A Sea of Skulls (Arts of Dark and Light Book 2)

by Vox Day

  But in the new year, Torquatus had been replaced as Consul Civitas by M. Andronicus Declama and Valerius Corvus was dead, burned by the same mysterious flames that had devoured the Sanctified Father. While both Declama and his surviving colleague, the Consul Provincae, Appuleius Pansa, had served in the legions as tribunes in their youth, neither had ever commanded so much as a single cohort in battle. With one of Amorr’s best generals dead and the other a traitor, the Senate found itself lacking both military and spiritual guidance at the very time when it needed it most.

  Mad rumors swept through the city, reaching even to the domus where Severa lived despite her relative seclusion. She spent most of her day helping her sisters-in-law care for Sextus’s mother, who had been rendered distraught to the point of near madness following the revelation of her husband’s treachery and the arrest of her sons. She felt no real sense of duty to her mother-in-law, whose gaunt cheeks and white-streaked hair gave her the appearance of a woman ten years older than she was, but found that she preferred reading to the grief-stricken woman rather than endure the looks and whispers that followed her about on the days she went out in public.

  It wasn’t that she was ashamed to be the wife of Sextus Valerius. She was, somewhat to her astonishment, proud to bear his name, for all that their Houses had been rivals for centuries. It wasn’t as if House Severus was in any better odor, thanks to its own missing legions and her father’s ill-conceived attempt to make himself King of Amorr. But the first time she walked through the Starsday market and heard a plebian woman hiss “Valerius Perfidus” behind her, it was all she could do to stop herself from seizing one of the knives being offered for sale in a nearby stall and plunging it into the woman’s stomach.

  She was confident that if the city managed to survive what some were calling “The War of the Three Leagues” and others “The Allied War”, Sextus Valerius would win an honorable agnomen for himself. But in the meantime, she’d be damned before she’d listen to anyone try to tar her husband with his father’s treacherous deeds.

  Some of the rumors were more nonsensical than others. By far the most pernicious were religious in nature. If the loss of His Sanctified Holiness Charity IV had hit the city hard, the fiery death of his successor, His Sanctified Holiness Pelagianus, along with the still-unexplained murders of six princes of the Church while gathered in Holy Conclave, had the more devout among the populace in a state of near-terror.

  “It’s a sign, it’s a sign,” a weeping kitchen slave told her one day as Severa helped her make bread one morning. “The Unholy Father is coming. Blaesia said the six Celestials and two sanctiffs stand for the Twelve Black Apostles! They have the black skin of a burned man and eyes like those of a cat! And they will have tongues like snakes and the souls of everyone who hears them speak will be tarred forever and rejected by the Immaculate on the day they stand before the White Throne!”

  She let out a wail of heartfelt dismay. Severa frowned and kneaded her dough.

  “Six and two is eight,” she observed. “Not twelve.”

  The woman abruptly ceased her wailing, puzzled. “No, it’s not.” She was an older woman, of an indeterminate middle age, and was named Julipora after Julia, Sextus’s mother, to whom she was entirely devoted.

  “Six multiplied by two is twelve,” said Carvilia, one of Severa’s sisters-in-law, who had entered the kitchen unannounced. She was tall, pretty, and supercilious. Unlike the other two women whose husbands were imprisoned, she was never seen to shed a tear or publicly lament her fate. She had borne Magnus two grandsons, which she seemed to feel granted her a certain status in the family that Caerilla and Pompilia, both of whom had born only daughters, lacked.

  Severa shot Carvilia an annoyed look as the realization was enough to set Julipora off weeping again and babbling about how the hellfire in the palace had been the devil’s retribution for the Lord Corvus’s kinslaying. She sighed and shook her head, which proceeded to cause half her loosely bound black curls to escape the comb she’d employed to keep them out of her way while she was occupied in the kitchen.

  “Will you do something about that?” Severa demanded, inclining her head towards Carvilia. “My hands are covered with flour.”

  The older woman’s long fingers withdrew the ivory comb and expertly twisted her hair about, pulling her head slightly this way and that, before sinking the comb back into place.

  “There,” she said. “When you’re done with the bread, I was thinking of walking to the Forum. The sun is out and it’s not very cold today.”

  “I was going to read to Mama Julia.” Severa wasn’t keen on the notion of leaving the domus, but she did enjoy talking with Carvilia without Caerilla and Pompilia around. Caerilla was quiet and mousy by nature and Pompilia couldn’t open her mouth without fretting about her husband.

  “I’ll tell Pompilia to do it instead. I want company.”

  Severa nodded, seeing that the decision had been made for her, and returned her attention to the dough, working it savagely with her hands. The task at hand sufficiently distracted Julipora to allow the slave to get herself under control, and she surveyed the dough before nodding her approval at Severa. With some relief, Severa decided to interpret the woman’s gesture as a dismissal, and after dipping her hands in a large clay jar of water, she dried them and went to her room to change her clothes for the market.

  She had barely changed into a wool dress when Carvilia appeared, wearing one fur cape made of wolf pelts and bearing another over her arm.

  “You’re a Valerian now,” her sister-in-law announced. “Wear this. Julia won’t mind. She’s barely left her bed today.”

  Severa slipped it over her shoulders. The fur was thick and grey, so dark that it was nearly black. It was heavy, nearly twice as heavy as the fox-fur cape her father had given her the previous winter, and she expected that it would be somewhat warmer as well. The clasp was silver, and worked in the form of an ornate letter V.

  “How does it look?” she asked, twirling in a circle.

  Carvilia nodded approvingly. “It will serve.”

  “Will Marcipor come with us?”

  “No,” Carvilia said with a distinct expression of distaste on her long, narrow face. She could not abide Severa’s husband’s handsome bodyslave. “He’s with Sextus. Galerus has said we can have Magnus Tertius and Durus for escorts.”

  Severa nodded. There was no fear of either of those two embarrassing them by behaving in a manner that did not become their station. Magnus Tertius was mute and Durus had a red face like a slab of beef. But they were big strong men, and she and Carvilia would be safe in their company.

  The two slaves were waiting for them just outside the front door, receiving instructions from Galerus, the slave who ran the household. The majordomus was a small, spare man, who still refused to hear a word of criticism directed at his master. Not even Sextus, who publicly disavowed Magnus every chance he got, dared to mention his father in front of the stubbornly loyal slave. It was indeed remarkable, Severa thought, that the little Orontine should prove so firmly devoted to such a faithless man.

  Both Magnus and her own father, Patronus, had betrayed the Senate and People. Both men were senators of impeccable patrician birth, and yet the two ex-consuls were shamed by the honor shown by this petty slave. The knowledge stung her, especially in light of how her own brother had followed Magnus into treason. It made her all the prouder of her husband, and all the more determined that Sextus would erase the shadow that her father and her brother had cast upon her and upon House Severus. And yet, there was nothing that she could do about the latter, and there was very little she could do about the former except throw herself into wholeheartedly encouraging Sextus to restore the city’s confidence in him and her new House.

  And if that meant he had to personally evict every last non-citizen from the city, then she would help him find the strength to do it.

  “If anyone is disrespectful to the ladies, you’ll shut their mouths, do you understand?
” Galerus finished his instructions to the two slaves, both of whom were wearing leather armor and carrying long wooden staves with iron caps on either end.

  Carvilia raised a skeptical eyebrow at the glowering majordomus, nearly provoking an untimely giggle from Severa. If it was left up to Galerus, bad-mouthing a Valerian would be a crime that merited being thrown to starving orcs in the arena. The little man seemed to forget, or simply ignore, that Carvilia and the other women were only Valerians by marriage, and didn’t possess the stiff necks and self-conscious dignity for which House Valerius was known.

  They passed through the gates, which at this time of day were unguarded, turned left, and began to walk towards the Forum. The spring wind was brisk, but the sun shone brilliantly through gaps in the thick mass of innocuous white clouds. There was little traffic on the bricked road, but as they rounded a curve one could see mule-wagons carting heavy loads of bricks to the Portus Antica, the city’s older port. The new port stood outside the city walls and was indefensible, so the Senate had decided to fortify its predecessor in the event one of the Utruccan leagues managed to build a navy capable of threatening Amorr by sea.

  As she surveyed the people moving below, her heart recognized a tall, armored shape before her mind did. Or perhaps it was simply the familiar way the man was walking. She felt her heart skip a beat, and leap at the sight of a helmeted officer striding purposefully in their direction. He was followed by a small troop of armored soldiers.

  “Isn’t that–” Carvilia asked her.

  “It is!” Severa said as she waved excitedly at her handsome young husband. “I wonder why he’s coming back already.”

  Most days, Sextus didn’t return to the domus until after nightfall. For a moment, she worried that something had gone terribly wrong. But as he drew closer, she could see that behind the iron cheekpads that covered the sides of his face, his eyes were bright.

  She went to embrace him, but a faint shake of his head and the way his eyes flicked back in the direction of his men warned her off. Instead, she made him a formal little bow.

  “Tribune Valerius,” she greeted him. “Salve!”

  “Salvete, Ladies Valerius,” he replied, graciously including Carvilia. His blue horsehair plume added nearly a head to his height, giving the impression that he was towering over both of them. His teeth flashed whitely in a broad smile. “I am delighted to encounter you here, seeing as I am the bearer of good news!”

  “Have you word of my husband?” Carvilia couldn’t stop herself from clutching at Sextus’s hands. “Oh, has the Senate released him?”

  “Not yet,” he told her. “But I am confident they will so very soon. I come directly from speaking with Titus Manlius. He met with the consuls this morning, and among the subjects they discussed were my brothers.”

  “Manlius Torquatus, the ex-consul?” Severa asked him. She sometimes found it hard to keep straight all of the various officials with whom her husband was dealing. She wondered how her mother had done it for so many years.

  “The same,” Sextus confirmed. “The Senate has been having some trouble finding anyone to command Legios XXXV and XXXVI. Last week, I went to Torquatus and pointed out that there are three excellent veteran officers from Amorr’s greatest military family who are spending their days idle at the Senate’s expense. Even if the senators are reluctant to trust them to lead the legions against the rebels in battle, I failed to see why they shouldn’t prove rather useful in whipping the slaves and gladiators into shape.”

  “Did Torquatus agree?” Carvilia asked anxiously.

  “Did he agree?” Sextus chuckled heartily. “He cursed himself for not having thought of it himself! Your husband and Volesus both served under Magnus as laticlavii. They have more battle experience than half the generals in the Senate. And Tertius was one of Saturnius’s tribunes, and Torquatus knew very well how much Marcus Saturnius demanded of his tribunes!”

  The women were silent. Torquatus wasn’t the only one to know it. Both of them had sat with Julia through the dark hours of the night, holding her as she wept for Fortex, her murdered son. Severa had never met her late brother-in-law, but his ghost was a palpable presence in the Valerian domus. Corvus had publicly claimed responsibility for his nephew’s execution before his own death, but Julia remained convinced that Marcus Saturnius, the late legate of Legio XVII, was truly to blame.

  “When can I see Potitus?” Carvilia’s customary reserve seemed to have been shattered by the news that her husband might be released. “Is he well?”

  Severa eyed her husband warily. Even after only three months of marriage, she knew him too well to believe that his apparent high spirits were solely the result of his brothers’ pending release. “And what of you?” she asked him.

  “Me?” His expression suddenly went suspiciously blank. “Well, nothing has been settled yet, of course.”

  “Sextus!”

  He laughed and grinned at her like a mischievous boy caught stealing sweets. “Torquatus says I will be tribune laticlavius for Legio XXXV!”

  Severa nodded and forced herself to smile back at him, even though the news caused a cold hand of dread to squeeze her heart. These damned Valerians! All they ever seemed to think about was war! It was as if they were fish and battle was the sea in which they existed only to swim. Her idiot husband would have been delighted with the duty he found so onerous if only the strangers he was sent to expel had been armed and permitted to attack him on sight.

  “That’s wonderful news, Sextus!” Yes, wonderful indeed, she thought bitterly. Her husband was going to be the second-in-command of a legion made up of untrained slaves and criminal scum, men who were bound to be put in the front of the fighting and expected to provide the lion’s share of the corpses. She didn’t need to know anything about war to know that for a certainty. As the daughter of Severus Patronus, she knew very well how the pitiless minds of the men who ruled the Senate worked. “Perhaps you and your brothers will even have the chance to face your father in battle.”

  “We can hope,” Sextus said, completely missing her sarcasm. She wanted to strangle him.

  Instead, she smiled sweetly and pulled at Carvilia’s hand. “You must go to the domus at once, my dear. Caerilla and Pompilia will be ever so excited to hear the good news.”

  He nodded and took her hands in his. Even though she was still furious with him, or Torquatus, or someone, anyhow, she felt a warmth flood the length of her body. His lips twitched as he bowed in mock formality. “I shall look forward to our next encounter, Lady Valerius.”

  “As shall I, Lord Tribune Valerius.” Despite her irritation, butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of seeing him, alone and unarmored, and she cursed her treacherous body. “I wish you a pleasant afternoon, my lord.”

  He released her and she stepped aside to permit his men to continue their march towards her new home. At least her sisters-in-law would be pleased to know their husbands were to be spared the strangler’s hands or the fatal fall from the Rock of Kings. She watched as they walked past her, their iron-studded sandals clattering against the bricks. How long would it be before Sextus would be facing ten or even twenty thousand of such men, trained for years, experienced in battle, and led by accomplished generals like his father?

  “Don’t be so worried, little sister.” Carvilia took her arm and turned her back towards the Forum. “You’ve known he would go to battle since he declared for the tribunate. You should be pleased that he’ll be serving as laticlavius. That way, he’ll be safe with the legate in the command post rather than riding into danger with the knights.”

  “He’s a fool and an idiot!” she burst out. “What if he gets himself killed?”

  “They all are, darling. That’s why God made us, to make sure someone remembered to feed the children. Do you know, once Potitus took little Titus out to the stables to show him the horses. I saw him in the domus later and I asked him where Titus was. He turned white! He’d completely forgotten him!”
r />   “But Titus wasn’t hurt.”

  “Not in the slightest. Two of the stable slaves were playing with him and letting him ride on their shoulders. He was having a wonderful time.”

  “How is that supposed to reassure me?”

  “I suppose it isn’t,” Carvilia admitted. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry, little sister, but you have no idea how terrified I have been that Potitus would be killed or exiled by the Senate. And then to hear that he’s going to be released?”

  Severa nodded and gave her sister-in-law’s arm a little squeeze. As much as the thought of Sextus going into battle frightened her, it would be weeks, if not months, before the rebels would dare to even think about moving on Amorr. If there was confusion in the city about who was in rebellion and who was not, how much more must there be in the provinces and the other cities? And Carvilia was right, there was no safer place in battle than the one right next to the legate, with six thousand armed men to stand between Sextus and the enemy.

  “I’m happy for you. And for Pompilia and Caerilla too. Maybe it will be good for Mama Julia too.”

  “Maybe,” Carvilia said dubiously. Her face brightened and she pointed at the merchant stalls they were approaching. “Oh, look, they have a jongleur!”