by David Drake
"Yes, of course," Varus said. He looked at his sister with a worried expression. "Ah-that is…?"
Alphena wrinkled her face in irritation. "We asked Master Corylus to come because we thought he might have a suggestion," she said. "Of course we'll do any reasonable thing that he asks!"
She turned to Agrippinus and said, "Get everyone out of the garden. Then you stand in front of the inside gate and make sure nobody comes back. You personally!"
"Your ladyship!" the major domo said as he went back through the gate with little mincing steps. As soon as he was inside he cried, "Get out of here at once, all of you! Back into the house unless you want to spend the rest of your lives chained to plows in Sardinia!"
"I'll see to it that nobody comes in from the alley," Alphena said, drawing her sword and placing herself in the gateway. The gray blade gleamed like a stream of ice water.
"Thank you," Corylus said as he stepped past her into the garden. He shut the outer gate. Agrippinus had already closed the interior one behind him.
Alphena's gesture seemed unduly melodramatic, but it had certainly worked. Soldiers learned to appreciate tactics that worked, because you didn't have to be on the frontier very long before you had plenty of experience with things that didn't work.
The garden had three stone benches. Corylus sat on the end of the one nearest the peach tree. When nothing had happened immediately, he said in a quiet voice, "Persica, I'd like to speak with you, if you don't mind."
There was a further long pause. Well, it seemed long. Then the peach nymph appeared, seemingly from behind the trunk.
She hesitated. Corylus patted the bench beside him; she settled onto it sinuously.
"I didn't have anything to do with the men who took the old fellow," Persica said; her tone was a defensive whine. "I know what I did before, to you and the little trollop who fancies you, but I didn't do this."
"I didn't imagine you did, mistress," Corylus said. "But because of where you're standing, I thought you might have seen something."
He paused, but the nymph didn't volunteer a reply. "In fact I'm sure you saw something," he said. "Who took my friend Pandareus?"
The nymph looked at him sidelong. "Will you be nice to me if I tell you?" she said in a tiny voice.
"Tell me out of the goodness of your heart, Persica," Corylus said calmly, as though he were speaking to a child. That was true, in a way: dryads were as quick and light as children in their enthusiasms and their malice.
The nymph sniffed and made a face. "You humans," she said. "I have no heart."
She met Corylus' eyes. "But I get very lonely. You're hard, though, so you don't care."
"Pandareus is my friend, Persica," Corylus said.
"What would I know about friends?" the nymph said. "But it doesn't matter, I don't matter. Anyway, it was the attendants of the old man who came with the three sorcerers. The sorcerers were in charge; I think they're telling the old man what to do, too."
"Sorcerers?" Corylus said. "And what old man? Do you mean Senator Priscus? He was coming to dinner, but not with sorcerers."
"Not Priscus," Persica said petulantly. "The other senator, the one named Tardus."
She slid closer on the bench. "Can't you at least hold me?" she said. "I'd like to be held. I don't think it's going to be very long now before the end."
Corylus put his arm around her waist. She snuggled against him as though she were warm liquid.
Why would Tardus have dined with Saxa? But perhaps Saxa had invited his colleague to make amends for searching his house. And the sorcerers- "Persica?" he said. "The sorcerers you mentioned? Were they the dark men with Senator Tardus? One of them had a stuffed bird in his hair when I saw them in the theater."
"Hold me," the nymph said. "That's right. Your arm is so strong."
Corylus didn't speak, but his muscles stiffened with frustration. Persica said, "I suppose. A Carthaginian and the other two from the Western Isles. They're all very old."
"But why should they have taken Pandareus?" Corylus said. He didn't doubt what the nymph had told him, but it came as a complete surprise. The pieces of information were piled on top of one another, none of them fitting with the others or with anything that Corylus and his friends had known before.
"How would I know why humans should do anything?" Persica said, treating the question as though he had meant her to answer it. She took his right hand in her left and moved it to her breast. "I'm so lonely."
"No, dear," Corylus said, firmly removing his hand. He kissed the nymph on the forehead, then stood. "You'll have company coming soon, but I'm not at all comfortable with this."
The nymph rose supplely, looking as though she was about to plead. She saw his face and instead made a moue.
"Company?" she said. "Are they going to plant another pear?"
"A pomegranate," said Corylus. "She should arrive in the morning."
"Oh, well," Persica said. She sounded contemptuous, but her expression seemed speculative if not unreservedly positive. "Even a pomegranate is better than no one, I suppose."
Corylus reached for the gate latch. He grinned: he hadn't bothered to slide the bar through its staples, not with Alphena outside with a bare sword.
As he started to pull the gate open, there was a hoarse shout from the house. Over it, cutting through the night like a jagged razor, came a woman's scream.
He thought it was Hedia screaming.
***
Ordinarily Hedia allowed-directed-Syra, her chief maid, to deal with her hair. Tonight it had been made up for her husband's formal dinner, however, which had required the services of three specialists. Removing the pad onto which the hair was teased, and the combs and pins which anchored and embellished the waves, was just as complicated as the creation had been.
A librarian read aloud notes which friends had sent to Hedia; they were mostly froth discussing gossip and parties, past or planned. A clerk stood at a writing desk of Celtic bronzework, a tracery of serpents which twined in curves too complex to follow with the eye. His brush was poised over a sheet of thin birchwood, smoothed into a glossy writing surface to take down Hedia's replies.
There were low voices in the hall outside her suite. The reader stumbled over two more words and stopped without Hedia directing him to. She raised her eyes to him without moving her head: he stood transfixed, his glance trembling from his mistress to whoever had come to the doorway behind her.
It might be a ravening beast, Hedia thought, letting a dry smile quirk her lips. But a beast would probably be noisier. Therefore it's more likely that- "Your ladyship," Syra announced, "Lord Saxa requests an interview with you."
Hedia thought that most of the hardware was out of her hair. Regardless, if she continued to sit with her back toward her husband, she would appear to be sending a message which was quite the opposite of how she really felt about the dear man.
"Step back, girls," she said calmly, gesturing to her sides. If she got up abruptly, she was likely to be jabbed with a pin. Flaying the back off the hairdresser responsible wouldn't make the jab any less uncomfortable.
When she was sure that her staff was out of the way, Hedia rose smoothly, turned, and bowed to Saxa. He looked flustered, the poor thing.
"Ah," he said. "Your ladyship, I'm, ah… I came to apologize, and to thank you from the marrow of my bones."
"You bless me with your presence, my dear heart," Hedia said, walking to him with her arm out. She hooked her hand gently around his neck. He still wore his dinner tunic. "Come and sit with me, dear one."
Hedia's clerical staff trickled out of the suite, mixing with Saxa's considerable entourage which milled in the hallway. None of the servants had attempted to enter with Saxa: the four footmen on Hedia's staff stared at potential interlopers, but the real threat that kept them out was her own temper.
Her reputation had preceded her when Saxa brought his new wife home. His household hadn't forced Hedia to prove the truth of the stories about how she dealt with dis
respectful servants; but they were true, or anyway enough of them were.
The hairdressers didn't leave the room because their job wasn't quite finished, but they clustered with their equipment at a small side-table on an outside corner. The sun had set, and stars gleamed through the clerestory windows.
Syra stood with her arms akimbo, glancing alternately toward the door, the hairdressers, and her mistress. Hedia, catching the sequence from the corner of her eye, noticed that the glare directed at Syra's fellow servants became a meekly downcast expression when it fell on her ladyship.
As it bloody well had better.
"Marcus Priscus explained that Tardus was threatening me," Saxa said. He allowed Hedia to sit him on the couch beside her, but he sat looking at his hands in his lap. "Threatening all of us, I suppose. I suppose you think I'm an awful fool not to have seen that. I, well, you saved us all, your ladyship."
"I think you are a very sweet, decent man, my husband," Hedia said, kissing his cheek. "The world we live in isn't nearly as nice as you are, but that's not a reason to reproach yourself."
She paused, then kissed him on the lips. "Don't ever be sorry that you're so decent!" she said fiercely.
She thought of sending out the servants, but she didn't want to frighten Saxa away. It was much like coaxing a sparrow to take a breadcrumb from her fingers; though he seemed to enjoy the exercise as much as any other man once he got properly started.
"I would be lost without you, my wife," Saxa muttered. "I don't know how I got along before I married you."
Instead of answering-even in the depths of her heart, Hedia wasn't sure whether the value she brought into Saxa's life was worth the stress which she undeniably also brought with it-Hedia kissed him again and leaned closer. She heard Syra chivying the other servants out with harsh whispers. Hedia would reward the maid for her initiative… but if Syra hadn't responded without direction, she would have been demoted to the scullery, or worse.
"Dear heart?" Saxa said. "Do you think…?"
"Hush, my dear lord," Hedia said as she lifted the skirt of his tunic and fondled his genitals. She would have preferred the bed because it was wider, but she knew from experience that it took very little to break her husband's mood. She knelt before him and took his penis into her mouth.
Saxa mumbled something, though Hedia wasn't sure that the sounds were words. Matters were proceeding as she had planned; well, as she had hoped.
She reached up with one hand to unclasp the brooch pinning the right shoulder of her tunic, a gold lion's head with polished garnet eyes. She heard the whisper of slippers; Syra expertly unlatched the brooch, then untied the bandeau holding Hedia's breasts as the tunic spilled to her knees on the floor.
Hedia rose, kicking off her slippers as she loosed her gee string. "Now lean back, my lord," she said, guiding Saxa around on the couch so that his whole torso would be supported. "Let me do the work tonight."
She lowered herself onto Saxa, pleased to find that he was rigid enough to enter her without additional coaxing. For a moment she gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment, wriggling her hips gently.
Syra gasped. The sound was little more than an intake of breath, but it would still get her a whipping shortly.
Saxa shouted and tried to sit up. His eyes were wild and he was looking at something in the room.
Hedia turned her head. The three glassy figures from her nightmare stood around her, closing in. She screamed.
The figures gripped her by the arms and waist. Hedia continued to scream as she and her captors fell out of the world.
David Drake
Out of the Waters-ARC
CHAPTER 9
Alphena stood in the courtyard as Saxa's frightened household scurried and chattered around her. With her forearms crossed before her, she scowled. She didn't know what to do. While she was too intelligent to do something pointless just to be acting, it made her furious to stand here in the midst of chaos.
People running to and fro would have stumbled into Alphena in the bad light and confusion, were it not for the squad of footmen which Florina had gathered about her mistress. They weren't Alphena's own servants-at least she didn't think they were; she didn't even recognize the faces of most-but they seemed pleased to stand and glare at anybody who came too near.
A few of them were even armed, more or less. Two had iron rods that were probably turnspits from the kitchen, and one fellow with drooping moustaches and a shaved scalp was holding a decorative marble post which he'd pulled from the bed of peonies beside them. The head of Hermes that topped the post made it an effective mace.
Alphena found herself smiling. The men around her were happy because she had given them purpose in the midst of confusion: they were guarding the young mistress. Well, Florina had given them purpose. It was time and past time that the young mistress found a purpose for herself.
"Florina," she said crisply, "who was with my mother when she disappeared? Really there, I mean. Ah, besides my father."
"Syra, your ladyship," the maid said. "She was the only one inside the bedroom, though there were plenty in the hall."
Florina added with a sneer, "To hear some of them talk, they were all standing around the bed, but everybody knows that isn't the way her ladyship behaved. Your mother, I mean."
"Very good," Alphena said, trying to keep her tone firm but detached. "Florina, bring Syra to me at once."
"Yes, your ladyship!" Florina said. She patted two footmen on the shoulder to move them out of the way, then scampered toward the stairs.
Alphena had thought she might need to coax or threaten the girl to make her obey; Hedia's chief maid might, after all, be with Saxa or Agrippinus, which would make the task of dragging her away potentially dangerous. Apparently the opportunity to give her recent superior orders in Lady Alphena's name was worth the risk of trouble with the master or his major domo.
Varus had gone upstairs. Alphena didn't know whether he was just looking over mother's room or if he was speaking to father. She didn't think either of those things would do any good; certainly she wouldn't help by tagging along in her brother's footsteps.
Corylus, Lenatus, and Pulto-who had arrived just before Hedia began to scream-were talking to the doorman and the servants who had been in the entranceway and office at the time. No one had broken into the house through the back gate, so they were checking to see what had happened in front.
Nothing, obviously; this hadn't been an attack by ordinary human enemies like the ones who had earlier spirited away the teacher. The former soldiers hadn't been able to accept that, but Alphena didn't see why Corylus was wasting his time with them.
Not that Alphena was doing anything useful, or anything at all for that matter.
Mother would know what to do! Which meant that she had to find Hedia.
Florina reappeared, tugging Syra along by the wrist. Hedia's maid wore a stunned look. She wasn't fighting Florina's guidance; she didn't even appear to be aware of it.
"Here she is, your ladyship!" Florina said triumphantly. "She was just standing in Lady Hedia's room as if she didn't have a thing to do!"
She didn't, Alphena thought. Aloud she said, "Syra, describe the men who took my mother away."
The maid's numb expression suddenly melted into misery and tears. Syra threw her hands to her face and began to blubber, "I didn't I didn't I d-didn't-"
"I'll make her talk!" said Florina. She jerked Syra's left hand down with her own and cocked her right arm back to slap the cheek she had just uncovered.
"No!" said Alphena, thrusting Florina aside to underscore the command. Though if the girl hadn't been so enthusiastic, I might have slapped Syra myself.
"Syra," Alphena said, "nobody thinks you did anything wrong. Tell me about the men who took my mother."
Syra swallowed. She turned slightly toward Alphena but didn't raise her eyes. "They weren't men," she mumbled. "They were all shiny like glass. They just…"
She stopped and swallowed. "I was
standing by the alcove where I sleep like I, well, like usual when the mistress is, well, you know. I'd put out all the lamps out but the one beside me on the wall because the master is kinda skittish sometimes. Anyway."
Syra took a deep breath. She was talking more easily now that she'd gotten started.
"They were just there, these three statues, I thought they were," she said. "But they moved. They couldn't come through the door, and the windows have grates besides being just under the roof. I dropped the towel I was holding for afterwards and I guess I said something. The master shouted and her ladyship turned. I don't know if she started to get up but they, the statues, grabbed her."
Syra forced both fists against her mouth. Past her knuckles she whispered, "They fell, it was like. They just fell into the air, her ladyship and the statues holding her, spinning and getting smaller but they weren't going down. They were going away. And they were gone and the master was shouting and everybody came in from the hall and they were gone!"
The maid began to blubber again. Alphena made a moue: Syra's behavior infuriated her. She couldn't really blame the woman, but if she had to listen to more of this whining, Alphena was going to slap her just to shut her up.
"Syra," she said. "Go back to your cubby and stay there until morning. Go on, now!"
Florina took the other maid by the shoulders and turned her around, then shoved her out of Alphena's protective circle. The push wasn't brutal, but it was more forceful than necessary.
"Next," Alphena said, "where's Agrippinus? Oh, never mind, there's Callistus. Callistus, come here!"
Her mind had direction now. She was proceeding logically, with a feeling of relief because she was proceeding.
The deputy steward had just come from the office. He heard his name and looked around with an angry expression to see who was calling him.
Alphena waved imperiously. That might not have been sufficient, but a Po-Valley Gaul from her escort bellowed, "Callistus! Get your fat Syrian ass over here! Lady Alphena wants to talk to you!"