Out of the Waters-ARC

by David Drake

  The double litter had arrived from the warehouse on the Tiber where it was stored. Its frame was inlaid with burl and ivory; its curtains were layered Egyptian linen; and the upholstery inside was silk brocade.

  The litter's weight required four trained men to carry it and four more to trade off with the original team at regular intervals to prevent fatigue--and therefore possible accidents to the wealthy passengers. Agrippinus had bought eight matched Cappadocian bearers along with the vehicle itself, all at Alphena's order.

  Though she had demanded the double litter as an angry whim, it had proven very useful now that she and her stepmother had become one another's confidante: they could speak while travelling in as much privacy as anyone in Carce was able to claim. Only the foreman of the Cappadocians spoke Latin, and even then the bearers' deep breathing and the rhythmic slap of their clogs effectively prevented them from listening to those within the vehicle.

  Candidus was in charge of the entourage. He minced unctuously toward Alphena and bowed. "Everything is in order, your ladyship," he said. "I sent a courier to the warehouse myself to be sure that the vehicle would be here at the third hour, as Lady Hedia ordered. Manetho was supposed to have done it, but for your ladyships' comfort I thought it well to make sure."

  Hedia swept through the doorway, turning the facade of Saxa's townhouse into a setting for her jewel-like beauty. She was so stunning and perfect that Alphena's breath caught in her throat.

  Not long ago she would have been furious at her stepmother for being, well, what Alphena herself was not. Now, she just accepted it as a reality of life, like the fact that she would never be Emperor.

  Reality wasn't a wholly one-sided thing, of course. She would never be teasing some other woman's hair, in constant fear of a slap or a slashing blow with the comb, the way Florina did daily. And there were women less fortunate than Florina.

  "You're looking well, daughter," Hedia said, touching the pendant in Alphena's left ear. "You have flecks of gold in your eyes, and these bring it out. Your eyes are one of your best features, you know."

  Alphena felt her jaw go slack if not exactly drop. "I didn't...," she said. Then, "I do? I--thank you, mother."

  "Let's get started, shall we?" Hedia said in her breezy, pleasant voice. She gestured Alphena toward the litter.

  She hadn't bothered to ask whether it was ready. Either she had seen that it was--though the bearers weren't gripping their poles yet--or she assumed that it would be, because the servants were terrified not to have accomplished whatever Lady Hedia expected them to have done.

  "After you, mother," Alphena said, mirroring Hedia's gesture.

  Laughing, the older woman mounted the vehicle, placing herself on the front cushion. She moved as gracefully as a cat, or a snake.

  Alphena got in on the other side, facing Hedia and the route ahead. As soon as Alphena settled on the cushion, the Cappadocians braced themselves and rose.

  Candidus called an order, but that was an officious waste of time. The bearers didn't pass visible signals to one another, but they nonetheless moved as though one head controlled all four of them.

  The litter swayed as the Cappadocians fell into step. The motion wasn't unpleasant--the passengers could have read if they wanted to--but it did serve to separate those inside from the rest of the world.

  Hedia drew the curtains on her end. They were black netting, woven fine enough that they caught much of the dust as well as blurring the features of those inside the vehicle. Alphena quickly pushed forward her curtains also.

  She eyed her stepmother carefully. She had heard--nobody had told her, but the servants had been murmuring about nothing else all morning--that Hedia had had a bad night with all sorts of shouting and threats. There was no sign of that on her face or in her calm, clear gaze.

  Alphena mentally rehearsed her words before saying, "Have you been thinking about the vision in the theater yesterday, mother?"

  Hedia grinned with wry amusement. "Was that what gave me nightmares last night, dear?" she said. "Is that what you mean? No, monsters can destroy all the foreign cities they like without causing me to miss a wink of sleep."

  Her eyes had drifted toward something outside the present. She focused again on Alphena and added, "Or distinguished older men can, if you like. I learned long ago, dear, that two women never see the same thing in any, well, man."

  Alphena blushed, but the comment was kindly meant; and Hedia had been polite to her own clumsy prying. I should have just come out and asked. With Hedia--not with most people.

  Before the younger woman could apologize, Hedia continued, "No, it was seeing the glass men again. Which I don't understand."

  She turned her hands up in a gesture of amused disgust. "I could explain being frightened by dreadful monsters, couldn't I?" she said. "I'm sure people would be very understanding and say they feel sorry for me. Telling people I'm afraid of men would give a very different impression."

  "Well, they're not really men," Alphena said.

  Hedia's laughter caroled merrily. "Neither are eunuchs, dear," she said, "and I assure you that they don't frighten me. And they're not nearly as useless as you might think, the ones that were gelded after they reached manhood, at least."

  The streets were noisy at this hour; they were noisy at most hours except in the heat of early afternoons in summer. The normal racket was doubled by the shouts and threats of the escort--and the curses of the pedestrians, peddlers, and loungers who felt they too had a right to the route that their ladyships wished to travel. Occasionally Alphena heard the smack of blows and answering yelps.

  "Whatever they are," Alphena said, "the glass men, I mean, they must be terrible. I don't think I've ever seen you frightened before, mother."

  Hedia chuckled. "You've seen me frightened many times, my dear," she said. "You've never seen me unable to do whatever was necessary, though; and you're not seeing that now."

  She indicated her calm, disdainful face with one careless hand. "Don't mistake acting ability for my being too dimwitted to recognize danger," she said. "And you should learn to act too, dear. Even though I'm sure you'll live a life with less to conceal than I have, it's a skill every woman needs to acquire."

  They were passing through the leatherworkers' district. The reek of uncured hides warred with the stench of the tanning process. Alphena's eyes watered, and even Hedia's face contorted in a sneeze.

  "I'll try, mother," Alphena said, barely mouthing the words. She was afraid her voice would tremble if she spoke loudly enough for the older woman to hear.

  She had faced demons, faced them and fought them. She had a sword that seemed to be able to cut anything and had certainly sent fire-demons to bubbling death.

  She didn't know what they were facing now. That was the frightening thing. What use was the keenest, best-wielded sword if you had nothing to turn it on except the ghosts in your own mind?

  "I suppose Pulto thinks that we're visiting his wife in order to buy charms," Hedia said. Her voice fell naturally into the rhythm of the Cappadocians' pace.

  "Aren't we?" said Alphena. "That is, well, I thought we were too."

  "If I believed that a sprig of parsley wrapped around a human finger bone would keep away those walking statues from my dreams," Hedia said tartly, "I'd be far less concerned than I am."

  Her lips twisted into another smile. "I don't believe there's a charm to keep away distinguished older men with braided hair either," she said. "But as I told you, I'm not worried about them."

  She's mocking me! Alphena thought. But that wasn't really true, and if it was true, it was good-natured. Hedia had risen from her bed screaming this morning. If she could smile and compliment and plan when she was under that much strain, then her stepdaughter could smile at a harmless joke and go on without snarling.

  The litter continued pattering forward, but at a minutely quicker pace: the teams of bearers must have changed places. Alphena would not have noticed the difference had she not spent so much time st
udying swordsmen. Tiny patterns of movement indicated alertness and fatigue, victory and death.

  "What do you want from Anna, then, mother?" she said aloud.

  Hedia looked momentarily weary, though her cheeks quickly sprang back to their normal buoyant liveliness. "Advice, I suppose, dear," she said. Her smile was real, but not as bright as usual. "Or at any rate, someone besides one another to commiserate with. I...."

  She paused, then wriggled her shoulders as if to shake away a locust that had landed on them. "Dear," she said with renewed confidence, "I want to discuss the matter with Anna because she's the closest thing to an expert whom we have available, even though I don't really believe she can help. If she says she can't help, when she says that, I'm afraid, then we go on to the next possible pathway to enlightenment."

  Alphena opened her mouth to ask the question. Before she could voice the first syllable, the older woman continued, "We'll determine what that next possibility is when we reach that point."

  "Your Ladyships, we are arriving!" Candidus cried. He sounded on the verge of collapse. Even though the Cappadocians had a heavy litter to carry, the pace they set through the streets had strained the deputy steward almost beyond his capacity.

  The vehicle swayed gently to a halt. There was excited babble outside the curtains.

  "Yes," said Alphena, trying to sound as assured as Hedia did by reflex. "We will determine that."

  ***

  Hedia swept the curtains back but allowed the younger woman to get out of the litter before she herself did. She had been puzzled by the cheering, but it wasn't until she stood up that she could see past the wall of attendants surrounding the vehicle.

  When she did, the slight smile that was her normal expression vanished. She wasn't angry, yet; but her mind had slipped into a familiar mode in which she decided how to deal with a problem--and absolutely any answer was acceptable if cold reason told her that it was the correct choice.

  The apartment block in which Corylus and his household lived was the newest in the neighborhood and the tallest--at five stories--this far out the Argiletum. Anna--Corylus' nurse from the day he was born and his housekeeper here in Carce--was waving from a third-floor balcony. Arthritis made it difficult for her to navigate stairs; otherwise she doubtless would have greeted the litter on the street.

  Scores of other people were waiting, however. At a guess, every tenant in the building who was home this morning stood outside, waving scarves or napkins and cheering, "Hail to their noble Ladyships Hedia and Alphena! Hail!"

  "I didn't expect this," Alphena said, edging close when Hedia walked around to her side of the litter.

  "Nor did I," said Hedia. The background commotion probably concealed the flat chill of her voice; but if it didn't, that too was all right.

  There were relatively few men in the crowd, but those present were neatly dressed. The women wore their finery and all the jewels they possessed. The children were clean and wore tunics, even the youngsters of three or four who would normally run around in breechclouts or nothing at all.

  This litter would draw a crowd anywhere in Carce; it was exceptional even in the Carina District where Saxa and similarly wealthy nobles lived. This demonstration had been prepared, however, which was a very different thing.

  Anna has bragged to her neighbors that she's so great a witch that noblewomen came to visit her. She's trafficking on my name--and perhaps my secrets--to raise her status in the neighborhood.

  "Candidus," Hedia said, "you and the escort can remain here with the litter. All but one, I think."

  The deputy steward didn't object as she had expected him to. He must have understood her expression.

  Hedia looked over the entourage, then said, "Barbato?" to a footman whom she thought would set the right tone. "Precede Lady Alphena and myself to the third floor."

  The name--Bearded, with a rural pronunciation--was a joke; his whiskers were so sparse that he could go several weeks between shaves by the household barber. He was a slender, muscular youth from the southern Pyrenees, with clear features and a good command of Latin.

  He wasn't a bruiser, but he could take care of himself. Because this was daytime, the escorting servants didn't carry cudgels as they would at night, but Barbato wore a slender dagger in an upside-down sheath strapped to his right thigh where the skirt of his tunic covered it

  "Come along, my dear," Hedia said, stepping off with a pleasant smile. Barbato was swaggering pridefully; the crowd parted before him, still cheering.

  "Anna must have said we were coming," Alphena said quietly.

  An eight-year-old girl offered Hedia a bunch of violets, wilted because she'd had nothing to wrap the stems in to keep them wet. Hedia took them graciously and continued into the stairway entrance. To the right side was a shop selling terracotta dishes; on the left--the corner--was a lunch stall and wine shop.

  "Yes," Hedia replied. "That's something I'll want to discuss with her."

  To her amazement, the stairwell was not only empty but clean. When she had visited the building before, there was litter on the treads and a pervasive odor of vomit and human waste. There were benefits to Anna having turned the event into a local feast day.

  The door at the third level opened. Barbato called pompously, "Make way for the noble Hedia and the noble Alphena!"

  Anna waved him aside with one of her two sticks. "Bless you both, your ladyships!" she said. "Welcome to the house of my master, Gaius Corylus!"

  She wore a long tunic which wavered between peach and brownish yellow, depending on how the light caught it, under a short dark-blue cape to which leather horse cut-outs had been appliquéd; Celtic work, Hedia guessed, and probably a very good example of it. She herself couldn't imagine anybody finding it attractive; but then, she wasn't a Marsian peasant who had spent decades among barbarians on the frontiers.

  "Thank you, Anna," Hedia said. She turned and added in a sharper tone, "You may wait on the landing, Barbato. We'll call you if we need you."

  She shut the door firmly, then slid the bar across. The panel was sturdier than she would have expected on a third-floor apartment. Not that she spent much time entering or leaving third-floor apartments.

  "I hope you didn't mind all the fuss below, your ladyship," Anna said. "It's for the boy, you see. How would you like your wine? Oh, and I had Chloe from the fourth landing, right above you see, fetch some little cakes from Damascenus' shop in the next building. I do hope you'll try them, won't you?"

  "I'll pour the wine, Anna," Alphena said, forestalling their hostess as she started toward the little kitchen of the suite. She and Hedia knew that the old woman had better days and worse ones. Even at her best now Anna had no business struggling with a tray of wine, water, and the paraphernalia necessary for drinking it.

  "You said that the gathering was for Master Corylus?" Hedia said, letting her very real confusion show in her voice. "I had the impression they were expecting my daughter and myself."

  "Oh, that, yes, of course they were," Anna said, obviously unaware of Hedia's suspicions. "Do sit down, won't you? I've gotten new cushions. The blue one is stuffed with goose down, so why don't you take it, your Ladyship?"

  Hedia settled carefully on one end of a clothes chest being used as a bench. She said, "I don't see, then...."

  "Well, it's like this," said Anna, lowering herself onto a stool of polished maple. "The boy grew up in camp, you know. He's used to fetching for himself and he likes it that way, so it's just me and Pulto does for him--and I get the neighbor girls to fetch the shopping, since I'm such a clapped-out old nanny goat myself."

  Hedia opened her mouth to protest; Anna waved her blithely to silence. "It suits me better that way too, to tell the truth," she said, "because, well, you know the stories that go around about Marsian witches. If we had servants, they'd be making up tales to cadge drinks and the like. That can get pretty nasty, as I know to my sorrow from when we lived in Baiae before the boy come here to school."

  The small
round table between the stool and the chest was cedar with a richly patterned grain, oiled and polished to a sheen like marble. Alphena set the tray on it and handed out the cups, already filled.

  "I mixed the wine three to one," she said, a little too forcibly. That was the normal drinking mixture which she was used to, and she was making a point that she didn't intend to get tipsy by drinking to limits that her companions might be comfortable with.

  "Thank you, my dear," Hedia said, taking her cup--part of a matched service which impressed her as both stylish and beautiful. Clear glass rods had been twisted, slumped together in molds, and polished.

  She sipped; it was like drinking from jewels. She wondered if Corylus had chosen the set. Certainly Anna had not, given the taste shown by her garments.

  "I'm not clear what the crowd down there...," Hedia said, nodding toward the window onto the balcony. "Has to do with Master Corylus, however."

  She wasn't on the verge of anger any more. Clearly she was missing something, but she now knew that Anna hadn't turned Lady Hedia into a carnival for plebeians as a way of bragging to her neighbors.

  "Oh, well, you see...." Anna said. Her face was so wrinkled that Hedia couldn't be sure, but she seemed to be making a moue of embarrassment. "Because we don't have servants and because we're up on the third floor--the boy said he liked to be able to look out at the Gardens of Maurianus, and you couldn't from any lower down--folks don't really believe he's quality."

  Ah! The higher levels of apartment blocks were successively flimsier in construction and--of course--that much farther to climb on narrow stairs when coming and going. Lower rents reflected this. Corylus apparently wasn't concerned about whether the neighbors thought he was an impecunious phony who only pretended to be a Knight of Carce, but his old nurse cared on his behalf.

  "I've been having dreams, Anna," Hedia said. "Bad ones, of course, or I wouldn't be seeing you. And I suppose you heard about what happened yesterday in the theater?"