by S. J. Ryan
Economy of Scarcity, he thought. He had learned about it in school, but this was the first time the very words caused him to shudder.
“How many people would you say live there?” Matt asked.
“Approximately two hundred thousand,” Ivan said.
“I would have thought more.”
“If one were to make a simple extrapolation of rooms per building, buildings per street, average length of street, and number of streets, the number would be much higher. However, many of the buildings show no sign of occupation.”
“Well, maybe they have plagues of their own.”
The events of the past days caused an angry thought to flash: I wish they would all die of plague. But he knew that even if there were a way to infect only Romans, he couldn't actually bring himself to do it. He was too much a product of twenty-second century ethics. But as he looked upon the hold of his fellow slaves, he wondered if having higher ethics was a burden he could afford to keep on this world if he stayed much longer.
He returned his focus to satellite view. The Bay of Rome was packed with ships. And soon, Matt thought, theirs would be one more to deliver tribute before the home of the masters of this world.
He hoped once more that Carrot was all right, but already he was finding himself more preoccupied with his own fate.
19.
Having returned from the scene of the non-battle and shed the appearance of both Boudica and bird, Inoldia spent the day on the waterfront of Londa, watching the loading of prisoners onto the ships. Valarion had assigned her a captain and a guard, and no one challenged her as she passed among the chains, sniffing at clothing and pressing her hands to faces.
"The orange-haired girl!" she demanded. "What did you see of her!"
No one seemed to know at first. Then she did the old standby: lifted a prisoner by his throat and choked him with his feet dangling, and then let him collapse. Suddenly, there were all kinds of stories. They contradicted, and Inoldia realized that the men were saying anything to stay alive. She remembered the high priestess had once admonished her to use torture with discretion. It was not the magic road to revelation that one might think.
Yet she had exhausted almost every other avenue of gaining knowledge. In the days since the battle, she had picked through the bodies strewn on the battlefield. She had flown above the southwest Lowlands in widening circles. She had been at the gate of the town, and now she was at the waterfront.
She saw no orange hair and smelled no woman, but that either meant the girl had the power to transform herself, or more likely, had simply evaded the legions and was somewhere at large.
On her way back to the imperial residence, Inoldia passed an alley where a group of soldiers were playing dice over the scant belongings of the prisoners – bracelets, necklaces, personally knit scarves, and robes of solid and patchwork patterns. One particular piece of clothing caught her fancy.
It was an iridescent blue garb that covered the entire body and had no seams. The dirt that had gathered while it was on the ground easily shook off and it was then spotless. It had some sort of device like a clasp in front which could be pulled up and down to split the front from collar to waist. There was a tiny picture above the right chest, a rendering of one of the symbols of the ancients of a sprouting seed against the stars, and beneath that some markings in written language that the baselines used.
Obviously it was not of Britanian manufacture, nor had she seen anything like it in Rome. There were rumors, though, of civilized lands on the far side of the world – so perhaps it came from there.
“Where did you get this thing?” she demanded of the wearer.
The soldier knew who she was, and more than that, had witnessed what she could do. So he was more than accommodating, “I gained it from a prisoner, ma'am. He's already been to the boats, so I can't point him out. Did you want it for your own? I'll give it to you, free.”
Inoldia considered taking it to cut into a scarf, but then caught the reeking odor of its previous owner. Baseline male, young adult – and insipidly sweet. Perhaps Matlid could wash the stench out, but the memory would always be with her.
“I have no use for it,” she said. Stupid color anyway!
She then sniffed the other items. Here and there she smelled Female, but the many articles of clothing would have been woven by female hands, and so it meant nothing as to who wore it on the battlefield. What did the girl smell like anyway? The scent had been distinctive once, but ten years had passed and there had been lots of assassinations since. Curse the wind for blowing the wrong way, else the girl would not have known!
Frustration turned to anger, she outpaced her escort and stormed through the town. At the imperial residence, the gatekeepers gave her no challenge. There was a stupid fresh recruit at the main house who demanded credentials, but she threw him aside. Technically, she was creating a huge gap in Roman security, because the guards were being conditioned to instantly let pass any woman disguised as her. But Inoldia didn't think of that and none of the sentries were brave enough to admonish her.
Up the stairs and into the office, she encountered Bivera, who was hunched over a map with a pair of calipers.
Without looking from the table, Bivera said, "The squad that you had me dispatch to the Westlands has returned. They report that they did not encounter any rebel patrols. Do you wish to speak to the captain?"
"Yes," Inoldia said, as she examined herself in the mirror. The crown had been lost in the tumult, and the robe, once so regal, was ripped and dirty. No matter, she thought. I am done with Boudica.
Bivera had the captain summoned. At Inoldia's prompting, he opened his mouth to speak. But before a word could emerge, Inoldia simply said:
"Lying man!"
Her arm swung with blinding speed and her hand, its edge become knifelike, decapitated the captain's head which rolled a trail of blood across the exquisite Parsian rug that had been a personal gift to the Governor from the Emperor.
Bivera betrayed only a blink, then summoned servants. Nearly retching, they quietly rolled the body and head into the ruined rug and carried it downstairs. Inoldia turned to the mirror and started to primp.
“You should have listened to his report,” Bivera said. “It told of a wizard in the west who is able to cure the Plague.”
“I care nothing for fables.”
“It may not have been a fable. We've seen no deaths from the Plague for some time now. Those who were sick are fully recovered.”
That was news of interest to Inoldia, but she wasn't about to admit to she had made a mistake in killing the captain. Baselines, after all, had to be kept in their place, and dramatic gestures of violence were how it was done. So she declined further query and replied, “You need to be aware that finding the girl is your highest task.”
“You've given us so little to go on. She is the age between girl and woman. Her hair is sometimes orange, and sometimes not. The 'not part' applies to a million women in Britan.”
“Then slay them all.”
Bivera bowed. “As you wish. Of course, long before we are finished our carnage will create an uprising that every Britanian will join, and drive us back to Rome. And it is likely the girl would still elude us.”
“Are you mocking me?”
Bivera bowed. “I seek only to serve. Do your orders stand?”
Inoldia scowled. Life had been so much simpler as an assassin! Now the Council had given her political responsibilities, where extreme actions often had unintended consequences. But if she intended someday to sit in a chair of the Council, she had to use caution.
“Continue hunting for the girl as before. Do not underestimate her.”
“That is something the captain would have agreed about. I take it she is like you in her abilities and powers?”
“No one in the world is like me. But she seems to be more than you can handle.”
Inoldia crossed the bare floor and ascended the steps to the roof, thinking, I really don't know what
she is like now.
The day Inoldia had assassinated the girl's mother, the girl had seemed nothing more than a half-breed baseline. So frail and lacking in strength. A few slashes, and she had fallen and stopped breathing and Inoldia had assumed from the blood loss that she was dead. But she had survived, and recovered, and had grown in power. Even the High Priestess, so Inoldia suspected, wasn't sure of what were the limits of power for this alternative line.
Inoldia reached the roof. As the top of the governor's mansion, the deck had a commanding view of the entire town. Inoldia saw some of the soldiers and commoners stop to stare as she shed her clothing, but she didn't care. The games of masquerade were over here. Let them know what they faced.
She knelt and concentrated. She willed her shoulders to grow stumps, that stretched into limbs, that extended into thin membranes. Excess weight dripped from her skin. When she was light enough and fully formed, she spread her wings into the breeze from the bay. She sprinted to the edge of the roof and leaped and with strong flapping, left the stench of the human town well below.
She veered northwest, rising with the updrafts off the Highland Mountains, and then she caught the heat column from the simmering caldera of Mount Skawful, and ascended high over the Northlands. In the distance, on her left, she saw North Umbrick, and thought again of the day she had carried out her most important assignment in a century as the Sisters' chief assassin.
She thought, I was thorough. Completely thorough! The mother died from the wounds I inflicted, and the girl was given the same. Perhaps this orange-haired warrior is merely a baseline, or a partial. When I saw her on the field, the wind was contrary so I did not catch her scent, and then the star fell, or else I could have made sure . . . .
She would have to come up with some excuse to avoid the punishment of the High Priestess, and it would have to be a good one.
At five times the speed of any Roman ship, she glided east, and within hours spotted the imperial fleet. She dipped from the clouds toward the flagship.
A lookout on the deck cried at her descent and a soldier swung the mounted crossbow but the captain of Valarion's bodyguard barked and they stood down. She alighted on the rear deck and knelt and the captain of the bodyguard, having seen the transformation many times before, commanded that she be draped in a robe. When she raised her head a few minutes later, he nodded, and she knew she looked faintly human again.
Valarion was in his cabin. He offered her a leg of a chicken. "Care for some?"
She was starved from the flight, but would not be mocked. She flicked the table aside.
Valarion nibbled at the grapes on the plate he had snatched just in time, but he was watching her with full attention now.
"You cow, how can you just sit there and eat?" she demanded. "Everything is ruined! EVERYTHING!"
"I don't see it that way," the general said. "The rebel army has been scattered. By the time they re-form, the Plague will have done its work. Which was our original plan all along."
“Haven't you heard? The Plague has ceased.”
“What? How can that be? Are you sure?”
“Bivera said so.”
“Then . . . well, it doesn't matter.”
“How can you think that? The Council will have my soul!” In spite of herself, she was barely concealing her tears. “The rebel army escaped annihilation. The Council will hold me fully responsible!”
"I doubt that. How could you have known that Archimedes would intervene?"
"Archi – " Her face openly expressed puzzlement. "How do you know of this?"
"I've spoken with the troops, who've interrogated the prisoners. It seems there are stories of a wizard about the land. It's a simple matter to connect the facts. Who do we know who is regarded as a wizard? And who hates us and would thwart our plans? And who could construct fireworks of such scale?"
"What . . . what are fireworks?"
"Really, you need to get off that little island of yours more often. Archimedes had a big display of fireworks over the Bay of Rome for the Emperor's birthday."
Valarion described. Inoldia couldn't tell whether he was jesting.
"So, you truly believe this was the doing of Archimedes?"
"A falling star lands between two armies as they are about to fight. Is that mere happenstance? And if it was contrived, how could the contriver be a Britanian, when every Britanian I've ever met has a mind fit only for the plow or shackle? Clearly, the wizard spoken of must have been Archimedes.”
“We left him in Rome. How can he travel faster than your fleet?”
“He takes care not to enter official races lest he upstage the vessels of Emperor and Senate, but it is said that his personal yacht incorporates secret designs that enable it to travel far faster than any other ship on the sea.”
Inoldia sat on one of the remaining chairs that she hadn't destroyed in her visits to the cabin, and said, “Yes, if Archimedes is to blame, they would understand how I might fail.”
“Now, Archimedes may have thought he has embarrassed us both, but isn't this incident something we can play to the good? As things have turned out, the Emperor will hear that the rebel army has been vanquished and I will be the hero of Rome."
"You didn't vanquish the rebels. They merely scattered. Escaped, in fact."
“That is one story, yes, but merely the true one and not the one I will tell in Rome. Now, as it happens, I gave orders to round up thousands of civilians in the Lowlands to be designated as prisoners captured in the battle. Far away in Rome, the Senate will know no better. All they will know is that where once there was an army of thousands, now there are thousands of prisoners, whom I will present to the Empire as a gift of slaves. And so I will be hailed a hero. And I will be careful to say that I couldn't have done it without you, my dear.”
“But when the rebel army regroups, won't the Senate know of the ruse?”
“Will the rebel army regroup? They no longer have Boudica as their leader. Perhaps they will take the falling star as a sign. And perhaps they've had their fill of battle now. But even if they do regroup, we'll simply say that it is a second uprising, and the Senate will call on their most experienced and successful field commander once more to put it down, and I am certain your Council will have the same attitude with regard to your valued service.”
Inoldia almost felt admiration for Valarion's guile. She admitted to herself that she had much to learn about political machinations, but she doubted could have done better in her choice of political puppet by which to advance her goals in Rome.
Valarion continued, “See also that Archimedes has revealed himself. True, there is no direct link of evidence between him and the star which fell on the battlefield, but in time the Senate and the Emperor will see that only one man could have been responsible. This could well be the end of him.”
“Isn't Archimedes the Emperor's friend?”
“Emperors trust no man as friend. If one ever did, he would be killed, and his 'friend' would be emperor in his stead. Hadron follows that logic, so there is no question that in time we can alienate Archimedes even from the Emperor.”
“We should not wait for that. We should kill him now.”
“There is a good reason why we shouldn't. A reason that will be of tremendous benefit to the Empire.”
“And what is that?”
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
She glared, but the smugness of his smile did not diminish.
“Besides,” he added, “I gather even the Sisters are afraid of Archimedes.”
“We fear no man!”
“If that is so, then when we near Rome, why don't you fly into his courtyard and decapitate him yourself?”
“Perhaps one day I will.”
“There is the old Roman saying, 'No time like the present.'”
Inoldia scowled and snatched the chicken leg and proceeded to gobble it down.
“Patience is needed,” Valarion said, wincing at the manifestation of her appetit
e. “His time is coming. But alienating him from the establishment will be difficult. Half the families in the Senate have had him as a tutor and think warmly of him.”
“You had him as your tutor, yet you are not warm to him.”
"And I will always be grateful that you rescued me from his prison of dry books and droning lectures.”
He bowed and Inoldia's attitude softened. But it had been a long time since they had been intimate, and she knew those days were over for both of them.
"I will be in my cabin," she said, arising. "Have a large meal brought. One other thing. If you find any young woman among the prisoners on any of your ships, inform me immediately.”
“Just guessing, but would this be the young woman whose hair is sometimes orange and sometimes not?”
So he knew. Of course, Bivera would have reported to him of Inoldia's orders, and his officers at the battle-that-was-not would have reported of the confrontation.
With only a slightly more serious expression, Valarion said, “If ever a young woman was in the care of Rome's Finest, she would be raped and killed by now.”
"I pity any who would try with this one."
"Inoldia, I saw how you stirred when I mentioned a warrior girl in the north a while back. I assume this is the same one. What is the story behind her?”
"Valarion, do not inquire into affairs above your station."
“I am within grasp of Seal and Full Purple, and yet you tell me there are things above my station?”
“So you do listen.”
As she departed, she gave the bare bone one last gnaw and tossed it on his lap.
20.
During the daytime, the slave ship's hold became stifling hot. The food was unpalatable and the water brackish. Sanitation consisted of clay pots pushed between rows. That is, when it consisted at all.
Some men died of exposure, others from shock. Matt healed the wounds of one man, but his patient never recovered and died a few days later. Ivan could not identify the cause of death, but Matt had seen the despair in the man's eyes.