The Fire Waker

by Ben Pastor

  The thought intruded idly until the end of the rites, when, having taken leave of Catula's grieving sons, Aelius did not at once take the road back to the city. A hazy sun, the color of a debased coin, glared between clouds enough to light up anonymous spots across the fields, pale tracks and lanes intersecting and bordering estates. Closer in, a narrow track, crowded by dry gorse and other weeds, departed from the ustrinum to reach a wayside miniature shrine, then doubled back, skirting the garden with the evergreens. Aelius followed it on foot, leading his horse.

  At the southwest horizon, above sparse shrubs and thickets, a chain of azure hills formed a crisp edge against the clouds. Above him, the last smoke from the pyre stretched into a false ceiling, but the stench of charred flesh rarefied. Ahead, from the small enclosed garden, laurels had escaped by dropping their seeds over the fence, so that here and there, as he approached, the lucent dark green of their shoots broke the pallor of winter grass.

  Yes, this was the only property matching Decimus's description of the nurse's house. The first domestic sound Aelius heard from the inside was the squeak of a door, then the hurried latching of it. No voices, no watchdogs barking. Unafraid, a crow heavily took flight from one of the laurels. The shuttering of windows clattered next, one after the other, as if the distance between them were covered in palpitating haste.

  The overgrown path to the little one-floor house led to a wooden crossbar gate, chest-high to a man, linking the ends of an even lower wall. Unpainted, plain, it was the gate to an old woman's unkempt garden. So concluded Aelius, looking past it without attempting the latch. In a mosaic of black and white pebbles, on the ground just beyond the gate, an improbable watchdog with pointed ears and a hanging jaw pulled at a line of black pebbles, mimicking a chain, cave canem, it read: Beware the Dog, but the c in cave had fallen out, and now the word ave all but welcomed the visitor.

  Aelius lent his ear to other perceivable sounds from within. Nothing but the slam of one last door came. Old women, scared and forever on the lookout for thieves and soldiers and male visitors in general! Stripping a laurel leaf from the closest branch, he mashed it between his fingers to squeeze the scent from its fibers. The motion made his wrist sting, but he kept fingering the leaf, holding it near his nostrils. The scent was green, bittersweet; a scent of well-kept wardrobes, victory crowns, and days when a murdered man's wife is laid to rest.

  Back in Mediolanum, Aelius made one last stop at the barracks to check his mail and to take leave of Duco. The Briton handed him with due respect the purple envelope just delivered by courier. "From His Divinity's residence," he said. Only after Aelius scanned its contents and put it away to reread it at leisure did Duco say there was worrisome news. "Trouble brewing on the frontier."

  "What, has the new unit transferred in already? I haven't seen evidence of it."

  Duco shook his head. "The officers came in advance, while the troop will be here before nightfall. They were attached as a mobile cavalry wing to the II Adiutrix legion, patrolling out of Aquincum the Ve-tus Salina-Lugo border road. So they would know what goes on. Not sure whether we're talking another full-scale raid, but the signs are there. Informants from what used to be Dacia report large movements of armed men—few families, no elders in tow—from the Centum Putei area."

  One Hundred Wells—Aelius had heard the place-name many times. "My father used to be stationed there when we still held the province. Was there when I was born. It's on the road to the old capital, no?"

  "It is. And if the hostiles followed the watercourses downriver—any of the watercourses—they could have started out as far as the farthest steppes of Barbaricum." Duco lowered his voice, speaking behind his cupped hand. "Patrols have been wiped out in such numbers, they're starting to choose them from units that speak no Latin, so they can't ask too many questions."

  "Well, we might have to go to war, eh?"

  "We? I don't know about you, Aelius. Our men, very likely. I could smell a rat when we were informed at the last minute of an entire unit coming from the East. The Maximiani Juniores will be sent in their place, I bet."

  Aelius had heard alarming rumors of tribes on the move at Aspala-tum, weeks earlier. Instructed by Diocletian to keep the information for himself, he'd said nothing, and neither did he speculate now. "What's the name of the unit coming in," he asked, "and who leads it?"

  "It's the Ala Antoniniana Sagittariorum Surorum, under Julius Saphrac."

  "Syrian bowmen. But Saphrac is not a Syrian name."

  "No, his mother was an Alan chieftain's daughter. His father's from Pisa."

  Letter from His Divinity to Aelius Spartianus:

  It pleases us that your mission to Constantius Herculius, our brother and colleague in the imperial purple, was so well received in Augusta Treverorum. We are likewise well pleased, dear Aelius, that your travels are proceeding without complications.

  You have done well by inquiring of us regarding the treatment you should give to the life of our predecessor Severus. Because in our earlier years we ourselves were faced with rebellion and intrigue, we understand both the necessity for harsh measures against usurpers and hotheads, and the value of forbearance after victory.

  Concerning the quality of Severus s sons, be guided by this question: Are monsters begotten by monsters? What about Corn-modus, who stained the imperial name: Was his father not the most pious of princes, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who made of philosophy the weapon and support of his rule? What of Caligula before them, who — although a son of the excellent Germanicus — did not hesitate to bestow senatorial rank on his horse, and shamed the institution of marriage by betrothing his own sister? Did not the Father of the Country himself, Octa-vianus Augustus, sire the wanton Julia?

  Coming to the question of vengeance versus pardon, there is no denying that Severus much exceeded, not only in our opinion, the strictness that his very name and role required. Severity should not become license to rule as a tyrant. Still, this prince's generosity to the army, whose organization he laid out as a stepping-stone to important careers, should be counted in his favor, like his great building projects in his native Africa, on the Danube, and elsewhere.

  If, all said, in Severus s life shadows still be more profound than lights, Aelius, so be it, because a portrait is not such if it does not resemble the sitter. The majesty of Rome does not fear the fact that occasionally her princes have been found lacking in virtue. Without tarrying over sordid details that will not impress a sordid audience, but may scandalize the pure reader, we encourage you to tell faithfully the life of the noble Severus, honoring truth and history.

  Because news of your reception at Mediolanum by our brother and colleague in the imperial purple Maximian will likely cross this message, Aelius, we reserve our further orders to you until a later date. Stand ready for them. Know meanwhile that it pleases us to hear of your inquiry into the strange events preceding and following the brick-maker's murder in Belgica Prima. We encourage you to persevere, to keep us abreast of your findings, and, time permitting, to learn more about the superstitious practice of so-called resurrection operated by Agnus or Pyrikaios or fire waker, as he is also known. It is precisely to stem such senseless beliefs that we have to exercise dour discipline on the Christian sect.

  Written at Salona, the vigil of the Kalends of December, 30 November.

  As expressly stated, Diocletian's answer had been sent before he received Aelius's report of the failed mission at the Mediolanum court. Still, at a second reading, Aelius had to check his disappointment over the vacuum that lack of specific instructions created around him, visa-vis Maximian and Sido's speculatores. His Divinity's confidence in his investigative pursuits was the most encouraging element, although he might have to underplay his official role.

  He waited until the day, grown cloudier and chilly, declined toward evening. The half-empty city streets were run through by a norther that tasted like snow, and when Aelius crossed into the Jewish quarter, he met hardly anyone around. Mediolanum's g
ates would close one hour from now, which left a span of time sufficient to run his errand and return.

  Thickets shrank into the dim distance already; bogs were undistinguishable from wet meadows and fields. Riding past Nemesis's temple, closed and gloomier at this hour, Aelius told himself by way of an excuse that few things like the locking of doors and windows in a soldier's face get his dander up. What reason could possibly bring him here again, other than compelling Castas old nurse to open and let him in? More likely than not, the servant knew nothing, concealed like an owl in what remained of her mistress's wealth. Aelius had no specific questions to ask her, no curiosity beyond the crossing of her threshold. Unless he wanted to see the rooms once owned by Dec-imus's distant cousin, on the vague assumption (or hope, who knows why) that she was as beautiful as her marble forebear in the ancestors' room. The thought crossed his mind. It might be also—no, not outrage exactly; pity, maybe, for the woman stripped and insulted as she traveled eastward with her teacher, who claimed to call up the dead but could not stay a soldier's rude hand.

  A last touch of light hesitated in the air when Aelius unlatched the gate and walked the brief space of the overgrown garden to the door, in a whirlwind of dry leaves. One of the two narrow windows on the facade was closed; the other, half shuttered, showed the glimmer of a lamp inside. The glimmer came and went, so it was probably an oil lamp hanging under the inside porch, open to the wind.

  To make sure the old woman heard him, Aelius took out his army knife and used the handle to rap on the door, metal against the metal knocker. Nothing, not even a fleeting sound, came in reply. Bringing his ear close to the wooden leaf, he only heard more acutely the rush of wind in the laurels. A series of energetic raps—which he would have to justify if this were after all the wrong house—was finally followed by a grumpy, suspicious voice from behind the door. "Who is it?" Unlocking, unlatching, a sliver of space unhinging between one panel and the other. "What d'ye want?"

  Aelius had to lower his eyes to make out a shadowy wedge of wrinkled face, peering at him. He asked, "Is this Annia Cincia's property?"

  "No, mine. What's that to you?"

  "Let me in."

  That was all it took for the old woman to let out a strangled yelp. "Help, thieves! Killers! Murderers! Help!"

  Aelius expected the frantic try at slamming the door once more, and promptly drove his right boot into the crack. With his knee he pushed the panel back by degrees, without exerting too much pressure, because it was after all a diminutive old woman struggling to keep him out. He overcame her easily, entered, and closed the door. "Don't speak nonsense. Can't you see the uniform?"

  She did look, squinting in the semidark. Far from seeming relieved by the sight, she fluttered back like a ruffled bird. "Then you're the guards, you're the guards! Somebody help!"

  At one glance Aelius took in the old-fashioned space: low columns surrounding a little open-air court, the solitary oil lamp hanging from a hook under the porch, no other exits. "I am not 'the guards,' goose."

  "Then you're the head of the guards! Help, neighbors!"

  There were no houses within hearing distance, and had there been menservants around, they'd have shown up already. Aelius watched the old woman run around in a patter of slippers, arms waving over her head. She was just making noise out of fear. "Stop screaming." Quickly sidestepping her, he put himself in her way and she ran into him, not even chest-high to his size, a sack of cloth and bones. "I am just visiting, woman." He spelled it out calmly. "No one means to harm you."

  She spat at him in a passion. Her fists rained on him, weak and rabid, pummeling his sides; Aelius would have laughed, were he not embarrassed at the way things had turned out, but was just as close to growing angry.

  "Issa, that is enough."

  That someone else had spoken was unexpected. Aelius looked under the porch in the direction of the voice, and let go of the servant for the time it took her to grab a garden rake and land it on him, ineffectually, to tell the truth, like a combative chicken unwilling to give way.

  The woman who had spoken stayed in the shadow; it was impossible to judge anything about her except that her voice was young and well-bred. "Do not strike, Issa. They have found me."

  A dull clack of wood on the flagstones alerted him that the rake had been dropped behind him. Out of the shadow he faced, Aelius perceived the stretching forward of feminine arms slackly crossing at the wrists: thin wrists, pale under the lamp, emerging from dark long sleeves so far as was necessary to manacle them.

  The motion of surrender unsteadied him. Aelius felt as if the evening had turned a page and was now another evening, strange and unknown, belonging to someone else's destiny, and to another man. "Lady Annia Cincia!" He said the words half asking, half confirming them to himself.

  "That is not my name."

  "Tonight it has to be, domina. It makes a difference to my visit." His other self (whose evening it now was, new and untried) introduced himself, bowing his head as officers greet ladies. Aelius as he'd been until now hung back, stupefied. Her presence, her smallness, her severity troubled him. "I thought—reports say that you were traveling east."

  The pale wrists stayed crossed, but her arms lowered slowly. "Who sends you, Commander?"

  "No one. That is—I am acquainted with your relative, Commander Curius Decimus."

  "A relative, but no friend of mine."

  "Well, he does not send me, either. I am here of my own accord, simply because—"

  "Caesar sends you: You are Caesar's envoy. I was told your name. You sought me at Treveri already. Why?"

  Through the corner of his eye, Aelius caught the furtive movement of the old nurse, giving him wide berth as she went around to join her mistress. "Because of the fire waker."

  "He's not here. He preceded me eastward. Are you to arrest him?"

  "Why, no."

  Time had stopped. No invitation was made to seek one of the few rooms opening on the court, nor to light other lanterns, or simply move away from the darker and darker porch under which they stood. The moribund oil lamp swung from its hook. Thanks to it or to imagination, Aelius at one point caught the glimpse of a cheek in a severe head covering, and in another moment, a sparkle of eyes such as sometimes dark women have even in the shade. Not until now had Sido's order to "cease and desist," and stay away from investigation, sounded welcome to him. He heard himself precipitously tell Casta of his desire to meet the miracle worker, of Lupus's murder and other such disconnected bits, linked by inquisitiveness and nothing else.

  Nothing else? Others kept watch. Suddenly, the thought that gendarmes or soldiers patrolling after dark might see his horse tied outside the garden and grow suspicious distressed him. He should not stay, for the women's sake. In order not to renew their alarm, Aelius finished what he was saying, and then added in a sedate voice, "It may be unsafe for you to remain here, domina."

  "God will provide."

  "Allow me to wonder about that. There are twelve Christians awaiting execution in the Gallic Meadows jail."

  "I know."

  "They stand accused of killing Judge Marcellus."

  "I know that as well." Her voice was mild, secure, unafraid. "Christians are taught not to lie: Should you ask me, I could not tell you that Christians are innocent of Marcellus's death, because it would imply a knowledge I do not possess."

  "It matters little, their days are counted." When Aelius stepped forward to take leave—not planning any contact, even the touching of hands being unthinkable without an aristocrat's permission—she recoiled with a half-turn of the shoulder, head averted, sinking back into the dark, a figure like Alcestis, the mythical bride called out of the realm of death. He said, "It's best if I leave. As you are to me the claris-sima domina Annia Cincia of the senatorial class, Pupienus's widow, I can only apologize for my intrusion and assure you no one will hear from me of your presence here."

  She answered nothing, made no gesture of acknowledgment. Stepping away, she subtracted h
erself from his sight, noiselessly, like the phantom bride in the myth.

  "Now go," the old servant told him gruffly. Before stepping out, on the threshold Aelius thought of his schooldays, how as a youngster he'd chosen to write the essay: Why should Thanatos have relinquished Alcestis from Hades on the strength of her husband's love?

  When the door closed behind him, a last translucent ribbon of sky piercing the western clouds told him how little time had in fact passed. The rest was clouds, darkness under the laurels, cold wind. His horse's patient click of hoofs where it waited, tied in the back, brought him back to himself. This was his old evening again, Aelius's evening. And it would be Aelius's coming of night.

  It had begun to snow when he rode through Porta Ticinensis, just as they were pushing it closed.

  At the head of the Vicus Veneris, lights and smokeless torches in their brackets formed a fiery necklace along the wall of Decimus's house. Far from taming the illumination, wind and the twirling snow made it more fantastic, a fairy-tale splendor that was nearly blinding after the dark districts Aelius had crossed. He led the horse around the corner, to the paved piazza by the main entrance. The space was crowded with elegant litters manned by hooded, burly slaves, horses were being stabled, and the doors opened to a bustle of guests. The noise of a party flowed from the severe entry hall, bright with lamps and braziers, where ceremonious butlers stood in their holiday clothes. More than a party, it seemed a traditional, grand Roman feast, judging by the scented to and fro of handsome freedmen in short furs, the girls' squeals from the inner halls, the music and laughter.

  The head of Decimus's staff waited for him at the annex's doorstep, quiet and dim in comparison. He informed Aelius at once that a bath and change were ready if he so required. "Master inquired whether you were in, Commander, in case you wished to join the feast."