The Fire Waker

by Ben Pastor

  "Well, Spartianus," was the final judgment, "you may be Caesar's envoy or Jupiter's envoy or Jupiter's cupbearer, like Ganymede. There's a division of labor in place, offices and duties are ordered and assigned, and nothing I read here tells me you have a say in investigation or the application of the law in Mediolanum. Mediolanum is where we are. There is nothing political about Judge Marcellus's murder, and any action you may take in that regard from now on will be overstepping your boundaries."

  "With all due respect, imperial envoys may only receive orders from Our Lords, His Divinity's colleagues."

  "If their credentials are locally accepted, Commander. Since yours were not, and neither were you received by His Serenity, you're just another army colonel on temporary duty, and we've got more of those than fleas on a dog." The papers were given back gruffly. "We're not in Egypt here, we don't let outsiders teach us our jobs. And we scratch our fleas off when we itch."

  Aelius thought of a couple of ripostes—one foolhardy at best— neither of which could undo the bureaucratic knot tied before him.

  He was left to his devices in finding the Palace's exit. Past the second set of marble halls he crossed, Decimus stood with a pale green stalk— dry fennel, it seemed—in his lips, arms crossed, resting his back against one of the columns of the antechamber where Aelius had waited the first time. "Let me guess: You did not convince Aristophanes or the most perfect Sido of the validity of your claim."

  "I prefer not to discuss it."

  "It only means you will have to stick to your historical research while awaiting His Divinity's letter."

  Aelius's mood did not improve when, upon his return to camp, he was informed that regrettably his lodgings would be no longer available after the end of the week, given the arrival of a new unit in the barracks. The best he could do was receiving assurance from Duco that letters to his attention would be forwarded to him upon request wherever he should find new accommodations. "That asshole Domninus made me hand him your mail, Aelius."

  "You outrank him."

  "But I don't out-ring him. He carried a signet ring from Aristophanes—which admittedly isn't too difficult to obtain, given that the eunuch has more rings than fingers. He'd wear a fat one on the other body piece, too, if they hadn't snipped it for good."

  "What do you know about Domninus?"

  "Not much." The Briton fluttered his right hand, to indicate idle moving about. "He runs around with Curius Decimus, mostly because they served together, I think. Although Domninus's sister was Decimus's first wife, or maybe his second. Say, are you married?"

  "No. Are you?"

  "I get married next month. I'd invite you to the ceremony, but I don't know if you'll still be here, and there won't be much to it anyway. She's eleven, so it'll be three or four years before we can get down to business. Her father will sign the contract, and that's that." Duco glanced at the letters in Aelius's grasp. "I noticed one of them is addressed in a girl's handwriting, so I thought maybe it was from your spouse. Egyptians make good wives, I heard."

  "If you can convince them to marry you, yes."

  The letter from Thermuthis had been mailed on October 30 in Hermopolis, across the Nile from her brothel by Heqet's temple. Aelius opened it first, climbing to the privacy of his room to read it. Prota-sius, he thought, would approve of the refined paper texture, of the elegant, slanted Greek script.

  Thermuthis to Legatos Aelius Spartianus, abundant health and greetings:

  Why is it, Aelius, that I get myself into these tangles for you? You re no different from the other junior officers who spent a fortune on my girls during the Rebellion. At least, that is what I tell myself, although your couth recommended you above the mass of blue-eyed randy fools who made me rich. Anubina, about whom you asked that I keep you informed, is now physically well. The contagion following the river flood has left the province of Heptanomia, and only in Alexandria are some cases still reported. However, the loss of her husband and young son still ails her. Her usual courage and her embroidery business will be the cure, I wager, and of course the care for her daughter Thaesis. (Aelius noticed the madam did not refer to the little girl as "your daughter," and had to wonder whether it was the writer's choice or Anubina's refusal to admit she was his.) I regret to say she is not as beautiful as Anubina was when her own mother sold her to me: She will grow up rather flat, I think, and excessively long-legged. But enough of that.

  Your Egyptian girlfriend is smart, Aelius: She sees through my questions about her well-being and will not tell me more than she wishes me to relate to you. So it has to be because I like uniforms and what they contain (and those little games the two of us played before you met her), that I have out of the goodness of my own heart taken my promise to you further. In return for some small compensation, her neighbors report to me that she never speaks of marriage, nor of leaving Egypt to join her man. She wants sons, she says, which is the only oblique encouragement I can give you at this time. Does she speak of you? No, I must confess, neither to me nor to her neighbors.

  But it may be an intentional freeze, a delay she chooses to see clearly into her own desire. Imagine, thinking of Anubina, one of your poets' verses came to me: "There hides and shines within an amber drop / the honey bee, as if by nectar caught. " I may be turning sentimental after all, something I swore never to do.

  All for now, dear Aelius. If in your travels you should pass by Placentia, do stop by Felicitas's house behind the Capitolium. She's a dear old girl and knows her business. May the gods, especially our beloved little Frog-goddess Heqet, watch over you and keep you hale: Wise, I fear you never will be.

  Written by Thermuthis in her chambers at Antinoopolis the first day of Athyr, the vigil of the Kalends of November, with a full moon.

  Thermuthis was not one to lie. Anubina simply took time. Good. In her circumstances, it was the right thing to do. He'd wait also, and then write to her directly. Out of the letter, Aelius chose to latch on to that sentence—"she wants sons"—as the sole significant, promising one.

  Ben Matthias's message, on the other hand, took no special interpretation. He was on his way to Mediolanum, he wrote, and once there would be available if needed at the Faunus's Fortune inn by the circus.

  I plan to spend the Saturnalia in Mediolanum. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but gift-giving holidays always put me in a good mood.

  By now, with all your courtly duties, you have probably forgotten all about Lupus's lamentable double death in Treveri, but — just for fun — without going into details I can supply you with a few tidbits about his supposed reviver Agnus. Know then that he headed east once he left town, and considering that the climate is not favorable to Christians on the frontier, as Our Lord Galerius applies the letter of the law more stringently than his colleague in the purple Constantius, some believe he is seeking a martyr's death.

  His sidekick Casta was reportedly manhandled by soldiers at a bridge checkpoint in Argentorate. A rough obligatory passage, that one. When I went by myself recently, they searched for coins even inside my beard. True to her name, Casta escaped with her virtue, or most of it, even though with the excuse of looking for undeclared goods they forced her to strip naked. How do I know? I will tell you if and when we meet in Italia. It goes without saying that the soldiers must not have been aware of the duo's religious beliefs, otherwise we'd be minus two healers.

  Lupus's murder, in the words of the local head of criminal police, is a deep mystery. Which, in my experience of speculators, merely means he doesn't have a clue about motive or culprit. My tooth is poisoned against him because of his behavior toward my son-in-law: but more about that when we meet, as I will not dirty my pen writing of the brutal son of an impure sow. I wish you all good things, et cetera.

  Written by Master Baruch ben Matthias at a bedbug-ridden roadside shack its Roman owner dares calling a mutatio. If this is a horse-changing station, I am a Gentile. No date, because I lost count.

  Aelius irritably put away the letter. If intimidation h
ad been attempted with him here at Mediolanum, he could only imagine how the authorities had dealt with the Jewish supervisor of a Roman citizen's brickyard. And as far as Casta went, the guards' behavior at the checkpoint was unheard of, unless she had not disclosed her aristocratic rank: Christians could legally be roughed up, of course, but ben Matthias suggested neither she nor Agnus had been recognized as such. What, then? His guide in Rome, Onophrius, had told him tales of holy women of the Christian persuasion dragged by soldiers into whorehouses and stripped before the rowdy clientele. Why, he'd pointed out to him the door to the small brothel at the head of Domitian's racetrack, where "a virgin thus offended had by divine miracle become instantly covered by a mane of blond hair to her feet." He rather doubted that was what his Jewish correspondent had in mind when writing that Casta had escaped with most of her virtue.

  7 December, Thursday

  "I didn't know you were looking for a place to stay. Does it mean you are moving to downtown Mediolanum?"

  Aelius heard Decimus's voice as he left the central Mall's real estate office. The Roman stood mounted a few feet away, bound to or returning from some official duty, it seemed, with colleagues; among them were one of the twins, unclear whether Dexter or Sinister, and Ulpius Domninus.

  Looking at the latter, Aelius said, "As I am sure you heard from Palace gossip, only the time needed to conclude my research in the archives, and to receive further instructions. Still, the quarters I occupy at the barracks will be needed for the new mounted troops colonel, and although they're not throwing me out, I think it's appropriate that I seek another accommodation."

  "I see." With a nod, Decimus separated from his colleagues, who continued in the direction of the old mint, and dismounted. "Anywhere in particular?"

  "I'm considering the recently built condominium near Porta Ar-gentea, the one with a fountain on the front."

  "That one? It was constructed with Pennatus's bricks. I wouldn't stable my horses in it."

  "Then I'll find a flat in the Palace district."

  "And pay four times its value? If, as I imagine, you're traveling at the government's expense, you shouldn't be extravagant." Decimus said it lightly, in mock censure. "It so happens that last week a tenant of mine left the annex to my house—the part you did not see, oriented toward the downtown. If you're interested ... I like to keep the place rented, because there's talk of widening the street it looks on, and the city fathers could easily ask for the application of eminent domain on an empty wing."

  Aelius refrained from answering. The coincidence, he did not know what to make of. And he was not so much evaluating the opportunity of an association with Decimus as he was wondering about the relative distance from the barracks, where his Guardsmen would remain. But the Palace district was even farther off, and it was true that they did ask a fortune for an efficiency. His colleague perceived the hesitation, and capitalized on it.

  "It has a separate entrance, comes furnished and with house staff, has small but perfectly appointed baths. And I just redid the crawl space, so there is hardly any mildew."

  "I'd like to see it first."

  "Well, I happen to have the keys on me."

  Notes by Aelius Spartianus

  Went to see the place Decimus is renting on Vicus Veneris. It'd be a miracle if it weren't musty, I thought, because the north side looks over a canal. The water all but touches the outside wall, and only the fact that it will freeze soon will keep moss from creeping up it. For the rest, it may well be that it is nearly four hundred years old, as its owner says. There's scarcely any marble used in the thresholds, the floors are plain white mosaic, and the baths are built on the scale of men shorter than where I come from. Doors are low, windows small. But except for a small malfunction of the heating pipes, correctable in two days' time, everything is in top condition. The house serfs are so retiring and discreet that I wonder who last rented these rooms.

  In the bedroom, the sole decoration on the black walls is a painted frieze, very old, perfectly done. The frieze represents erotic scenes among dwarfs and baboons, with the occasional crocodile trying to bite off sensitive body parts. The location is Elephants Island in Egypt, on the upper course of the Nile. I recognize the buildings and the rocks, the rapids, and the herons flying above them. Smaller guest bedrooms, unadorned, would be useful to place a couple of my Guardsmen within calling distance. His Divinity bade me do it wherever I travel, for the dignity of my charge, and for security as well.

  All in all, I am inclined toward accepting Decimus s offer and renting the place. Privacy is ensured by the fact that the door connecting the annex to the main body of the house is not only locked, its keyhole has been sealed.

  The narrow street on which the annex looks, made narrower by the open-air canal, owes its name — so says Decimus — to a small shrine of Venus the Blessed, no longer standing, or alternatively, to the brothels that once lined the pavement. Elegant apartments are there now, but one can tell the old use by the large windows at the sides of the doors, where girls would sit on display behind the grids. Such houses still exist everywhere on the frontier.

  Today the gladiatorial games in Marcelluss memory begin at the Circus. Already folks are swarming to the southwest of town, bundled in shawls and even quilts, because it's sunny but quite cold. It's odd that the weave and pattern of some of those garments reminded me of clothes woven at home when I grew up. The old historians (Posidonius, Strabo, and others) say that the Celtic tribe of the Boii, after disastrously failing to conquer this part of Italy seven centuries ago, retreated to the Danube. Does that mean that we Pannonians share ancestry with these peasants from Italia Annonaria, who still dress like their un-Romanized forefathers?

  Later today I will confirm with Protasius my attendance at Lucia Catulas funeral tomorrow morning, and then bed for the night at the Faunus's Fortune Baruch ben Matthias spoke of. It is an inn patronized by foreigners and those who work in the arena, owing to its nearness to the Circus and the city walls. There, I may be able to gather hearsay about Marcellus's murder and the upcoming execution of the jailed Christians. For them, fifteen in number, the sentence is to be carried out in less than a week in the Circus itself.

  From Decimus, who treated it as if it were no more than an interesting piece of gossip, I found out that Lady Helena, whose son Constantine is best friends with Our Lord Maximians heir Maxentius, is expected to visit from Aqua Nigra, where she reportedly enjoyed the mineral springs. This confirms what I had already learned in the few days I spent at Aspalatum back from Egypt: She is extensively traveling on the Danubian frontier, where many veterans remember her as mater exercituum. And although the role of "mother of the troops" no longer applies after her repudiation, men of my father s generation adore her. They remember when she rode alongside Constantius in an officer's cloak, reviewing the troops. Reports are that she occasionally brings her son along, which makes me wonder whether there is more than nostalgia to Helena's tour. She comes alone to Mediolanum, at any rate.

  The darkness of the room swallowed all sense of direction. Made deeper by the shuttered small window and a moonless night outside, it was—if not safety itself—as close to safety as a soldier was likely to come. Yet the dark, measurable as long as the lamp had been burning, dilated unbroken to immense dimensions. Aelius felt less at ease in it than he had bivouacking along Armenia's highlands and ridges, with the Persian enemy within earshot. Watches on desert nights had been less void. He listened, lying on his side. He listened as if one could listen to the space around, sounding it for extraneous shapes, because emptiness he'd long ago learned to sense. If he felt a presence, he was unable to gauge it. It was not a noise, nor lack of noise. Not a noise from the street.

  Out of the three better cubicles in the small upper floor, only his had been taken for the night. There were supposed to be no late visitors, no servants that he'd asked for. Aelius listened, holding his breath, feeling as if muscular tension would give him away by taking up more space around him. Step
, floor tile, wall brushed past. Sounds on these he knew, and his mind said no. Rustle of clothing, creak of leather, the friction of metal on sheath: For years his life had depended on recognizing those before they became full sounds. He told himself, listening, that he'd never given a second thought to camping alone at the edge of hostile territory, or within it; had he not been the only overnight inhabitant of Hadrian's abandoned city-size villa, which Onophrius feared haunted?

  He listened as if the boundless dark of the night, flowing in through the inn's walls and out again, extended all around to the edges of the earth, and yet his ear should alert him of what his instinct felt. The door could be five or five hundred feet away, the stairs a mile to the south, or the distant north. Flint and oil lamp, another continent. Floor tile, wall brushed past. No. Step. Step, maybe. No.

  The odor of someone who'd come in from the outside, and had crossed the street at a place where mud pooled. That place, slick square of paving, presented itself to him with the clarity of a hallucination, a spot just so, which, coming here, his horse had disdainfully moved left to avoid. The waning light of day had slapped a gray-blue eye of reflection in the watery mud, and the neutral, dead odor of dirt had drawn an unlikely, faultless line from the street to his nostrils. Aelius could only go by that faint trace of mud, not an intruder's smell. Nor could he tell how many.

  Jumping out of bed would create a storm of covers pushed aside, and he was not one to crawl under them to the foot of the mattress, making himself small to offer a minor target. Motionless, Aelius waited for the moment before a blow, when by necessity some rustle would signal it to him. What noise does an arm rising make?

  A motion perceived as it crossed the dark above him. Aelius stopped the blow about to come; the following one became caught in the quilts, glanced off the boiled leather of his army vest. Aelius bound the sheet around the attacker's arm, pulling him in. The man became unbalanced and fell forward across the bed, at which time Aelius knelt up to hit him with his joined fists. To the right of the bed a blade bounced off, clacking on the floor, but it was Aelius's army knife, recognizable by sound, slipped out in the confusion from where he kept it under the pillow. The other blade in the quilts, wherever it was, could be as dangerous as if still wielded. Bodies surged together—his and two more—grappling blindly without a word, fists and kicks ungluing from the tangle what was needed to strike.