“They were in Oretar, the same as me,” Remus croaked. “The same as you. Or were you the only soldier to come down out those mountains with conscience clear?”
“Conscience be damned, I did what I had to do,” Gabinius snarled. “Same as every other man beneath the colours.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Remus said slowly. “But we did what we did, and it has to be paid for. We’ll all of us be called to answer for our acts, then and later and maybe before. Later, or sooner,” he added, with a glance at the two dead men.
Gabinius’ face contorted with spasm of anger as he took a step forwards, one hand reaching from the broadsword slung across his back. “Why you little-“
“That’s enough, from both of you!” Sergeant Mezentius bellowed in a voice that caused birds to fly from the trees in terror. He strode forward and placed himself between the two men, sending Gabinius staggering backwards with a shove. “Remus! Stow the pious cant until the priest comes a-calling, and keep your opinions to yourself. Gabinius! Remember you’re a soldier, not a savage, and once you’ve remembered, try to act like it!” Mezentius looked around the gathered soldiers, glowering at each of them fiercely enough that some of the young guardsmen shrank from the face of his anger. “Two men are dead! Two of our brothers have been murdered! The only people who win when we start fighting one another are the bastards who did this! So we’re going to do what we always do, which is close ranks, stand shoulder to shoulder in the line, and we’re going to find these people and we’re going to make them pay. Because we are soldiers of the Empire and that is what we do, you louts got that?”
“We’ll make them wish they’d never been born, sarge,” declared Catilina, a young soldier but one who, Miranda had noticed, was eager to be accepted into the company of the older men. But, though the declaration might have sounded ringing coming from the Sergeant Major – to some people anyway, Miranda considered herself to be immune to the appeal of such vulgar sentiments – or firm and fervent if sprung from the lips of Gabinius, coming from a downy youth who could barely fill out his armour it seemed more than a little desperate. Perhaps for that reason alone Sergeant Major Mezentius acted as though he had not spoken, but turned his back upon the boy without a word.
“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” Major Severus observed quietly. “I want all patrols doubled and I want a full report at the end of every watch. Optio Gabinius, take eight men and search the house and grounds for intruders or signs of prior intrusion.”
“Yes sir.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Filia Miranda,” Severus said. “I am afraid that you will have to be confined to your room after supper until this business is resolved, for your own protection and…security.”
Miranda climbed to her feet. “I understand, Major Severus.”
“And in the meantime, I must ask you to stay in the immediate vicinity of the house where you can be kept an eye on,” Severus added. “Guardsmen Remus and Lucius will observe you, for safety reasons.”
My safety or yours? Miranda wondered, but did not bother to ask aloud. She knew the answer already. She simply said, “Very well. Is there anything else you need me for?”
“No, thank you, Filia,” Severus said, stroking his moustache. “You may go now. Sergeant Major.”
“Sir?”
“Prepare a pyre for these men. We’ll see them on their way as soon as possible.”
“You don’t want to wait until sunset, sir?”
“No,” Severus said. “If we get the whole guard mustered in one place for a funeral in the darkness then who knows who might slip in or out. I want it done quickly, in daylight, where a momentary lapse in patrols won’t matter so much. Well, you’ve got your orders, men, fall out and go to.”
Miranda sat on a walnut bench on the front porch, a shadow casting her in darkness, and tried to read despite the shadow obscuring the words.
It was one of the more minor effects of the new strictures upon her movement. Ordinarily she would have read in the south garden, where the sunlight was obscured by the nothing and the flowers gave the air a sweet aroma that made it a pleasant place to while away the hours. Besides, the flowers reminded her of Portia, who had loved the gardens in the palace, and that made her smile when it did not make her melancholy.
Portia.
Miranda wrested her thoughts away from that with as great an effort as a steersman turning a ship clear of some rocks as his vessel was tossed upon a stormy sea. Were her nights not enough to give over to her regrets, without them dominating all her waking hours as well? The point was…the point was…ah, yes, the point was that the gardens were now too removed from the house for the comfort of her two guards, and so she was forced to sit in the porch and squint as she tried to read the scroll in her lap.
Miranda frowned, and idly raised one hand into the air. Light, she thought, and concentrated upon the though, forming a mental image of what she wanted, how bright she wanted it, where she wanted it to go, how she wanted it to look; and then, with that thought fixed in her mind as constant as the sun which she was hoping to replicate in miniature, Miranda pulled upon her magic.
It protested all the while, like a lazy dog hauled out of the kennels for some long overdue exercise that has grown fat during its period of neglected idleness. It did not want to obey her command; it did not want to do anything. As she sought to bend it to her will, Miranda supposed that she ought to be grateful that it had only gotten lazy instead of going wild, but she equally supposed that it was an object lesson to her in not using any of her magic for two months.
Still, could she be blamed? After what she had done with it the last time, after the death and destruction that she had wreaked upon the innocent what kind of person would she have been if she had thoughtlessly continued to use magic at every turn to make her life a little easier? Besides, her guards didn’t really like the idea of her magic, it frightened them and who could blame them for that either? She found that, as much as she sometimes resented their presence, she didn’t want to do anything to alarm them either.
She hoped, as she pulled upon the magic within her with such force that her arms began to ache with sympathy, that a small display of sorcery wouldn’t alarm anyone too much.
Miranda’s hand began to tingle with a sensation like pins and needles, which Miranda supposed was appropriate enough considering the way her magic had gone to sleep through disuse. Her palm glowed white, and then a small, softly glowing ball of light appeared in front of it, floating gently into the air like a dandelion seed, coming to rest above Miranda’s head in the perfect position to illuminate the scroll that she was reading.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, ma’am,” Lucius murmured. He was lounging in a most unmilitary fashion against one of the columns that supported the porch, his shield propped up beside his legs. “The priest says that-“
“I am well aware of all kinds of things that the Novar priests have to say about me, my power and all other such things,” Miranda said. When she was younger, and still lived in Lover’s Rock, a passing witch-hunter had accused her of being an abomination in the eyes of the gods, and of sleeping with the Eldest One besides. Fortunately, before he could actually drag her off to be tried by a clerical court, an angry mob of local Turonim had set upon the fellow, from whom he had been rescued by the limitanei only to be arrested for disturbing the peace. Miranda had, in all modesty, been rather gratified by the way that so many of those she had helped with their ailments and injuries were willing to stand up in court and testify to her good character. The witch-hunter had been sent to the arena, where he had had the bad luck to be put up against Michael. It was the one time, Miranda recalled, where she had been able to watch her brother fight with nought but pride; it was the one time when all of his Firstborn pretensions and mocked up Old Corona chivalry had seemed like more than pathetic childish play-acting. It was the one time in Miranda’s life that Michael had actually seemed like the hero he always pretended to be.
&nb
sp; Miranda returned her attention to the guardsman in front of her. “Has it occurred to you, Guardsman, that the priests of the Novar Church are less interested in your immortal soul than they are in their power over you in the here and now?”
Lucius frowned. “No.”
“No, I don’t suppose it has,” Miranda replied. “Suffice it to say that I will not believe that I was born evil, or that any part of the way that I was born is innately evil, and must be shut away for the good of all.”
“If the other lads saw you doing things like that right now, they might not like it,” Lucius said.
Miranda looked at him. “Do you believe I killed those men?”
Lucius’ eyes flicked first one way, then the other, never quite meeting hers. “No ma’am.”
“No living man killed Gaius and Publius,” Remus said solemnly. While Lucius lounged, Remus stood to attention, shield in one hand and the other upon the hilt of his sword.
“You really think it was the gods or something?” Lucius said, trying and mostly failing to sound incredulous to the very notion.
“They were judged,” Remus said. “Their hands were put in the scales. Judged for their deeds, and found guilty and deserving of death.”
“Perhaps,” Miranda said softly. “But judgement need not imply an immortal judge. There are plenty of mortals who might wish to judge them.”
“Enough in one place at one time to hold down two men and silence them before anyone could find out?” Remus asked. “And strong enough to burn them from the inside? Who could do that?”
“It’s true that I’ve not seen any mortal do such a thing,” Miranda said. Although I’ve done worse. “But at the same time I’ve not seen a god do it either.” And I’ve met one of those, too.
“It’s judgement,” Remus said obstinately. “I can feel it in my bones. Judgement from the divine.”
“Judgement for what?” Lucius asked, his voice trembling audibly now. “What had Gaius and Publius done? They seemed alright to me.”
“They were in Oretar, same as me and Gabinius and the Sergeant Major and half the men here,” Remus replied. “We all did things in those mountains enough to earn the Black Abyss. You mark my words, a reckoning has arrived.”
“From who?” Miranda demanded. “What god still intervenes in the affairs of mortal men like this?” Apart from Silwa, of course, but this doesn’t seem like her style at all. “And why now, so many years after the war ended?” She knew a little of what Remus was talking about when he referred to the sins that he and his fellow soldiers had committed during the Oretine War, Ascanius and Julian had told her enough to get some idea of what black acts the soldiers of the Empire had done to survive and win out over the rebellion that mountain folk had waged. But the only justice for Oretar that Miranda had ever witnessed had been the work of a man, Lysimachus Castra, stricken with guilt and possessed of powerful spirit magic.
And he had done things as powerful – and as terrible – as anything done to Gaius and Lucius. Was that the answer? Was there a powerful spirit warrior on the loose with a grudge over the Oretine War? Another powerful spirit warrior on the loose, rather? But then, why kill only two men? Lysimachus would have stormed the villa and killed everyone, and he would have done it without taking so much as a minor injury. Perhaps this other spirit warrior was not so powerful, but then it could equally be evidence that there was no spirit warrior. But it was as plausible – more plausible, in Miranda’s opinion, than the idea that Ro or Tanuk had taken an interest in their affairs. At least she had actually seen spirit warriors behaving this way in the past.
“Perhaps you can answer that, Filia Miranda,” Remus said, his slow, deep voice rousing her from her reverie.
Miranda blinked. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“You ask why now. You ask why us,” Remus said. “It seems to me that you’ve done things that make each of us like an ant by comparison.”
Miranda frowned. “If that is the case then why not come after me?”
“Because we’re looking after you, Filia,” Lucius said.
Miranda snorted, “Very gallant of you, guardsman, but I doubt it would deter the kind of immortal avenger that Remus has in mind.”
“No,” Remus said. “I reckon you don’t want to count yourself safe so soon, ma’am. Retribution is coming for all of us, and that includes you like as not.”
Retribution is coming. The memory of her nightmare made Miranda shiver.
“You’re using magic,” Octavia said as she emerged out of the front door onto the porch, her tawny wings flapping lazily behind her as she spread them out across the porch. “You haven’t done that in a while.”
“No,” Miranda said quietly. “Do you…approve?”
Octavia smiled, making her face light up in the process. “I think it’s great. I’m glad that you’re starting to use it again. You’ve been ignoring it for too long.”
“For good reason,” Miranda murmured.
Octavia’s face fell a little. “Yes but…Miranda, this is a part of you. I hate to see you neglecting it, or fearing it or even worse hating it.” She sat down beside Miranda, putting one strong but gentle arm around her. “I remember when you brought the first golem to life, how proud you looked. I remember how strong you seemed.”
“Strong?” Miranda said. “As I recall, Quirian ordered it to kill me and you stepped in to defend me from it.”
“There’s lots of different ways to be strong,” Octavia said. “I’m strong in one way.” A gentle burst of air magic stirred from out of her palm, ruffling through Miranda’s hair like a sudden breeze. “Then there’s the strength that Amy has, the strength that people like Metella and Michael have…and then there’s you. Nobody knows what the right thing to do is like you do.”
“Nobody mistook what the right thing to do was as colossally as I did,” Miranda replied.
“Stop talking like that!” Octavia said loudly. “It wasn’t your fault and you can’t spend the rest of your life hating yourself for one mistake, I won’t allow it! I want…I want to help you find the old Miranda again, the one who wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for people needing help, the one who knew that her magic had been given to her to help people…the one who glowed with pride when she realised just how much power she had to change the world.”
Miranda smiled. “Yes, I’d like to be that Miranda again, too. She was much more naïve, and more idealistic, though she covered it in a sauce of cynicism so thick that I doubt most could taste the dish beneath. But I’m not sure that it’s possible, after what I’ve done.”
“You’ll get there,” Octavia said. “With my help, you’ll get there.”
Miranda nodded, in an almost perfunctory fashion. “How was your exercise?”
“No substitute for flying, but better than nothing,” Octavia said. “It’s funny, for years and years I hid my wings and never thought about them, and it never bothered me. Now that you’ve helped me to…well, spread my wings I suppose,” Octavia cringed a little at her own pun. “I find I can’t keep them still for too long.” Her smile faltered a little. “If only you weren’t hiding your own wings so well.”
“I’m using magic again, aren’t I?” Miranda said, gesturing with her head upwards towards the ball of light above them.
“Yes, you are, so I’ll stop nagging now,” Octavia assured her. “What are you reading?”
“Aristogiton’s treatise on anatomy,” Miranda said. “I learned what I know about the human body from practice, but the library has some fascinating works on the subject. It’s quite humbling to realise just how much I didn’t know.”
Miranda glanced up as Glauce, one of the slaves kept in the villa, strode briskly out onto the porch. She was a petite thing, with her back straight and her hands clasped behind her, but whenever Miranda looked into her eyes she could not escape the feeling that there was more strength and substance to her than there seemed at first glance. She bowed slightly. “Can I get you anything, ma’am?”
“No, thank you,” Miranda murmured. In truth she was not, and never had been, comfortable around slaves of any sort. She didn’t understand how anyone could be comfortable around someone they were keeping in chains. It was all she could do to put aside her fears of poisoning and eat her dinner. If she ever got out of here she would attempt to persuade Princess Romana to free the slaves here. Not that the princess was likely to listen, but that was no excuse for Miranda not to try.
“Very good, ma’am,” Glauce said, in a tone so obsequious that Miranda was certain it was put on. “And you, Filia Octavia? Lads?”
Lucius grinned. “I’ll take a kiss from you, Glauce, if you’re offering.”
“Ooh, cheeky sod,” Glauce said with a laugh, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that Miranda could not quite place. Anger? Disgust? Fear? All three?
Who are you really? Or should that be what?
“Your accent,” Remus muttered. “That’s mountains, isn’t it? Oretine?”
Now it was definitely fear that Miranda could see in Glauce’s eyes. Personally, Miranda thought that she had an Eternal Pantheia accent, and quite a thick one as well, but Remus’ words had definitely had some effect on her.
“I…I don’t know what you mean, sir. I’m a city girl, born and bred in the Subura.”
“No you’re not,” Remus said, his speech as slow and deliberate as his advance upon her. “You wear it well, but I can hear the truth underneath.” He took her by the arm, leaning in to murmur in her ear so softly that Miranda could barely hear him. “You want to be careful, girl. If I were you, I should run, and quickly too.” He let her go.
Glauce backed away from him a step looking distinctly frazzled. “Well, if there’s nothing that you want ma’am…” she practically fled back inside the villa.
A befuddled expression settled upon Lucius’ brow. “What was all that about Remus?”
“What I recognised, others will too,” Remus said. “Gabinius, the Sergeant Major, others maybe. I let her know her secret won’t stay hidden. Told her she should get out while she can.”
Spirit of the Sword: Faith and Virtue (The First Sword Chronicles Book 2) Page 59