by Vox Day
Both the crowd and the stalls were on the sparse side, even for a chilly Martius afternoon, but there were musicians, food merchants with fresh meat roasting, and the aforementioned jongleur, who was effortlessly keeping three burning brands in the air. He winked at them as they approached, then caused them both to gasp in amazement as he extinguished one in his mouth while juggling the other two in his left hand. He bowed deeply as Carvilia tossed a silver coin in the wooden bucket at his feet, then threw one brand high in the air and reignited the second brand with the third one before returning to his earlier pattern.
“My goodness, could you believe that!” Severa said, glancing back at the slender young man.
“I don’t think I’d much like to kiss a man with a burned mouth.”
“Sextus can juggle.” Carvilia looked at her, surprised. “Well, not things on fire, of course, but he can keep five balls up. He does three knives sometimes, but I don’t like him to do that.”
“So you meant it literally, then, about him being a fool?”
“He’s not a fool!” Severa protested, only to draw an amused smirk from the older woman.
“I’m only teasing you, my dear. Do you see any fur merchants?”
“No, why?” Severa looked around the stalls. She saw men selling wool, she saw men selling cotton, and there was even one colorful, well-appointed stall where silk appeared to be on offer. She saw seamstresses and embroiderers, but she did not see anyone selling furs.
“I don’t either. I suppose most of the fur merchants were afraid to travel south after the provincials were sent home.” Carvilia made a face. “I thought someone would have gone north to find some, but apparently not.”
“If they did, it would probably cost more than you’d want to pay,” Severa pointed out.
“There is that. Come, let’s see if we can find some roasted chestnuts. I thought I smelled them. Over there.”
They made their way past the thinly trafficked stalls. Severa wondered aloud why there weren’t more people about. She saw one old woman bickering with a young man over the price of a bag of onions, but that was the only transaction taking place nearby.
“I imagine most of the plebs will be saving whatever coin they can to buy supplies. If there is a siege, everyone will want to be well-stocked. Galerus has been preparing for weeks. I was helping him count the jars of oil just yesterday. Look, the only stalls doing much business are those selling fresh food and firewood or stores that will keep.”
“I never thought about that.”
“It’s not your concern, little sister. And besides, I very much doubt we will ever see a rebel army in sight of our walls. The provincials want to be free to go their own way, they don’t want to conquer us. We’re hardly helpless. Even if half our legions have gone over to one league or another, we still have more men at arms than any other city or province and that doesn’t count the six new ones the Senate has formed. They could probably raise another ten or twenty if they wanted.”
“I suppose we won’t be going to Vallyria this summer.”
“No, and that worries me more than a siege,” Carvilia said soberly as she looked for the source of the aroma. “Ah, there it is. The air here is unhealthy in the summer and I don’t want to risk Titus or Publius catching the Sextilian ague. But if this isn’t all settled by then, we may not have a choice.”
Severa pointed in the general direction of the Severan estate, which until the New Year had belonged to her father. At such a distance, the house itself was not visible, but the Quinctiline, the great hill atop which the villa sat, was in view. “I can speak to my mother. She is very lonely, I think, since… since my marriage. And I think she would not mind having a young one or two around the place. She often laments how quickly my sister is growing and it would give Severilla some little friends with whom she could play.”
Carvilia looked skeptical. “Your father may have married you off to House Valerius, but I can’t believe your brother, or your uncle, would give refuge to Valerian women and children. Especially since thanks to our beloved father-in-law, people have been calling us House Varietas.”
“So? Aulan is with Magnus, after all. House Valerius isn’t the only House Martial under suspicion. There is still no word of Fulgetra. I don’t see that either Regulus or uncle Pullus are inclined to object, or even notice, if a few more women and children happen to be around. They won’t abide our husbands, but then, I suppose Sextus and Potitus will be with the legions.” She paused for a moment. “So will Regulus and Pullus, for that matter.”
“Aulan is only a tribune and for all we know, Magnus is holding him as a hostage.” Carvilia shrugged. “It’s a thoughtful offer, little sister, and one that I would certainly be happy to accept if you can talk your brother into it. But I’m going to hope this will blow over before Sextilius and we can spend it in Vallyria.”
Severa didn’t see how that was possible, but she wasn’t disposed to argue about it. They’d spent hours, probably days, over the last three months in anxious discussions about what the Senate, or Magnus, or the Marruvian League, or the Utruccan League might do, and none of it had accomplished anything except to frighten her more. She put out her hand as Carvilia reached out to take a second bag of chestnuts from the vendor.
“I only want one or two. You don’t need to buy two bags.”
“Pompilia will want some.”
“They’ll be cold by the time we get home.”
Carvilia bought the second bag anyhow. It wasn’t as if they would go to waste; even if Pompilia didn’t want them, one of the slave boys would. She took one from the proffered bag and cupped it in her palms, enjoying the warmth that radiated from the roasted nut. But as she peeled the hard, cracked covering off to expose the meat of the nut underneath, she noticed an old woman staring fixedly at her.
There was something about the woman that bothered her, something malicious, even though her expression was benign. There was nothing remarkable about her other than her age. Her hair was long, grey and unkempt, her face was lined and sun-weathered, and she wore a stained brown cloak that was faded and showed signs of having once been red. Then the wind blew her hair back for a moment and Severa saw the three white studs that pierced her left ear. Three earrings. Three bones. One for the Maiden, one for the Mother, and one for the Crone.
Inadvertently, she found her hand rising to her own ear, where just a single ring ran through the lobe. So much had happened in the last four months that she had almost completely forgotten the promise she’d made to Saint Malachus, the woman in man’s garb, the pagan goddess who hid beneath the guise of an Immaculite saint. Severa had done her duty and she had fulfilled her promise, but Quinta Jul, the servant she’d been ordered to take into her father’s house, was gone. It seemed the woman had left her mother’s service not long after the fire that killed Valerius Corvus and the Sanctified Father, and since then, Severa had neither heard anything from the servants of the Goddess nor thought about them. She’d been too caught up in the circumstances of her father’s death and her subsequent marriage to Sextus to spare any thought for the fate of a servant in a house in which she no longer lived.
Having seen the flash of recognition in Severa’s eyes, the old woman smiled. Then she raised her left hand to her ear and deliberately tapped the bottom stud, followed by the middle one. After which, she nodded significantly and turned away, disappearing behind a row of stalls.
Severa gasped. The woman had touched the second earring. The Mother! She placed both hands on her belly. It was flat, there was no sign of any life growing within it. Was the woman telling her that she was going to be a mother? Was the woman telling her she was already pregnant? Or was it something more ominous, something darker. What did she mean by the gesture? She started to move forward, thinking to pursue the woman and demand answers from her, but Carvilia caught her arm.
“Severa! Where do you think you’re going?”
Severa pointed in the direction of the stalls. “Did you see
her? Did you see that old woman?”
Carvilia shook her head. She had, Severa noticed, only a single earring in either ear, and more importantly, both were gold. “What old woman? I can see a dozen of them.”
“The one in the brown cloak!” Severa looked to their two guards, but Durus was still engaged in negotiations with a young woman over an iron belt-clasp and Magnus Tertius was entirely absorbed with staring at the young woman, whose wind-burned face was rather pretty. She didn’t need to ask to know that they hadn’t seen the old woman either.
“Let’s go home,” she said abruptly, drawing a look of surprise from her sister-in-law. “There’s next to nothing here, and I have to talk to Sextus.”
“Is something wrong?” Carvilia asked, more bewildered than worried.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” Severa told her. But she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wasn’t lying. She didn’t know what the follower of Saint Malachus intended by her reference to the Mother, but she didn’t like the woman’s indication that their goddess held some kind of claim to her. She ran her hand over her belly again. Was there perhaps a faint swelling there? Surely she would know if she was pregnant!
Frowning, she took Carvilia’s arm as they began the journey home. But even as they walked, she couldn’t help surreptitiously squeezing and poking at her stomach with her free hand.
Aulan
Aulan had perfect faith in the eight knights who had come with him from Fulgetra. They were hard-bitten killers who had proven themselves on the battlefield and in the streets of Amorr too. There wasn’t an order he could give them that they would hesitate to obey. He was considerably less confident in the two Valerian turmae he was presently commanding, especially in light of the way in which the senior decurions had the irritating habit of falling silent every time he approached them.
He shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it. The men weren’t about to abandon a lifetime of regarding House Severus as the enemy overnight, and as the only Severan of his generation with genuine Valerian blood on his hands, he was probably not the man best suited to try winning them over. He would have to trust in the famed Valerian discipline to keep them from running him through with a lance in the back. Fortunately, they all seemed to look on Magnus as some sort of martial demigod, so the fact that the Magister Militum had named him the senior tribune for Legio XV and assigned him the tattered remnants of its horse gave him at least a modicum of credibility.
The sixty knights in the two turmae now accompanying him represented most of the legion’s remaining horse. Legio XV’s cavalry had taken heavy casualties in the Battle of the Three Legions, thanks to Magnus’s unexpected use of a feigned retreat that led them directly onto Legio VII’s pikes. One of Aulan’s appointed tasks was to rebuild it, but that was difficult in a province wracked by the upheaval of rebellion, where every city and village was uncertain as to whose side to take. He had managed to commandeer twenty-four horses to date, but was yet to find a single equestrian capable of sitting one properly. The natural difficulty of the circumstances was compounded by the fact that they were in House Valerius’s home province of Vallyria, and the Vallyrians were generally famed for the toughness of their infantry, not seats of their horsemen.
He could, of course, simply draft a few likely-looking farmboys, but it would take weeks before he could trust them not to fall off their mounts, and months before they would be even remotely useful in combat. Considering how Magnus had them escorting him from one village to another on an almost daily basis, he favored quality over quantity at present. Speed was of the essence and new riders would only slow them down. Moreover, he had the conventional patrician’s distaste for elevating men beyond their natural station. And, he knew, his men shared it. Equestrians were even more fiercely proud of their status than patricians and the other knights would never truly accept new knights created by circumstance rather than birth.
“Lucarus!” he called out to the one decurion he could trust. “Any sign of them?”
The decurion shook his head. He was unmounted and standing atop a hill that overlooked the path into Cernobus, a prosperous Vallyrian village of about eight thousand, whose elders Magnus was attempting to win over to his cause. Magnus was in the village now, accompanied by one of the tribunes and six knights, two of whom were from a nearby village and acquainted with the influential families here, if not necessarily the elders themselves.
There was apparently some question about whether the loyalties of the villagers were with Amorr or House Valerius, specifically, House Valerius in the form of Valerius Magnus. One of the village elders was said to be a particularly slippery man, and since the invitation had come from him, Magnus was more than a little suspicious that the meeting was a trap. So, Aulan and his two turmae were waiting within sight of the village square where the elders were receiving Magnus. They were also in a position to intercept any troops being sent from Trivicum, which was believed to be still holding firm for Amorr.
There were no full legions stationed in Trivicum, so any troops arriving would almost surely be mounted, and there would likely be no more than a decuria or two at most. They were running no serious risks in Aulan’s opinion; as far as he was concerned the only question would be the way in which Magnus would react to any treachery. Would he order the elders slaughtered and the town burned to the ground? Or would he be magnanimous? It was the sort of situation to which his father had always encouraged him to pay close attention, as these were circumstances that granted one rare insight into a man’s character.
Magnus would want to set an example, Aulan guessed. But burning the town would be going too far for the man who intended to make himself King of Vallyria, even a rebel who had once been called Veheminus. Killing the elders and taking a few hostages from their families would provide a sufficient warning to other villages that thought to play him false as well as dissuade the villagers from further disloyalties.
“Tribune!” one of the knights pointed to Lucarus, who was looking back at him and beckoning. “The decurion wants you.”
Aulan nodded, slid from his horse, and handed its reins to Rufus, the knight to his left. His legs protested as he trudged up the hill; they were tight and could have used some stretching out before being forced to attempt the moderately steep slope. He was breathing hard by the time he approached the summit, but fortunately it was cool and the late afternoon sun was behind him rather than shining in his eyes.
Lucarus was a short, burly man who looked more suited to tavern brawls than battlefields. His eyes were small and deep-set, but there was nothing wrong with them as he squinted towards the east and the faint signs of motion in the distance.
“Looks like the Valerian weren’t being so skittish after all,” he said.
“How many do you think?”
“Not so many. Ten, mebbe twelve. It’s hard to say. The road is muddy, so they ain’t kicking up no dust.”
“Anything less than a turma isn’t a problem.” Aulan spat, feeling irritated. “Dammit! I was hoping we’d get out of here without any nonsense!”
“How do you want to play it? Hit them when they ride past or go out and meet them?”
“I don’t want to risk any horses. Who knows, maybe we can even convince them to change sides.” Aulan glanced back to Cernobus and considered the terrain. He pointed to a tree near a bend in the road in the direction of the town. “I’ll take Marinus and his turma to await them there. You wait with Marcus Possidius and his men, then ride out from behind the hill as soon as they pass. I aim to capture them, not kill them. We need information, and if we go riding into town with their heads the Cernobians will deny knowing anything about them.”
Lucarus nodded. “Right. You’ll give us a sign if you want us to attack?”
“I doubt that will be necessary.” Aulan grinned contemptuously. “If they try to break north, you and Possidius ride them down. Try to keep at least one alive, though.”
The shorter man nodded and the two of them began
to make their way down the hill. The grass was wet and green with spring, and both of them nearly slipped, but they made it to the bottom without serious incident and went their separate ways. Aulan mounted his horse, took the reins from Rufus, and summoned Titus Marinus. The senior decurion obediently urged his big bay over with a resigned expression on his face, but at least there was no insubordination in his voice as he awaited orders.
“Tribune?”
“It appears the Magister’s doubts about the good faith of the villagers was well-founded. A squadron of horse is on its way towards the village. You and your men will come with me and we will await them in the road. Marcus Possidius will ride out behind them and block their retreat. Everyone is to keep his sword sheathed. The Magister will want to question them.”
“Sir!” Marinus’s expression became more lively and he thumped his breastplate in a salute that was almost enthusiastic. He wheeled around to give orders to the three decurions who commanded the individual squadrons and Aulan found himself musing on the observation that discipline was a damned sight more useful than affection. In a matter of moments, the turma was neatly arrayed facing east and waiting for him to take the lead.
They rode slowly out along the base of the hill and onto the road, continuing about one hundred paces until they reached the spot he had indicated to Lucarus. Marinus barked out a command and the turma smoothly executed a revolution that left Aulan and the decurions facing west. The knights were bored and eager for anything that would break the tedium. Aulan could feel it, and he hoped the decurion in command of the enemy squadron wouldn’t do anything foolish. In such a state, it would be harder to rein the men in than to stop an unleashed dog that scared up a rabbit, discipline be damned.
It didn’t take long before they heard the muted clip-clopping of horses trotting toward them. Fortunately, the wind was in their faces, so it was their horses that caught the scent of the newcomers and began to whicker and toss their heads. Aulan could tell the moment the first rider spotted them blocking the road, as the man immediately pulled up and the squadron behind him came to an immediate halt.