Mark of the Thief

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  Crispus walked back and stopped beside me. When he spoke, his voice was kind. "When did you last eat?"

  It had been the half bowl of sour porridge from yesterday morning, and I'd had nothing in four days before that. But I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I only lowered my eyes and hoped he'd just walk on so we could go.

  "Head up," Crispus reminded me. He reached into a bag he carried and withdrew some coins for the shop owner. "A large loaf," he said, pointing. "That one."

  I took a step back, unsure of what to do. I was almost delirious with hunger, and whatever strength I might have had was constantly drained by trying to control the magic of the bulla. Yet I couldn't accept this from him.

  Crispus took the loaf and broke it in half, then gave one portion to Aurelia, who immediately dug into it. He held out the other half to me. "Take it," he said. "You're so thin, a feather could knock you over."

  My eyes moistened and I shook my head. "No, I can't."

  "Just like the apple," he said, smiling. "You can pay me for it later."

  "I have nothing."

  "Take it." Crispus pressed the loaf into my hands. "Please, Nic."

  I immediately ripped pieces from it, as large as I could fit in my mouth without choking. The bread we got at the mines was little more than a baked paste of coarsely ground flour and dirty water. This was soft and fragrant and slightly sweet. It filled my stomach and warmed my body, and for the first time since I had eaten all those strawberries, I didn't feel completely hollow inside.

  Once I was finished, we left the basilica. "Don't look around at the sights," Crispus corrected me. "The wealthy have been here a thousand times. There's nothing they haven't already seen."

  I turned away, but it wasn't easy. As impressive as my first glimpses of Rome had been, nothing equaled the beauty of the forum. It seemed to have been made for the gods themselves, and yet even the lowest Roman was freely given this place for work, play, or worship. The sun was setting, and from our direction, Caesar's temple left us in shadow. That seemed an apt description for my life at the moment. Wearing Caesar's bulla, a bulla I had stolen, I was now seeking a way to survive beneath his shadow.

  Aurelia fell in step beside me. "Where is he taking us?"

  "To my home," Crispus said. "My father will meet us there."

  "And my sister is there too?" I had so much to tell her.

  Crispus stopped and his brows pressed together when he looked at me. "Nic, I'm sorry. My father did send someone to the mines to get her, but she had already been taken away. We don't know who took her, or where she is."

  My heart thudded like a cold stone against my chest. I could barely comprehend his words. From the moment Sal had told me Livia was taken from the mines, it had seemed obvious that Valerius would've had her, safe and well cared for. But if it wasn't him, then who?

  Radulf.

  It was his way of getting to me.

  Maybe I had whispered his name, because at my side, Aurelia shook her head and leaned in to me. "That doesn't make sense. You told me that Radulf thought you died in the cave. Livia was taken from the mines before he saw you alive in the arena. So Radulf wouldn't have had any reason to take her."

  I threw out a hand in frustration. "Who else would it be?" Heads turned our way and I lowered my voice. "All I can tell you is she's innocent in this. And he certainly knows I'm alive now, so if that wasn't his plan before, it will be now."

  Crispus stepped toward me, with his tall shoulders hunched. "We'll find her. I can't imagine Radulf would've had any use for her, but she must be somewhere."

  "I agree," Aurelia said. "If she's still alive --"

  "Don't say that like it's a question."

  "Ignoring reality doesn't change it. Listen, she probably is alive. I'm only saying that Radulf is a military man. He doesn't need girl slaves. He might've sold her off ten minutes after taking her from the mines. She could be anywhere by now."

  That didn't make me feel better, and if I was angry with Aurelia for saying it, that was only because she was right.

  Crispus cleared his throat. "I know this is a bad time to be getting such news, but we need to keep moving. People are watching us."

  Aurelia looked around. "Who?"

  Crispus nudged his head to where we had just been in the shops. My heart sank. Only one man was watching me, but his mouth was curled in disgust. It was Sal, lurking in the corners like a Shade escaped from the underworld. Despite Crispus and Aurelia surrounding me, and the toga over my head, he clearly knew exactly who I was. All he needed to do was say my name, and we'd be surrounded. But for reasons I couldn't explain, he didn't.

  I lowered my eyes, lifted the toga higher on my head, and followed behind Crispus, hoping that was the last I'd see of Sal for the evening. Or better yet, for the rest of my life.

  Aurelia remained at my side. She grabbed my arm to weigh down my pace, and once Crispus was a little farther ahead of us, she said, "Are you sure we should go with him? If he doesn't have Livia --"

  "I'm not going to Horatio. Not yet!"

  "That's our bargain!"

  "What bargain? Crispus is taking me to Valerius, not you." My irritation wasn't entirely her fault. I was terrified for my sister, nervous about what Valerius might want from me, and, delicious as it was, the bread had only barely filled the deep well of my hunger. But on top of all of that, I didn't need to hear her constant pleadings for me to turn myself in to a pompous senator who would most likely pass me straight on to the executioner. "If you're so eager, go run and tell Horatio where he can find me. Maybe he'll still give you that precious reward money."

  "Do you think money is all I care about?"

  "That's exactly what I think! Why can't you see there is more going on than who will have the pleasure of hauling me in chains before the emperor?"

  Her mouth opened in protest, then closed, and she said, "Since we met, I've been shot at, threatened, chased, and nearly drowned. If all I cared about was the money, I'd have disappeared long ago."

  "Then what do you care about?" I asked. "It's not finding my sister. You don't even know her."

  "But I know you, and ... and I don't hate you, Nic, no matter what you believe. Maybe we disagree about Horatio, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to hurt you."

  I glanced sideways at her. "I don't hate you either. But until I find my sister, we'll continue to disagree."

  Her mouth opened again, but this time she said nothing and only mumbled that we should catch up to Crispus before he got away from us.

  I adjusted the toga over my head again before joining them. When I did, I noticed her hand at her neck, as attached to that crepundia as I always was to the bulla. With enough reward money, she could make herself into a respectable young woman of Rome, and that might give her access to her family again.

  And therein was the problem.

  It was becoming increasingly obvious how flawed our bargain was. The only way she succeeded with her goals was to get the reward money from Horatio. But even if I defeated Radulf, there was no guarantee Horatio would persuade the emperor to let me go free. In fact, Horatio might not even deliver me to the emperor. For all I knew, he wanted the bulla for himself, and would kill me to keep it.

  Aurelia and I were careening toward an impasse. For her to succeed in what she wanted most, I would almost certainly have to fail.

  Crispus's home was on the outskirts of the city, on a gently sloping hill with vineyards as far as the eye could see. "They're not all ours," he explained when he caught both Aurelia and I gaping at them. "There are many people in Rome far wealthier than us."

  "How many people?" Aurelia quipped. "Three?"

  Once we entered his home, I doubted it was even that many. The exterior wasn't so grand -- on either side of the entrance were ordinary shops, selling food and wine produced here on this land. The inside, however, was anything but ordinary.

  The wide entry was tiled with precious jewels similar to those I had once mined. For all I knew, my han
ds had pulled them from the earth. They created a colorful mosaic pattern of a griffin. I saw it and immediately thought of Caela, wondering if she had survived the injury to her side. I missed her and wondered whether I'd ever see her again. Beside me, Aurelia seemed to sense what I was feeling. She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. I released it as quickly as she had taken mine. It still bothered me to realize only one of us was going to succeed in our bargain, and that it probably wasn't me.

  Looking up, large paintings hung on either side of the entry corridor. One was of Senator Valerius, and the second one Crispus said was of his grandfather, who had died only a few years earlier.

  "He was a great man." Crispus turned to me. "Did you ever know your grandfather?"

  "I never even knew my father," I said. "He died when I was very young." Though he shouldn't have. Why didn't he get inside during the thunderstorm, like any reasonable person would?

  It was Crispus's turn to go silent. "Oh," he finally said. "I'm sorry, Nic."

  I didn't answer. Not because I was angry, but because I was very aware of Aurelia beside me, who had even less of a claim to family than I did. Crispus never bothered to ask about her. I figured she preferred it that way.

  By then, we walked into a large atrium where moonlight poured through an open roof. It reflected down on the surface of a small and shallow pool with another mosaic beneath it, depicting the same griffin as I had seen at the entrance. Bright flowers grew around the pool and their scent carried on the breeze. The full moon and large candles added enough light that I saw the dark orange paint on the walls, elaborate fresco paintings of nature and beautiful women and illustrations of stories that I was sure every Roman over the age of three would understand. Impressive as they were, to me, they were only random pictures.

  "This is really where you live?" I asked. "It's not another temple?"

  "It's home." Crispus pointed to rooms at the sides of the atrium. "These are our bedrooms. Behind them are rooms where my mother does her weaving, and where the work is assigned to our slaves."

  His eyes suddenly darted across to me but I tried to ignore that. It was no surprise that his wealthy family would have slaves, but I still felt a pinch to hear it. I refused to think of myself that way anymore, and yet it was also painfully clear that I did not belong in Crispus's world either.

  To ease the tension, Aurelia pointed ahead to a room with a large desk I could see from here. "What's in there?"

  Again, he faced me to answer her question. "The tablinum, where my father works when he's home. When he comes, he will talk to you in there." Then for the first time, he really seemed to see Aurelia. "We have private baths, here in the home. I can assign a woman to attend to you there."

  Aurelia shook her head. "I'll stay with Nic."

  "You should go to the baths," I said.

  She frowned at me, and I knew she had misunderstood. I wasn't implying that she smelled bad, or, at least, no worse than me. I only meant that I didn't expect any trouble from Senator Valerius. Just the opposite in fact. Though I wasn't sure exactly what he wanted from me, I knew he would help with my problem. Valerius had no love for Radulf either.

  But Aurelia wouldn't budge. "I'll stay with Nic."

  Crispus sighed, took the bulky togas from us, and led us into his father's office. He gave us seats, then said he would call for someone to bring us more food, and left.

  Aurelia immediately leaned toward me. "I don't like it here. I think we should leave."

  "Why? Do you object to being somewhere safe? Somewhere I'm going to be fed for a second time in the same evening?"

  "You only think about food," she said.

  "And you only think about running," I replied. "All I'm asking for is enough time to hear what Valerius has to say. If we don't like it, then we leave. No problem."

  We fell silent when a servant entered from a second door behind the senator's desk. He set a tray on the desk filled with more bread and cheese and a soft white fruit that tasted as sweet as the strawberries had been.

  "It's a pear." Aurelia took a bite, and then handed it to me. "Honestly, it's like your whole life has been lived in a cave."

  "It was," I answered with my mouth already full.

  I couldn't eat everything fast enough, and by the time the tray was empty, my stomach ached with satisfaction. But although I had to slouch in my chair and try not to move, I wasn't about to complain. If a second tray were brought in, I'd find a way to eat everything on it too.

  Aurelia turned to me and lowered her voice. "Valerius will ask about the bulla. You know that, right?"

  My fingers were already tracing the curve where it attached to the strap. "Yes."

  "What will you tell him?"

  "Nothing, until he tells me something about Livia."

  "She's a lost slave girl. Valerius won't care about her."

  "But I do!" I sat up straight and stared at Aurelia. "And if he wants my help, then he needs to help me first."

  "I'm helping you, Nic. Maybe not for reasons you like, but I am helping you." Then Aurelia shrugged. "Wherever my family is, I wish they cared as much about finding me as you care about your sister."

  "Can I see your crepundia?" I asked.

  She paused a moment before lifting it over her head and handing it to me. The miniatures were far more intricate than I had realized at first. Someone had put a great deal of work into this, and unfortunately, it was probably valued more than the daughter.

  I opened the small satchel in the center of the crepundia and saw inside it poor man's gems. They were so close to the real thing that most people wouldn't know the difference. However, my eye was practiced from the mines. Sal wouldn't have considered these fakes worth our time.

  Realizing I knew the difference, Aurelia snatched the crepundia from my grip. "I sold the originals a long time ago. One day, I'll get them back again."

  "Why is it so important to find this family who already exposed you?" I asked. "Why do you think they'll take you back now?"

  Staring at the crepundia, she said, "I think about them every day. Whether my mother wanted to keep me, and what might have gone wrong for my father to have rejected me so harshly. I hope it's a reason that he regrets now. Maybe there was something sad associated with my birth and he couldn't deal with it then. Maybe our family was having hard times and he had no choice."

  "If money is the only reason they'd accept you, then you shouldn't go back to them," I said.

  Tears welled in her eyes and she put the crepundia back around her neck. "You don't understand."

  "That's right, I don't! You're my friend, Aurelia. Not because of money or anything you can do for me, but because you're a good person, just as you are. Your family should feel the same way."

  I noticed her fidget with her fingers. She lowered her eyes and whispered, "I need to tell you something."

  But before she could, we both leapt to our feet at the fierce barking of two dogs. Coming our way.

  Aurelia and I dashed out of the office as two black dogs raced in from the doorway behind the desk and went straight for us. Once in the atrium, Aurelia darted around as if to go to the rear of the home, but I ran forward. I turned long enough to see them still coming and then tripped and fell into the small pool in the center of the atrium.

  The dogs came upon me and I raised a hand to protect myself from the worst of their attack. "Stop!" I shouted at them.

  To my surprise, both dogs immediately stopped their barking and only stared at me. Just as the animals of the venatio had done. So I got to my feet, slowly, and told the dogs, "Sit."

  They obeyed as quickly as I spoke the words. But that wasn't a fair test. They were probably well-trained dogs, which I'd expect in a household like this. They needed a more unusual command.

  Aurelia walked up to us, cautiously, but her eyes were on me, not the dogs. "Nic --"

  "Watch this." With a smile, I said, "Tell me if Aurelia thinks I'm the handsomest boy in all of Rome."

  Both dogs immed
iately started barking. Happy, playful barks. They were participating in a joke they couldn't possibly have understood ... unless they could.

  Aurelia wasn't laughing, but her eyes had grown wider. She only said my name again to get my attention, and then pointed. Still in the pool, I was standing directly within the beam of moonlight pouring in from overhead. And when I realized where she was pointing -- to the bulla beneath my tunic -- I saw why she was so alarmed.

  It was glowing, as brightly as if the bulla itself was a moon.

  I pulled off the bulla to see it better and then its full glow became apparent. Beneath the moonlight, it nearly lit the room to a daytime light.

  Crispus ran into the room. "I'm sorry about -- oh!"

  Aurelia walked forward until she stood in the pool with me. Staring into my eyes the entire time, she took the bulla from me and hung it back around my neck, on the outside of my tunic.

  "I know which of the gods supplies this bulla's power," she said. "No wonder it's given you so much trouble."

  Forgetting about the dogs, Crispus walked forward, his attention fixed on the bulla. "We knew you must have it," he breathed. "Nothing else could've caused such damage in the amphitheater. I'll never forget that day."

  Nor would I, much as I had already tried to do it.

  Crispus reached out a hand toward the bulla, then paused and lowered it again. "How are you making it glow?"

  "It isn't Nic," Aurelia said. "The bulla is responding to the moonlight. Watch this." She stepped out of the pool and then motioned for me to come with her. Once I got back onto the tile floor, the glow began fading. After only a minute, its glow was no brighter than before, and I was fairly certain neither Aurelia or Crispus could see that soft glow anyway.

  "It's the power of the gods," Crispus whispered.

  "No, just one of them." Aurelia turned to me. "You can communicate with animals, and when the bulla is working, you are unnaturally strong. I knew about those, but the moonlight makes it obvious which god gives this bulla its power."