by David Drake
"What's going on there!" the doorman bellowed.
Alphena was through the gate before her brother, but he was only a half-step behind. That was a surprisingly good performance for a youth with no pretensions to being a man of action.
The doorman was just outside the gate, standing in the middle of the alley and looking to the left; he was brandishing his cudgel. Alphena couldn't see anyone else.
"Come on, you!" she shouted, wishing that she knew the fellow's name. "Master Pandareus has been attacked!"
She started down the alley, hiking the long tunic up with her left hand. Behind her the doorman called, "Your ladyship, come back! I can't leave the gate! It may be a trick!"
Alphena ignored him and ran toward the intersecting street. She looked both ways. The moon was close to setting, so all she could see was rapid movement to the south.
She started to follow, then stopped after two strides. From the slap of sandals on the pavement, there were a dozen men or even more in the gang which must have abducted Pandareus.
If I had my sword.... But she didn't have a sword, and she couldn't even run in this accursed dinner dress.
Varus came up behind her; several servants were with him, holding hoes and shovels. He'd apparently grabbed the nearest men and opened the gardeners' tool shed to equip them. "Are they gone?" he said.
"Yes," Alphena said, pointing. "But don't follow them. There's too many, and I think I saw swords."
She was gasping for breath, though she hadn't really run very far. It must be the sudden shock that was making her tremble. Looking at her brother, she said, "We need to tell father,"
"Ah...," said Varus. "I don't think that would be a good idea just now. I don't think father would be able to do anything, and, ah, I think he's busy. With mother."
I don't understand--Alphena thought. Then she gasped, "Oh!"
"I sent a messenger to Publius Corylus, though," Varus said. "When he arrives, the three of us can discuss the best way to proceed."
He looked away; he was obviously embarrassed about having shocked his sister. Though of course I know that it happens. Or it can happen. I know it does!
"Yes," Alphena said aloud. "That's a good idea. Corylus will know what to do."
She really did believe that, she realized. Though she didn't have the faintest notion of why she believed it.
***
Corylus reached the alley to the back of Saxa's house, loping at well below the best speed he could have managed. He wasn't in quite the shape he had been on the Danube frontier, but he used running--and sports more generally--to cushion himself against the stresses of Carce as well as to stay physically fit. He could keep up with even a professional courier over the distance from his apartment block to here.
The footing over Carce's streets, even on a familiar route, wasn't safe for a dead run after moonset. Even at a measured pace Corylus had slipped several times, saving himself by tapping one end of his staff or the other down on the pavement.
Men with lanterns and clubs blocked the middle of the alley outside Saxa's back gate. Corylus slowed to a walk as he started toward them. A voice with a harsh German accent called, "Hold it right there, you, or I'll split your head!"
A number of replies bounced toward Corylus' lips. The same reflex readied his staff for a straight thrust that would show that barbarian what it meant to threaten a soldier of Carce. But--Corylus' grin, though wry, was nonetheless real--that wasn't what he'd come here for.
"I'm Publius Corylus, here at the summons of Lord Varus!" he said. He didn't halt, but he slowed further with half-paces. "Who's in command here?"
"Ajax, get your bloody ass back here!" shouted Lenatus from the gateway. "Otherwise you'll be lucky if there's enough left of you to strap to the flogging horse. He's his lordship's friend!"
"Here I am, Publius," Varus said as he broke through the clot of servants. "And, ah, my sister."
Corylus clasped his friend. Varus wore slippers and a knee-length linen tunic, probably what he had worn under his toga at dinner. Alphena was in a short wool tunic of military cut and heavy sandals. She wasn't wearing a helmet or body armor, but she had belted on a long sword.
Corylus had seen Alphena use the weapon. The edge of the gray blade was sharp enough to shave sunlight, and the point had ripped open fire demons; whatever it was made of wasn't ordinary steel.
Lenatus had followed the siblings, but he stayed politely in the background. He too carried a sword, but his was the ordinary weapon of a legionary. With him was one of the night doormen; and Agrippinus, the major domo, stood a pace behind the two lesser servants.
Varus looked around. "I sent Culex with the message," he said. "Didn't he return with you?"
"The runner?" Corylus said. "He'd told me what he knew--that Pandareus walked onto Fullers Street and somebody, a gang, apparently grabbed him. I asked your man to follow along with Pulto. I could get here quickly, but I didn't want to chance Pulto stumbling and, well, being alone at night on the streets. He wasn't pleased at being babysat, as he put it, but--"
His mouth twisted into a smile of sorts.
"--he wasn't able to catch up with me to clout me into proper respect for the man my father depended on to keep me safe."
"I don't think any of us are safe," Varus said with a tired grin. "But I suppose that's always true. Demons are no more deadly than the ordinary summer fevers; they're just different."
"Fevers weren't going to burn the whole world to a cinder," Alphena said. "Anyway, I don't think it was demons that took Pandareus, though I don't know why anyone, demon or human, would."
She frowned and said, "They may have killed him and carried off the body. I couldn't see that well."
"Master Corylus?" Lenatus said, choosing to address himself to the soldier--or semi-soldier--rather than to the children of his noble employer. "I checked the alley mouth, and there wasn't a splash of blood on the pavement. From what Ferox here says--"
The doorman nodded vigorously but didn't speak. He held an oak cudgel with an iron ring shrunk over the business end.
"--they were waiting for Master Pandareus. It wasn't a chance robbery."
"Aye," said Ferox. "They come from both sides, slick as garroting a rabbit. I figure they threw a bag over him. They was waiting for him, no doubt about that."
Corylus looked to where the alley met the next street over. The sky was pale enough that he could see the top of the peach tree which leaned over the wall of Saxa's garden.
He thought for a moment, then shrugged--after all, there could be no harm in asking--and said, "Gaius, can you arrange for me to be alone in the garden for a little while? Without any servants or, well, anybody?"
"Yes, of course," Varus said. He looked at his sister with a worried expression. "Ah--that is...?"
Alphena wrinkled her face in irritation. "We asked Master Corylus to come because we thought he might have a suggestion," she said. "Of course we'll do any reasonable thing that he asks!"
She turned to Agrippinus and said, "Get everyone out of the garden. Then you stand in front of the inside gate and make sure nobody comes back. You personally!"
"Your ladyship!" the major domo said as he went back through the gate with little mincing steps. As soon as he was inside he cried, "Get out of here at once, all of you! Back into the house unless you want to spend the rest of your lives chained to plows in Sardinia!"
"I'll see to it that nobody comes in from the alley," Alphena said, drawing her sword and placing herself in the gateway. The gray blade gleamed like a stream of ice water.
"Thank you," Corylus said as he stepped past her into the garden. He shut the outer gate. Agrippinus had already closed the interior one behind him.
Alphena's gesture seemed unduly melodramatic, but it had certainly worked. Soldiers learned to appreciate tactics that worked, because you didn't have to be on the frontier very long before you had plenty of experience with things that didn't work.
The garden had three stone benches. C
orylus sat on the end of the one nearest the peach tree. When nothing had happened immediately, he said in a quiet voice, "Persica, I'd like to speak with you, if you don't mind."
There was a further long pause. Well, it seemed long. Then the peach nymph appeared, seemingly from behind the trunk.
She hesitated. Corylus patted the bench beside him; she settled onto it sinuously.
"I didn't have anything to do with the men who took the old fellow," Persica said; her tone was a defensive whine. "I know what I did before, to you and the little trollop who fancies you, but I didn't do this."
"I didn't imagine you did, mistress," Corylus said. "But because of where you're standing, I thought you might have seen something."
He paused, but the nymph didn't volunteer a reply. "In fact I'm sure you saw something," he said. "Who took my friend Pandareus?"
The nymph looked at him sidelong. "Will you be nice to me if I tell you?" she said in a tiny voice.
"Tell me out of the goodness of your heart, Persica," Corylus said calmly, as though he were speaking to a child. That was true, in a way: dryads were as quick and light as children in their enthusiasms and their malice.
The nymph sniffed and made a face. "You humans," she said. "I have no heart."
She met Corylus' eyes. "But I get very lonely. You're hard, though, so you don't care."
"Pandareus is my friend, Persica," Corylus said.
"What would I know about friends?" the nymph said. "But it doesn't matter, I don't matter. Anyway, it was the attendants of the old man who came with the three sorcerers. The sorcerers were in charge; I think they're telling the old man what to do, too."
"Sorcerers?" Corylus said. "And what old man? Do you mean Senator Priscus? He was coming to dinner, but not with sorcerers."
"Not Priscus," Persica said petulantly. "The other senator, the one named Tardus."
She slid closer on the bench. "Can't you at least hold me?" she said. "I'd like to be held. I don't think it's going to be very long now before the end."
Corylus put his arm around her waist. She snuggled against him as though she were warm liquid.
Why would Tardus have dined with Saxa? But perhaps Saxa had invited his colleague to make amends for searching his house. And the sorcerers--
"Persica?" he said. "The sorcerers you mentioned? Were they the dark men with Senator Tardus? One of them had a stuffed bird in his hair when I saw them in the theater."
"Hold me," the nymph said. "That's right. Your arm is so strong."
Corylus didn't speak, but his muscles stiffened with frustration. Persica said, "I suppose. A Carthaginian and the other two from the Western Isles. They're all very old."
"But why should they have taken Pandareus?" Corylus said. He didn't doubt what the nymph had told him, but it came as a complete surprise. The pieces of information were piled on top of one another, none of them fitting with the others or with anything that Corylus and his friends had known before.
"How would I know why humans should do anything?" Persica said, treating the question as though he had meant her to answer it. She took his right hand in her left and moved it to her breast. "I'm so lonely."
"No, dear," Corylus said, firmly removing his hand. He kissed the nymph on the forehead, then stood. "You'll have company coming soon, but I'm not at all comfortable with this."
The nymph rose supplely, looking as though she was about to plead. She saw his face and instead made a moue.
"Company?" she said. "Are they going to plant another pear?"
"A pomegranate," said Corylus. "She should arrive in the morning."
"Oh, well," Persica said. She sounded contemptuous, but her expression seemed speculative if not unreservedly positive. "Even a pomegranate is better than no one, I suppose."
Corylus reached for the gate latch. He grinned: he hadn't bothered to slide the bar through its staples, not with Alphena outside with a bare sword.
As he started to pull the gate open, there was a hoarse shout from the house. Over it, cutting through the night like a jagged razor, came a woman's scream.
He thought it was Hedia screaming.
***
Ordinarily Hedia allowed--directed--Syra, her chief maid, to deal with her hair. Tonight it had been made up for her husband's formal dinner, however, which had required the services of three specialists. Removing the pad onto which the hair was teased, and the combs and pins which anchored and embellished the waves, was just as complicated as the creation had been.
A librarian read aloud notes which friends had sent to Hedia; they were mostly froth discussing gossip and parties, past or planned. A clerk stood at a writing desk of Celtic bronzework, a tracery of serpents which twined in curves too complex to follow with the eye. His brush was poised over a sheet of thin birchwood, smoothed into a glossy writing surface to take down Hedia's replies.
There were low voices in the hall outside her suite. The reader stumbled over two more words and stopped without Hedia directing him to. She raised her eyes to him without moving her head: he stood transfixed, his glance trembling from his mistress to whoever had come to the doorway behind her.
It might be a ravening beast, Hedia thought, letting a dry smile quirk her lips. But a beast would probably be noisier. Therefore it's more likely that--
"Your ladyship," Syra announced, "Lord Saxa requests an interview with you."
Hedia thought that most of the hardware was out of her hair. Regardless, if she continued to sit with her back toward her husband, she would appear to be sending a message which was quite the opposite of how she really felt about the dear man.
"Step back, girls," she said calmly, gesturing to her sides. If she got up abruptly, she was likely to be jabbed with a pin. Flaying the back off the hairdresser responsible wouldn't make the jab any less uncomfortable.
When she was sure that her staff was out of the way, Hedia rose smoothly, turned, and bowed to Saxa. He looked flustered, the poor thing.
"Ah," he said. "Your ladyship, I'm, ah.... I came to apologize, and to thank you from the marrow of my bones."
"You bless me with your presence, my dear heart," Hedia said, walking to him with her arm out. She hooked her hand gently around his neck. He still wore his dinner tunic. "Come and sit with me, dear one."
Hedia's clerical staff trickled out of the suite, mixing with Saxa's considerable entourage which milled in the hallway. None of the servants had attempted to enter with Saxa: the four footmen on Hedia's staff stared at potential interlopers, but the real threat that kept them out was her own temper.
Her reputation had preceded her when Saxa brought his new wife home. His household hadn't forced Hedia to prove the truth of the stories about how she dealt with disrespectful servants; but they were true, or anyway enough of them were.
The hairdressers didn't leave the room because their job wasn't quite finished, but they clustered with their equipment at a small side-table on an outside corner. The sun had set, and stars gleamed through the clerestory windows.
Syra stood with her arms akimbo, glancing alternately toward the door, the hairdressers, and her mistress. Hedia, catching the sequence from the corner of her eye, noticed that the glare directed at Syra's fellow servants became a meekly downcast expression when it fell on her ladyship.
As it bloody well had better.
"Marcus Priscus explained that Tardus was threatening me," Saxa said. He allowed Hedia to sit him on the couch beside her, but he sat looking at his hands in his lap. "Threatening all of us, I suppose. I suppose you think I'm an awful fool not to have seen that. I, well, you saved us all, your ladyship."
"I think you are a very sweet, decent man, my husband," Hedia said, kissing his cheek. "The world we live in isn't nearly as nice as you are, but that's not a reason to reproach yourself."
She paused, then kissed him on the lips. "Don't ever be sorry that you're so decent!" she said fiercely.
She thought of sending out the servants, but she didn't want to frighten Saxa aw
ay. It was much like coaxing a sparrow to take a breadcrumb from her fingers; though he seemed to enjoy the exercise as much as any other man once he got properly started.
"I would be lost without you, my wife," Saxa muttered. "I don't know how I got along before I married you."
Instead of answering--even in the depths of her heart, Hedia wasn't sure whether the value she brought into Saxa's life was worth the stress which she undeniably also brought with it--Hedia kissed him again and leaned closer. She heard Syra chivying the other servants out with harsh whispers. Hedia would reward the maid for her initiative... but if Syra hadn't responded without direction, she would have been demoted to the scullery, or worse.
"Dear heart?" Saxa said. "Do you think...?"
"Hush, my dear lord," Hedia said as she lifted the skirt of his tunic and fondled his genitals. She would have preferred the bed because it was wider, but she knew from experience that it took very little to break her husband's mood. She knelt before him and took his penis into her mouth.
Saxa mumbled something, though Hedia wasn't sure that the sounds were words. Matters were proceeding as she had planned; well, as she had hoped.
She reached up with one hand to unclasp the brooch pinning the right shoulder of her tunic, a gold lion's head with polished garnet eyes. She heard the whisper of slippers; Syra expertly unlatched the brooch, then untied the bandeau holding Hedia's breasts as the tunic spilled to her knees on the floor.
Hedia rose, kicking off her slippers as she loosed her gee string. "Now lean back, my lord," she said, guiding Saxa around on the couch so that his whole torso would be supported. "Let me do the work tonight."
She lowered herself onto Saxa, pleased to find that he was rigid enough to enter her without additional coaxing. For a moment she gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment, wriggling her hips gently.
Syra gasped. The sound was little more than an intake of breath, but it would still get her a whipping shortly.