by Vox Day
“I want ten. None over the age of twenty-five, preferably from families with whatever your equivalent of patrician rank might be. Five will be permitted to accompany the king upon his return to Cynothicum, should he have the good sense to do so, the remaining five will be released by the end of next summer. I will send them back sooner, unharmed and in good health, if the legion is required elsewhere for some reason.”
“Very generous, Tribune. May I ask precisely for what they will stand as security? Their families will want to know.”
“Your withdrawal. I will send five knights with you. If they do not return within ten days with news that you and your men have crossed the provincial border and subsequently remain within it, I will execute them. As I will do if you or your men attempt to engage any Amorran forces in battle outside of the borders of your new kingdom.”
“Ten days? It’s only a two-day ride from Cynothicum to here.”
“I’m giving you time to convince your king to go home instead of joining Buteo in battle against me. Leave Amorr to fight Amorr. Even if the Severans win, joining them could prove to be a very big mistake for him. Defeating one legion can perhaps be overlooked, particularly if the rebellion fever does not spread to other provinces. Defeating two in succession, even if it involves an amount of Amorran complicity, will inspire fear in the Senate and wake all the furies of Hell against your king. Amorr is slow to wrath, but her anger is terrible indeed.”
“Very poetic,” Vestremer said lightly, but the gravity of his expression belied the tone. “Will there be any negative consequences for the hostages if I fail to persuade the king to withdraw as you wish? And what support are you willing to provide if Buteo turns on the king if he refuses to march with the Severans?”
“If Buteo attacks your king, or even threatens to attack him, I’ll provide him with a full legionary cavalry wing and four cohorts. And I’ll prevent Buteo’s cavalry from rejoining his legion as well. So, even if Buteo refuses to respect Cynothii neutrality in this matter, your king should be able to escape him unmolested unless he can’t outride an infantry march.
“As for the hostages, I understand you cannot guarantee your king’s compliance. If he refuses, the only consequence to them is that they will remain the honored guests of House Valerius. There may be more dire consequences to the king himself, of course, as I will defeat him and Buteo together if I must. Which leads to my next question: how many men does your king have under arms with him now?”
“Ten thousand, twelve hundred of them mounted,” the Cynothian answered without hesitating. That was two thousand more than Marcus had been privately estimating, certainly more than enough to cause him some difficulty if he could not separate them from the Severan legion.
“All mounted infantry?”
“The kingsguard is one hundred strong. They are the only real cavalry we possess in the sense that you Amorrans think of it.”
Marcus nodded. The Cynothii commander didn’t know quite as much as he’d hoped, but the information he’d divulged wasn’t entirely useless. Of course, Marcus would forgive him for sharing nothing at all if he could only convince his king to withdraw with him. One day, an Amorran legion or three would likely have to invade Cynothicus in order to bring its proud people to heel again, but if Marcus’s fears were well-founded, it might be a long time before the Senate or the People—or more importantly, the Houses Martial—were free to concern themselves with the provinces again. They might be too occupied with fighting one another.
“What is Aulus Severus like?” he asked Vestremer.
“I was expecting you to ask about Buteo.” He shrugged in response to Marcus’s noncommital gesture. “He’s sharp, he’s brave, and he’s unbelievably arrogant. Not in such a way as to make you angry, though, as you find yourself more inclined to marvel at him in astonishment. He speaks to my king as if he’s giving orders to one of his riders. It’s almost beyond giving offense because it’s so outlandish.”
“So he’s a typical patrician,” Marcus couldn’t help smiling. “I’m more interested in what he’s like as an individual. Is he impulsive? Does he prefer to bide his time? Is he decisive, or does he dither?”
“He’s only got sixty men. I don’t think he is of any concern to you.”
“He isn’t, today. Or tomorrow. But he is Aulus Severus, the second son of Aulus Severus Patronus. He may not always have a mere sixty knights at his disposal. Who is to say he will not one day become a matter of serious concern to me? You haven’t answered my question.”
“Ah, my apologies, Tribune. I understand now. It is a long game you play! I should say he is by nature impetuous, but experience has taught him to rein it in a little. I think with a bit more seasoning he will provide you with a formidable opponent one day. In fact, I think I should rather like to see it. I don’t think he is as well-spoken as you, perhaps, but he might be a bit more ruthless. And almost certainly more reckless.”
Marcus laughed. “Don’t mistake civility for weakness, my good captain. I would have had you all killed this morning if you weren’t so much more use to Amorr alive than dead.”
“I am delighted you should think so,” Vestremer said with a faint smile playing across his lips. “In any event, my impression is that Aulus Severus does not think much of Buteo, either personally or professionally.”
“No, I can’t imagine he would. From what you’ve said, I imagine Secundus Falconius strikes him as too stolid and conservative. But slow and steady often wins the race, or so I’ve been told.”
Marcus returned his empty goblet to the table and nodded to Trebonius, who was still scribbling on a piece of parchment. “Well, Captain, I think it is time to return you to your men. Your officers will be wondering if I am trying to convince you to volunteer for the legion, and I shudder to think of how many horses Didius and Hosidos will have won off your men at dice.”
“None, I hope. Gambling his horse away is not a mistake any Cynothi can make twice. My thanks to you, Tribune, for your civility and for your generosity. I will not play you false, and I will do my damnedest to convince my king to leave you Amorrans to settle your disputes without our involvement. And if you will indulge an old soldier who wishes you no harm, let me offer you a piece of advice. You are a bright lad, it’s plain to see. But do not forget that there is no substitute for experience. You have a keen mind, but only time and bloodshed can season you.”
The infantry captain bowed, and this time Marcus returned the bow as deeply as it was offered. He rather liked the little man, who struck him as more sensible than many of his own officers. He made a mental note to remember that the Cynothii might make for suitable auxiliaries one day, once they were tamed again and their wings had been properly clipped.
“It was an honor to meet you, Captain, and I hope we shall not have the pleasure of meeting again on the battlefield.”
“The honor was mine, Tribune. My only fear is that if you manage to defeat Buteo, I shall find myself one day boasting to my grandchildren that I was once defeated by great Valerius Clericus himself!”
Marcus chuckled. “I shall do my best to ensure that you will one day have that honor, Captain.”
SEVERA
It was good to be back in Amorr. Despite its distinctly unflowery perfume that assaulted the nose, the importunities of daring men both young and old, and the sense of lurking danger that her father had instilled in her, Severa had seldom felt more alive than she did now. Walking down the ancient cobble-stoned streets arm in arm with her friend Falconatera, daughter of the younger Gaius Falconius Aterus, studiously examining the various wares, edible and otherwise, that she had no serious interest in buying, filled her with a bubbling sense of delight.
They walked through a square, the Quadrata Acqueducta, with a large statue of a man bearing two water buckets over his shoulders that gave it its name. Severa was never quite sure if the statue was supposed to honor the man who had designed the great pipelines that supplied the city its water, the man who had start
ed building them, or the man who had finished them. But whoever it was, she doubted he had been missing a nose as his marble representation did now. She didn’t bother asking Tera, as her friend not only had no interest in such things, but was entirely unlettered.
That was something she had never considered before, but now that her ill-fated imaginary affair with Clusius had made her conscious of the distinction between those who could read and those who could not, she realized that her father had flown somewhat in the face of patrician tradition in seeing to her education. She wasn’t entirely sure he had done right by her, seeing how happily Tera prattled away about the new jewelry she had seen on various women at the theatre the previous week. There was something to be said for the careless, cheerful life of the beautiful butterfly.
The danger of having your eyes opened was that you could not choose to unsee what your eyes had seen. Innocence was like virginity: Once punctured, it was gone forever. Two months ago, Severa would have walked to the baths alone without a second thought, secure in the certainty that no one, not even the street ruffians, would dare lift a hand to the daughter of Patronus. Every time anyone had raised their eyes to her or turned to watch her walk past, she had assumed they were simply admiring her beauty, or perhaps the tastefulness of her attire. Now, despite the sunny skies and the familiar bustle of the city, she found herself wondering if every smiling face concealed deadly thoughts, if every cheerful wave might mask a hand that would one day be raised against her father or her brothers.
Falconatera seemed to sense the darkening of her mood. “Is it true that your father took you away because he thought you were having an affair with a poet?” Like most women of their class, her friend was an inveterate gossip. Severa had already learned so much about the various deeds and misdeeds, both social and amatory, of their acquaintances since the morning that she was better informed than if she’d never been away.
She knew she had to be careful, because telling anything to Tera was tantamount to shouting it out from the sands of the arena.
“Is that what people are saying?”
“Well, some say it was an actor.” Her friend wasn’t so easily put off. “Were you?”
“Was I what, having an affair? Of course not! I will confess that I was a little enamoured of that handsome young gladiator. You know, the one from the Blues? But there is no more harm in admiring a gladiator than there is in admiring a fine horse!”
“A handsome gladiator from the Blues. Oh, do you mean Clusius, the one who died so wonderfully fighting against Montanus?”
Severa closed her eyes for a moment, then forced herself to smile. “Yes, Tertius tells me he was killed. What a shame. I did think he was the most beautiful specimen.”
“I never saw him fight, but I was most affected by one of the poems that was written for him. I cried and cried to think of Montanus kneeling down to cradle his head in his arms. They say he wept, you know, Montanus.”
Severa looked away and smiled wryly to herself. A month ago, she too might have wept copious tears at the tragic romance of it all. Damn all poets! They lied and made their lies sound sweet. It was much more likely that Montanus had simply knelt down to ensure that the wound he’d given his overmatched opponent was mortal, and was readying himself to snap poor Clusius’s neck if need be. She wondered how her father arranged such things, and if she’d ever see Montanus at the domus now that he was free. She imagined the man would make for a perfectly fearsome bodyguard.
“I’ve heard women sometimes arrange to meet them at night, you know,” Tera said in a voice that was very quiet, but rich with excitement. “Very wicked women! Can you imagine?”
“Arrange to meet gladiators?” Severa feigned shock. “At night! How awful!”
“I know! But Lucilla says that the child Julia is carrying—I mean Sempronius Blasus’s wife, not Gaius Nautius’s—that the child actually belongs to a charioteer of the Reds, not Blasus!”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard it was a gladiator of the Greens,” Severa said with a mischievous smile.
“Severa! You’re terrible!” Tera looked absolutely delighted, and Severa laughed. By the time Julia finally had her baby, half of Amorr would be expecting it to have mottled green skin or a dwarf’s bulbous nose.
The dark spell that had held her in its grip dissipated before her friend’s laughter. She had nothing to worry about. When she glanced behind her, she could see the familiar faces of the House guards her father had ordered to henceforth accompany her outside the domus given the recent unrest that was said to have followed the Holy Father’s death.
The two brutish young men were occupied with glaring at random people in the street as if they were potential kidnappers. Severa had thought they would be a bother, but as it happened, they were no trouble at all. They kept a good distance behind, so she and Tera could speak freely. And in truth, she had almost forgotten that they were there before they had even reached the grand Quadrata.
“Have you finished your dress for Hivernalia?” Falconatera asked about the upcoming festival. “I hear that blue will be the color this season, a sort of sky blue. I do wish it was green, though. That would suit my eyes better. But I suppose all the romance about your poor gladiator’s death will only make the blue all that much more poignant.”
“He’s not my gladiator!”
“Well, you did say you quite admired him, did you not?”
“I haven’t been working on it. To be honest, I’ve barely given the festival a moment’s thought. Father is all in a dreadful stir about the winter elections this year for some reason, and Mother is naturally distracted as a result, so I wasn’t about to start making a dress without her help. I suppose I probably should get started soon if I don’t want to be stitching until my fingers bleed, and I’m sure Amarapora will have whatever material I need. It just didn’t seem all that urgent down in Salventum.”
“But don’t you find all those stinking pigs and cows to be ever so inspiring?” Falconatera’s laugh was filled with the lifelong city dweller’s blithe certainty that the country was one large, foul-smelling place inhabited only by impoverished peasants and their animals. She would be astonished, Severa mused, if she were ever to learn that Amorr was far more unpleasantly odiferous than Salventum or any other agricultural province, even when the manure was spread on the fields in the spring and fall.
It was strange. When she had first been approaching the city, its smell struck her with an almost palpable force while she were still miles away from it. It grew stronger and stronger as the walls grew higher and higher, only to begin weakening within hours of entering the city gates. And yet, by the third day, she couldn’t even imagine why she had hought it smelled bad.
But then, one only needed to observe the way in which both street beggars and rural mendicants managed to survive in their very different squalors to realize that men could very rapidly accustom themselves to almost anything. Severa had seen it in her very own house. There were several servants, people who had once been fine ladies in their own lands, reduced to slaves and whores by her father’s legions, then rescued and raised up again by her mother or the majordomus’s wife. And now, as proud and happy servitors of House Severus, the once-sullied women carried themselves as grandly and turned up their noses as spendidly as any provincial noblewoman ever had.
“So I think I’m going to be married this festival,” Tera said, startling Severa, who suddenly realized that her friend had been prattling happily away the entire time.
“Wait, did you just say you’re getting married?” Severa was astonished. She hadn’t even heard her friend was engaged. Was that something she’d somehow missed in her absence?
“Well, not so much married as betrothed.”
Ah, that sounded rather more likely. A betrothal at Hivernalia was generally considered to be either lucky or divinely blessed, depending upon whether you asked a midwife or a priest.
“To whom?” she asked. She hoped for her friend’s sake that it w
asn’t to an elderly patrician. Tera had been somewhat optimistically named, as her mother was a Falconius, albeit hailing from one of the lesser branches of the House Martial, and her father, although a senator, was a plebian whose great-grandfather hadn’t even been a citizen.
Falconatera blushed, and there was a hint of eagerness in her smile. “I don’t know that it’s been properly settled yet, but last week, Quintus Fabricius was paying attendance on Father, which has never happened before, and I was allowed into the triclinium after they ate. From the way he was staring at me, I rather thought he just wanted to see what I looked like. And Father was serving him pheasant stuffed with duck.”
“Isn’t he the eldest son of Luscinus?” Severa clapped her hands and embraced her friend. “Oh, Tera, how wonderful for you! Even if Gaius Fabricius doesn’t accept whatever your father is offering, just the news that a consular family considers you worthy of their son will soon have a century of knights and senators perking up their ears!”
“He wasn’t just an ex-consul: He was the consul civitas! It’s a pity Quintus didn’t win when he stood for tribune. But he’s very handsome, and he’s only five years older than me. I think I should be ever so happy if I married him, don’t you agree?”
“Of course, my love!” Severa thought about whom her father might give her own hand. A daughter of House Severus would be considered a prize by nearly any House in Amorr, let alone the petty patricians. A plebian like Fabricius would do very well for Tera, especially one of consular rank, but wouldn’t enter into Father’s thinking even if his family offered a husband’s dowry. She hadn’t given the matter much thought over the summer, having been wholly caught up with thoughts of her gladiator lover.
Almost-lover, she corrected herself. Should-have-been lover. Or, if she was honest with herself, never-was lover. She had never had the chance to run her hands over that marvelous, beautiful body, to feel herself overpowered in the embrace of those muscular bronze arms. She still dreamed about him, though. Dreams were one thing neither Father nor death nor the ugly truth could steal away from her.