Legions of Fire: Chapter Five

    Hedia swept out of her suite. Syra was just behind her, and in the maid’s train followed a covey of lesser servants. They included two male lantern-bearers, though the lamps in the hall had already been lit.

    “Is my daughter ready?” Hedia snapped to the group of maids chatting beside the half-sized bronze copy of Myron’s Discus Thrower. She thought one of them was assigned to Alphena’s suite; and regardless, all of the upstairs servants probably knew where the family members were. They rarely had anything to do except gossip, after all.

    The servants had flattened stiffly against the wall when Hedia strode into view. “Your ladyship!” said a henna-haired maid who must be nearly fifty. “Lady Alphena is already gone to the street to inspect the new litter!”

    “Indeed?” Hedia said without raising an eyebrow.

    “It’s just been delivered,” volunteered a new under steward. The older men to either side grabbed him by the elbows and hustled him backwards through a doorway and out of sight.

    Hedia stepped briskly down the stairs, her face expressionless. She knew nothing about a new vehicle, and she doubted very much whether her husband did either.

    “Travel safely, your ladyship!” the night doorman boomed. He wasn’t so much greeting the lady of the house as warning the large number of servants in the street that she was about to appear in their midst. They straightened and formed into neat blocks, sorted by their duties.

    In the center where Alphena stood was the object of everybody’s interest, a huge two-passenger litter. It had a canopy and isinglass curtains which would allow those inside to get a cloudy view of their surroundings while staying dry in a storm.

    The vehicle must be heavy, but it shouldn’t be too great a burden for the two teams of four bearers. They were Cappadocians, judging by their features and stocky bodies. Their matching tunics seemed to be green, but that might be a trick of the yellow lamplight on blue fabric.

    “Are we ready to go, Mother Hedia?” the girl said with brittle cheeriness. “And how do you like the new litter? I told Agrippinus to get one immediately so that you and I can ride together in the future!”

    “A commendable show of initiative, dear,” said Hedia as she walked over to examine the vehicle and its crew. “I should have thought of it myself.”

    Alphena had no authority purchase a vehicle like this. With the bearers, it must have cost as much as a farm in the south of the peninsula. Even Hedia herself should have gotten the approval of her lord and master before she did anything of the sort.

    Realistically, though, the servants knew that Saxa wouldn’t have objected. If his daughter went into hysterics, as she’d given ample proof that she could, the life of nobody within earshot would be quiet. Alphena wasn’t above demanding that a servant be beaten for obeying her father’s orders when they clashed with her own desires.

    Agrippinus should have informed Hedia about what was happening, but that wouldn’t have made any real difference. Besides, she’d been occupied with her bath and toilette; she wouldn’t have welcomed an interruption.

    She ran her fingertips over the vehicle’s mother-of-pearl inlays; she couldn’t feel the seam where it had been let into the ebony frame. And it wasn’t as though Saxa would miss the money . . . .

    “An excellent choice, my dear,” she said, giving the girl a smile which was at least partly honest. “I’ll congratulate Agrippinus on the skill with which he carried out your orders.”

    And she would have some other things to say to the major domo. She understood his decision not to warn her, but it hadn’t better happen again unless he wanted to sleep on his belly for a week or two until his back healed.

    “Shall we go?” Hedia gestured with her left hand; her multiple rings caught the lamplight. Each was set with a pearl to match her three-strand necklace of large Indian stones hung on gold wire. “You should have the honor of seating yourself first, dear, since it was your idea.”

    Alphena had been angered at the way Hedia sequestered the boy — though Corylus had better sense than men twice his age, more was the pity — on the way back to the house. She’d bought the litter in order show she was important — and very possibly, to provoke a quarrel with her stepmother.

    Hedia had no intention of quarrelling, not with so much in the balance. Her attempt to ally Corylus still more closely had been sensible rather than just a pleasurable whim, but it had been a little — well, provocative. If Alphena resented it, that showed the sort of spirit that the girl would need to find her own way in a world which men ruled.

    Hedia seated herself on the rear-facing couch; the cushions were arranged so that the passengers faced one another as they reclined on their left elbows. Alphena had a guarded expression that could turn very quickly to petulance or anger, but there shouldn’t be any need for that.

    Hedia rapped her fan against the pillar behind her head. “You may go,” she said in a tone that implied, “And if you dawdle, you’ll be whipped within an inch of your lives.” Which was of course true.

    The team lifted the vehicle smoothly and set off toward the Argiletum. There were lamps on the two forward corners of the canopy, and half a dozen additional linkmen trotted along behind the vehicle where Hedia could see them. Goodness knew how many there were in front.

    “I’m only doing this to please you,” Alphena said sullenly.

    “I know, dear,” Hedia said, “and I appreciate it. The whole family has to cooperate in the face of this –”

    She paused to choose the word.

    “This danger,” she said.

    It would have been more honest to say that the women of the family had to cooperate, because Saxa himself appeared to be part of the danger. And judging from what Hedia had heard about the reading, she wondered if Saxa’s son wasn’t also dangerous.

 

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    The linkman and two under stewards with cudgels in the lead suited their pace to the cautious rate that Lord Varus found comfortable. They were singing a current ditty about The Girl from Andros, to warn others who were out tonight that they were sober and in good number.

    Varus didn’t like travelling in Carce at night. Well, nobody did, of course, but he thought he disliked it more than most. He wasn’t exactly night blind, but he was sure that other people must see better than he did. Tonight there was a full moon, though, and they’d come most of the distance by the Sacred Way. That was the last street in the city where shadows might hide broken pavement or there’d be a dead ox blocking the road.

    He no longer heard the Hyperboreans of his vision chanting, but the rhythm of it was in his blood. He supposed that was why he was, well, more nervous than there was any reason to be. Even across the river in the worst part of Carce, a man with lanterns and twelve attendants wasn’t going to be set upon by robbers.

    There were men who used sedan chairs; Saxa himself occasionally did. Varus wasn’t concerned about what Carce generally would think if he’d chosen to ride in a chair, but he cringed at the idea of Corylus seeing him arrive like a fine lady. Not that Corylus would say anything, or for that matter that he –being Corylus — would even think it.

    “We’ve reached the base of the Capitoline, Lord Varus,” said Candidus, the deputy steward in charge of the escort. He was competent enough but officious, and he talked far too much.

    “Yes, I see the retaining wall,” Varus said, though the irony probably went unnoticed. The small procession turned left toward the steps to the top.

    He liked to spend time with his own thoughts, which was impossible in Candidus’ company. The fellow would never behave this way with Hedia or even Alphena. The women would flay him with their tongues, and if he opened his mouth again at the wrong time, he’d lose the skin of his back in all truth. Varus didn’t know how to do that, but –

 

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    “Candidus,” Varus said, “if you interrupt my train of thought again, I’ll have you assigned to my sister for a few days to correct your behavior. If you survive a few days, that is.”

    “Lord Varus, I never –” the steward began in horror. Varus stared at him; he shut his mouth and trotted forward to climb the steps to the hilltop with the leading trio.

    Varus smiled as he too started up the staircase. He didn’t suppose he’d ever be forceful, but he was learning ways to deal with the world on its own terms. The logical part of him didn’t think that should be necessary, but the philosopher argued that the cosmos must be constructed correctly because it was, after all, the cosmos.

    “The noble Alphenus Varus requires admittance!” Candidus announced to the guards at the top. The temple compound was walled and connected to the Citadel which covered the rest of the Capitoline, though at the moment the gate to the stairs from the Sacred Way was open.

    In ancient times the hillcrest had been the last defense of the people of Carce. There hadn’t been a serious threat to the city since Hannibal had marched to the walls almost three centuries before, but the guards weren’t just a formality. The temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest was the Republic’s most sacred site, and the treasures dedicated in it by generations of conquerors were worth the attention of any thief.

    Well, any thief who wasn’t deeply religious. Varus didn’t know criminals major enough to consider looting temples, but none of the family’s pilfering servants had struck him as unusually religious.

    “Pleased to see you, your lordship,” the elder of the guards said. He wore a sword as well as a helmet and leather cuirass; Corylus could probably say whether this pair were soldiers or at least ex-soldiers. “A fine, bright evening, isn’t it?”

    He’d noticed the broad stripe on Varus’ toga and was probably hoping for a tip. Varus would see that the guards got a silver piece each; he wanted to be on good terms with them if he came back here.

    He didn’t know what was going to happen tonight, let alone in the future, but he could imagine things that might happen. Whenever possible he prepared for the most obvious possibilities. A silver piece — about a day’s wage for a free workman — was a very modest investment to gain the good will of an armed man whom he might be seeing regularly.

    “Is Master Pandareus here yet, sir?” Varus asked. I’m being too deferential; I should say ‘my good man’ or relay the question through Candidus even though we’re standing only a few feet apart.

    “No, your lordship, though he’s on our list,” said the guard, lifting a shard of pottery with three names brushed on in ink.

    “There’s a fellow named Corylus, though,” said the buck-toothed younger man. “A knight all alone, and no lantern either. But he’s got a stick.”

    Varus smiled without comment and passed into the compound. Though his friend didn’t brag, Varus had heard his stories of going out on patrol with the scout detachments. Corylus talked about the wildlife, the night birds, and especially the night-blooming flowers in the clearings –

    But Varus knew the army wasn’t patrolling on the east bank of the Danube just to view nature. He didn’t think Corylus had much to worry about at night in Carce.

    The Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest was straight ahead of the top of the staircase. Varus had never been here before — he hadn’t had any reason to be — but as he’d expected, the layout was the same as that of the temples nearer the townhouse where the family sacrificed on ordinary occasions.

    An altar stood in front of the building. The temple itself was on a pedestal with steps — six of them — up from ground level in front. Six huge columns — Sulla had brought them as loot from Greece over a century ago—supported the great porch in front of the building proper. The full-height display doors were closed, but lamplight from inside gleamed from the edge of the pedestrian door set into the right-hand panel.

    Candidus and the linkmen walked toward the building. Varus followed, supposing that Corylus had gone inside already.

    A figure stepped out of the stand of cypress trees growing to the left of the temple; they’d shaded him from the moonlight. “Varus?” he called. “Is Master Pandareus with you?”

    Varus turned to join his friend “No,” he said, grimacing. “I hoped he’d come with you and Pulto. I should’ve sent servants home with him so that they could escort him now.”

    “Pulto had other business,” Corylus said. He was holding a wrist-thick staff as long as he was tall. It was a countryman’s tool, not the sort of thing you saw in Carce; but Varus didn’t think anybody would laugh at Corylus, at least to his face. “I should have thought of that too. The poor old fellow probably doesn’t go out at night enough to realize how dangerous the city is.”

    “The poor old fellow, as you describe him,” said Pandareus tartly as he joined them, “climbs to the Capitoline every clear night to observe the stars. Since I’m sober and keep an eye out for potential difficulties, I avoid problems.”

    “Master, I apologize,” Corylus said, drawing himself up straight.

    “It is my task to educate the young men who come to me,” Pandareus said calmly. “You’ve provided me with a teaching opportunity, Master Corylus, for which I should thank you.”

    He smiled, though perhaps moonlight made the expression colder than he intended it to be. Corylus remained as stiff as a servant — or a soldier — being dressed down by a superior.

    “It’s best we go in since tonight we’re not here to observe the stars,” Pandareus said, this time with his normal fusty precision. “Master Varus? Just the three of us, I think, though there may be temple servants present.”

    Varus turned to Candidus, who was standing fully ten feet away. I should have thought of threatening him with my sister before. Aloud he said, “Wait here in the compound. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

    Corylus and the teacher were already walking toward the temple steps. Varus paused a moment further and looked at the night sky.

    All he had ever wanted to be was a poet and a scholar. He’d failed at poetry; he couldn’t pretend otherwise after the reading. Tearing his manuscript to pieces had been the right thing to do with it, even if he wasn’t aware of it when it happened.

    Scholarship, learning about the world and organizing his knowledge, was all that remained to Varus. There too he was losing hope.

    The constellations glittered in their familiar cold beauty, but now they danced a stately round in time with the rhythm in his blood.

 

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    When he reached the temple porch, Corylus looked over his shoulder to make sure his friend was with them. Varus had always been a little absent minded, and after what had happened during the reading even somebody solid could be excused for dropping the baton.

    Though Varus had fallen behind, he was coming up the steps now. He smiled wanly at Corylus. He didn’t look frightened, but there was something in his eyes that wasn’t right. Maybe it was just the moonlight.

    The pedestrian door opened. A servant in a tunic of bleached wool with a yellow linen sash stepped out, holding a lantern high for them.

    “Good evening, Master Pandareus,” he said, bowing to the teacher. “Lord Priscus is pleased to entertain you and your friends.”

    “Thank you, Balaton,” Pandareus said, nodding as he entered. Corylus gestured Varus through before he followed, bringing up the rear. He’d felt uncomfortable having his friend behind him. Varus was perhaps the smartest person Corylus had ever met — even compared to Master Pandareus — but he just wasn’t the man you wanted bringing up the rear if you thought like a soldier.

    Despite the size of the sculptured porch and the rows of tall columns supporting it, the temple building itself was more modest. Half a dozen three-wick oil lamps on wall struts lit the interior adequately.

 

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    Though this temple was built when Carce held unrivaled power in the world, the platform on which it stood was that of the predecessor standing when the Gauls sacked Carce three centuries earlier. The statue of Jupiter was old also; the torso was terracotta, and the head and limbs were carved from wood. The painted skin and staring eyes made the god look like a shepherd who had gone mad from solitude and too much sun.

    Near the front of the hall was a round table with a dining couch. A bulky man rose from the couch with the help of an attendant. A half-full cup of engraved glass sat with the mixing bowl on the table. Two more attendants stood alertly at a side table with a wine jar, water pitcher and additional cups. They were watching the newcomers.

    “It’s good to see you, Pandareus,” said the man who’d been reclining. “Though from the tone of your note, you aren’t here just to borrow a book from me, are you?”

    “Indeed not, my friend,” Pandareus said. “Priscus, may I present Gaius Alphenus Varus and Publius Cispius Corylus. Youths, this is Senator Marcus Atilius Priscus, a Commissioner for the Sacred Rites and perhaps the most learned man in Carce.”

    “Possibly, old friend,” Priscus said. “Except for yourself, of course.”

    He gestured to the side table. “Something to drink?” he said. “And you know that you and your friends were welcome to dine with me. The only blessing of my nights on duty here is that the temple cook is better than my own and my own –”

    He gave his belly a jovial slap.

    “– is extremely good, as you can see.”

    “These youths are my only present students who show signs of ability,” Pandareus said, nodding toward them. Corylus and Varus stood stiffly, as though they were waiting to expound a literary passage. In a slightly warmer tone he added, “In fact they’re the most talented students I’ve had since I came to Carce, though neither will make his name as an orator.”

    Priscus laughed. Looking from Corylus to Varus, he said, “Any associate of Pandareus of Athens can be expected to be a scholar and a gentleman. Boys, you’re welcome indeed. Now you –”

    He focused on Varus; Corylus felt himself relax minusculely. Priscus acted as though he were a jolly gourmand, but even without Pandareus’ deference Corylus would have known that a keen mind directed the plump body.

    “– would be Saxa’s boy, would you not?”

    “Yes, your lordship,” Varus said; and said no more, just as he would have answered Pandareus in class.

    “Your father collects facts the way a squirrel gathers nuts for the winter,” Priscus said. “No rhyme or reason to them. But he knows things that not another man in Carce knows, boy. Not even me and Pandareus here. But don’t you be like him, you hear?”

    “No, your lordship,” said Varus, his eyes focused in the three bronze lightning bolts in Jupiter’s wooden hand.

    “Come,” Priscus said to the teacher, “we can at least sit. Some of us are fat old men, you know.”

    He gestured. “Seats for my guests, since they won’t dine with me,” he said. The servant who’d opened the door for them brought three folding stools — much like those which senators used, but with legs of walnut rather than ivory — from an alcove and set them around the table. Priscus sank back onto the couch — sitting rather than reclining, however — while the others seated themselves.

    Corylus stroked the walnut with his fingertips and felt a sensation of great age. The silken seat must have been replaced many times, but the wooden legs could be as old as the original temple on this site.

    Pandareus waved off the wine that a servant started to pour. “This isn’t a social call, my friend,” he said, “though perhaps I’ll bring the youths another time and we can discuss Thucidides. We’re here on a matter of the Republic’s safety, and it may be the safety of the whole cosmos.”

    Priscus sniffed. “The cosmos can take care of itself,” he said. “My duty is to the Republic. Go on.”

    “Although Varus and Corylus are well read,” Pandareus said, “there are practical matters of which they may be ignorant. Would you explain to them why you’re here tonight?”

    “A rhetoric teacher talking about practicalities?” Priscus said with a chuckle. “But I’m happy to oblige.”

    He looked from Varus to Corylus. Corylus thought his friend sat even straighter than he did himself. The visions he’d seen yesterday — and the gods alone knew what Varus had seen! — had been disturbing, but what was happening now made him even more unsure.

    All his life, Corylus had been steeped in the myth-shrouded history of Carce. That had been even more the case because he’d been raised on the frontier rather in the civilized center of the empire. He felt in the core of his being that Carce was the village of bandits which by the favor of the immortal gods had risen into a city that dominated all the world which it didn’t outright rule.

    Now he was at the ancient center of the city, discussing its mysteries with two of the empire’s most learned men. Corylus had never thought of himself as religious, but he shivered with awe.

    “I’m one of the Commissioners, as Pandareus told you,” Priscus said. “There are ten of us now, but there were only two when Tarquin created the college. You know that?”

    Varus lifted his chin in agreement; Corylus said, “Yes sir,” as he’d been trained. A soldier who nodded in reply to a superior officer would be chewed out if the officer was a noble and knocked flat if he tried it with a centurion who’d come up through the ranks.

    “We’re not priests of Jupiter,” Priscus went on, “but every night one of us dines and sleeps here in the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest. That’s because we’re responsible for the Sibylline Books, and they’re kept here.”

    His silk slippered foot tapped the floor, a mosaic of black, gray and white chips. The design was geometric except for the four-by-five foot rectangle in the center. There a monochrome portrait of Jupiter faced the god’s statue as though it were a miniature reflecting pool.

    “They’re in a stone chest in the vault under this nave,” Priscus said. “The opening is under the cartouche of Jupiter.”

    “Sir?” said Varus. “I knew that the Senate could order the Commissioners for the Sacred Rites to examine the Sibylline Books. But that’s for the whole Senate, after a major threat to the Republic. You don’t have to wait by the books in case a consul wants an instant response, do you? Unless the Emperor –”

    “Not even the Emperor, my boy,” agreed Priscus. “The whole Senate, as you say. But one of us, a Senator –”

    “Very senior and respected Senators at that, Master Varus,” Pandareus said with a nod of respectful approval toward his friend. “Vacancies are filled by vote, not lottery as they would be for judgeships.”

    “Yes, well, be that as it may,” said Priscus. Despite his gruffness, he looked pleased. “Besides opening the books and examining them in a crisis, we Commissioners are responsible for their safety. They’re never left under the control of slaves and freedmen alone, like the temple itself is.”

    He looked beyond his visitors, toward — Corylus turned to follow his eyes — the servant who had admitted them. “Balaton?” he said. “Would you take a bribe from somebody who wanted to copy the Books?”

    “I’m glad the responsibility is yours, Lord Priscus,” the servant said with a smile. “I know my own frailty.”

    “Aye, so do I,” Priscus grumbled. “He’s as frail as that staff you came in with, boy. Cornelwood, isn’t it?”

    “Yes, sir,” said Corylus, surprised out of his nervous discomfort. “You know trees, then?”

    “I know how heavy that staff must be from the way it swings,” Priscus said, “and I heard it when it rapped the floor. Cornelwood doesn’t break and it doesn’t give. I’d guess the man who carries it might be pretty much the same way.”

    “Sir, I –” Corylus said. He didn’t know what to say. “Sir, thank you. I’ll try to live up to the compliment.”

 

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    “Well, Balaton’s the same way, which is why I made sure he became chief of the commission’s attendants,” Priscus said. “I trust him a damned sight farther than I do some of my colleagues.”

    “And it’s the Sibylline Books that bring us here tonight,” said Pandareus. “Because of what I saw yesterday, I believe that a serious crisis faces the Republic; a crisis far worse than plagues and foreign armies and even the internal dissensions that caused the common people to march out and found their own city on the Esquiline, separate from the better classes.”

    “There’s been an omen, you mean?” said Priscus. “Go on, then. I hadn’t heard about it.”

    “My student Varus was giving a reading of his epic at his father’s house,” Pandareus said. “Corylus and I were present. There were various manifestations of a disturbing nature during the reading.”

    He turned toward Corylus and Varus on the stool beyond. “Tell the noble Priscus what you experienced, youths,” he said. “Master Corylus?”

    Corylus licked his lips. “Your lordship,” he said, speaking directly to the Commissioner, “I had a vision. I didn’t see Varus. After the first, I mean. I drifted off and imagined I was in a snowy forest. I saw Senator Saxa and a man I didn’t know. In the trees and snow, but really they were in the back garden of the house.”

    “The man was Nemastes the Hyperborean,” Pandareus amplified in a dry voice. “He claims to be a wizard, and unfortunately I fear that he’s telling the truth.”

    He leaned forward slightly to catch Varus eye. “Lord Varus, now you.”

    Varus said nothing for a moment. Corylus squeezed his friend’s right knee. Varus started and his eyes opened wide. He gave Corylus a shy smile, then said to the Commissioner, “Sir, I remember starting to read but nothing more. I thought I saw men on an island, but I must have been dreaming.”

    He cleared his throat and looked down, then added, “Pandareus tells me I tore my manuscript up, but I don’t remember that. I’m not sorry, though. I’m not a poet.”

    “Lord Varus, you had something in your hands after the reading, ” Pandareus said. “I don’t believe it was a piece of your manuscript that I saw when your sister awakened you.”

    Corylus saw his friend’s eyes open wide. His hands twitched together — only minusculely, but toward the lump in the middle of his chest. It was barely visible beneath his toga.

    “Sir, I don’t remember anything,” Varus said. The words might have been true, but they didn’t respond to the question. “Please, won’t you tell Lord Priscus what really happened, since Corylus and I can’t.”

    Did Pandareus notice? Regardless, he nodded and said in his usual calm, precise fashion, “The room became dark. The walls vanished, but before that the designs painted on them seemed to come alive.”

    He quirked a smile at his friend. “The tiny figure of Apollo on the panel behind Lord Varus began to play his lyre, I think in the Myxilydian Mode. I regret that I wasn’t close enough to be sure, because I know music is a particular interest of yours.”

    “Perhaps we can repeat the experience with the two of us closer to the wall,” Priscus said. He joked in an easy tone, but his expression was firm. “How long did the business last?”

    “There was more,” said Pandareus with a slight smile. “The floor appeared to become a pit. Figures crawled up the sides toward us.”

    “Figures?” Priscus repeated. “Not humans, then.”

    The teacher shrugged. “I would be very surprised if they were human,” he said, “but they weren’t clear enough for me to be sure. Spirits, let us say. Demons, to use the Greek word.”

    “Indeed,” Priscus said softly. “And is there more?”

    “My sister slapped me,” Varus said, surprising Corylus and apparently the other men as well. “I didn’t know that, but I felt it –”

    He managed another shy smile and touched his left cheek with his index finger. Corylus had noticed when they met tonight that there was still a little swelling.

    “– when I woke up. The room was just like it was before I started reading. So that must have been the end. I was the cause.”

    “I don’t imagine that Lord Varus was the cause,” Pandareus said before anyone else — including Varus — could speak further. “That he was the primary target of magic is likely enough. But the important point is that the omen was real and threatening. The sort of threat that requires that the Sibylline Books be consulted.”

    Corylus let out his breath in a gasp; he hadn’t known that he was holding it. Varus closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with both hands, then looked around at his companions again.

    “This occurred in Saxa’s dwelling,” Priscus said. His face gave no hint of what he might be thinking. “Will he support a request to the full Senate? Because you already know, my friend, that I won’t violate my oath.”

    His smile was wry.

    “Even if Balaton would permit me to.”

    The servant stood against the east wall, motionless as a caryatid. His eyes were fixed on the light sconce across from him, and he didn’t appear to have heard what was being said.

    Men like Balaton — men like Pulto — trusted very few leaders, but they would follow those few into death or worse. Corylus was quite sure that Balaton trusted Priscus . . . as he should, because Priscus would always do his duty.

    “I’m quite sure that Saxa will not support such a request,” Pandareus said. “I fear that he has stepped into dangerous territory, under the sway of Nemastes the Hyperborean.”

    Priscus looked at Varus. Varus hung his head and muttered, “Yes sir, I’m afraid that’s true. All of it.”

    “A Hyperborean,” Priscus said in a musing tone. “A foreigner.”

    “Yes, my friend,” Pandareus said; he wasn’t agreeing. “A foreigner like myself.”

    Priscus snorted. “Not like you,” he said. “But I won’t even ask the Senate if Saxa would oppose the request. I trust you, but my colleagues would not.”

    He shrugged. “More fools them,” he added. “But that’s not a new thought.”

    Priscus had been leaning forward slightly on the couch. He didn’t stand, but his back straightened and he was suddenly a very different man. He looked at each of his three visitors in turn, then said, “Master Pandareus, my true friend: though the world should end, I will not violate my oath. I cannot unlock the chest until I am ordered to do so by the Senate.”

    “I understand,” the teacher said, lifting his chin in agreement. “May I ask a favor, though? It’s on behalf of the Republic of which I am a resident if not a citizen. May we enter the vault, all of us together? I don’t intend that the chest be opened, but there are things which I believe we may learn in its presence.”

    Priscus remained still for a moment. Then he grinned and said, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t help three scholars with a matter of antiquarian research. Balaton, fetch the –”

    But two servants under the direction were already bringing a ladder out of the alcove where the stools were kept; two others were walking toward the cartouche which covered the vault. Balaton’s grin was even broader than his master’s.

 

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    Alphena scowled. Because she’d chosen the forward-facing seat, the lamps on the front corners of the litter lighted her face but left her stepmother in darkness. All she could see of Hedia was a slimly aristocratic shadow.

    And Alphena had picked this seat. She’d done it to herself, as she always seemed to do. No wonder Corylus ignored her!

    Agrippinus had claimed the bearers were a matched team of Cappadocians who had been working together for over a year. The major domo had doubtless made a comfortable commission on the deal, but as with other business entrusted to him, it had been handled very well. Despite the size and bulk of this litter, Alphena found the ride the smoothest of any chair she’d ridden on.

    “Alphena,” said Hedia, her teeth brief gleams in the shadow, “I’m worried that before long someone will inform the Emperor about Saxa’s activities.”

    “Father’s done nothing wrong!” Alphena said, shocked out of sad musings about cosmetics. She didn’t know anything about making up her face, and she could scarcely ask Hedia. “My father would never plot against the Emperor!”

 

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    “Of course not,” Hedia agreed, speaking calmly instead of raising her voice in response to Alphena’s shrillness. “But I’m far less sure about what his friend Nemastes is doing. Nemastes is certainly acting to his own benefit, and I would be greatly surprised if his plans would benefit anybody else. Do you agree?”

    Alphena felt fear wash everything else out of her mind, the way the surf swept over the battlements children built in beach sand. “Father could never be tricked into anything disloyal,” she said. “He’s a Senator! No grubby foreigner is going to fool him!”

    Even in her own ears, the words sounded dismal and silly. Saxa was a very learned man, but he had no common sense at all. And Nemastes might have bewitched him, stolen his soul with a poppet of wax or whatever Hyperboreans did!

    “We’re going to scotch Nemastes if we can, dear,” Hedia said. “You and I and our friends. But if we don’t succeed, I hope that you’ll be able to escape the wreck under the protection of a powerful husband.”

    Alphena jerked upright. Her hair, in a bun to cushion the weight of a helmet, brushed the canopy. She opened her mouth to shout an objection . . . and closed it.

    In a tiny voice, she said, “Hedia, I don’t want to get married. But I’m afraid.”

    “Yes, dear,” Hedia said. “We’re both afraid, and so is Anna. I suppose the men are afraid also, though no doubt being men they’d bluster and deny it. But we have to look ahead and prepare.”

    The litter bearers were singing a low-voiced chant that kept their pace even. Was it Cappadocian? But it might simply be nonsense syllables to fit a rhythm, not a language at all. It was hard to tell what was chance and what held real meaning in this world.

    “I hope father . . . ,” Alphena said miserably, but she let her voice trail off instead of finishing the foolish sentence. Saxa wasn’t going to come to his senses. He’d never shown good judgment in the past, and now that Nemastes had his claws in him there was even less chance. If Saxa was to be saved, the rest of them were going to have to do it.

    The litter turned sharply; the bearers slowed to negotiate piles of building materials which spilled out from either side. Hedia leaned forward to see, giving Alphena a look at her profile in sharp silhouette.

    Father didn’t show good sense except perhaps when he married her, Alphena thought. Though she would never say those words aloud.

    The bearers stopped, then lowered the vehicle to the pavement. “The Temple of Tellus, noble ladies,” said the deputy steward in charge of the escort. “Your destination.”

    Alphena started to get out. Servants congealed about her, three or four of them.

    “Get away!” she shouted. “Haven’t I told you I’d have you whipped if you tried to hand me out of a vehicle again?”

    There was a brief bustle. Servants stumbled into one another or over piles of construction supplies. Alphena got out and only then realized that the men she’d driven away weren’t those who’d attended the litter: these had come from staff of the temple.

    They were in front of Temple of Tellus. It was a modest structure, but the grounds in which it stood were as extensive as those of more impressive newer buildings. To make room for heavy wagons, the wall around the temple precinct had been knocked down to either side of the gate.

    Alphena maneuvered away from a collection of stone cylinders, column barrels which would be fluted and set here at the site. They would replace the temple’s four existing wooden columns. The originals couldn’t possibly have survived three centuries, but until now the replacements had also been wooden. Those had had been stuccoed to look like stone, but that had flaked off in the decades since they’d been placed; rot and wormholes now marked the bare wood remaining.

    Farther back in the yard were heaps of bulk materials. On the other side of the vehicle were smaller piles of the tiny cut stones sorted by color; they would be laid into a floor mosaic. There were timbers, too, but in the shadows Alphena didn’t know whether they were for scaffolding or were building materials.

    “Good evening, noble ladies!” said a corpulent stranger who bowed to Hedia. Unlike the temple servants, he wore a toga. “The Temple of Tellus is honored to have you! I’m the chief priest, Gaius Julius Phidippides. I own the laundry three doors down on Sandalmakers’ Street and the building next door to it besides.”

    Servants from Saxa’s household were shoving the outnumbered temple personnel back. Alphena stepped to the other side of Phidippides to protect him from the same treatment. She shouldn’t have shouted at the temple servants; that was what was making her escort so violently zealous.

    “The temple is open?” Hedia said coldly. “And move away! I assure you that I could see quite enough of you from two paces distance.”

    The priest was a freedman. He must have been made a citizen by Augustus — formally Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus — because he wasn’t old enough for his patron to have been Augustus’ adoptive father, the conqueror of Gaul. Alphena had already learned that these were the sort of people who made a point of their importance to the Republic. Hedia, a born aristocrat, treated Phidippides’ fawning pomposity with contempt.

    The priest backed hurriedly, stumbling into a pile of clay and barely recovering. It would be fired into roofing tiles here on the site; that avoided the heavy breakage certain if tiles were transported by wagon through the streets of Carce.

    “Yes, of course, your ladyship!” he said in nervous brightness. “Come right this way, please, right this way.”

    The household servants formed a double line to protect the women. Protect them from the temple personnel, as best Alphena could tell, but Phidippides’ staff had been pushy at the start. They excluded the priest also, but he trotted on the other side of the deputy steward while continuing to chatter brightly toward Hedia.

    Temple servants threw the double doors open. There were lighted lamps within, but attendants from both establishments brought in additional ones.

    Alphena looked around. The Temple of Tellus was dingy. Of course the objects dedicated to it, particularly the pair of huge elephant teeth, had been removed to Saxa’s house for safekeeping, but the floor was of bricks worn hollow and the walls were coarse tuff which hadn’t been sheathed with colored marble or polished limestone.

    The ten-foot tall wooden statue of Tellus had been repainted within the past few years, though not with any great skill. Her right forearm was lifted with the palm turned out; her left hung stiffly at her side. The whole figure — head, limbs and torso — had probably been carved in one piece.

    “I wonder, Lady Hedia?” said Phidippides in a wheedling voice that put Alphena’s teeth on edge. “I discussed with your noble husband the Senator the idea of replacing this statue with a modern one of bronze. Do you know if he—”

    “Take the matter up with someone who cares, Master Laundryman,” Hedia snapped. “Now, leave my daughter and myself. At once!”

    Household servants had hung additional lamps and placed a folding stool at the back of the room. “Your ladyship?” said the deputy steward. “Which of us would you like to remain inside with your noble selves?”

    “None of you, Midas,” Hedia said crisply. “Give Lady Alphena the prayer –”

    A servant handed Alphena a tight roll; he bowed.

    “– and wait for us in the courtyard.”

    Hedia followed the scurrying servants to the double doors. Midas closed them, and Hedia herself slotted the bar through its inside staples to lock the valves.

    “Now . . . ,” she said, gesturing Alphena to the center of chamber. “Face the goddess, I think. We may as well get started.”

    She smiled as she sat on the stool. It wasn’t an unfriendly expression, but it made Alphena again very glad not to be this woman’s enemy.