The storm of Heaven ooe-3

by Thomas Harlan

  Vitellix sighed, hiding his disappointment. He sat beside the wagon. As before, they were in the grove, in the afternoon, letting the heat of the day pass while they exercised under the spreading trees. Diana squatted down, rubbing her face with a woolen towel. Her hair was growing back as a red fuzz.

  "You have been trained before," he said after a moment of contemplation. He rubbed the side of his nose, watching her. "Your body remembers, even if your mind does not. I could see you were strong when the boys dragged you out of the stream. Anyone else would have perished."

  Diana looked up, sea-green eyes gleaming in the dappled sunlight. "Was I a sacred performer, like you? Did I travel in a painted wagon?"

  Vitellix shook his head sadly. "No. I know the names and faces of every performer in Italia. You are not among them. Too, you're Roman. Most of the sacred performers are Gauls or Spaniards. Many of us come from the Narbonensis. This is a traditional profession among our people."

  "What am I, then?"

  "Give me your hands," he said. He took them gently, thumbs tracing out ridges of hard muscle and callus. Without speaking he ran his fingers along the hard, flat planes of her forearms and biceps. As he did so his face darkened with memory.

  "What is it?" Diana cocked her head, watching him like a marsh bird. "What do they say?"

  The Gaul's face turned sad, fingertips tracing a puckered white scar that curled across her shoulder and upper arm. He sighed and squeezed her hands, putting them together.

  "It is not for me to reveal," he said at last. "The gods have given you a second chance, taking away your old life, granting you a new one. Let us leave it at that. I will not ask you any more questions."

  Diana stood, her body moving easily at last. The terrible weakness that had plagued her was beginning to fade. At a distance, the sound of Franco and Otho practicing came through the trees: grunts and the slap-slap of their feet on hard-packed earth. She frowned questioningly at Vitellix, though his usually open face was closed and guarded.

  "This is a change! Usually you are pestering me, wanting to know if I remember anything at all, even the color of my mother's eyes!"

  "I know," he said, lips pursing. "I remembered something… I have been impolite and vexing, I am sure. What went before is in another life, Diana. This one is trouble enough without rousing old ghosts."

  Diana frowned again. Men! First they want something, then they don't!

  "Then," she said with asperity, "will you answer some of my questions?"

  "Surely," he said, mouth quirking into a half-smile. "I should be vexed in turn."

  "Huh! I don't know about that… It seems there is trouble with this Emperor Galen. Otho and Franco are constantly arguing about him."

  "Yes," Vitellix said, shaking his head in dismay. "He is a just ruler, but he does not understand what the games mean to the people of the city. They say that he is pious, that he makes the proper sacrifices to the gods, but that he does not believe in them. It tempts the gods to flaunt their will… what will the spirits of the dead do, if they do not receive their offerings?"

  "So the people are troubled by this delay?"

  Vitellix nodded his head in assent. "Rumors are rife in the city, saying the Emperor does not care, that he has turned his back on the dead."

  Diana grimaced, saying, "That does not seem wise…"

  "No," Vitellix sighed, "it is not wise, even if we gain a few more days to practice and train."

  "What happens next, then? Do we go to Rome and take part in these games? Where will we perform?"

  Vitellix laughed, a strained sound. Diana suddenly realized that he was very worried.

  "Were it so simple… here is how these things are done, my innocent! When the great games, the munera, are declared, the Emperor usually sponsors them himself. He, having other duties as well, then hires an editore to actually compose, arrange, cost and execute these performances. Of course, he must bear the cost as well, which can be vast. The editore, in turn, arranges with the bestiarii for wild beasts and exotic slaves, with the lanistae for gladiators and dancing girls, with the directors of the theater troupes, with those that deal in dwarves and freaks, with the purveyors of musicians, of acrobats, of Spanish dancers… it is an enormous business, employing thousands of professionals and slaves."

  Vitellix sighed, leaning back against the wagon. "And our small troupe merely the least of players… yet, if these games are as great as rumored, even we will find a place."

  "Our employment is not assured, then?" Diana was troubled. She had been clothed, fed, bathed, nursed back to health by Vitellix and his family. She had no money, no way to repay them for their kindness. "What will we do?"

  "Our employment is more likely if we can gain the attention of someone with the ear of an editore or one of the sponsors. I have arranged, again through the most notable Lucius Cornelius, for an appearance in a regional festival in the town of Narni, which is not far off. I hope that it will be attended by certain agents of the Ludus Magnus or the Flavian in Rome. They may find some worth in our skill."

  Diana nodded, flexing her arms. In a few weeks she might be strong again. "What can I do to help?"

  Vitellix considered her. He had been wondering the same thing. A thought occurred to him. "Perhaps… perhaps you will have the strength and eye for the wire."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Aelia Capitolina, The Roman Province of Judea

  It was cold on the hilltop, making every breath a cloud of frost. Odenathus squinted at the eastern horizon, urging the sun to rise and bring him warmth. A steep-sided, boulder-strewn valley separated him from the city of Aelia Capitolina. Lights gleamed on the walls, illuminating guardposts and fortified towers.

  Odenathus had been sent forward with the scouts to observe the lay of the land. The Palmyrene snorted to himself. Jalal had sent him. This had caused vigorous discussion between the burly Tanukh soldier and the whippet-thin Lord Uri, who vied with Jalal for command. Each man was sure that Lord Mohammed had placed him in charge of the expedition. Even sending scouts forward required a vehement and prolonged discussion of the options. For reasons best known to himself, Lord Uri was dead set on being the captor of this hilltown.

  Mohammed may be infallible when the voice from the clear air speaks through him, Odenathus thought, cold hands stuffed into his armpits, but he is still just a man when he speaks with his own voice. The Palmyrene youth was pretty sure that Mohammed had intended for the two men to work together. They certainly behaved themselves when he was about. Odenathus shook his head in dismay and wonder. Like two boys with only one toy between them!

  Rock clicked on rock and Odenathus turned, seeing that one of the Sahaba was clambering across the cracked and weatherworn boulders.

  "Sir? We've checked the hill and the nearest huts. Everything seems empty. No Romans about, anyway."

  Odenathus raised an eyebrow at the boy and received a shrug in return. "Not even a goat or a watch goose?"

  The boy, his face mostly shrouded by the dark cloth of his kaffiyeh, shook his head.

  "They must know we are coming, then. Send a rider back to the camp and tell our… commanders that there won't be any surprise attack for this place."

  In the wake of the victory at Yarmuk, the Arab army had split in two. The main body, with two-thirds or more of the men, under the direct command of Mohammed, had pressed on to the coast, aiming to capture the great port of Caesarea Maritima. At the same time, a second effort had been sent south, towards the town that controlled the highlands of Judea. Odenathus had been attached to this expedition as their sorcerous support, even though that meant breaking up the team that he and Zoe made.

  Somehow, Odenathus thought with a smile, Mohammed will make up that lack.

  The Palmyrene didn't know how the Arab chieftain had attracted the attention of a "power" but it was clear beyond doubt that he had. Looking upon him in the hidden world was almost impossible. He shone like a cloth hung over the sun. Conversations with the Mekkans in
the army revealed that the man had never received any kind of training in the arts. Something had found him, though, and entered the world through him. Odenathus shivered, but not from the cold. There were things in the universe that were vaster than the human mind could imagine.

  Odenathus had been taught, both by his tutors as a youth, then later in the Legion, that these "powers" were hostile to man. They were beyond the pale, weak gods with human faces that the people worshiped. They were more than the tiny spirits and servitors a man could call up and control. These things, unnamed by any sane man, were to Odenathus as he was to the least of the insects. Trafficking with them meant madness and annihilation.

  I pray that Lord Mohammed has not been found by one of the Ancient Ones. If he had, Odenathus knew, then it was very likely the world in which he walked, breathing the chill air of a summer night finally breaking into dawn, would be destroyed. An elephant brushes against an anthill with one ponderous foot, smashing it into the ground. The ants, milling about, rushing here and there, are reduced to a stain. The elephant, continuing on its own business, fails to notice.

  The sun at last rose, washing the olive trees on the mountain with golden light. Odenathus held his hands up in the air, greeting the sun. Around him, the Sahaba were kneeling, making their prayers. Soon the heat of the day would build and it would be blindingly hot. He turned, watching the rosy light slowly paint the tops of the walls and the roofs of the buildings in the city. It seemed quiet and still. Soon the cocks would be crowing and the priests ringing the summoning bar. It seemed clear that the city was held by the Romans, by a garrison, and they knew the Sahaba were coming.

  Today, if Jalal and Uri could quit arguing about who was in command of the expedition and the order of march, they would lay siege to the place.

  – |"Um… Nicholas?"

  Three men were crouched in the shadow of a gate postern. The gate was a deep-set opening in the eastern wall of the praetorium of Aelia Capitolina. It was the main gate from the city-a crowded, ramshackle affair of tiny streets, overhanging roofs, close-set tenements and shops-into the fortress maintained by the Roman government to administer the province of Judea. The praetorium was built on the foundations of an older citadel that had once been partially demolished to make way for an extensive palace that had lined the western wall of the city. As a result, it rose up on an artificial hill of debris, looking down over the rooftops of the city. Too, Aelia Capitolina was built on three hills with a streambed between them. The praetorium rose on a spur of the southwestern hill, while to the northeast, on a broad, flat platform, there was a massive temple complex.

  Like most things in the city, the original structures on the temple mount had been torn down by the Romans and rebuilt. Between the fortress and the temple lay the body of the city, creased by the streambed, which had long ago vanished under pavement and buildings and centuries of rubble.

  "Yes, Vladimir? You're having some second thoughts?"

  Due to the confined nature of the city and the fact that the southwestern wall faced directly onto a rather steep slope which was unsuitable for building, the plaza before the gate of the Praetorium was far smaller than the Roman city planners had desired. There was barely thirty feet between the brooding overhang of the gate tower and the nearest building. Too, the narrow alleyways that snaked between the buildings, twisting and turning, plunging down flights of steps or climbing steeply, were very dark. In some places, even the noon sun did not illuminate the courtyards. The Roman planners, particularly the engineers attached to the old Tenth Legion, had expressed some reservations about the security of the praetorium, given that it would be easy for a hostile force to hide in the alleys, only a short sprint from the gate.

  "Second thoughts? No, my friend, nothing like that. I just wonder…"

  As it happened, the alleys fronting on the plaza were crowded with Roman engineers. Though not technically hostile, their presence would have caused some consternation amongst the inhabitants of the praetorium. These men, armored in the overlapping plates of their lorica segmentata, dark red cloaks bundled around them, spears and short, stabbing swords at the ready, helmets tied securely under their chins, were waiting for the gate to open.

  The three men in the shadow of the gate overhang were their commander and two close companions.

  "Wonder what?" Nicholas whispered crossly. The last three days of frenzied activity had not been without some discussion amongst Nicholas and his staff. If the Walach had concerns, he should have brought them up. The barbarian, his thick black hair clouding his face, scratched the back of his head. Nicholas turned slightly, so that he could see Vladimir's eyes.

  "Well… we're about to seize the residence of the civil governor of the province with Imperial troops. This is the same governor, appointed by the Emperor, who has struck a deal with the largest clan in these parts to see that order is maintained and the taxes are collected. If this Albanian is thrown in the jug, they'll be pissed."

  Nicholas nodded, mauve eyes in shadow. Though the sky was brightening, it was still quite dark down in the brick and plaster ravines of the city.

  "That's so," he said in a whisper.

  "Doesn't it strike you as reckless to pick a fight with half the province and the governor when we received news not more than three days ago that the Great Prince Theodore has been routed by a rabble of desert bandits and unhappy farmers? Isn't it a little unwise to do this when the city may be under siege within days?"

  Spreading his hands, Nicholas shrugged.

  "Sometimes, Vlad, you've got to take the bull by the horns and leap. This pustule of an Albanian is a thief and corrupt as a Persian clerk. He's driven the other half of the province to the edge of revolt with his tax policy, and I do not trust him to hold the city against these raiders. If we make him disappear, then I think the rest of the citizens will fight. If he stays…"

  The third member of the little group stirred, putting a finger to his lips.

  "Quiet," breathed the young man, his red hair tied up behind his head. "I feel someone coming."

  Nicholas froze and Vladimir became so still that he seemed to fade into the bricks behind him. The young Hibernian settled back behind the heavy bulk of the Walach, whose shoulders dwarfed his. Nicholas, his face settled and calm, slowly drew his blade from its sheath. The metal gleamed in the poor light, showing a rippled, watery surface. The sword was of the hand-and-a-half style favored by the northern barbarians, with hilts wrapped in grooved leather and wire. Nicholas brushed lank brown hair out of his face and took the blade in both hands, tensing for action.

  Brunhilde quivered in his grip, smelling blood.

  Beyond the heavy pine door, bound with iron bands and held by a pair of bolts sunk into the rock of the tower on either side, there was a rattling sound. The voices of men came, muffled by the thick wood. Metal squealed, sliding along a stone groove. Then the door opened, pushed by two of the governor's guardsmen.

  For an instant, Nicholas looked upon them, seeing a pair of Illyrians with stubbled faces and corselets of round iron rings. Their swords were slung over their shoulders in wooden scabbards held up by a leather strap. Neither was wearing a helmet, though one man had a pointed spangenhelm hung from his waist belt. Both were grunting, their strength matched against the rust and grime in the hinges that kept the door from swinging freely.

  Nicholas' jaw clenched and he moved, Brunhilde whipping past at shoulder level as he drove her with the full power of his upper body. The Scandian blade sunk into the first man's unprotected neck, parting the skin and muscle like soft bread. Blood spurted, fouling the clean length of the blade, and Nicholas stepped into the doorway, wrenching the sword free. The first man was falling, unable to make a sound with his throat torn away, as Nicholas reversed direction with Brunhilde's wedge-shaped point and ran it through the open mouth of the second man. The soldier's eyes bulged and droplets of blood from his cheek spattered his face. Bone ground and popped, then Brunhilde was on guard again. Nicholas, lett
ing the blade keen softly, strode over the bodies. He was in the courtyard.

  Behind him, Vladimir sidled into the chamber of the tower, crouching low. An odd light burned in his eyes as he loped past the two bodies, still twitching on the cobblestones. In the gateway, Dwyrin raised his hand and whistled sharply.

  The Roman engineers darted across the plaza, their rectangular shields held up at an angle. No one expected the garrison of the praetorium to be awake and armed at this hour, but it never hurt anyone to be thorough. The engineers that Nicholas commanded believed that more than most, since lax attention to detail on their part could kill hundreds. They reached the gateway without incident and poured through.

  Dwyrin watched them go. When the last of the men had filed inside, taking up their positions at the gate to prevent any disturbance, he entered the gatehouse himself. There was little place for him in the swift, bloody business that Nicholas intended, so he climbed the long flight of stairs to the observation deck on the top of the main building of the fortress. He went quickly, being young and limber. Two years of service in the Thaumaturgic Corps of the Eastern Empire had cut the fat from his teenage body, leaving wiry muscle. His hair, long and red, trailed behind his head in a thicket of braids. Despite his obvious outlander appearance, he wore the red cloak, strapped boots and tunic of a Roman soldier.

  The sun was full over the horizon when he reached the top of the stairs and he stepped out into bright golden sunlight. He squinted, shading his face with a hand. Life in the desert suited him, even when he had been in the wizards' school in Egypt. That was surprising, considering how green, foggy and wet Hibernia was, but his memories of his homeland were growing fainter with each day. After three months in the Judean capital, the barren hills and dusty olive groves on the mountains seemed homey and familiar.

  Yawning a little, he leaned against a battlement. Like the rest of the city, the citadel was built of quarried limestone blocks fitted with cement. It made everything a yellowish-white color, matching the mountains and valleys. From a distance, if the sun did not strike on the gilded roofs of the Temple of Jupiter on the other hill, it could be hard to distinguish the city from the hill. The local tribesmen tended to wear pale white, tan and cream robes, too, which made them match the ground. It always seemed dusty, even when it was not.