by Chris Tookey
Wyrd shot a glance at Osprey. Was the magician thinking as Wyrd was, that if Honoria had been such a competent politician she might not have ended up exiled on a harpy-infested rock in the most distant corner of what once had been the empire? But Osprey’s face was inscrutable. He leaned forward, urging Honoria to reveal more of her history.
“What was your mother like in other ways?”
“Oh, she was tough,” said Honoria. “She always said that her earliest memory was of seeing her father, the great Theodosius, fall on his own sword – I believe she was five at the time. She viewed it through a crack in the door. Then when the Visigoths first attacked Rome in 408 – that’s thirteen years later, so she would have been around twenty years old – she was taken hostage and raped repeatedly over many days of imprisonment. She was only saved from death by a Visigoth chieftain called Athaulf, who took a fancy to her, had her abductors put to death and married her. She even had a son by him, though the boy died in infancy.”
“So, how did she return to Rome?”
“When Athaulf died, in 416, she was returned to her half-brother, my uncle Honorius, who married her off to my father, Constantius.”
“Did she mind?” asked Wyrd.
“I don’t think she cared that much. She always said that Athaulf was the love of her life. But she bore Constantius two children, so they must have tolerated each other to some extent.”
“Is your mother still alive?” asked Wyrd.
“No,” said Honoria. “She died a few years ago. But we hadn’t been on speaking terms for several months before that.”
“And – forgive me if I am being impertinent – why was that?” Osprey inquired.
Wyrd never forgot the Empress Honoria’s reply.
“If I remember right,” said Honoria, after a lengthy pause, “my mother never fully forgave me for attempting to murder my younger brother.”
16
Roman Scandals
In which Honoria becomes infatuated with Attila the Hun
“So,” said Osprey after a slight intake of breath, “would you care to tell me why, precisely, you did try to kill your younger brother?”
“Well, by the time he was grown up I could see that Valentinian wasn’t any good as an emperor,” replied Honoria, matter-of-factly. “He couldn’t even tidy his own room. He just lounged about all day.”
“How old was he?” asked Wyrd nervously. He himself wasn’t much good at tidying his room.
“Thirty, perhaps. No. Thirty-one,” said Honoria. “Quite old enough to know better. He was also into rough sex. With soldiers. I used to come home and find them pumping away at each other in the courtyard. One didn’t know where to look. I told him to do it in the privacy of his rooms, but he just laughed at me. Told me I was a prude.”
“So, you decided to murder him?” asked Osprey, at his most studiously non-judgmental.
Wyrd wondered if Osprey’s faith in the Roman Empire was being shaken at all seriously by Honoria’s salacious revelations. His certainly was.
“Not exactly,” said Honoria. “I persuaded my lover to do it. His name was Eugenius. He was the steward in charge of palace finances.”
“Did your plan succeed?” asked Wyrd.
“Of course not, Uther!” snapped Osprey. “Valentinian is still Emperor!”
“No, young man. Had my plan succeeded, I would not be sitting here now,” Honoria told Wyrd regretfully. “Poor Eugenius was a marvel at creative accountancy but not really cut out to be an assassin. The guards caught him trying to sneak poison into my brother’s bedtime drink, and cut his hands off. And then his head. I believe it was the removal of his head that killed him.”
She looked anxiously across at Wyrd, who had paused in mid-scribble.
“You are noting all this down, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” responded Wyrd. “I was just wondering if – sorry, perhaps it isn’t my place to be asking this, but… er, do you… did you feel… at all guilty?”
“No, not at all,” said Honoria, airily. “I never thought much of my brother, and he never cared for me. As I told you last night, I know he envied my looks. I think he would have liked to have been born a woman – except that then, of course, he wouldn’t have been able to be emperor.”
“Did your brother have any children?” asked Wyrd.
“Great heavens, no!” laughed the Empress. “That was hardly likely when he’d been had by half the soldiers in Rome! I hear, incidentally, that since I left Italia his tastes have broadened somewhat, to include large, black gladiators. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Sex for my brother had nothing whatsoever to do with having children.”
“Ahem,” said Osprey, unsure whether such lurid revelations were wholly appropriate in front of his young scribe. “Presumably your assassination plot had, er, repercussions.”
“Not at first. I denied all knowledge of the plot, of course, though my mother guessed the truth. She tried to marry me off to a boring old senator called Flavius Bassus Herculanus. I’m not sure if was a punishment or to keep me on the straight and narrow. Possibly both. So, it was really her fault that I wrote to Attila and asked him to marry me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Wyrd with a gulp, his pen poised in mid-air. “You did say Attila?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Attila the Hun?”
“Of course. Attila is not a common name. Do you wish me to spell it for you?”
“Oh, I know how to spell it,” said Wyrd, hurriedly.
“And how did you set about this… assignation?” inquired Osprey, with studied calm.
“First of all, I sent a message to him,” replied Honoria, “through Hyacinthus, one of my eunuchs. At that point – I’m talking about quite a few years ago – Attila was waging war in eastern Gaul, so I sent him my ring and a hand-written letter, and I offered to become his empress.”
“What did he say?”
“Attila said yes, of course. Unfortunately, though, my brother got to hear about it, and Hyacinthus was arrested, tortured until he told them everything and beheaded.”
“How horrible,” said Wyrd, wondering how many other men had lost their head over the Empress Honoria.
“It was mildly disconcerting,” admitted Honoria.
“I meant for him.”
“For Hyacinthus?” Honoria paused, as if she really hadn’t thought about that aspect of the matter before. “I suppose it was, but it was I who found myself in a tight corner. There I was, offering myself body and soul to Rome’s most notorious enemy and implicated in trying to assassinate my own brother.”
“So, why didn’t they execute you?” asked Wyrd.
“My brother wanted to, naturally. He even signed a decree to have me crucified, which I have to say I found a little unnecessary. A swift, clean death would have been far more appropriate for a lady of my rank. But my mother, who was dying at the time, persuaded him that crucifixion would create a scandal, not least among the Christians – who are touchy about these things, you know – so he agreed to exile me instead, to the outermost and least hospitable region of the known world. And here I am!”
“So,” said Osprey, “you never actually married Attila?”
“Unfortunately not. And now, of course, I never will. I was very sorry to hear a few years ago that he’d died. Peacefully in bed with a new young bride, I gather. At first I thought he must have been over-exerting himself, but apparently not. Who would have thought that someone like Attila would have been carried off by something as prosaic as a nosebleed!”
“You speak as though you knew him,” interrupted Wyrd. “But I thought you and he never met.”
“Oh we met, all right,” replied Honoria, with a reminiscent smile. “In fact, I ran away with him when I was twenty-two.”
“What?” cried Osprey.
“Before I
offered him my hand in marriage,” said the Empress. “Didn’t I mention that?”
“No,” said Osprey. “You didn’t.”
“The affair was hushed up, of course,” said Honoria. “It was considered conduct unbecoming for an empress. But I managed to spend a rapturous few weeks with him in his yurt.”
“Yurt?” inquired Wyrd.
“Tent,” explained Honoria. “A big one.”
“Oh,” said Wyrd.
“And what inspired you to run away with him?” asked Osprey.
“You wish me to be truthful?” asked the Empress.
“Please,” said Osprey.
“My experience of Romans was that they were lacking in skills of the kind one might wish for in the bedroom,” said Honoria. “Even my beloved steward Eugenius failed to be inventive in anything except accountancy. Then my mother suffered a fit of inebriation one night and told me that the only decent sex she had ever enjoyed was with Athaulf the Visigoth. So I thought I might follow in her footsteps and try having it off with a barbarian. And who was the leading barbarian of the age? Clearly, Attila the Hun. So, there you are!”
“And how did you find Attila?”
“Best lay I ever had,” she said, with a directness that made Wyrd concentrate furiously on his parchment. “He could keep it up for hour after hour after hour. We did it in every position and a couple of times on horseback. Amazingly versatile. Extraordinary swordsman – in every way.”
Wyrd stole a glance at Osprey.
“No, my lady,” said Osprey, blushing in a way that Wyrd had never seen him do before. “I mean, how did you set out to find him?”
“Oh, that! That wasn’t difficult. The Hun invaders made their whereabouts fairly obvious, with their arson, looting and whatnot. I simply gave myself up to them and said ‘Take me to your leader!’”
“And they did?”
“I flatter myself that even now I’m not bad looking, and back then… well…”
“So, Attila… took advantage of you?” asked Osprey.
“It would be more accurate to say that I took advantage of him. You must not believe the Roman propaganda about him. All that stuff about Attila being short and ugly with a terrible complexion. He was of below average height, but dark and extremely handsome. And the things he could do with his…”
“Quite so,” said Osprey hurriedly. “Let us not forget, Empress, that there are young people present.”
“Oh, I’m sure he won’t mind,” said Honoria, taking a roguish sidelong glance at Wyrd. “And we do want my memoirs to be completely honest, do we not? What would be the point of them otherwise?”
“Of course,” replied Osprey. “It’s just that a large number of the potential readers of this volume will be monks, and…”
“Well, we all know what a dirty-minded bunch they are,” said Honoria, with a low laugh. “I should imagine that in the monasteries my memoirs will go down a proverbial storm!”
Osprey gulped back any further objections and cleared his throat.
“If we may continue… When did this assignation come to an end?”
“Attila and I spent about three weeks together, most of it without leaving his yurt, and then he went to war again against someone or other – it might have been the Gauls. Then he sent a messenger back to me saying that he’d found someone new, and that was that. He dumped me – until I contacted him all those years later, informed him that I bore him no hard feelings and asked him to marry me.”
“You mention hard feelings,” asked Wyrd. “But there must have been some after he, er, dumped you? Did you go back to your mother?”
“No, I was unable to do that,” said Honoria. “Not immediately, at least. I was in no… condition to do so.”
“How do you mean?” asked Osprey.
“Well, if you must know, I was with child,” said Honoria. “It was obviously impossible for me to return home impregnated by my brother the Emperor’s arch-enemy.”
“So, what did you do?” asked Wyrd.
The Empress yawned.
“I really think that that is enough for one day,” she said. “It is time I adjourned to my bed – alone, unless you gentlemen would like to accompany me?”
Wyrd felt himself blushing as deeply as Osprey had done a few moments earlier.
It was Osprey who spoke first.
“I fear it would not be proper,” he began.
“You’re damn right it wouldn’t be proper!” said the Empress Honoria with surprising coarseness, snorting with laughter. “But look at me in this place! I am up to my knees in midgets. They’re not up to much, I can tell you. Not even Erecticus. If ever there was a dwarf who didn’t live up to his name, it’s that one.”
“Ah,” said Osprey, bowing awkwardly. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a call of nature. And after that, your daughter is expecting me for her herbology lesson.”
After Osprey had bowed a second time to Honoria and made his escape, Wyrd discovered the Empress staring at him with an appraising eye.
“How old did you say you were?” she asked.
“Eighteen,” he lied. Somehow seventeen didn’t seem old enough, under the circumstances.
“Are you a virgin?”
Wyrd shifted uneasily. This was exactly the same question that Morgana had asked him the previous night. Did he look so very much like a virgin?
“Er, no,” he replied. “No, I’m not. Not anymore.”
“Do you find an older woman like me even slightly attractive?” asked Honoria.
“Of course,” he said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Would you like to know if I find you attractive?” she purred.
Wyrd felt thoroughly confused.
“Um, if you want to tell me, that would be fine. Though if you don’t, that would be fine too,” he said. “My lady.”
“Come here.” She walked across to him and pulled him to his feet. “You know who you remind me of?”
“Not really,” said Wyrd.
“Guess.”
Wyrd tried to guess. After a few seconds, he gave up.
“I give up,” he said.
“My Attila,” she said.
“Attila the Hun?” asked Wyrd. “Are you serious?”
“Quite serious,” said Honoria, lifting his head and looking into his eyes. “Behind that frightened exterior, reminiscent of a startled rabbit, there is something about you that is potentially quite masterful. You strike me as the kind of young man who is a quick learner, willing to take risks, able to stick up for himself. Am I right?”
“Well, er, obviously, yes, er… I would hope so,” said Wyrd.
“Osprey does not care for you much, does he?” asked Honoria.
“Er, no. In fact, I don’t think he likes me at all.”
“That little girl does, though.”
“What, Wenda?”
“Yes. I’d say she finds you curiously attractive. And you know something? So do I.”
With that, the Empress Honoria took him by the hand and led him into her bathroom. She was clearly used to bathing in style and on a flamboyantly imperial scale.
Wyrd gaped at the huge Roman bath which was full of some liquid that was white and steaming.
“Asses’ milk,” said the Empress. “Not my idea. Cleopatra used to bathe in it. They say it did wonders for her complexion.”
Removing her robes to reveal an impressively majestic figure, she stepped into the bath and beckoned him to follow. As soon as he had done so, she swam up to him and bit him gently on the ear.
“Ow!” said Wyrd.
“You don’t like that?”
“It’s more that I wasn’t quite expecting it.”
“You should leave yourself open to new experiences,” said the Empress. “I do.”
Wyrd had never felt more awkw
ard, or more conventional.
“Perhaps this isn’t a good idea,” he said.
“I think this is an excellent idea,” breathed the Empress. “Look around you. Would you not agree that this must be one of the most romantic situations on earth?”
What happened then and there, and indeed for the next three hours in the inner sanctum of her upstairs bedchamber, should perhaps be passed over in silence. As dusk was beginning to fall, Wyrd lay exhausted. If Morgana had been like a lynx in bed, her mother had been like a pack of wolves, each having its way with him in turn. Sore, exhausted but undeniably happy, Wyrd wondered how on earth he would be able to explain the scratches on his neck and chest to Wenda. As it turned out, though, events were soon to occur that made such matters the least of his – or Wenda’s – worries.
17
Morgana’s Magic
In which Wenda is a victim of unwelcome attentions
While Wyrd lay in the Empress Honoria’s bedchamber, anxiously inspecting the damage she had wrought on his body, Osprey was coming to the end of his first herbology lesson with the Empress’s daughter, Morgana. On his instruction, Wenda had transformed the empty bedchamber of Plumba, the eighth dwarf, into a laboratory. The air was filled with the sound and aroma of simmering potions. This, combined with the jungle motif of the murals, created an exotic, almost tropical feel to the room. Wenda could feel herself sweating, though Osprey as always remained cold and aloof.
“Girl!” he ordered her. “That potion is about to boil over!”
“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Wenda obediently.
Wenda could feel Morgana’s eyes upon her as she crossed the room. Wenda still felt self-conscious in a toga. It was a reminder that they had not expected the visiting herbologist to be female.
“My lady,” he told her, “it was flattering to be invited to instruct you on herbology, but you seem to know everything there is to know. Whoever instructed you, taught you well.”
“Of course. She was the best,” replied Morgana.
“She?” asked Osprey.
“Your mother. She promised to teach me everything she knew. About magic, at least. And she did.”