enemies, Pulto could push the other dangers from his mind.
"It's a well, I think," Pulto said, loosening up now that Corylus had broken the glum silence. "Under a lot of crap and full of crap, of course, but that's what I thought by daylight."
"Right," said Corylus, thrusting the blade of his mattock between two stones gripped by vines and levering upward. "People throw things down the well when they're in a hurry to leave. We should be able to find what we're looking for and get out before the wine shops close!"
Among the things people threw into wells were bodies, depending on who the people were. Well, they'd deal with that if they had to.
Corylus put on his thick cowhide mittens. He didn't need them for the tools-he spent enough time wielding a sword in Saxa's exercise ground that his calluses protected him-but the loosened rocks were often jagged or wrapped in brambles. He didn't mind a few cuts and scratches, but it was easy to wear protection when throwing rubble down slope.
He and Pulto worked together briefly, but when they had excavated the fill a few feet down, Corylus got into the shaft and filled baskets for his servant to lift and empty from the top. It was a well shaft as Pulto had guessed. The coping of volcanic tuff had mostly collapsed inward, but the remainder was cut through the hillside's soft limestone. There was no way to tell how old it was, but it was certainly old.
Corylus lost track of everything except the task. This was monotonous but not mindless work, much like ditching or cutting turf to wall a marching camp. He had to decide each next stroke, sometimes scooping loose dirt with the blade of the mattock, sometimes using the pry bar to separate rocks that were wedged together.
Once he found a human jaw. There wasn't room in the shaft to leave it, but he made sure it was on the bottom of the next basketful he sent up to Pulto.
Corylus wasn't sure how long he had been working-it didn't help to think about that, since he would work until the task was finished-but his feet were by now some ten feet below the level of the coping. He bent to work more of the light fill-gravel and silt-loose with the mattock while Pulto hauled up the basket with the latest load.
He stopped and put the mattock down. The light at this depth wouldn't have been good even without Pulto leaning over the top, so Corylus tried the seam between stones with his fingers and found what he thought his eyes had told him: a slot wide enough for passage had been cut in the living rock, then closed with a fitted stone with a stone wedge above it.
"Pulto?" Corylus called. "Send the lantern down to me on a cord."
Pulto only grunted in reply, but he jerked the basket up more abruptly than usual-a long task was better handled at a steady pace than by fits and starts. Moments later the lantern wobbled down, tied to the end of Pulto's sash. They could have passed it directly from hand to hand, but not without searing somebody's fingertips on the hot bronze casing.
Corylus set the lantern at an angle on the ground so that the light through its mica windows fell on the stones inset in the smooth shaft. He set the point of his pry bar, then used it to work the wedge sideways. When it bound, he blocked the widened crack with a pebble, then shifted the pry bar to the other side and levered the wedge the other way.
An inch of the wedge was clear of the wall. Corylus thumped it with the heel of his bare palm so that the pebble fell out, then gripped the stone with the fingertips of both hands and wriggled it back and forth while he drew it out. He hopped when it fell, but it landed between where his feet were anyway.
"What are you doing down there, boy?" Pulto asked with a rasp in his voice. He was worried, and that made him harsh.
"I think I've found what we're looking for," Corylus said. He didn't say that he'd found an Etruscan tomb, because he knew that the information wouldn't please Pulto.
As Corylus hoped, the larger slab tipped forward when the wedge was removed. He walked it awkwardly to the side, trying not to crush the lantern or trip over the wedge. Holding the lantern before him, he knelt to peer into the opening.
The chamber beyond was cut from the rock like the well shaft. It was about ten feet long but not quite that wide. Benches were built into the sidewalls. At the back, facing the entrance, was a chair that seemed to have been carved from the limestone also.
On the chair sat a bearded man with a fierce expression. He wore a white tunic with fringes of either black or dark blue and a heavier garment of deep red over his left shoulder, leaving the right side of his chest covered only by the tunic. On a gold neck-chain was an elongated jewel clasped by gold filigree at top and bo
ttom.
"Master, what are you doing?" Pulto said. His voice echoed dully in the well. "Hold on! I'm coming down!"
"Stay where you are!" Corylus said, twisting his head backward as much as the tomb door allowed him. "I'm coming right back!"
He stepped forward, hunching; the floor was cut down so that the ceiling might have been high enough for him to stand, but he didn't want to chance a bad knock in his hurry. He set the lantern on the floor, then took the jewel in his hands and started to lift the chain over the head of the bearded man.
The figure and his clothing vanished into a swirl of dust. A bracelet of braided gold wire clinked to the stone chair, then to the floor.
Corylus sneezed, then squeezed his lips together. He backed quickly out of the tomb, then dropped the chain over his own head as the easiest way to carry it. I'm not going back for the lantern, he thought.
"Pulto!" he said. "Drop me an end of the rope and snub it off. I'm coming up and we're getting out of here!"
The rope sailed down; the basket was still attached to the handle.
"That's the first thing you've said tonight that I agree with!" Pulto said. "By Hercules! it is."
David Drake
Out of the Waters-ARC
CHAPTER 7
Daylight through cracks in the shutters awakened Corylus. He sat up quickly, angry with himself. Ordinarily he awakened before dawn and- Pain split his head straight back from the center of his forehead. He wobbled, sick and briefly unable to see colors. He whispered, "Hercules!"
"Swear by Charon, better," said Anna as she hobbled over to him, carrying a bronze mug that she had been heating in a bath of water. "I've never seen anyone closer to dead but still walking than the two of you when you came in last night."
She offered the mug. "Here," she said. "Swallow it down."
Corylus lifted the warm bronze cautiously. The odor made his nostrils quiver; he started to lower the mug.
"Drink it, I tell you!" Anna said. "D'ye think you're the first drunk I've had to bring back to life in the morning? It's been your father often enough; but I don't think he'd be pleased to learn that my man, who he trusted, let you get into this state-and himself no better!"
"Yes, ma'am," Corylus said obediently. He held his breath and drank the whole mugful at a measured pace, then set it on the side table empty. Anna gave him a napkin. He looked at it puzzled, then sneezed violently into it.
"There," said Anna with a satisfied smirk. "You'll feel better now, or so I believe."
Corylus lowered the napkin with which he had covered his mouth and nose. He did feel better, for a wonder. He would have thought that the sneeze would have shattered his head into more bits than the shell of a dropped egg.
"I meant to stop at the first jar," he said contritely. "I must have had more than that to drink."
"Aye, you must have," Anna said, her tone still grim but her face showing a trace of humor-if you knew what you were looking for. "Well, it's done and you're back safely, no thanks to that fool husband of mine. Are you going to your class today, then?"
"If I…," Corylus said. He got slowly to his feet as he spoke. Somewhat to his surprise, he found that he was all right except for a slight wobbliness when he straightened. "Yes, I will. I want to talk with Varus afterwards anyway, and Master Pandareus too."
A thought struck him. "Oh!" he said. "And we did find what you sent us for, or I think it was."
He reached under his tunic. The chain wasn't around his neck.
Anna gestured with her free hand toward the storage chest on the other side of the bed. The chain and the jewel wrapped in the net of gold wire were there. In a shaft of sunlit, the stone was a cloudy gray-green with very little sparkle.
"I took it off you," she said. "When I got you out of that filthy tunic and sponged you before I put you to bed."
Her grin suddenly widened. "As I've done your father half a hundred times. It takes me back, lad."
Corylus reached for the jewelry, then paused and raised an eyebrow in question.
"Aye, take it," Anna said. "Take it and wear it. I don't know what it means or what it does, but I know it's meant for a man."
Corylus didn't move. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "Meant for a man?"
Anna grimaced. "I don't have the words!" she said. Her voice was as harsh as he ever remembered her talking to him. "If a civilian asked me how you knew the shields on the far hill were Suebi and not Batavians, what would you tell him? You'd just know, that's all. Well, I tell you, that jewel's meant for a man; and whatever else I am, I'm not that."
Corylus picked it up by the chain and carried it over to the window for better light. He threw open the shutters.
"It's glass," he said, looking at the scalloped fracture lines at one end of the stone. "Slag from a glass furnace, anyway."
He held it up against the sky and squinted through it. "There's something inside, but I can't tell what it is," he said.
Then, lowering the pendant with a triumphant grin, "No! It's volcanic glass! But I still think there's something inside it."
"I tried to look," Anna said. Corylus tried to hand it to her; she waved it away and said, "No, I don't mean like that, so better light would show me more than the lamp did. Another way, boy. All I learned is that there's something inside, all right, and that it doesn't like women. I set it down then-"
She nodded to the chest.
"-and I stepped back, and I burned a little frankincense to Mother Lucina-"
A Greek would have called the goddess Hecate, but Anna was a Marsian born in the mountains a hundred miles south of Carce.
"-that I wasn't any deeper in when I roused it."
"Should I-" Corylus said. He stopped, lifting the pendant by its chain. He was seeing the complete object this time, not trying to peer into the depths of the cloudy glass.
He looked at Anna. "You said I should wear it, dear one," he said. "If it's dangerous…?"
She cackled without humor. "A sword's dangerous, boy," she said. "But not to you when you're wearing it, I think. Nor is this, for you're a man if ever a man was born. The dream that guided me…"
She shrugged.
"I can only trust my guides, master," she said with a catch in her throat. Corylus realized that she was close to tears. "I would tear my own heart out if I thought it would help you, but it wouldn't. I can only tell you what I am told, or what I anyway believe. And I pray that I'm right, because I would so rather die than you be harmed!"
Corylus dropped the chain over his neck and tucked the pendant, the amulet, under his tunic. Then he folded his old nurse in his arms. She felt as light as a plucked chicken. He felt a rush of love.
"I love you, little mother," Corylus said. "You kept me safe as a boy, and you protect me still."
He squeezed Anna again and stepped back, smiling. "Now, I'm already late," he said. "I'll pick up a roll on my way to class. We'll deal with this business, whatever it is."
Corylus quickly laced on his sandals. He was still smiling, but that was for show. He wished he could be more confident of what he had just told Anna; and he wished he didn't feel that he had a vicious dog on the end of the chain around his neck.
Because despite Anna's words, he wasn't sure it was his dog.
***
Hedia's expression remained pleasant as the new doorman announced the arrival of Senator Marcus Atilius Priscus. In truth the fellow's South German accent was so broad that if she hadn't known who was invited for dinner, she wouldn't be any wiser now.
Keeping her professional smile, she murmured to Saxa at her side, "Dear heart, we cannot keep Flavus on the front door until his Latin has improved. Not if we're going to entertain Senators as learned as Lord Priscus, at least."
Flavus was a striking physical specimen, tall and blond and ripplingly muscular. Hedia could certainly appreciate the fellow's merit, but she had never allowed appearances to interfere with her duty.
Hedia had never let anything interfere with her duty.
She was standing beside her husband as a matter of respect while he greeted his dinner guests, though she would not be dining with the men tonight. She didn't have a party of her own to attend: she planned to dine in her own suite, either alone or possibly with Alphena. She hadn't decided whether to issue the invitation, and she thought it likely that the girl would decline it if she did.
Varus wasn't present, though he would be dining with Saxa and his guests. That wasn't a protest, as it might have been with his sister in similar circumstances. The boy said he would work until dinner.
"Work" in his case meant that he would be reading something and taking notes. Hedia had recently looked through one of the notebooks Varus was filling, thinking that she should display interest in her son's activities. She had found them either nonsensical or unintelligible, though no more so than the passage from Horace to which they apparently referred.
Hedia's smile became momentarily warmer. Her son-stepson by blood but, in law and in her mind, her son-would never be the sort of man she socialized with; but he was a clever boy, and brave. Hedia had seen that the night in the Temple of Jupiter when Varus saved the world from fiery destruction.
Marcus Priscus waddled into the entrance hall, accompanied by a score of servants. There were no freeborn clients in his entourage. Sometimes a host would give his guests the option of bringing the number of diners up to nine with their own friends and hangers-on, but Priscus had not asked for this right and Saxa hadn't volunteered it. Hedia knew her husband viewed the dinner as a chance to frame his magpie's hoard of erudition with the solid scholarship of his guests and son.
"Welcome, my honored colleague!" Saxa called. "Your wisdom lights my poor house."
"Welcome, Lord Priscus," Hedia said, her voice a smooth vibrancy following her husband's nervous squeak. "Our household gods smile at your presence."
"Lady Hedia," Priscus said, beaming at her. "I recall your father fondly. He would be delighted, I'm sure, to see how his daughter has blossomed."