Martina raised an eyebrow, impressed the fat old man would speak so forthrightly. Her estimation of him rose a notch, even as her heart sank. There was no legal basis for any of this; Heraclius had failed to appoint a regent before his illness. A pure power struggle in the palace, in the city, would ensue if the matter became public. She felt a little faint but remained standing and composed. Only Rufio's presence steadied her, that and the faint thought that she could order him-and he would obey-to strike all these men down.
"Without a harmonious family," she said, her voice clear by an effort of will, "there is chaos and ill luck for all. Every member of the family should remember that they have a role to play, a place in the familia to fulfill. The gods are pleased if they look down and see a hearth in order, where the proper sacrifices have been made."
A muscle spasmed in her jaw but eased after a moment's pause. She met Nidus' eyes and some flicker of respect passed between them. The deal was offered, accepted and sealed in that look. She unclasped her hands, raising a finger and motioning to Rufio.
"I must pay my respects to my husband now, lest I show him disrespect. I assure you, master of the tombs, that everyone in the household, no matter how mean and low, or how high, will follow their honorable duty. Everyone may rest assured, and sleep easily, knowing that everything is in its proper place."
With that, and a chill glance at the logothetes of the Inkstand and the Binding, she turned and swept out of the room. Behind her, there was a thin, dry chuckle from the back of the room.
– |Martina stopped, putting her hand on the end of the worktable. She looked over her shoulder, smoldering at this boy that thwarted her. He seemed very young and scared, but despite that he refused to leave. She sighed, suddenly tired. There was-well, there had been-a large leather-backed chair pushed into one of the corners of the library. Now, feeling drained and exhausted, she stumbled to it and sat down. The boy let out a breath in relief.
"What are you doing here? What's this device?"
Martina closed her eyes, letting herself relax into the chair. Like everything in this ancient place, it was moldy and redolent of age. It still fit her shoulders, though, as an old friend should. An age ago, when a very young girl had first been brought to the palace in the company of her uncles and their retainers, she had found this chair. Old age seeped from it; the cracked arms and the splintered back all pointed to hundreds of years of sitting in this abandoned room. The palace, with its servants and rituals and the fear that permeated its walls, was no place for an impressionable young woman. Particularly when she had no friends. All she had had, in fact, was the ability to read and to write, and an unquenchable curiosity. Those had been evil days, with a young emperor on an uneasy throne. Enemies on all sides had beset Heraclius. The Avars raided even to the western gates of the city. The Persians waged unrelenting war in the east. Everywhere, there was disaster.
Martina had longed for her childhood home in Roman Africa, where there was some small peace. But her parents were dead and she had been sent to live with her uncles. In those days, with even Constantinople on the verge of daily revolt, she had spent her time far from people, rooting about in the basements and attics of the palace.
One day, sneezing with dust and guided only by the light of a stolen lamp, she had found this library. All of the scrolls and books were very old, the newest being at least a hundred years old. Apparently this part of the palace had been abandoned after a great fire and riots in the Hippodrome. There was a book from that time, filled with lies and rumor and innuendo, and Martina had found it so obviously biased that she had never finished it. It was here somewhere, leaning neglected on a shelf. While her uncles struggled with the priests and the nobles and the barbarians, she had closeted herself here each day, her small brown head bent over one moth-eaten scroll after another. In the cool, comforting darkness there were no snippy ladies-in-waiting, no uncles that hated her. Even the fear that gripped every adult in the palace was easy to ignore.
Looking back, Martina knew that the Empire had been at the very edge of destruction. The acid panic that ate at every adult, making them angry and sharp and mean to a young girl, had not been her fault. It was something outside of them, and her. Even now, when the palace was gripped by this new crisis, it was a thousand times brighter than in those terrible days.
Despite exhaustion, anger roused itself in her again. Now, without so much as asking, someone had invaded her sanctuary, pushed all of the tables around, piled the books willy-nilly and put this thing in the middle of the reading room. She raised her head and pointed a long, well-manicured finger.
"You haven't answered me, young man. What is that?"
Alexos had remained standing behind the table, his mouth thinned to a harsh line. When Martina pointed, he did not turn aside to look. He was well aware of the mechanism that sat at the center of the room on a block of smooth travertine marble. It was his charge and purpose. He was quite familiar with every groove, every plane, every inch of the device.
"You cannot order me, miss. I have the Emperor's charge to watch here and you do not. If you do not leave, I will summon the Faithful Guardsmen and they will take you away."
His voice softened. "You should leave now. You'll get in trouble otherwise."
Martina stared at him in amazement but stifled a laugh. He is so serious! "Alexos, you don't get out much, do you?"
"No," he said slowly, his plump face tensing. "I've my duty here."
"Do you sleep here, too?" Martina looked around, wondering if there was a pallet or cot or something behind one of the scroll racks.
"Yes," he said. "The kitchen staff supervisor sends me meals."
"Where did you live before you came here? In one of the temples?"
"You should go." Alexos turned away from her, still clutching the ivory scroll case to his chest. "I won't answer any of your questions."
Martina sat up, her hands on the smooth curve of the chair wings. The boy was embarrassed. There was a pang in her heart-she knew that feeling far too well. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
He remained facing away, though it seemed that the line of his head had changed, risen. Martina brushed her hair, still in a tangle, back behind her ears and over her shoulders.
"Alexos? I meant no insult. You should know, if you have not been about in the palace, if you have not gone upstairs and seen the great halls and the jeweled courtyards, that I am the wife of Emperor Heraclius. I am Martina, Augusta Romana, mother of the infant Prince and Heir, Heracleonas."
Alexos' head came up and he turned, staring at her with undisguised curiosity. "You're the Empress? You're just a little girl! You don't look…"
"Look what?" Martina cocked her head, her voice filled with venom, her eyes slits. "Like a monstrous, unnatural creature or someone cursed by the gods? Can you still speak with me, or will you turn aside, passing on the opposite side of the chamber? Will you pretend not to see me, lest the taint of my scandal touch your holy robe?"
"Wait!" Alexos raised his hand, halting her words. "I have no quarrel with you, Empress. The matter of your marriage is for the gods to judge, not I."
Martina's rage subsided somewhat. The boy's face was so open and guileless that she believed him. It was refreshing to find a priest that did not get that sick, shocked look on his face when introduced to her. Many of the temples refused her admittance, too, unless she took the Faithful with her.
Fools. It's not as if the gods don't lie with their sisters…
"May I stay, then? I doubt that my husband would mind, seeing that he confides so much in me."
Alexos paused, considering, and Martina sighed, seeing that he had missed the sarcasm in her words. The brief flare of her anger was gone. She was sure that many of the common people did not care that she and Heraclius were married. They had their own concerns. The high priests, now, they had their own agendas and plots to pursue. To them it was a point of weakness to pick at. Her eyes had adjusted to the light, allowing her to see the m
ysterious device clearly. She stood, brushing down her skirts, and approached it.
"You may stay," said Alexos in a formal tone. "But you must be careful… this is an ancient and supremely valuable artifact. It must not be touched!"
Martina looked at him sideways, her lips pursed. "You mean, no one knows quite how it works and you're afraid of breaking it?"
Alexos shrugged and raised his hands, palms up. "That is so… but it does work!"
"Can you show me?" Martina smiled at the boy, dimpling.
"Ah… maybe. It's a little tricky…"
"Oh," said Martina, looking sad. "You don't know how?"
"I know how." Alexos stepped to the other side of the device, his hands resting lightly on the green stone block. "It has a mind of its own, though. Sometimes it will show things you don't want to see."
"It can show you things?" Martina's interest suddenly perked. "What did you call it? A… telecast? A far-sender?"
"Yes," said Alexos, but his mind was elsewhere. His head bent and his forehead furrowed in concentration. "I… can… make it spin…"
Martina stepped back sharply, her hand rising to shield her face. A sullen blue glow began to fill the room.
On the top of the block lay a bronze disk, formed of many concentric rings. Each ring was tarnished with age and graven with thousands of tiny, spiked characters. They were indistinct, some almost rubbed away by time. From the ancient bronze, radiance seeped like water oozing through a porous stone. It spilled out and, as Martina watched in amazement, it began to fill upwards, describing an irregular sphere.
A hum began, first very low, making her spine and bones tremble, then rising. With it, the rings of metal began to rustle and shift. First the innermost ring rattled, making a tinny sound, then it rose into the air. The other rings, first slowly and then faster, rose as well. As they drifted up into the air, they began to spin around a common center. At the same time, whirling sparks of brown and white and gold replaced the blue light. Now the hum was a buzz, and the books and ancient, suspended lamps rattled. The room brightened.
Martina turned her head away, shielding her eyes. Her teeth hurt, echoing the shriek of the spinning metal.
"There!" Alexos sounded exhausted. Martina opened her eyes, relieved that the blinding light had dimmed, illuminating the room with a wavering blue light like sunlight reflecting off the ocean. It washed and rippled over the arching stone walls and the surfaces of the books. The Empress laughed in delight-it was like being in Poseidon's realm under the dark sea! Then she turned and her eyes grew wide at last, seeing what shimmered and gleamed before her. The rings of bronze were gone, replaced by a shining blue-white globe.
It is the world, a sphere, round and complete, she breathed to herself, stunned. Pythagoras was right! "Oh, Alexos… it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
The boy-priest grinned, his round face lighting up at her praise. The strain of maintaining the telecast at speed was telling on him, drawing sweat from his forehead, but the look in the Empress' face was worth it.
"Oh…" She leaned closer, her button nose only inches from the minute white clouds that were curling over the tiny African shore. "I can see Lepcis Magna! I can see the forum and the amphitheater! I can see my… house."
She stopped, covering her mouth with her hand. Alexos squinted, wondering if she was crying. Something seemed to be in her eye, anyway. Sometimes the telecast shifted the vision that it displayed without warning, disorienting the viewer.
"Can you show me something I want to see? Something up close?"
Alexos gulped, feeling the full force of her personality. Her eyes seemed particularly large and green. He had not realized, while he was yelling at her, how attractive she was. He gulped again.
"Like… like what?"
Her tongue ran over her lips. She smiled. "Like, a person, a person here in the city. Can you do that?"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Capitoline Hill, Roma Mater
"Hmm… Your city seems afflicted with disquiet."
Two men stood in the northern portico of the temple of Jupiter Optimus et Maximus. Each wore expensive robes, padded hoods thrown back now that they were under the shelter of the temple roof. The sun was setting in a huge, swollen orange fireball. It wallowed down through air thick with smoke and ash, banding deeper red as it slid down towards the horizon. It had been a bad day in the city, close and hot, without any kind of wind or breeze. At some unguessable height the winds had shifted, bringing a slow-falling cloud of dust and ash to settle over the city. A light patina of gray marked both men's robes. Here, on the height, looking out over the massed rooftops of Rome, there was not even the hint of a breeze.
Despite this, the temple was empty, abandoned. The sacrificial fires on the altar guttered low in the dim red light. One of the men, the blond, was grinning a wolf's grin, looking out over the city. It seemed desolate, for few lights had been lit against the coming night. The sky was washed blood-red and the marble and concrete temple buildings glowed murky vermilion. This man took a petty joy from it, seeing a vision of destruction spread before him.
"It is not my city," said the other man in a querulous voice. "Not anymore. It is a poor night to be abroad in the streets."
"Nonsense, Gaius, it is the best of nights. Listen, do you hear that sound?"
The older man, a tall fellow with a balding head and a close-cut fringe of white hair, bent his long face, listening. There was a murmur growing in the still air, coming up from the streets below the Capitoline. Hearing it, he tensed, for it sparked dark memories of his youth. Men were shouting in the streets, crying out in rage. Women were shouting too, and some were screaming.
"A riot," said Gaius Julius, tugging the cloak closer around his shoulders. "A poor day, indeed, though it must please you, Alexandros, to see Rome come to this."
The younger man smiled, his face shining with delight. "The city means little to me, Gaius. What you built has surpassed my empire, true, and excelled in many respects. But I do not waste time with the past-the future intrigues me. A night such as this, with wild chaos in the air? That whets my appetite, as it should yours."
The youth put his hand on the older man's shoulder, leaning close.
"In nights such as this, when the common people huddle in their homes, the lights dark, hoping to live to the morning, that is when strong men can steal destiny."
Gaius made a half-smile and put his hand over Alexandros'.
"Perhaps."
The noise from the streets, still unseen below the encircling platform and wall of the Capitoline, suddenly rose. Metal rattled and there was a deeper, hoarser shouting. Gaius' head rose, and he stiffened, recognizing the sound. He made to leave the shelter of the portico, drawing the hood over his head. Then he stopped. He knew what he would see.
"Yes," Alexandros said as he descended the broad marble steps, "let us look upon your beloved Rome."
Gaius peered out one of the embrasures, gripped by a peculiar old fear. In his youth the city had been wracked by violence and intrigue. Armed gangs had roamed the streets, attacking the partisans of other political factions. Some of those gangs had been in his pay. Many had not. In those days, it had been wise to travel among a crowd of guards and servants. Now, with the city gripped by this morbid fear, he and Alexandros traveled alone.
"Ah! The Emperor moves at last." Alexandros had pulled himself up into the next embrasure and was sitting, looking down into the street below with interest.
A great mass of people, their faces pale, white ovals in this darkening red murk, was surging along the avenue. An inchoate noise rose up from them, equal parts anger and fear. Two cohorts of armored legionaries blocked their way, making a wall of shields and iron from side to side. The soldiers had not drawn their swords or hefted javelins to their shoulders, but rather were armed with staves of hickory.
The lead edge of the mob paused as it turned the corner into the street. Some of the men and women in the front stopped or trie
d to turn around. The pressure of those behind them was relentless and they were pushed aside, crying out as they were crushed against the stone walls or knocked down. Some struggled up, their arms pressing against the bodies of those that continued to flood into the street.
"Foolish." Gaius Julius sneered at the soldiers below, drawing his cloak up. Ash drifting out of the sky settled amongst his thinning hair. "Let these poor fools into the Forum! Are they not citizens? Then give them some bread and cheese and a ration of wine. Let them eat and drink-"
Alexandros laughed, standing up, his arms on the worn teeth of the battlement.
"The Emperor's patience grows short, my friend. His soldiers feel it and they are angry, too."
Gaius Julius turned away, his face dark in the shadow of the hood. Behind him, the crowd had begun to yell and run, charging forward, heedlessly, towards the lines of soldiers. There was a rattling clang as the first rank of men locked shields and braced for the shock of the oncoming mob. The hickory staves were raised up to shoulder height like a thicket of wands. The old Roman strode away, down the walkway behind the battlement. He had seen such things before-he had done such things before-and it gave him no pleasure. Alexandros watched for a moment longer, his face lit by the ruddy light of lanterns hung before the gate. The mob gave forth a deep, growling sound, then there was a crashing sound and the whipping sound of cane on flesh.
Men and women, their faces cut and bloody, began to scream.
Alexandros grinned, his nostrils flaring, and then he jumped down from the wall and followed Gaius, whistling.
– |"Have you thought upon the matter of the Prince?" Alexandros followed the older man easily, though the streets were very dark and narrow. Gaius Julius seemed to have a destination in mind and the young Macedonian did not think it was a brothel or inn. A pity, he thought, some diversion would be fine on this wicked night.
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