The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  A pebble bounced past her from upslope. She turned slightly to see that Nikos was descending from the trees. He cursed as he waded through a thicket of gorse and blueberry bushes. There were trailing streaks of blood on his chest and arms as he reached the boulder and clambered up its side. He had abandoned the tunic and vest that he had affected as the master of ceremonies for the traveling company. He wore loose, baggy, checkered pants and heavy boots. His torso, corded with muscle and etched with old scars, was brown with the sun. Thyatis smiled at him as he sat down. Tiny scratches covered most of his body. He rearranged the shortsword and the brace of heavy knives that he favored.

  "A beautiful day," he said, looking up at the swatch of pure blue sky showing between the cliffs. "A pity to be about a dirty business with such nice weather."

  "Yes," she said, leafing through the papers, "a pleasant holiday. How are the men?"

  Nikos grimaced, saying "They're getting used to riding again. All of that city work took the edge off of everyone, I think."

  Thyatis nodded and the smile was gone from her face. A shadow of doubt crossed it. "Once we are out of these mountains, we'll be in territory neither friendly nor easy. High desert valleys, rough mountains, clans and tribes hostile to both the Empire and to Persia. We've a long way to go as well. Our first waypoint is to meet with an Imperial agent at the city of Van, on the eastern shore of Lake Thospitis. By my reckoning, that lies almost four hundred miles from where we now sit."

  Nikos nodded, saying "Three, maybe four weeks, with the wagon and the weather. Half that if we were just on horses."

  "Without the wagon, we'll just look like what we are—a suspicious group of hard-assed characters that look like they belong in prison with one innocent girl among them."

  Nikos laughed, but he watched her face closely too. The orders, which she had not discussed with him, troubled her. He figured that she counted their chances of getting out of this alive to be very low. Nikos had been in one army or another for almost thirty years, and he had long ago come to terms with sudden death. Each day was only as it was.

  He poked at the bread. "You should finish eating that, you'll need it."

  Thyatis grimaced back at him. "It tastes like dirt. Couldn't you steal anything fresher?"

  "The best kind of bread is free. Are you going to tell me what we're lollygaging around up here in the high country for, or shall I guess?"

  Thyatis did not answer right away. She gathered up the papers and the map and packed them away in the oilskin again. Then she ate the rest of the bread and the cheese. The meat she tucked into one of the pockets of her shirt. After they had left the last of the valley towns, she had shucked the dress and had Anagathios pack it away with the rest of the actor's apparel. She had gone back to the dark-burgundy linen shirt and baggy woolen pants that she favored for cooler weather. Not the raiment of a Roman lady—the pants alone would have caused a riot in the Forum—but it wore well on the road. She checked each of the weapons that she was carrying—long dagger on her thigh, short sword in a case sheath on her back.

  Nikos sat, patient as a stone, saying nothing.

  "All right," she said at last, after she had unbraided and rebraided her hair. Two small braids now framed her face, glittering red with gold highlights in the sun reflected off of the water. The rest was woven back behind her head.

  "At Van we meet this agent, and he makes sure that we get over the mountains into Persia proper. Two hundred miles and a mighty mountain range east of Van is the Persian city of Tauris. It sits like a cork in a bottle at the end of a long valley that runs north toward the Mare Caspium. About a month after we're supposed to have arrived, all unnoticed, in Tauris, the entire Roman army is supposed to show up at the south end of the valley, below the city. Maybe at the same time, and maybe not, a mothering great host of Khazar horsemen are supposed to show up at the north end of the valley. Now, these barbarians have said that they'll join up and help beat the living daylights out of the Persians—whom they hate—but unless Tauris is in Roman hands, it's not going to be easy."

  Nikos held up a hand, then carefully counted the men sleeping on the grass next to the wagon, or cleaning their gear, or standing watch at the ends of the canyon. "Ah, Commander, I count that we have a grand total of fourteen men to hand—including yourself. There is no way that we're going to capture some Persian fortress in the back of beyond by ourselves."

  Thyatis shook her head. "That's not what our orders say. They say that we're to have Tauris secured when the two Emperors arrive."

  "They say how?"

  Thyatis gave him a lopsided grin. "That's to the discretion of the commanding officer."

  Nikos sighed, seeing the delight hiding under his centurion's tanned features. "I don't suppose that you read any Greek poets when you were younger?"

  "No," Thyatis said, her face showing a flicker of old pain, "my education came late in life. I learned to read and to write, but no poet suitable for a young lady."

  Nikos cocked his head. Thyatis' past was an unopened book—though it was hotly discussed in private among the men who served her. "What did you read from?"

  Thyatis shook her head and stood up, brushing pine needles and leaves from her pants. "That doesn't matter now. What poet did you want to quote?"

  "Homer," he said, looking up at her. "Odysseus to Achilles, before Troy, 'a noble death does not bring victory—only victory brings an end to death.'"

  Thyatis smiled, but it was wintry. "My poet says: 'when on desperate ground, fight.'"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The Egyptian House, Latium

  The pipe made a groaning sound, like a soul in torment in Hades, then quivered and finally, after another long moan, spit muddy water. Maxian, his face, arms, and hands covered with grime, bits of leaf, and plain old dirt, stepped back, smiling in delight. The water flowed murky for a few minutes and then, finally, clear. The cistern at the top of the house echoed as the water fell into its depths. The Prince rubbed his eyes with the edge of his tunic, trying to get the dirt and sweat out of them. After making an even greater mess of his clothing, he gathered up the lengths of copper pipe that he had scavenged, the hammer and tong-shaped grippers, and set off down the brushy slope.

  Inside the house, he piled all of the scrap and tools in a heap inside the back garden door. He stripped off the fouled tunic and threw it into a basin that stood inside the door. Farther into the house, he came upon Abdmachus and two of his servants who had come up from the city to assist their master. The Persian was carefully measuring the length of the main hall in the villa.

  "We'll have running water in the house within the afternoon," he said in passing.

  Abdmachus grunted and continued to carefully spool out the length of twine that he was using to mark distance. The two servants followed along, making marks in colored chalk at regular intervals. Maxian shook his head in amusement. He went up the steps to the upper floor, a grand stair flanked with statues of ibis-headed maidens and hawks. In the upper rooms, another two of the Persians' servants were mopping the floor and carrying away the debris that had blown in through the windows. Gaius Julius was lounging on a couch that had been brought up from the city. Sets of papyrus scrolls were laid out on a low table next to him. He was ignoring them and eating part of a roast pheasant.

  "We'll have water soon," Maxian said as he opened the hamper containing the picnic lunch that the dead man had brought with him on his latest return from the city. "The Baths might even work if we have the servants clean them out."

  Gaius Julius nodded appreciatively. He was a good Roman.

  "It's not a proper house without a bath," he said, picking bits of bird out of his teeth.

  Maxian set down on the other couch and began cutting slices of cheese off the wheel he had found in the basket. There were black grapes as well, and a jug of wine. The Prince sniffed it and wrinkled up his nose. "For a dead man, you have odd tastes in wine."

  Gaius Julius shrugged. "These modern wines h
ave a foul taste to my palate. This Gaulish wine is the best I've found. There's vinegar in that other jug, if you need your thirst quenched."

  Maxian shook his head and picked up a wine cup left over from the night before. He stood and cleaned it out with a cloth. "I'd rather water than that piss! And thanks to my hard work, we have it."

  He went out of the room and down the hall to a little private room with a marble privy seat. Built into the wall next to die bench was a shallow bowl. Above it, a corroded green bronze handle in the shape of a dolphin was set into the wall over a spigot. The Prince tapped on the dolphin with the handle of his knife and it squeaked a little. He dragged on the handle and the pipe complained and gurgled. Water spilled out and he caught it in the wine cup. After three cupfuls it ran clean.

  Abdmachus was sitting on the other couch when he returned to the room overlooking the back garden. The Persian had a wax tablet covered with markings from his survey. He looked up at Maxian's entrance. "My lord, this house is almost thaumaturgically correct—following Egyptian practices. I think that we've finally gotten the blessing of the gods on our pro... is something wrong?"

  Maxian had halted suddenly and was staring at the cup of water in his hand. His face was a confusion of emotions. He looked up and thrust the cup at Abdmachus. "Drink this, and tell me what you taste!"

  Confused, the Persian took the cup and drank.

  "It tastes like water, milord, good water at that. Fresh from the spring. A little coppery."

  Maxian handed the cup across the table to Gaius Julius. "Drink!"

  "Faugh! I hate water," the dead man said, but he drank anyway. "Huh. Sweet and cold. Not like that crap we drink..." The dead man looked up, his face startled. "...in the city."

  Maxian nodded, his face both grim and filled with exultation. "One way or another, everyone in the city drinks water—either straight, or in soup, or mixed with wine." The Prince's voice was filled with utter certainty. "They bathe in it, they wash their clothes in it. But they don't drink it out of the river anymore, the Tiber is too foul for that. And many of the little springs that used to provide the Hill districts with water are dry. Not all, but most. And where does everyone get the water they drink?" Maxian turned to the Persian.

  Abdmachus frowned at him, then the sun rose in his mind. "The aqueducts! Nearly all of the water in the city comes from the eleven aqueducts. All are controlled by the Imperial Offices—they're critical to the function of the city. A spell placed upon them would affect the waters and, through the waters, every person in the city..."

  Maxian nodded sharply. "Here is what we're going to do, then." He began speaking rapidly. Abdmachus began taking notes on his wax tablet.

  —|—

  A hundred yards up the hillside from the Egyptian house, in a thicket of rowan trees, two figures sat quietly, their backs to the largest of the trees. From their vantage, they could see down both the overgrown lane that wound up the hillside to the house and into the front garden. Early-morning dew sparkled on the leaves of the bushes and trees around them, but both were thickly bundled in woolen cloaks and blankets against the night chill. The larger was snoring softly, his head at an angle. The smaller was awake, her sharp ears having caught the creak of a wagon and the whickering of horses on the still morning air.

  To the east, the sky was a slowly spreading pink and violet. The sun would soon rise over the mountains and wash the land below with light. For the moment, there was a calm stillness as the land still slept, but the dawn crept in on light feet. The dark-haired girl sat up a little and doffed the straw hat that she had been covering her head with. There was a wagon in the lane, with two drivers. They clip-clopped past on the road below and turned into the garden path. Quietly enough to keep from waking her companion, she slid out of the scratchy wool blankets and slunk off down the slope, flitting from tree to tree.

  The two men, one gray-haired, the other with a dark mane, pulled the wagon around to the back garden entrance and unloaded two heavy kegs—filled with wine or water by the apparent weight of them. They rolled the kegs inside the house, raising a clatter on the tile floors. Indistinct voices echoed in the empty hallways. The girl crept lower on the hillside on her hands and knees. Now the wagon was only thirty feet away, across the little side road that ran around the house. The horses were patiently waiting in the traces. The voices continued to echo in the house, though now they receded. The girl looked left and then right. Predawn stillness continued to cover the land.

  She waited a moment, but no new movement came from inside the house. Crouching low, she scuttled across to the side of the wagon and paused, peering under the heavy wooden bed. She could just make out the steps on the other side, but no one was on them. Her nose wrinkled up; there was a foul odor seeping from the wagon, like rotten meat. Oog... what are you doing, pretty Prince? Krista swallowed, suppressing the sudden desire to throw up. There was still no noise from the house, so she crept around the end of the wagon and peered inside the bed.

  There were two long shapes, wrapped in ancient, dirty canvas. The smell was thicker now, but she steeled herself and reached into the back of the wagon to twitch the nearest edge of canvas aside. Her face flickered with revulsion at the sight of a gray-black foot protruding from the bundle. It was scabrous and the toes were swollen. Nitrous dirt clung to it in clumps. The smell was worse, like a fist in the face, and she had to sit down behind the wagon, gagging...

  The clatter of boots echoed on the stone steps at the back of the house. Krista started, then realized that she was trapped behind the wagon. Carefully she drew her legs up under her and edged beneath the wooden bed. From underneath the rough boards, she saw two sets of sandaled feet tromp down from the house and go to the back of the wagon.

  "Gods, that is a foul stench... like rotten butter." That was the Prince.

  "Huh, you're an ill-experienced pup. I don't even note it anymore."

  They bumped around in the wagon and then there was a sliding sound as they dragged the first of the two bodies out. She heard Maxian grunt as he took the weight, then the older man jumped down and took up the rest of the burden.

  "Watch the steps," the older man said, and then they staggered off with the body between them. Krista peered from under the wagon until they had entered the house, then she slipped out from under it and darted off into the shelter of the woods. Twenty minutes later she was back on the hillside, shaking Sigurd's shoulder. He came awake, only slightly muzzy from sleep.

  "Come on, we've got to go back to the city immediately."

  —|—

  The dreadful sickly sweet odor still hung in the air, but Maxian had grown inured to it. His medical training had taken over and now he gazed down upon the two bodies—secretly dug from potters' fields south of the city and now spread open with clamps and tongs—with a detached air. Gaius Julius loitered behind him, leaning against the wall of the basement of the Egyptian house. The older man wore a butcher's apron and heavy leather gloves, spattered with dark fluid. Maxian placed his hands on either side of the first body's head and began to breathe carefully.

  Perception fell away as his flesh relinquished control of his view of the world. The hidden world blossomed, an infinitely textured flower opening in his mind. Detail flooded his mind like a swift mountain torrent, and he struggled for a moment to compose and order it. He bent over the body of the ancient man, dead now for weeks. His fingers moved in the body cavity, sliding over the glutinous remains of liver, spleen, and lungs. His fingers, so used to the work, were his anchor and focus now as his awareness plunged into the recesses of the decaying body. Flesh parted before him, and the innermost secrets of the organs were revealed.

  Against the wall, Gaius Julius watched with apprehension. He had seen more than his share of death, and it was no stranger. But the air in the tomblike basement seemed chill and noisome compared to a battlefield. Too, the work of the past nights, of trolling the alleys of the Subura and Aventine slums for suitable bodies, had been grim. The pov
erty and dissolution of the lower classes of the city that he still, after centuries, loved shook him. In his previous life, he could remember thinking of the people of the lower city, below the hills, as nothing but useful tools in his quest for power. Now the decay of the city and its people struck him cruelly in the heart. He knew that during the short period in which he had the power to revise the workings of the Republic or the customs that supported it, he had done little or nothing. And what now? Had he, somehow, caused all of this to come to pass?

  An hour passed, grains trickling through the glass. Maxian suddenly shuddered and stepped back from the first body. Sweat trickled down his face and he looked exhausted. The dead man stepped quickly to his side and helped him to a chair next to the wall. Gaius Julius squatted, peering at his young master. The lad's eyes were flickering, unfocused. His right hand was clenched in a death grip. Gaius Julius stood and brought him back some wine. Maxian shied away from the cup, but the dead man gripped the Prince's head in his free hand and forced him to drink. After the first taste, the young man took the cup in his own hands and drank deeply.

  "How do you feel?" Gaius held Maxian's head up in his hands, staring at his eyes.

  "Exhausted. I may have to wait until tomorrow to examine the other body."

  "Can Abdmachus do it?"

  The Prince shook his head, too weary for words. Gaius Julius lifted the Prince's clenched hand up, so that the boy could see it. Maxian had trouble focusing, but when he did, he frowned. "Odd. Why is my hand doing that?"

  Gaius Julius pried the fingers back and revealed a small, irregular clump of pale-gray metal in the Prince's palm. He plucked it out and rolled it in his fingers. An eyebrow rose. "It looks and feels like a slinger's bullet. Was it in the body? I saw no wound like this would have made—had he carried it for a long time?"