Lest Darkness Fall and Related Stories

by L. Sprague de Camp;Frederik Pohl;David Drake;S. M. Stirling;Alexei

  “I brought you some supper,” Remus said.

  “I’m not hungry,” Herosilla said. She relaxed. She realized that she was hungry, very hungry. Frustration always increased her appetite.

  Remus seated himself and handed her an ashcake with a slab of cheese. “I’ve got beer in a skin here,” he said. “Mom’s keeping some broth warm back at the hut.”

  Herosilla nibbled at the cheese. The cake was too hard to chew unsoftened. Perhaps if she held a sip of beer in her mouth…

  “Even if you’re right about Numitor, lady…” Remus said. He laced his fingers together and stared across the valley so that he didn’t have to meet her eyes. “And I don’t say you’re not. But the strongest men in the village owe it to the gods to run the rite.”

  Herosilla swallowed a bite of cheese. “There are no gods,” she said. “There is Numitor and chances are there’ll be an ambush. I’m not so confident about the details though—like the fact you survive!”

  “There are gods here, lady,” Remus said quietly. “I don’t know about your country.”

  He turned his troubled face toward her. “Lady, if there’s a bad lambing season Amulius won’t starve. He’ll just eat less meat with his bread. But we here in the hills depend for our very life on the half the increase that’s ours. We don’t have grain except what we trade lambs for to the farmers at Alba. What our women raise in their plots won’t keep the whole village alive over the winter. We have to honor the gods properly.”

  Herosilla smiled bitterly. “Remus,” she said, “do you believe that events just happen or do you think men make them happen?”

  Remus pursed his lips. He was a strikingly handsome man, a lean Mercury to his brother’s muscular Apollo.

  “Well, lady,” he said. “I’ve always thought the gods set up the pattern and we mortals pretty much run or fall depending on how well we follow it. My brother, now, he thinks the gods have chosen him to make a pattern.”

  He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “My brother has great dreams,” he said. “For a city bigger than anywhere else in the world. All built of stone, like traders say they do in Greece. Is that true, lady?”

  “Most places in Greece, yes,” Herosilla said. Even in this day, she supposed. For a region as rocky as Greece, there was very little choice.

  “For myself,” Remus continued, “I think even Alba’s bigger than a city ought to get. So many people cramped together like that, it brings out the wrong things in them.”

  He grinned, cheerfully this time. “Though after the Lupercal, we’ll look into this drainage you want. I never found there was anything romantic about mud either.”

  Herosilla laughed and rose to her feet. She’d come to a decision. She was still a little stiff from yesterday’s exercise, but with Acca’s help she’d be able to repeat the hike to Alba the next morning even if she had to crawl the last of the way.

  “Walk me back to the village,” Herosilla said, offering the shepherd her arm.

  “Lady?” he said, but he obediently took her arm.

  “Remus,” she said, “I respect your attitude, but for myself I’m unwilling to imagine a world without the greatness of—of its greatest city.”

  “Chalcis, lady?” Remus said.

  “Not Chalcis,” she said crisply as they walked slowly along a path sheep had worn to the bedrock. “You will run the Lupercal because your gods direct you to do so. And I will do what I need to do according to the forces directing me.”

  Herosilla pursed her lips and added, “Which I must admit are looking more and more like gods.”

  She squeezed Remus’ arm. It was a good, strong arm. Remus was a lad who had possibilities that the right woman could bring out.

  “Hoy, child,” Acca said. Walking to Alba at the best speed Herosilla could manage hadn’t winded the older woman, even though she was the one carrying the bundle of clothing along with food and drink for the trip. “Are you Tertia?”

  The little girl rocking an infant in a wicker cradle in front of a house dipped her chin solemnly. “I’m Quartilla, Aunt Acca,” she said.

  “Well, run tell your mother I’m here with a friend and we’re going to change clothes in your house,” Acca said. “I’ll watch the—”

  She peeked into the cradle and lifted the covers.

  “—boy while you’re gone.” She nodded to Herosilla. “Go on inside. Clodia’s probably with her sister-in-law and the new baby.”

  The house was similar to those in Palatium, though the inner walls had been whitewashed. There was a hanging lamp in the form of a bronze griffin which Herosilla would have been proud to find a place for at her villa in Cumae. A shield, a spear, and a helmet of hardened leather stood against one wall.

  Besides shutters, the two windows had grates of thick withies to maintain security while allowing air to circulate in hot weather. Herosilla remembered Remus’ comment about cities encouraging the worst in men.

  She began to take off her borrowed village garb. Acca came in a moment later, carrying the cradle. The infant remained asleep or at least quiet.

  “Oh, lady, your skin is as fine as the cloth you wear,” Acca said in amazement. She was seeing her guest undressed for the first time by daylight. She set the bundle of silk clothing on the bed frame and untied it with sure fingers.

  Herosilla hadn’t had a bath or a bed free of vermin in the past three days of exercise and exposure. She thought of how a woman of her time and class would rate her now and shook her head sadly.

  Acca wasn’t a trained maid, but she had good hands and there was light to work by. Besides, the audience wasn’t going to be as fastidious as a gathering of upper-class Roman women.

  Herosilla dressed quickly, then put on her jewelry. Her earlobes were still tender; lightning had heated the wires hot enough to blister. She hung the earrings anyway. Garnets and faceted gold beads dangled from the lowest of the three tiers. The effect was spectacular enough to be worth minor pain.

  Acca stepped back to view the completed result. “Oh, lady,” she whispered.

  “Let’s go,” Herosilla said curtly. She smiled with satisfaction nevertheless. She’d have liked to view herself in a mirror, but Acca’s reaction was really a better way to judge how she looked to the folk with whom she’d have to deal.

  Acca led; Herosilla couldn’t have hoped to find her way through this warren. The streets were crowded. Because it wasn’t market day Alba had fewer visitors from the outlying villages, but the local women generally worked in the street before their houses rather than going to the forum. Acca didn’t have her sons’ brute strength, but she cleared a path for her guest without overmuch delicacy.

  Citizens gasped and stared when they saw the shimmering silk and jewelry. Herosilla smiled again.

  The guards outside Numitor’s compound were the same pair who’d attended him at the royal audience. As before, they weren’t fully armed like the guards across the forum. Amulius, though a spineless fool, wasn’t so great a fool that he didn’t preserve some marks of his superior status to his brother.

  “You there!” Herosilla said to the taller guard. She needed to pick one, and they didn’t wear indications of rank. “I’m here to see your master Numitor.”

  “Nobody can go in today,” the guard said nervously. He’d never supposed an apparent goddess would appear before him. He looked to his partner for support.

  The other guard edged a little farther away. He acknowledged Herosilla’s presence only by sidelong glances. Folk in the Forum drifted closer to watch in awe. The guards at the royal compound were interested also, but they didn’t leave their posts when citizens blocked their view.

  “You will not keep me out, you rural simpletons,” Herosilla said in a venomous tone. “Your only choice is whether you willingly admit me to give your master the information about the ambush he’s waiting for; or I enter over the lightning-blasted ashes of your bodies. Do you understand?”

  “She’s the messenger?” the shorter guard asked, try
ing to look at his partner without letting his eyes fall on Herosilla. His question answered Herosilla’s doubt about whether this was the correct year.

  “Sorry, lady,” the taller guard muttered. He pushed the gate fully open as he stepped aside. “We were expecting Talpus.”

  Herosilla strode into the compound. It held four two-room huts. Female servants prepared food in front of one. The women glancing up from their weaving beside the next were better dressed; the fat one wearing bronze armlets was most likely Numitor’s wife. Across the compound, a third hut had a litter of tools and spearshafts leaned against it, though none of the male servants or other guards were present.

  That left the other as Numitor’s dwelling. Herosilla walked through the open door and surprised Numitor talking to an attendant with white hair and a sour expression. Both men jumped up.

  The hut’s front room contained an ornate bronze tripod supporting a brazier. The charcoal was laid but not lighted; apparently the locals didn’t consider the day chilly enough to require heat.

  A pair of large jugs with geometric designs stood to either side of the door into the bedroom beyond; shelves displayed half a dozen drinking bowls on edge so that the figures in black glaze could be seen. One of the bowls had the characters’ names written in Greek above the figures: Herakles and the centaur Cheiron.

  The names were written backwards. The illiterate artist had copied them out as he would have any other design element, but he hadn’t realized that the order of the letters was significant. It didn’t matter to the owner either: he was just proud to own an item with writing on it.

  “Guards!” Numitor shouted.

  “Stop blustering, you fool,” Herosilla said. “I’m your only chance of getting the kingship that you want more than you do your right arm. Shut up and listen or I’ll walk across the street to your brother.”

  “I’ll get—” the attendant muttered as he stepped toward the door.

  Numitor caught his arm. “Wait a moment,” he said. His eyes didn’t leave Herosilla.

  She smiled coldly. “Now,” she said. “You’ve set an ambush for the men from Palatium as they run the Lupercal. I suspect you’ll capture Remus and some of the others but not Romulus. None of that matters. What matters is what we do next.”

  The attendant blinked at ‘we’.

  Numitor said, “Who told you that?” His voice was deadly.

  “Would you be happier if I said the lightning told me?” Herosilla snapped. “I told you to shut up and listen. If you try to bring enough of your own men into Alba to unseat your brother they’ll be noticed. The citizens may not have much affection for Amulius, but they know you’re a vicious little snake. They’ll resist and you’ll lose.”

  “You’re a very interesting woman,” Numitor said softly.

  “Instead, I’ll use the herdsmen from Palatium and the nearby communities to deal with your problem,” Herosilla said. “After that, I’ll—”

  “They’re Amulius’ men,” the attendant protested.

  Herosilla’s earrings clinked as she turned her head quickly. “They’re my men, so far as you’re concerned,” she said.

  “I don’t see how you can achieve that,” Numitor said thoughtfully. “But then, I don’t suppose I need to understand. Since I’ll have no involvement in the entertainment if it fails. That is correct, is it not?”

  “Quite correct,” Herosilla said. Numitor was one of the most unpleasant men she’d ever met, but he was clearly not stupid.

  “And I suppose you’ll want some position for yourself if you succeed?” Numitor said. He glanced through the doorway toward the women’s quarters across the compound. “Well, I suppose that can be arranged also.”

  “That is not what I want in return,” Herosilla said in an icy voice. She didn’t bother to state her loathing for Numitor: he was observant enough to read it in her expression.

  “What you will do, as much for your own safety as because I require it,” she continued, “is send a colony from Alba to where Palatium now stands. The sons of Faustulus will head the new community. Alba’s bursting at the seams, besides which at least some hundreds of the citizens are going to be direct threats to your rule if you don’t get rid of them. You’ll solve both difficulties this way.”

  “A very interesting woman,” Numitor repeated, this time in a musing tone. “When would you expect this…change in government, we’ll call it…to be achieved?”

  Herosilla sniffed. “In ten days or so. I’ll send my men into Alba over a few days to stay with friends and kin here. Too much haste could arouse suspicion. In two market days, let’s say.”

  She turned and looked through the doorway. Numitor’s fat wife was staring into her husband’s dwelling, nervously twisting one of her armlets.

  “Of course,” Herosilla added with her back to the men, “you’ll have to release the Luperci you’ve captured this morning. I’ll need them to lead the assault.”

  There was commotion at the gate of the compound. A man in a torn tunic entered and ran to Numitor’s dwelling. Leaning on the doorpost he gasped, “We caught three of them, but one of those damned brothers got away!”

  Blood spattered the messenger’s tunic. He didn’t have an open cut, though his left cheek was swollen from a blow. He paid no attention to Herosilla despite having to look past her to see Numitor. “Servius wants to know what to do with the ones we’ve got?” he added.

  “Release them to me,” Herosilla said. “Talpus here can lead me to where they’re being held. I’ll return with them to Palatium.”

  “Huh?” the messenger said as his eyes focused on Herosilla for the first time.

  “Yes,” Numitor said. He smiled like a weasel moving toward its prey. “Do as this one says, Talpus.”

  Herosilla smiled back at him. Numitor’s attendant and the messenger looked at them in fear and horror.

  The bonfire in the center of Palatium was stoked high as a beacon for herdsmen coming in from the surrounding communities, but it hadn’t illuminated the track up the hill’s steep southern face. Herosilla stumbled repeatedly during the climb; once she would have fallen except for Remus’ quick hand on her shoulder.

  Acca and the three shepherds hadn’t had any difficulty. Even Roscio, half delirious from the pain of the broken bone in his right forearm, plodded surefootedly through the dark.

  There were scores of men around the fire; perhaps as many as a hundred. A fellow Herosilla didn’t recognize turned at the sound of the returning Luperci and cried, “It’s an attack!”

  “No, we’re coming home!” Remus shouted. “And if you ever want to see your home again, Balthus, you’d better not aim that spear at me!”

  Remus had been clubbed unconscious, but the bloody bandage around his head was the only present sign of the attack. He spoke and moved like a man in perfect health.

  Romulus pushed through the crowd of assembled shepherds. “Remus?” he said. “We were coming to get you.”

  “You were coming to have your heads lopped off,” Herosilla said, pitching her voice to carry. “What did you think was going to happen when you attacked Alba, you dimwit? There’s five townsmen for every one of you, and I shouldn’t wonder if they had better weapons besides.”

  Romulus scowled like the start of an avalanche. “Women don’t understand these things,” he said.

  “This woman understands quite well,” Herosilla said. “Which is why you’re going to do this my way instead of cocking it up again. I can’t afford a failure.”

  She’d changed back to peasant garb before leaving Alba, so she didn’t have silk and ornaments to over-awe the gathered herdsmen. The climb up the Capitoline would have wrecked the fine clothing anyway.

  “I’ve been wondering, brother,” Remus said. His tone was reasonable, but he spoke loudly enough that he could be heard well into the crowd of armed herdsmen. “How is it you happened to be a hundred strides behind the rest of us when Numitor’s men attacked? You’re usually a better runner than that.
Is it because you believed the lady’s warning?”

  “I turned my ankle at the start,” Romulus said. His voice dropped in volume with every syllable. “I was coming to get you. You can see that.”

  “Then let’s listen to what the lady has to say,” Remus said loudly. “After all, she rescued us from Numitor’s men.”

  “Sure, we’ll listen,” his brother agreed, mumbling now. “I don’t see there’s much to talk about since you’re all free.”

  “Come,” Herosilla said, striding toward the bonfire in the correct expectation that the men would jump out of her way. It put the seal on her dominance of the assembly. “I want to sit down, and I want all of you to hear.”

  The closest thing to seats in Palatium were the stones set around the fire for village councils. Herosilla took one that was a hand’s breadth higher than the others. She needed not only rest for her legs but also the effect she would gain by standing again. Romulus and Remus seated themselves to either side of her.

  Faustulus was across the circle. He gestured to the fire and ordered, “Let it burn down. No one else will be arriving tonight.”

  Herosilla waited for the assembly to settle around her. Most of the men were strangers. Local shepherds whispered to their neighbors, telling them who the lady with the strange accent and manner was.

  The only women present were those from Palatium, and they kept very much to the fringes. War was men’s work; though women were the second booty after sheep.

  In clear, ringing tones trained by declamations to groups much larger than this one, Herosilla said, “We are going to put Numitor on the throne of Alba.”

  The shepherds buzzed. “We are going to do that,” Herosilla said, ripping through the amazement the way a sickle saws grain, “because Numitor has enough intelligence to give us what we want. If Amulius had the wit the gods gave to sheep, he’d have put his brother out of the way ages ago.”