Legions of Fire: Chapter Eight

    Using a stylus on a wax tablet, Hedia wrote, “My dear Anna, if you are well it is good; I also am well.

    Corylus is staying tonight with my son.

    Matters have occurred which have bearing on our discussion this morning. Please visit me tomorrow at the seventh hour — not earlier, though I might wish it, because I will be attending the rites involved with my husband taking up the consulship.

    I will have a litter waiting at your building at midday. The attendants will help you down the staircase.”

    Sighing with relief, Hedia set the bronze stylus in its holder and motioned to her secretary, Praxos, who waited silently on the other side of the small writing desk in her reception room. The gesture was unnecessary: Praxos was already closing the tablet. Red wax warmed over the desk lamp, ready to pour on the ribbon closures when the secretary had tied them. He would press in the seal also, a piece of wood in which worm tunnels formed an H.

    Well, Hedia told herself it was an H. It was as good an H as she could have made herself.

    Writing notes to friends with her own hand was a polite accomplishment for a woman with any pretense to social status, so of course Hedia could do it, but if any more had been required than a few lines, Praxos would have written it to her dictation. The result would have been quicker and clearer; one of the reasons Hedia used wax instead of brushing ink on papyrus or thin board was that corrections were easier to make. Treating Anna as an equal was both polite and politic, however, since they were allies in this business with Nemastes.

    “When it’s sealed, give it to a courier to take to the apartment of Master Corylus off the Argiletum,” Hedia said. “Give it to Iberus, now that I think of it; he already knows the way. And he’s to wait if Anna and her husband aren’t home when he arrives.”

    It was possible that they would be working — digging — in the old cemetery until nearly dawn.

    “Yes, your ladyship,” said the secretary, bending over the sealed tablet with an ink brush. He was writing Anna’s name on the thin sheet of elm which covered the written surface of the wax.

    Anna wouldn’t be able to read it herself, but her husband Pulto would. He’d been a watch-stander in the army, so he had to be able to read a guard roster and basic orders. Poor as Hedia knew her handwriting to be, it was probably better than that of many centurions.

    Hedia rose to her feet and stretched. She could use some exercise to get rid of tonight’s tension, but it didn’t seem likely that events would fall that way. Still, an optimistic outlook had brought her more than one unexpected reward. Sometimes even more than one reward at a time.

    She smiled. She wasn’t sure how the expression read to the servants with her in the room; from the fact that they all went determinedly blank-faced, they probably didn’t take it as involving humor. It did, but that might bother them even more — particularly the strait-laced Praxos.

    “I’m going to see my husband,” Hedia said in quick decision. “Syra, wait up though I hope I’ll not need you. The rest of you can go to bed.”

    The servants waited like statues until Hedia had swept regally through the door of the suite which one of them was holding open. They were afraid that if they called attention to themselves, their mistress might find additional tasks for them.

    In fact Hedia was neither petty nor the flighty-minded sort of person who changed her mind often. The servants might prefer to think of her that way, though, than to dwell on the fact that if she threatened to have them flogged — or flayed — she wouldn’t change her mind then either.

    According to Agrippinus, her husband had come home — without Nemastes — not long before she and Alphena arrived. He wouldn’t be asleep yet; and anyway, she was willing to wake him up for this.

    Saxa’s suite had its own doorman. He didn’t attempt to stop her, but he turned his head and called loudly, “Her noble ladyship Hedia, your lordship.”

    She brushed past him. Saxa was sitting up in bed, attended by six servants. One was reading a poem, apparently on astrology in epic stanzas, while another was carefully tilting a cup of mulled wine so that his master could drink without using his hands. The wine warmer was a bronze basin with a water bath between its charcoal brazier and the mixture of wine and herbs; two servants tended it. The remaining pair were ready to fluff pillows, adjust the covers, or do anything else that the Senator wished.

    “You lot may leave,” said Hedia, emphasizing with a curt gesture that they would take her offer. The reader continued, though he wasn’t ignoring her. His eyes sought his master in terror for acquiescence or argument, so that he wouldn’t have to decide who to obey on his own.

    Saxa hunched a little and pretended not to be aware of his wife’s presence. Hedia felt a degree of pity for the reader; the gods knew that she’d had a lot of frustrating experience with trying to get her husband to make a reasonable decision.

    Nonetheless, the servants had to learn that Lady Hedia was the person to obey because she wasn’t going to brook any alternative. She plucked the scroll from the reader’s hands — he gasped but didn’t try to fight her for it — and deposited it in the charcoal glowing under the wine warmer.

    “Out,” she repeated, gesturing again.

    The reader squealed in despair. He started for the door, then froze for a moment — and snatched the scroll back before finally scrambling out of the room. The papyrus was beginning to char, but it hadn’t caught fire yet.

    Hedia watched him go with a mixture of contempt and admiration. He was risking death by torture for a book which could be replaced for a few silver pieces. That was simply stupid — and it wasn’t even his book.

    On the other hand, the servant believed in something greater than his own life. That too was probably stupid . . . but it nonetheless made Hedia feel small about herself and her sophistication.

    She and her husband were alone in the room; the doorman latched the panel behind the reader, the last of the attendants. Saxa looked up and grimaced.

    “Hedia, dear,” he said. “I can’t talk tonight, I’m very upset. I was just trying to settle my mind before I went to sleep, and now I think I’m ready.”

    Hedia didn’t bother calling her husband a liar. “This is about your daughter,” she said. “Who is Spurius Cassius?”

    “What?” said Saxa. He no more could act convincingly than he could fly, so he really was at a loss. “I don’t know any Spurius Cassius. And what has he to do with Alphena?”

    He fluttered his hands in agitation; it was just as well that the servant had put the cup down on a side table instead of leaving it with his master. “Anyway, I can’t talk now, dear, I’m just not up to it!”

 

---

 

    Hedia sat down on the bed beside her husband. She felt tired and sad, but she wasn’t angry any more. Saxa looked helpless. His fists were clenched on the bedspread, but he looked more like he was going to try to rub tears of desperation out of his eyes than to hit anything.

    He certainly wouldn’t hit her. There’d been a number of men in Hedia’s life who had — and had lived to regret it — but Saxa wasn’t like that. He was a decent man, and because of that she loved him.

    “Dear heart,” she said, “tonight the statue of Tellus told your daughter that she would marry Spurius Cassius and reign in the Underworld. The voice was male, so I don’t imagine that the goddess was really speaking; it must have been a trick, but a very clever trick.”

    She took a deep breath and went on, “I saw the statue’s lips move. I thought I did.”

    “Really?” said Saxa, sitting up straighter. “Why, that’s very interesting, my dear! I’ve read of similar prodigies, but to have one occur now and in my own family — why, this is amazing!”

    “Saxa,” Hedia said, knowing that she was letting her exasperation show. “This is your daughter Alphena. Your daughter.”

    “She wasn’t harmed, was she?” Saxa said in sudden concern. “I know I’ve been distracted, dear, but it would be terrible if anything happened to Alphena. Or to Varus, of course.”

    “Varus is fine,” Hedia said, wondering why she’d bothered to start this conversation, “and nothing happened to Alphena tonight except that she was badly frightened.”

    The girl would certainly object to being characterized as frightened, but it was true. Hedia would have said the same thing even if it weren’t true: she had to get her husband to open up to her. Making him afraid for his children’s safety was one of the few tools she had to do that.

    “It’s what’s going to happen to Alphena that worries me,” she continued harshly. “She has to be dead to be in the Underworld, whether queen or not. Doesn’t she?”

    “Yes, I quite see what you mean,” Saxa said, but the brief personal note was gone from his voice. “And you’re quite sure you saw the statue’s lips move?”

    “I’m sure,” Hedia said curtly, though by now she wasn’t really sure that her eyes hadn’t been tricking her in the dim light. And she’d drunk quite a lot of wine. “My lord husband, is Nemastes behind this?”

    “What?” said Saxa. He stiffened and leaned his upper body away from Hedia, though of course he wasn’t going anywhere until he disentangled his legs from the bedclothes on which she was sitting. “Why do you say that? What could Nemastes have to do with it?”

    I don’t know, Hedia thought, but you must at least have an idea or you wouldn’t find the question so disturbing. Saxa really shouldn’t try to lie or even to conceal the truth.

    She got to her feet. Staring down at him, she said, “My lord Saxa, this is your daughter’s life — or worse. What is Nemastes doing to her?”

    “Nothing!” Saxa said. He closed his eyes in misery. “Nothing, nothing, nothing! Not that I know of, Hedia. But –”

    His voice became a wail.

    “– I know so little, and the dangers are so great!”

    Instead of a gush of frustrated anger, Hedia felt her heart melt toward the poor man. He was completely out of his depth, and he knew it. She was out of her depth also, but that made her the more determined to fight; her own strength was all she had left.

    Saxa, dear kindly Saxa, didn’t have any inner strength. Well, he had her; she would supply the backbone that nature had not.

    Hedia sat on the bed again and tousled his hair with her left hand. For a moment she massaged his bald spot with her fingertips; she knew he liked that.

    Then she unpinned one shoulder of her chiton and tugged it down to her waist. “Come, dear husband,” she said, lifting her right breast and holding it out to him. The nipple hardened in anticipation. “Come, you know you’ll feel better. You always do.”

    “No, Hedia, not now, please!” Saxa said. His face scrunched up and he looked even more as though he were about to burst into tears. “In the morning I’ll look into the prodigy. There have been similar ones, but none that I recall that involve private persons.”

    He must have seen the way the planes of her face had hardened. With a flare of his own anger, he snapped, “I said I would look. That’s all I can do!”

    Before she could decide how to respond, Saxa sank back into misery and desperation. “Hedia, Hedia,” he said. He was crying now. “You say it’s my daughter. It’s not. It’s the whole world. Unless we stop them, they’ll destroy the whole world!”

    Saxa buried his face in the pillows. Hedia, her mind wrestling with questions she couldn’t properly form, left his bedroom.

    She was almost back to her own suite before she remembered to cover her breasts again.

 

---

 

    Alphena had found Lenatus waiting in the street when she and the others arrived. Varus had helped along the limping Corylus. Most or all the thirty-odd attendants were better suited to supporting the injured youth than Varus was, but he’d insisted on being the one his friend leaned on.

    Alphena had taken time to change into a short tunic and comfortable shoes in place of the high buskins that formality required. Now she was ready to join the men.

    She’d heard Lenatus say that he’d look at Corylus in the bathhouse, a small affair attached to the exercise ground. Occasionally Hedia used it, but normally the family went to the large public bathhouse on the corner of the Argiletum where the facilities were much more extensive and comfortable. The private one was intended for members of the household who had just exercised in the gymnasium. That meant Alphena herself — and recently Corylus.

    Servants were gathered outside the closed door. There must be fifty of them, squeezing together so that each could claim to have been present. They can’t possibly have been overhearing what was said inside: their breathing alone would smother words that penetrated the thick panel.

    Alphena felt her anger blaze. She’d been threatened by a spectral voice and bullied by her stepmother; now she had a legitimate target for her temper.

    “Get out of here!” she shouted. “I’ll have you flogged! By Hercules, I’ll flog you myself! Where’s a whip? I want a whip!”

    The crowd burst like a melon dropped onto a stone pavement. Servants ran in all directions except straight at the young mistress — and, blinking, Alphena realized that with the way they were shoving each other, it was perfectly possible that one of them would lose his balance and knock her down.

    A scullery maid slipped and was trampled by several of her fellows. She squealed in terror every time someone stepped on her. Tear-blinded, she was still squirming on the hallway floor after the rest of the servants had vanished either into the back garden or toward the front of the house.

 

---

 

    Alphena felt queasy. She’s no older than me! She bent and took the girl’s hand. The maid rose to her knees; she wasn’t really hurt. When she wiped her eyes and saw who had helped her, however, she gave a muffled shriek and ran into the garden.

    Alphena pulled open the bathhouse door. In the light of a pair of three-wick lamps, Corylus reclined on the table while Lenatus applied ointment to his knee. Varus was refilling a basin from the large boiler in the corner. This facility was too small to have a proper heated bath, but servants could sponge you with hot water before a massage.

    Now that the torn skin had been cleaned, the scrapes didn’t look too serious. His right knee had swollen to half again the size of the left, however. Unless it went down under the trainer’s ministrations, it would be as stiff as if it had been splinted.

    The three men stared at Alphena. She had assumed that she’d announced her presence when she shouted at the servants, but the trio had obviously been too involved with their own business to pay any attention.

    Lenatus had a napkin draped over his knees to wipe his hands as he applied the ointment. He tossed it over Corylus’ manhood and rose to face her, standing between Alphena and his patient. The pot of ointment smelled like sheep.

    “Your ladyship, you shouldn’t be here,” Lenatus said. His expression was one of cold misery, like that of a brave man who has just been sentenced to death. “Please leave now.”

    “Who are you to tell me where I can go in my father’s house, you servant?” Alphena said. She heard her voice rising to a scream and hated it, but she could no more control the tone than she could stop breathing. “Don’t you dare give me orders!”

    Lenatus flinched, but he didn’t move. In a quiet voice without inflection he said, “Your ladyship.” It wasn’t a plea or a complaint, just the simplest acknowledgment he could make of the fact that the young mistress was shouting at him.

    Alphena gasped, appalled at herself. She thought of the look on the scullery maid’s face when she recognized her mistress.

    The trainer knew that no matter what he did in the present situation, there was a good chance that he would be dismissed and possibly crucified. All the servants knew what it meant to anger their ladyships, Alphena as surely as Hedia.

    If Lenatus let her stay while he worked on Corylus’ injuries, however, her father’s social position meant he would have to take action if he learned about it. The trainer was bound to have at least one enemy among the hundreds of servants in the townhouse, so Saxa would surely learn.

    Varus stepped forward. He’d put down the basin, but his hands were still wet from wringing out the bloody sponge.

    “Sister,” he said with a dignity that Alphena didn’t recall him displaying in the past. “Please show courtesy to our guest, Master Corylus. He isn’t an exotic animal on display at the Games.”

    Alphena stepped back into the corridor, but she kept hold of the door. “Yes,” she said. “Master Corylus, I apologize. I’m, I . . . tonight was upsetting. And to you too, Lenatus.”

    “Thank you, sister,” said Varus, reaching out to take the door from her.

    “A moment, please,” Alphena said sharply. Speaking as though the trainer were a curtain, she said, “Master Corylus, you won’t be going to the auguries for my father’s consulship tomorrow morning, will you?”

    Lenatus had given a sigh of relief when Alphena backed from the bathhouse. He stiffened again, though this time he looked wary instead of doomed.

    “Ah, no, your ladyship,” Corylus said. If she could have seen his expression, it probably would have been as careful as the trainer’s was. “It’s a non-business day so we don’t have class, but I thought I’d go home and . . . well, to be honest, I’d reassure Anna. She fusses over me, you know.”

    “I’ll leave you with Lenatus now,” Alphena said. “But promise you’ll train with me tomorrow before you leave.”

    There was frozen silence from the bathhouse. Alphena added, “At the fourth hour. And I understand, we won’t be sparring.”

    “Yes, your ladyship,” Corylus said.

    Alphena grimaced. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to hit Corylus.

    Unexpectedly, Corylus — still hidden behind the trainer—went on, “Sure, Alphena. And it would probably be good for my knee. I’d like that.”

    Mother Juno, thank you, Alphena thought reflexively. She kept the words from reaching her tongue. Aloud she said, “But brother, you have to come with me now. They don’t need you here, and I do.”

    “Surely there’s no impropriety in me remaining with my good friend!” Varus said in surprise. The dignity was there again, but this time it was offended.

    “It’s not that,” Alphena said peevishly. “I need to talk to you. You know history, don’t you?”

    “Well, yes . . . ,” he said doubtfully. He looked over his shoulder.

    Lenatus bowed slightly. “We’ll be all right, your lordship,” he said. His relief at getting Alphena out of the way was obvious.

    Alphena’s renewed irritation turned to a grin when another thought occurred to her. It could be that Lenatus was just as glad not to be present while the two youths discussed things that might be dangerous for a servant to know.

    “What do you want to know?” Varus said as he came outside and firmly closed the bathhouse door behind him. He paused, then said, “Corylus is well read too, of course; but I’m, well, probably the right person to ask.”

    “Let’s go out into the garden,” Alphena said, thinking of the crowd of servants who were probably clustering close to where she and Varus stood in the short hallway. The garden wasn’t large, but it would give them more privacy.

    With her brother following obediently, Alphena walked past the gymnasium and through the open door into the garden. As she’d expected, half a dozen of the servants she’d rousted from the bathhouse entrance were there, talking in muted voices with the night doorman. They stared in concern as she and Varus entered.

    “Leave now,” Alphena said. To the doorman she added, “You too, Maximus. Stand outside the gate until I call you.”

    She spoke calmly, but after her recent rage the servants fled through the back gate as though she were chasing them with branding irons. They’d reenter the house by the front entrance, as many of their fellows must have done already.

    As the doorman pulled the iron-strapped gate closed behind him, Varus slid the heavy bar through its staples. He walked back to face Alphena as she stood between the two fruit trees.

    “Now, sister,” he said. “What is it you want to know in such secrecy? Not history, surely.”

    Maximus had taken his lantern outside with him, but the moon’s cool light was full on Varus’ face. He looked like the marble statue of a philosopher.

    Whatever happened tonight changed him, Alphena thought. Into a man, I think.

    “It is history,” she said. She swallowed. “At least I think it is. Have you ever heard of a man named Spurius Cassius? I think he must be dead.”

 

---

 

    Varus didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “I can check the lists of magistrates which some of the temples keep, and perhaps the Cassius family has records which they would let me see.”

    He smiled with quiet pride. “I dare say they would show me whatever they have,” he added. “For father’s name, but they will have heard of my interest as well, I believe.”

    “But you don’t know of anybody yourself?” Alphena said in frustration. She had so hoped for an answer!

    Her brother raised his hand in curt negation. “I didn’t say that,” he said. “In fact the only man of that name whom I do recall has been dead for over five hundred years. He was one of the earliest consuls of the Republic, a great general who led our armies to several victories. But when he tried to become king, he was captured and executed in his own home. The house was pulled down over him and a temple built on the site.”

    “Brother,” Alphena said. She wrapped her arms around her as though she were cold. “Which temple was it? Do you know?”

    Varus frowned. “I’d have to check,” he said. “Does it matter to you? I think Cicero may mention it in the oration he gave when the Senate voted to rebuild his house. I’m sure I can find it somewhere.”

    “Was it the Temple of Tellus?” Alphena said, looking at the ground. “Tell me, was it?”

    “Why yes, I believe you’re right,” said Varus. “That’s the one father is renovating, isn’t it? The dedicated gifts were brought right here to the garden, in fact. See the tusks? It happened while I was, ah, reading here.”

    “Tonight the statue told me I was going to marry Spurius Cassius,” Alphena said. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. She went on, knowing that she was blubbering, “And he’s dead! He’s dead!”

    “Ah . . . ,” said Varus. “I . . . .”

    He put his arms around Alphena as she cried. He was very awkward, but she appreciated what her brother was trying to do.

    But in her heart, Alphena wished he were Corylus instead.

 

---

 

    A Celtic footman, one of the three waiting at the door to Varus’ bedroom suite said, “Your lordship, Master Corylus is already inside. We told him you were in the library, but he said he preferred to go to bed.”

    “Very good, Asterix,” Varus said, more polite in his acknowledgment than most people would have thought necessary. Politeness, even to a slave, cost nothing. He’d heard philosophers say, “A man has as many enemies as he has slaves,” and during riots and other unrest, a servant’s hostility could be fatal to his master.

    The Republic was at peace now, though of course that might change when the Emperor — not a young man — died. Even so, Varus was polite simply because he preferred to be. As a general rule he didn’t care much about other people, but he found life more pleasant when those nearby weren’t angry with him.

    Another footman inside the suite whisked the door open and bowed as deeply as if he were welcoming an imperial delegation. “Your lordship!” he said.

    Varus forced a smile. The fellow was new and apparently hadn’t been told –or didn’t believe — that pomp made the young master uncomfortable. I’ll speak to Agrippinus in the morning, he thought.

    “You may leave the suite now,” he said aloud. “Are there any more of you here?”

    There were, of course: three male servants and the maid who was responsible for straightening the bedclothes stepped forward to call attention to themselves. Corylus, beside what would ordinarily be the night servant’s alcove, smiled a greeting standing.

    Varus gestured. “You may all leave, please,” he said. “If we need anything during the night, we’ll call for it.”

    The servants bustled from the room, though the new footman seemed so confused that he was on the edge of arguing. The maid slapped him on the back of the head and hissed a warning. Two servants fought to slam the door behind them.

    “Perhaps we could go out in the courtyard?” Corylus said, raising an eyebrow.

    “And have spectators on the balcony as well as at ground level?” Varus said, smiling at his friend. “Here, sit on your bed and I’ll draw up this –” he picked up a square wicker stool; its legs were only four inches tall, but it would keep his buttocks off the floor “– seat.”

    Corylus liked to be outdoors; so did Varus, for that matter. But Corylus thought of ‘outdoors’ as the great forests flanking the Rhine and the Danube. Here in Carce it meant an open space surrounded by people listening.

    “Did you find anything useful in the library?” Corylus asked politely, seating himself when Varus did. He was being extremely cautious. That was natural after what had been happening, but it saddened Varus to see his friend — his only friend — feeling that he too might be a danger.

    “In a manner of speaking,” said Varus, smiling at the thought. “I read Vergil to calm down; as you probably guessed, since you courteously chose not to disturb me.”

    Corylus laughed. “Well,” he said, “I hoped that was what you were doing. Though I might have suggested somebody lighter than Vergil.”

    “The Aeneid not only has structure, it is a structured universe all by itself,” Varus said, letting his mind slip back for a moment into the great epic’s measured cadences. “The structure of our world seems to be melting away like ice in the sunshine.”

    He shrugged and realized that the gesture had been more violent than he’d intended. “I didn’t try to find anything dealing with our problem. I wouldn’t know where to start. Even Pandareus didn’t know where to start!”

    “We’ll deal with things as they come up, my friend,” Corylus said gently. “I’ve had the advantage of being with soldiers in the field. You learn fast there that you can’t plan for the worst things, but that doesn’t mean you can’t survive them. At least you and I can trust our leaders.”

    “Pandareus and Atilius, you mean?” Varus said. “Yes, you’re right. And this Menre who spoke to Pandareus — he must be on our side too. Perhaps he’ll appear shortly and give us some direction more useful than simply telling our teacher to come to Carce.”

    They chuckled together. Varus felt better just for being with his friend. Corylus was in his way just as solid as Vergil’s perfectly constructed epic.

    The wooden staff leaned against the wall of the alcove, beside the headrest where Corylus could snatch it instantly if an alarm awakened him in the night. It had been wiped clean of fur and blood, then apparently waxed. Alphena must have told a servant to polish it before returning it to its owner.

    Which forced Varus to think about his sister. And about his friend.

    “Alphena was holding a marriage divination in the Temple of Tellus tonight,” he said, looking at the mosaic floor. In the center were Neptune and his bride Amphitrite, while all manner of sea creatures swam in the border running along the walls. By sheer effort of will, he raised his eyes to meet those of Corylus.

 

---

 

    “She — and my stepmother — heard a voice saying that she was going to marry Spurius Cassius,” he continued, keeping his voice calm. “I think that must mean the would-be tyrant of five hundred years ago. The temple was built where his house was.”

    Corylus smiled. “And here I was wondering if our rhetorical training would ever be useful in normal life,” he said. “Cassius is the rhetorical model of a man who reached the highest level in the Republic, consul and even dictator, and then fell to the depths of ignominy to be executed for treason. He was so perfect –”

    His grin grew playful.

    “– that I wondered if he was real or just the creation of orators who weren’t above improving history for a really good example.”

    “I recall mention of him in the Chronicles of the Claudian Family,” Varus said. “I believe he was real. A very clever, dynamic man, but unfortunately a man who wouldn’t stop at anything to gain the power he wanted.”

    He thought back to the week he’d spent in the library of one of his father’s senatorial colleagues. He’d been looking for information on the First Punic War for his epic, but he’d found a great deal of other interesting information also. The oldest scrolls had been written on leather, not papyrus.

    “That he was executed,” Varus continued, looking into his friend’s calm eyes, “was both the law and common sense: the Republic would be in danger for as long as he lived. But the particular savagery of his execution and the fact that his house was pulled down over him — I think that must have been because the other senators were terrified of him.”

    Varus made a deprecating gesture, turning his palms up and then down again before him. “That’s how I would have described him,” he said, “if I’d written an epic on the early Republic as I considered doing: an enemy as great as Hannibal, but growing in the heart of the Carce instead of attacking us from the outside.”

    A pang of embarrassment twisted his face. I was such a fool to think that I could be a poet!

    “Varus?” Corylus said. His voice was perfectly calm, but a hint of worry pinched the corners of his eyes.

    “Sorry,” Varus said. “It wasn’t anything important; I was thinking about my poetry. And that’s certainly –”

    He didn’t even try to hide the bitterness and embarrassment.

    “– not important.”

    Corylus cocked his head to the side. “I think you’re wrong,” he said. “Poetry mattered to you, and you were willing to put in the effort to do it. Not many people really try to do anything.”

    He smiled and added, “I’m proud to know you.”

    Varus opened his mouth to snap, “And did you like my epic?” His mind caught the reflexive sourness before it reached his tongue, though.

    He smiled broadly and said, “Thank you. I put in enough effort to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that I have no talent for poetry. Perhaps I should have concentrated my efforts on swordsmanship like my sister.”

    Corylus’ face became completely blank. Varus winced at the expression and said, “I was joking. Yes, I know you’ve seen me doing sword exercises. Although it could be that I’d still make a better gladiator than I would a poet.”

    “If you put in the effort, Lenatus and I could turn you into a passable swordsman,” Corylus said carefully. “It would take a lot of effort.”

    “Whereas Alphena is pretty good, isn’t she?” Varus said. The conversation was where he needed it to be. He’d vainly hoped that his pause in the library would show him the way to broach the difficult topic; sitting down and talking to his friend had been the right answer.

    “Yes,” said Corylus simply. He looked directly at Varus, but his face wasn’t giving anything away. “Not as good as she thinks, but good. If she was sparring instead of hitting the post, she’d learn she lacks strength. She’s got lots of stamina, though.”

    “You’re not going to be sparring with her tomorrow, though,” Varus said. He didn’t make the words a command, but he wasn’t asking a question either.

    “Not tomorrow or any other time, Varus,” Corylus said. He stood up, but that was just to make him less uncomfortable. To show he wasn’t trying to threaten his friend with his height and strength, he turned sideways. His hand squeezed the corner of the alcove. “I wouldn’t do that, and Lenatus wouldn’t let me if I tried. And –”

    He grinned again, but from his tone this wasn’t a joke.

    “– if he needed Pulto’s help to convince me, he’d have it.”

    Varus stood also. “She’s my sister,” he said to the wall fresco of a Cyclops standing on a rocky cliff. “After she’s married, she’s her husband’s concern. But for now she’s my sister.”

    Corylus put his arm over his friend’s shoulder. “Varus,” he said, “believe me, it never crossed my mind. And I don’t mean just because of the difference in our stations. Alphena doesn’t interest me.”

    Neither of them were mentioning Alphena’s father. Varus grimaced. With me the closest thing in the family to a man, no wonder Alphena behaves the way she does!

    “I do believe you,” Varus said. “But it’s pretty obvious, even to me, that she’s interested in you.”

    Corylus said, “Well, she’s going to have to put a lot more snap into her backhand cuts before I’ll give her more than a peck on the cheek.”

    Varus felt his torso turn to ice. He stared at his friend’s perfectly straight face — then burst out laughing.

    “I’m sorry, Corylus,” he gasped. “You told me, so I should have just shut up. As I’m doing now.”

    “Do you believe that Cassius is behind . . . ,” Corylus said, as though Alphena’s name hadn’t come up at all. He gestured with his right hand. “That Cassius sent your visions and all the other things? Because I still think Nemastes is involved.”

    He paused as though wondering whether to speak further, then went on, “A woman I met when the dogs attacked me said Nemastes was responsible. And I don’t think they were dogs. They were wolves.”

    He sighed. “Also,” he said to the mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite, “I was in a forest, not Carce. I just ducked into an alley and I was. I don’t know how that could have happened either.”

    “You had sap and pine needles on your tunic,” Varus said. Corylus was wearing a tunic borrowed from a footman of roughly the right size. Varus was too slightly built to loan his friend any garment but a toga, all of which were cut to a standard size. “Along with the blood. I suppose you could have gotten them in Carce, but if you say you were somewhere else, I don’t have a problem believing it.

    He waited till his friend raised his face and added, “If you say you were dancing with nymphs in the moonlight, Corylus, I believe that too. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I trust you.”

    “We weren’t dancing,” Corylus said steadily, “and there wasn’t much moon. But I think she was a nymph. A rose nymph. In the forest. Though it was firs, not pines.”

 

---

 

    “Well, I was happy to have a three hundred year old Egyptian as an ally,” Varus said. “I’m not going to turn down nymphs and dryads. We need all the help we can get, it seems to me.”

    He was still at a loss about what was happening, but it didn’t bother him as much as it had before he and Corylus began to talk. Some of the things hiding in his ignorance were good; and as for the bad surprises — they’d survived them so far. Though –

    “I hope nobody send a wolf after me,” Varus said aloud.

    Corylus grinned, but the expression wasn’t entirely humor. “It was a pack of wolves,” he said. “And the only thing that saved me was the woman, mainly because she sent me back to Carce.”

    He cleared his throat while looking at the wall, then faced Varus again. “Your father knows Nemastes,” he said. “And your father is the one who’s rebuilding the temple where this Cassius spoke to your sister. Varus, is Saxa . . . ?”

    Varus swallowed, appreciative of the way his friend had let the question trail off. He said, keeping his voice calm, “My father isn’t a conspirator, Corylus. He isn’t capable of conspiring, even if he were willing to. I can imagine him weeping in his bed for days, but he wouldn’t have sent Alphena and Hedia into a trap if he’d known what he was doing. And he certainly couldn’t have set a pack of wolves on you.”

    The thought amused him, though he knew his smile was a poor excuse for one. “Like as not,” he said, “he would have fallen into the wolf pen if he’d tried.”

    “Sorry,” Corylus muttered. “It was a silly thing to say.”

    “No, it was a question that had to be asked,” said Varus, feeling stronger as he spoke. “My father has gathered more information than any other person I know. None of it’s connected, though. I don’t think he could use it to do anything, either good or bad. He isn’t disciplined. But –”

    He felt his face stiffen. He looked toward the frescoed Cyclops again.

    “– he has a superstitious streak. And that might make it possible for someone who is disciplined to lead him in bad directions.”

    Corylus clasped Varus’ hand. “We’ll deal with Nemastes,” he said. “And if Spurius Cassius is with Nemastes, we’ll deal with him too. We will, friend.”

    It made no logical sense, but the confidence in Corylus’ voice made Varus hopeful again.

    “And now,” Varus said, “we’ll sleep.”

 

---

 

    Corylus was dreaming. He knew that, but the wind through the forest was chill and the ground felt cold beneath his bare feet. There were patches of snow between the spruce trees.

    He was wearing the tunic he’d borrowed to sleep in; it wasn’t sufficient clothing here. The sun was well below zenith, but he suspected that meant he was looking south. He must be dreaming of the far north: farther than his physical body had ever been.

    A bird jeered angrily, then flew through the straggling branches to another hidden perch. It looked like a jay, but the rusty brown color was wrong, and its tail seemed too long.

    Corylus listened intently. There were distant birds and a chatter which might have been a bird or a squirrel. Over everything else came the rustle and creak of wind through the branches.

    He didn’t hear wolves. If he didn’t find food and shelter soon, wolves wouldn’t be necessary to dispose of him.

    He grinned at the thought. Apparently he’d stopped pretending that he believed he was dreaming.

    A pair of ravens curved through the trees. One landed on a sandstone boulder the size of a man’s chest; the other gripped the trunk of a spruce for a moment, then croaked harshly and hopped to the ground.

    The birds stared at him, cocking their heads sideways. Neither was more than ten feet away. I’m not hungry enough to try to eat a raven. I’ll never be that hungry.

    “You see?” said one raven to the other. “I told you he was injured.”

    “Not seriously, though,” said the other. “He’ll still be able to accompany us.”

    The second raven looked at Corylus, twitching its head slightly side to side so that one eye or the other was always looking at him. “You can walk, can’t you?” it said.

    They were huge birds, even on the ground with their wings folded. Overhead they had a black majesty more impressive than most hawks.

    Corylus flexed his right leg. The knee felt constricted as though he were wearing heavy breeches, but it bent and there wasn’t even as much pain as he expected.

    “Yes,” he said. “If I want to go.”

    “Want!” said the second raven. It gave another croak, scarcely less harsh than its normal speaking voice. “Do you want to stay and freeze to death, is that it? You have that choice surely, but no other choice.”

    Corylus wished he had sandals. He would like to have a heavy cloak and a woolen scarf to wrap around his head, but sandals were what he would have described as necessary if he’d had the slightest hope of getting them. There wasn’t, and he wasn’t about to give up.

    “All right,” he said. “Where do we go?”

    The ravens hopped twice to turn, then lifted with powerful wing beats. They didn’t answer. It was a silly question, I suppose.

    Corylus started at a trot, though he wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up. The birds curved to the ground only fifty feet away, their black plumage gleaming against the snow.

    Despite them being willing to wait for him, Corylus decided to continue trotting for as long as he could. The exercise warmed him, though his feet would lose feeling before very long. “How far are we going?” he called.

    “Not far,” said a raven. They looked back at him over their shoulders.

    “It will seem far to him the first time,” said the other raven. “But no, not very far.”

    The birds flapped off but again landed within sight. Their beaks were deep black chisels. Ravens would eat carrion, but they also killed their own prey when opportunity sent them a lemming or a young rabbit.

    If these are really birds.

    “Friend ravens?” Corylus said as he approached the waiting birds again. “What are your names?”

    The ravens hopped to face him. “You ask a great thing, youth,” one said.

    “A greater thing than you know,” said the other. “A greater thing than you have any right to know!”

    Corylus stopped, still-faced. “I am Publius, son of Publius, Cispius Corylus,” he said, raising his voice so that it rang through the silent trees. “I am a citizen of Carce, born in the province of Upper Germany. What are your names, fellow creatures?”

    Their croaks rattled like stones bouncing down a cliff face. Corylus thought they might be laughing.

    “You may regret it later,” said the one to the other.

    “Regret, regret,” replied the other. “And yet I will still speak my name. Corylus, I am Wisdom, and my companion who worries about what might have been –”

    “I am Memory,” said the second raven. “Others may forget the past if they wish to or must, but the past will not forget them.”

 

---

 

    “Are you content, Corylus?” said Wisdom.

    “Yes sir,” said Corylus. How do you tell the sex of a raven? But the birds were already airborne, curving toward him to gain height and then swooping off in the direction they had been going before.

    The ground rose as they went on. The whole surface glittered, as if the crust of snow had grown thicker. It didn’t feel cold, though, and Corylus didn’t crunch through it as he had initially.

    He wondered if his feet were growing numb. He could still feel the shock of each stride, though.

    The ravens arced up and down, often crossing in the air. When they landed they took a hop or two; they were heavy birds and didn’t stop where they first touched. Their eyes gleamed like polished coal when they looked back.

    The rhythm of the run numbed Corylus’ mind. His consciousness blurred into a tunnel directly ahead of him; the edges were at first white and gleaming like ice, then gray, and finally a pastel aura that shifted as his heart beat.

    The trees were shapes that he avoided. The snow on their crinkled bark sparkled like diamond dust. The trunks became crystalline pillars, then columns of light. Eventually their light merged with greater light and vanished.

    Corylus jogged on. He would run until he dropped. He would run forever.

    The ravens were no longer flying; they appeared ahead of him, then were gone and reappeared. “Once the middle-world ended in ice,” said one. “Stopping all, burying all. Ice could rule forever.”

    “But not this time,” said the other raven. “The middle-world will burn. Fire will lick the heavens, fire will drink the seas. Everything will burn.”

    “Unless Corylus prevents it,” said the first. “But he won’t. His memories of friendship will prevent him from saving the future.”

    “And the fire will rule all,” said the ravens together in croaking laughter. “All things, forever!”

    Corylus saved his breath for running. He didn’t have anything to say, not really; until he knew more.

    He knew nothing. And he had to run.

    The ground had become a surface of pastels that wobbled into one another so subtly that Corylus was never sure when one color became another. He thought he was still climbing. His legs throbbed and his breath rasped through his mouth like drafts of fire.

    The fire will rule all . . . , he heard, but that might have been memory.

    Ahead was a white haze, unguessably distant. The ravens flickered present and gone, barely distinguishable from the black spots that fatigue sent dancing across his vision.

    Corylus glanced over his shoulder, careful not to lose his stride and trip. How far could I fall?

    At first he saw nothing behind him but stars and the blackness of night. When he blinked, he noticed the blue dot — no bigger than a lentil but still larger than the hard spikes of the constellations.

    Corylus faced the bright haze before him again and ran on. The ravens were just ahead, close enough for him to call to. He had nothing to say, and he had no breath to say it with.

    His legs were logs of wood. He was afraid to slow to a walk, afraid that he would think about where he was and what he was doing. There were no answers, but he was a citizen of Carce, a soldier of the Republic, and he would go on until he died.

    Corylus burst through the whiteness into a forest of larches. The twigs had their spring buds, but the air was chill and melting traceries of ice overlay the leaf litter.

    Before him was a hillside whose thin soil had slipped in gray patches from the rock beneath. A cave entered it. The ravens waited to either side of the opening.

    “I told you he could follow,” said the bird on the right to its companion.

    “Enter the cave now, Corylus,” said the other. “You won’t come so far and not go the last of the way, will you?”

    “He might be wiser if he did,” said the first. “But he will go in, and the future will come. The fire will come!”

    “The fire will come!” repeated both birds together, then slipped into croaking laughter.

    Corylus strode forward. He had to keep moving or his legs would stiffen into agonizing knots. He had to move.

    The cave opened about him. Its walls were so full of light that the interior was brighter than the forest outside. The ceiling was higher than the hill outside.

    The only furniture within the cavern was a high-backed chair in the far distance; on it sat a figure in a gray cloak. His features were largely hidden by his wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, but the spill of his full gray beard left no doubt of his gender.

    The ravens flew past Corylus, rising on a flurry of strong wing beats before gliding in interwoven curves toward the distant throne. They croaked, the sound diminishing as their black shapes faded against the light. When they croaked again, it was in a harsh whisper.

    Corylus had paused in shock when he passed the entrance. He sighed and started forward, wondering how long it would take him to reach the seated figure. The air of the cavern had a bluish tinge as though the light were passing through thick ice as Corylus had occasionally seen on the Rhine, but he no longer felt cold. Perhaps that was a sign that he was freezing to death, though –

    He smiled grimly.

    –he didn’t feel sleepy, and his lungs still burned with the effort they’d just expended. He wouldn’t mind a little numbness there, and in the throbbing muscles of his thighs as well. Then –

    Corylus was standing at the foot of the throne. There hadn’t been a transition: in the middle of a step he was facing the seated man who glared from his one visible eye.

    He was tall but not a giant. He gripped the cross-guards of a long sword, still in the scabbard; its round point rested on the floor between his feet. Though the cloak hid his body, his fingers suggested gnarled tree roots rather than the bulging muscles of a bull.

    Wisdom and Memory perched on the chair back to either side of the man’s head. They opened their beaks as though they were ready to laugh, but neither words nor croaking issued. Their tongues were black.

    “Sir!” said Corylus, bracing himself at Parade Rest. “Why have you brought me here?”

    The bearded man laughed. The sound boomed like surf during a winter storm and there was no more humor in it than that.

    “I haven’t brought you, boy,” he said. “You came of your own choice. If you want to go back without hearing me, I’ll let you do so now.”

    “You asked our names, Publius Corylus,” said Memory. “Other guests have asked the name of our lord, and he has told them.”

    “But he put a forfeit on them in exchange for answering their question,” said Wisdom from the other finial of the chair-back.

    “They paid the forfeit and rued every moment of their lives to come,” said Memory, cocking one eye and then the other toward Corylus.

    The birds laughed. The sound reminded Corylus of the croaking he had heard one winter when he’d found ravens feasting on the carcass of a deer.

 

---

 

    “Your lordship,” he said in a clear voice to the bearded man. He didn’t bow. “I am Publius Corylus. What is it that you can tell me about the danger facing the Republic?”

    “A wise youth,” the fellow rumbled. He smiled, but the expression was one that might have better fitted a wolf met on a forest trail. “How wise are you really, though? Will you take my advice?”

    “Your lordship,” said Corylus. “I will do whatever I believe most benefits the Republic.”

    The man laughed again, but with even less humor than before. “I thought I had summoned a warrior,” he said, his voice growing louder. “But here it seems I have a lawyer instead. Is that true, boy? Are you warrior or lawyer?”

    “Your lordship,” said Corylus, swallowing, “I’m both. Or — trained as both. I will not take a stranger’s judgment over my own and the judgment of those whom I have learned to trust.”

    “If he weren’t a warrior, One-Eye,” said Wisdom, “he would not have dared be a lawyer to your face.”

    “Offer him the mead,” said Memory. “Men sometimes find fellowship in drink.”

    “And sometimes drink brings death,” said Wisdom. The ravens laughed together.

    The bearded man shrugged with a grim smile. He reached to his side with his left hand; a drinking horn, gold-banded and studded with smoothly polished jewels, suddenly rested on it. He drank from the horn, then held it out.

    “Take it, warrior,” he said to Corylus. “Drink your fill. Drink it all, if you can.”

    The horn was twisted and heavy in Corylus’ hands. If it came from a ram, it had been bigger than any sheep he’d ever seen.

    He sipped. The liquor was dry and very strong, carrying the aroma of the herbs it had been brewed with. It and the word which the raven had called it by, mead, were unfamiliar.

    Corylus found it difficult to handle the drinking horn without spilling. He’d seen such forms before — and had also seen human skulls mounted as cups by German chieftains — but he’d never tried to use one before.

    “A sip for fellowship,” he said as he handed the liquor back. Being drunk wouldn’t help him in this situation, whatever the situation was. “Your lordship, why are these things happening to me? I’m no magician or priest either one.”

    The bearded man lifted the horn and turned his hand, sending the mead out of the present. He bent forward slightly and said, “Twelve wizards of Hyperborea plan to loose the Sons of Muspelheim on Midworld, smothering you and all men in fire.”

    “Nemastes!” Corylus blurted.

    “When the Band was thirteen, Nemastes was among them,” said the bearded man. “Now they are the Twelve and Nemastes fights to block their plans.”

    Corylus rocked back in his heels. “Sir,” he said, “then Nemastes isn’t our enemy? He wants to save us?”

    The bearded man grinned. “Save you for cattle,” said Wisdom.

    “Oh, he’s your enemy, Publius Corylus,” said Memory. “He believes that you’re the agent the Twelve have sent to stop him, as their bodies cannot leave the Horn.”

    “But why would he think that?” said Corylus in puzzlement. “Why would any man want to stop him? That would mean to spread Vulcan’s fires across the Earth?”

    “Why indeed, Corylus,” said Wisdom. “And yet your friend Varus is the tool of the Twelve.”

    “You are active and resourceful,” said Memory. “So long as Nemastes thinks that the wizards whom he deserted are working through you, he will not pay attention to your friend. Until too late, while your world burns.”

    There was no transition. As the words rang in his ears, Corylus stood over a sea of bubbling lava, orange and red and licked with the blue flames of sulfur. In every direction, fire lapped the horizon. The rock roared deafeningly, and the sky was a pall of black destruction.

    Corylus was back in the cave again, staggered by the vision. Was this what Varus saw in the temple?

    “The Midworld will burn,” said the bearded man, leaning back on his throne. “All who worship me in all times will burn. So, lawyer who is a warrior, you must act now: you must kill this Varus, for your own sake and your world’s.”

    “I won’t kill my friend!” Corylus said. “I won’t kill anybody because you say to!”

    “Then you’ll watch Midworld die!” the bearded man said. “You’ll watch your world die. And your friend will burn with you, you fool!”

    The walls of frozen light shivered to his booming voice, their color changing from bluish through green and yellow to red. When he fell silent, they trembled back to their cool resting state.

    Fear made Corylus want to run or to strike, but it was his duty to learn how to save his world. Not by killing his friend, though.

    “Your lordship,” he said. “I’ll talk to Varus. He must not realize what he’s doing. When he does he, well, he won’t.”

    “Will he believe you?” Wisdom asked. the ravens laughed.

    The bearded man didn’t speak for a moment, but thunder boomed within the great cavern. The eye Corylus could see beneath the hat’s broad brim glittered like a light-struck sapphire.

    “The Twelve have caught your friend, boy!” the bearded man said. “He won’t listen to you, he can’t.”

    “If Gaius Varus dies now, the Twelve will not have time to find another cat’s paw . . . ,” said Wisdom. The bird’s tone was musing, not imperative. “Nemastes will shift the fire onto them instead.”

    “Many men have died,” said Memory. “Throughout all time, every man born on Midworld has died –”

    “– or will die,” Wisdom concluded.

    “This Varus will destroy Nemastes,” the bearded man said, “and the Twelve will destroy Midworld. Unless you act, warrior!”

    “Your lordship,” said Corylus. He swallowed; his mouth was very dry. “I will not.”

    “Fool!” said the bearded man.

    “And yet,” said Memory, “you have not always acted on the knowledge that you yourself bought at such a price, One-Eye.”

    “The regret of a friend’s murder would be a terrible thing,” said Wisdom. “Better perhaps that Midworld should die; in fire this time.”

    “As before it died in ice,” agreed Memory. “Better by far.”

    “Fool!” repeated the bearded man, rising from the throne. He was greater than the cavern; its ceiling split in thunder, and the starry universe above burst more loudly still.

    Corylus was falling. He would have shouted, but he had no breath in his lungs. He flailed in nothingness –

    And shot upright. He was in the servant’s alcove of Varus’ suite. Moonlight streamed through the clerestory windows in the outside wall.

    Corylus’ legs were cold. When he rubbed them, he found that his bare feet were wet with crystals of melting ice. He took a deep breath.

    He’d thrown the coverlet off in the night; he hadn’t needed it in this weather. Smiling grimly, he tugged it up to cover his legs, then lay back on the couch and twitched shut the curtain.

    He didn’t remember when he’d been so tired. He was asleep in moments, and he didn’t dream.