by Vox Day
THE LAST VESTIGES of the setting sun had long since disappeared by the time the small troop of crimson-cloaked Redeemed escorted Marcus past the gate of his uncle’s domus.
By day, Amorr belonged to God. But its night was claimed by the worst of His creations. Peril lurked in far too many shadows of the narrow, high-walled, circuitous streets called vici. Even a mounted nobleman born to horse and sword could find himself beaten, stripped, and, if fortunate, merely robbed by the cruel gangs of half-human breeds and bandits who ravaged the city by night.
Still, even the most lawless of brigands feared crossing the path of the Redeemed, the most fanatical of the Church’s militias. The Redeemed were former gladiators, now rehabilitated— hardened men of violence who had chosen to leave the bloodstained sands of the Coliseum behind them. Slaves they had been and slaves they were still, but they served a different Master now.
Marcus was not entirely comfortable in their hulking, creaking, red-cloaked presence, but he appreciated their company in the darkness of the Amorran night. As they neared the estate, slaves from the household swarmed around Marcus’s horse.
He inclined his head politely toward the troop’s commander. “My thanks, Captain. A good evening to you and your men.”
The captain saluted grimly, bringing his fist to his chest, without a hint of personality crossing his scarred, sun-weathered face. He showed no sign of interest in either Marcus or his House. He’d done his duty, nothing more. “Glory to God, sir.”
Without another word, the ex-gladiator turned his mount around in a swirl of crimson and horsestink. The five Redeemed riders followed him, torches held high, returning confidently into the noisome shadows of the city.
Marcus watched them go, fascinated. He wondered what it would be like to be such a man. To be so sure, so secure in one’s faith—surely that was a wonderful thing! And yet, what was a man’s mind for, if not to use it?
It was another question to ponder, but far less pressing than the one that looked to have him departing on the morning following the morrow. Marcus sighed and dismounted, waving aside the proffered hands of a tall slave offering him assistance. He affectionately patted the soft, fleshy nose of his big grey, a magnificent steed named Barat, before handing the reins over to another slave, this one young, olive-skinned, and thin. But human.
Like most patrician families, it was beneath the dignity of House Valerius to own half-breeds or inhumans. This slave looked familiar. He wore the blue badge of the stables, but for the life of him Marcus couldn’t remember his name.
“What are you called?” he asked the young slave.
“Deccus, Maester Maercuss,” the boy replied in heavily accented Amorran, not meeting Marcus’s eyes as he carefully stroked Barat’s ears.
Marcus nodded. Now he remembered. The boy was a Bethnian, one of the lot purchased by his uncle’s head steward at the spring auction. Erasto had bought twenty-five or thirty. Bethnians were absurdly inexpensive now, thanks to Pontius Balbus’s crushing of a rebellion in that province the year before. But they knew their horses well. Barat would be in good hands with this boy.
“Then please take good care of him tonight, Deccus, and tomorrow as well,” Marcus instructed. “It seems I’ve a journey ahead of me, and he must be fit for the riding.”
The slave nodded, and a faint smile crossed his lips at the sound of his name. The Valerian slaves were treated no worse than most and better than some, but the stables were a rough place for a youngster to serve. Marcus knew it could have easily been months since Deccus was last addressed by anything but a curse. The use of the boy’s name might be a small enough kindness, but it counted for something. At least, Marcus hoped that it did.
• • •
Rumor spread faster than sickness in the slaves’ quarters, so by the time Marcus entered the atrium Marcipor was already there waiting for him. Marcipor, Marcus’s bodyslave, was a handsome, broad-shouldered man of Savondese descent. He was the illegitimate offspring of an officer captured twenty-four years ago by his uncle. He and Marcus were of the same age, almost to the day.
It was obvious that Sextus had not kept the news of the Sanctiff’s summons to himself, because Marcipor’s blue eyes were alight with curiosity even as they carefully avoided meeting his own. His demeanor was proper today—far too proper, in fact—and Marcus stifled a smile as Marcipor gave an uncharacteristically elaborate bow as he offered Marcus a fresh tunic of light muslin to replace his dusty day-clothes.
“Why don’t you just come right out and ask me?” Marcus wondered aloud as he held out his arms and let Marcipor assist him out of the sweat-stained tunic.
“This slave would not dream of such presumption, Master.”
Marcus snorted. “Save it for the girls, pretty boy. My uncle should have sold you to the theater long ago. It’s a pity Pylades didn’t have you for a protégé.”
Marcipor grinned and abandoned the servile pretense. He puffed his chest out and struck a dramatic stance. He was a striking young man, with a strong jaw and a close-cropped, golden beard. More than one slave girl living in the vicinity of the Valerian house had given birth to a fair-haired, blue-eyed baby after Marcipor had passed his sixteenth year.
“Indeed,” he said, “I daresay I would have outshined Hylos. But you must tell me about this mysterious summons. Is it true you saw the Sanctiff himself? The whole domus has been utterly agog with rumor ever since you left with Father Aurelius! Sextus says they’re going to ordain you early and make you a cardinal!”
“What?” Marcus burst out laughing as he donned a clean tunic. He knew a bishopric would soon be his for the taking. No noble, not even one with plebian blood, would expect anything less. And it was even possible that an archbishopric might be in the cards. But not even a scion of House Severus could hope to be crowned prince of the church before reaching thirty. “Sextus, as you so often inform me, is an idiot.”
Marcus folded his arms, enjoying the feel of the fresh muslin against his skin A pity he hadn’t the time to visit the baths before vesperna. “So, what’s the bet?”
He was sure there was a stake involved somehow, for both his cousin and his slave were inveterate gamblers. Marcipor’s coin-hoard far exceeded his own. In fact, more often than not he was in debt to his slave. Marcipor’s rates were usurious, but paying them was easier than trying to extract money from his uncle’s iron fists.
“The archbishopric, of course. Even your lily-white hands aren’t clean enough for the lazulate. Which is a good thing, seeing how you’re barely even a man yet and you’ve too much living to do before you seal yourself up in that white mausoleum for the rest of your life.”
“You’re lying, Marce. And if the bet is which one of you I’ll tell first, well, you both lose. I can’t tell you anything. In fact, I don’t even know if I’ll be free to talk to anyone when I return.”
“Return…? So you’re going somewhere!” Marcipor’s face grew calculating for a moment, but then his eyes widened with surprise. “Wait a minute, you can’t go anywhere without me!Unattended? Your uncle would never hear of it! And if you think you’re going to take that irresponsible lunatic of a cousin—”
Marcus held up a hand. “Peace, Marce.” He yawned and shook his head. “Of course you’re going with me. Assuming I go anywhere, that is, for I must ask Magnus’s permission first. But you should probably start getting things together for a six-month journey tonight, because if we do leave, my understanding is that the Sanctiff intends we shall begin the day after tomorrow, and I can’t imagine even Magnus would deny him. Now, leave me to attend him. It seems everyone in that ‘white mausoleum’ is too holy to bother with food anymore. I’m hungry enough to eat a boar.”
• • •
Marcus found Magnus reclining in the triclinium, accompanied in his evening meal only by his three favorites.
The room was large, but stark, with no decorations on the white stuccoed walls to detract from the only furniture, a low, tiled table that filled the
center of the room and couches on three sides. The colorful tiles told the story of Valerius, the founder of the house, and showed the wounded hero lying in a grove being tended by the wolf who licked his wounds and succored him until his triumphant and vengeful return to Amorr. Magnus often entertained a score or more of Amorr’s great citizens here, senators and equestrians, but fortunately tonight he was as near to alone as Marcus was ever likely to find him.
Lucipor, a grey-bearded slave old enough to be Magnus’s father, lay on the couch to his left. Dompor and Lazapor, the household’s resident scholars, shared the couch on the right.
Marcus stood at the entrance while a young girl washed his feet. He could hear Lazapor raising his voice as he took issue with something his uncle had said.
“You underestimate them, Magnus,” Lazapor said. “The villagemen seek no justice. They only slaver after power in the city! What you consider to be an open hand extended in a spirit of generosity, they see only as weakness. Make the mistake of allowing one snake into the Senate, and I assure you a thousand will soon squirm in behind him!”
Marcus entered barefoot. At the sound of his entrance, his uncle turned to him with what appeared to be relief. There was a rancorous tone to Lazapor’s voice that indicated this evening’s debate was not an entirely civil one. Marcus wondered at his uncle’s habit of engaging in disputation while dining, and yet the custom had clearly not affected the great man’s appetite. Lucius Valerius Magnus, ex-consul and senator, was great in many particulars. Not least among them was the impressive size of his paunch.
“I shall, as always, take your words under advisement,” his uncle said to Lazapor. Marcus noted that he had gracefully evaded disclosing his own position on the matter. “Marcus, my dear lad, do come in and rescue me from these disagreeable scholars. Now, is it true that you were summoned to the Sanctorum, or has my son reverted to his childhood custom of telling fanciful tales?”
“Yes,” Dompor said, “we have long expected miracles from you, Marcus, but you seem to have outdone yourself this time. Our darling Sextus is fond of saying that your piety is surpassed only by the Mater Dei. Are we correct in assuming that His Holiness has asked you to serve as his father confessor?”
Marcus usually enjoyed the humor to be found in Dompor’s acerbic tongue, even when he was its target, but this was no time for such indulgences. He smiled faintly at the slave, then met his uncle’s eyes. “I need to speak with you, uncle. Alone.”
Magnus’s greying eyebrows rose with surprise, and he raised his hand. Without a word, his three companions rose from the couches and departed. Lazapor seemed a little annoyed at the interruption, but Lucipor’s face was marked with concern. Dompor, never one given to worry, appeared amused as he surreptitiously slipped a small bell from his tunic and placed it on the table. For it was not only unusual for the great man to banish all three of them from his domestic conclaves, it was almost unprecedented.
But Marcus’s strange request did not seem to concern Magnus. He rose with an audible grunt of effort. “I don’t recall any recent vacancies,” he mused, stroking his chin. “Did Quintus Fulvius die already? I’d heard his see was likely to open soon.”
“It’s not a see, uncle. I haven’t even decided to take the cloth yet.”
“You haven’t?”
“No, I haven’t, truly,” Marcus insisted, vaguely irritated that everyone else seemed so sure of his future when he himself had not come to a decision yet.
The heat of his denial seemed to amuse his uncle, but his amusement vanished as Marcus told him of the Sanctiff’s intentions.
“You’re going to Elebrion? Sphincterus! That blasted Ahenobarbus bids fair to open up a vat of worms with this notion. I can’t imagine what possesses him to meddle with something that could threaten our northern border while we’re already engaged to the east. Soak my foot, but he always did have a tendency to stick that wretched red beard of his wherever it’s not wanted!”
Marcus blinked. He was unaccustomed to hearing His Holiness, the Sanctified Charity IV, forty-fourth Sanctiff of Amorr, described in such familiar and unflattering terms. Furthermore, the Sanctiff was not only clean-shaven, but his hair had been white as long as Marcus could remember. Red beard?
Marcus reached over and took a pair of figs from the bowl on the low table and popped one into his mouth, then took a deep breath and attempted to contradict his uncle. “I shouldn’t think he’s intending to do anything but learn more—”
“You’re a scholar, Marcus, not a fool. Stop for a moment and think the matter through. Do you think the High King of the elves is so easily hoodwinked? I’ve fought with elves and I’ve fought against them, and I can tell you that if there’s one thing they’re not, it’s fools, my boy. They’re pretty enough, but there’s steel underneath, lad—never forget it! And their blasted wizards have lived ten times longer than our oldest greybeard. Take it from me, Marcus. No one survives that long without learning something, no matter how stupid he might be to start.
“So, they’ll know very well why you’re there, and they’ll know what’s going to happen if those tonsured imbeciles in the Sanctorum completely lose what little remains of their common sense and decide that elves are nothing more than talking beasts.”
The great man shook his head in dismay. “Considering what I always heard of King Caerwyn’s court, I imagine he would’ve considered an infestation of monks preaching celibacy and the Church to be an act of war. Tarquin’s tarnation! I suppose we can hope this new High King is cut from a different cloth.”
Marcus waited patiently as his uncle glared at him as if he were a proxy for God’s own viceroy. Despite this unexpected outburst, he still did not believe Magnus would bar him from the journey. There were too many potential advantages to be gained by his participation.
If Marcus took the cloth and was ordained, he would be permanently banned from holding a seat in the Senate. But political power was not the only one in Amorr worth wielding. Marcus’s older brother was the politician of the family, having won election as one of the city’s fifteen tribunes earlier this year. And his two older sisters had already provided his father with four members of the following generation, including three potential heirs.
Sexto, Marcus’s mischievous cousin and Magnus’s son, had two older brothers who were junior officers in the field serving under Marcus’s father. A third brother had already successfully stood for tribune. So it was not as if the family were in dire need of another soldier or politician.
When Magnus finally spoke, he laid an avuncular hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Marcus. Even if Ahenobarbus is sticking his head in a hornet’s nest, the opportunities that will likely present themselves to our house are promising. But be careful! There’s more going on here than you can possibly imagine. Keep your eyes open, keep your wits about you, and don’t let yourself get overly caught up in all that priestly disputation. Try to think about the world you’re in before worrying too much about the one to come.”
“Yes, Magnus.”
“Now, go say good-bye to your mother, but don’t tell her where you are going. Leave that to me. It will be hard on her, with Corvus gone.”
“Yes, Magnus. Although I doubt she’ll even notice I’m not here, not with Tertia’s twins.”
“There is that. I’ll write to your father, lad. He must be apprised of these developments too. I don’t know if he’ll be terribly pleased, unfortunately, but I’ll knock some sense into him. He expects you to follow in his footsteps, you know. But you were born to think, not brawl or bawl out legionnaires. Oh, and Marcus, you will tell Sextus that he is not to even think of tagging along after you. If he does so much as ride to the Pontus Rossus I’ll have him lashed and halve his allowance for the next three moons.”
Marcus grinned as he bowed respectfully, then reached for the bowl of fruit before departing. Sexto would brave a lashing if need be, but he’d never risk the coin.
“I’ll tell him, Magnus. And thank y
ou, sir. I shall not forget your advice.”
• • •
Magnus pursed his lips as he watched his young nephew exit the triclinium, an apple in either hand. This news of Elebrion was an unforeseen and unwelcome development.
Should he have braved Ahenobarbus’s displeasure and forbidden the old charlatan his nephew? He’d made much harder decisions than this before, given orders that had cost thousands of men their lives without hesitation or regret, and yet something about this one bothered him. Marcus was his brother’s youngest son. In Corvus’s absence, was there not something he could do to safeguard the lad?
The boy was trained, but he was no warrior. His bodyslave was no better: a lover, not a fighter. Perhaps Magnus could send a soldier along to safeguard Marcus. Able soldiers were easy to find, but with them it was discipline that counted most, not skill, and besides, they were taught to fight as a unit. One alone would be no help.
Perhaps a gladiator?
But gladiators were but men, and Magnus knew all too well the price of a man. What can be bought can always be bought once more by a more generous purse. And it wouldn’t be only elves that would be interested in the buying.
Once word of the prospect of a Church-sanctioned holy war against the elves got out, every petty merchant with a load of tin or cattle skins to sell the legions would be pressing hard to get his fingers into the unending flow of coin that would erupt from the Senate. Worse, he knew very well that some of the more enterprising tradesmen were perfectly capable of taking it upon themselves to help the Sanctiff reach the decision that would be of the most benefit to them.