The Legions of Fire (18 page)

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.

H
edia twisted her left hand behind her back to rub between her shoulder blades. Her stool was backless, and the rough stone doorjamb provided support but not comfort.

“Golden-throned Juno,” Alphena chanted. She held the scroll open to the light from the lamp stand beside her, but by now she must be reciting from memory. “Queen of the immortals, surpassing all in beauty; sister and wife of loud-thundering Jupiter, goddess of marriage. Grant my prayer for a worthy mate, thou glorious one whom men and gods reverence and honor, even as they do your all-powerful husband.”

The girl had straightened as she recited the prayer; now she slumped again. She turned to Hedia, her face twisted with tired despair.

“This isn't doing anything,” she said, trying to raise her own spirits by getting angry. “We may as well go home!”

“Not yet, dear,” Hedia said quietly. “It's not even the middle of the night. We can't set conditions of our own comfort on the will of the gods.”

“Do you believe this?” Alphena demanded, waggling the scroll as if it were a baton. The layers of glued papyrus creaked in protest. “In Juno? In any religion?”

Hedia laughed. “Daughter, if you mean as an institution, I'm not sure I even believe in marriage,” she said. “But marriage exists, and it protected me at one time. Perhaps another marriage will protect you.”

She got to her feet. Instead of going to Alphena, she bent backward and massaged the small of her back with both hands.

Hedia's fingers were slim but strong; even so, she half wished that she'd brought Balbo, the household masseur, in with her. He was a eunuch, so
perhaps his presence wouldn't make the rites vain … but on the other hand, this business would be boring and uncomfortable even if her back didn't hurt, so there was no point in taking a needless risk for negligible gain.

“As for the gods existing,” Hedia went on, “I have no idea. I know that if I strike steel on a flint in the correct fashion, though, I get sparks.”

She crossed her hands before her and felt her expression tighten. “Generations of our ancestors have believed that this sort of divination is effective in bringing maidens into the state of marriage,” she said. “Therefore you will continue to offer a prayer to Juno while standing in a sanctified building, and I will remain here with you.”

Alphena stared at her for a moment. Hedia stood erect. She offered a pleasant smile, but she was ready for whatever the response was.

Instead of replying, the girl turned to face the goddess. “Golden-throned Juno,” she said. “Queen of the immortals, surpassing all in beauty …”

As Alphena read, Hedia walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sister and wife of loud-thundering Jupiter,” Alphena said, “goddess of marriage. Grant my prayer for a worthy marriage ….”

There was no response this time either. Shortly it would be the start of the third watch, midnight. Alphena would continue to pray till dawn if necessary, and Hedia would stay with the girl as a mother should.

Nemastes and his magic might destroy the whole house of Saxa and the gods knew what else. Regardless, Hedia would be fighting all the way with every tool at her disposal.

Hedia smiled and gave Alphena's shoulder a slight squeeze. She wouldn't have survived this long if she hadn't been willing to fight powerful men.

T
HE TEMPLE SERVANTS
inserted iron cramps into slots in the floor on either side of the mosaic cartouche. The tools were similar to what Varus had seen workmen use at construction sites when they muscled heavy blocks into place.

“Ah—I can lend a hand,” said Corylus, his eyes swiveling from the servants to Priscus. He started forward without waiting for an answer.

“Thank you, sir,” said Balaton, stepping toward Corylus as though he were going to meet him. It took Varus a moment to understand what his friend doubtless had realized instantly: that the servant was blocking Corylus
away from the task. “We're used to doing this, and it's probably safer that we handle it alone.”

Corylus flashed a genuine smile. “Right,” he said, stepping back with Varus and Pandareus. “If somebody slipped, the trapdoor might drop and be broken. Sorry.”

Varus frowned in surprise. He asked quietly, “Corylus, would you have slipped?”

Corylus grinned. “No,” he said, “and I wouldn't have forgotten to breathe either. But they don't know that; and anyway, they don't need my help.”

Holding the cover up six inches above the floor, the servants walked it in unison toward the temple's great doors. When they set it down, it was completely clear of the four-by-six-foot rectangle. Another man lowered his ladder into the opening, then slid it a finger's breadth to the side so that the stringers locked into notches in the concrete subflooring.

Pandareus and the two youths stepped to the edge of the opening and looked down. The vault was of considerable size. In the middle was a chest about three feet long and a foot and a half wide, much like the ossuaries into which Varus recalled that Jews and other Oriental races gathered the bones of their dead after the flesh had decayed. The civilized folk of Carce, like the Greeks before them, cremated their dead and stored the ashes in jars.

This was something else, though. Varus shivered. He crossed his left arm over his chest; by doing that, he squeezed the ivory head against his breastbone beneath the toga.

Priscus shuffled up behind them. “Master Corylus,” he said, “you look like a husky young fellow who wouldn't mind catching a weight of fat if it slipped off the ladder.”

“Sir?” Corylus said.

Priscus chuckled like bubbles in hot grease. He said, “Go down into the vault and wait as I follow you.”

“Here, I'll go down with the lantern first,” Varus said to a servant with a light. It was actually a bronze oil lamp in the form of a three-headed dragon; each tongue was a blazing wick.

Without real objection, he took the short pole from which the lamp hung; turning, he backed down the ladder. The servant looked at Balaton for approval, but Balaton was instead frowning at his own superior.

“Lord Priscus,” said Balaton, “perhaps your guests would prefer to enter
the vault by themselves? There's no requirement that you go down with them, after all.”

Varus reached the bottom of the ladder and stepped away so that Corylus could follow. When he raised the lamp, he saw that though the ceiling was low—it was no more than six feet above the floor—the vault extended ten feet on the short axis and twenty the long way. It was much larger than it needed to be to conceal the stone chest.

“Balaton,” said Priscus, lowering himself carefully rung by rung on the ladder. “I'm a silly old man, but
you
are an old woman. I'll be perfectly all right. You won't let me fall, will you, Corylus my lad?”

“No
sir
,” said Corylus, bracing himself to take the commissioner's weight if he slipped.

Varus smiled faintly, visualizing his friend, answering the legate of his legion as ranks of Germans prepared to charge. Whereas Gaius Varus would be wondering what the commotion was about and why those blond men with bull-hide shields were shouting so loudly.

Priscus wheezed coming down the short ladder, but the chief attendant's concern did seem overstated. Shrugging to settle his tunic—although the commissioner was on duty, he was dressed for dinner rather than to carry out official business—he said, “When we consult the
Books,
we do it down here: the
Books
never leave the vault. And you may think I'm fat and awkward”—he laughed again—“as well you might. But there are commissioners who are far more decrepit than I am, I assure you.”

Pandareus was following Priscus into the vault with equal care. Varus bent to examine the stone chest, then thrust his left arm away so that he didn't burn himself on the lamps he held. Corylus took the staff from him and hung the lamp chain from one of the hooks placed for the purpose in the low ceiling.

Varus muttered thanks. He felt increasingly hot and uncomfortable. He doubted that was embarrassment: he was far too used to behaving in a fashion which those around him considered bumblingly incompetent.

As they had every right to do.
Priscus is old and fat, and I'm a bumbling incompetent
.
As well as being a bad poet
.

He squatted, keeping his shadow off the carvings on the side of the chest. It was limestone and not a particularly fine-grained variety at that, so the figures were necessarily crude. Nevertheless, they were powerful.

In the center was a chariot to which horses were hitched in parallel: four
of them as best Varus could tell by the additional grooves shadowing the outline of the legs of the animal closest to the viewer. The figure driving the chariot had a woman's torso and breasts, but her head was that of a maned lion; bird wings sprouted from her back. A similar creature—sphinx? Gorgon?—ran on two bird legs in front of the team but looked back over her shoulder toward her fellow. The heads of all the figures were at the same height. Varus had seen similar bands of decoration painted on very old vases.

“Sir?” said Varus, looking up at Priscus. Suddenly realizing that he was speaking to a man who was far his superior in age, knowledge, and position, he wobbled upright as he would for his father. “Ah, Lord Priscus? Is this box Etruscan?”

“You've got a clever one there, Teacher,” Priscus said to his friend. Pandareus didn't reply, but his smile was a trifle warmer than usual as it drifted toward Varus.

“And yes, boy,” Priscus continued. “At any rate, it looks like Etruscan work to me, and early Etruscan besides. Which is just what I would expect, since I believe it's the chest in which Old Tarquin placed the books after he bought them from the Sibyl. Do you know the story?” He thrust his finger toward Varus. “You, I mean. Since you're a clever bugger.”

I've been called worse,
Varus thought.

“Sir!” he said as though he were in class. “An old woman approached Tarquin the First, an Etruscan and the fifth king of Carce. She offered to sell him nine books of prophecies by the Sibyl of Cumae at the price of three hundred didrachms. Tarquin refused to pay so much.”

“So, boy …,” said Priscus, leaning slightly forward and scowling. “Was Tarquin a fool?”

This
was
like class! “Sir!” Varus said. “No, Tarquin was a tyrant and a foreigner, but he was reputed to be one of the wisest men of all time. The price, however, was enormous—particularly since Carce was then only a town and surrounded by powerful enemies.”

He cleared his throat. Both Pandareus and Corylus were smiling smugly; they knew he wouldn't embarrass them.

And I won't
. Varus continued. “The old woman threw three of the books on the fire in Tarquin's chamber. They were written on dry palm leaves and burned to ash. She then demanded the same price for the six books remaining.”

“And?” said Priscus. He was smiling in satisfaction also.

Varus rested his left hand on the stone chest, feeling the carvings beneath his fingertips. He knew the story well, as he knew many stories. Until this moment it had been a myth, but now in this place he could see Tarquin, his stern face lighted by a sudden flare from the charcoal brazier which tried to warm the painted stone walls of his throne room.

“Tarquin again refused the offer,” Varus said, “and the old woman threw three more books onto the fire. But when she offered him the final three books, Tarquin paid her the full price, three hundred didrachms. The
Sibylline Books
have been the most holy treasure of Carce from that day to this.”

“Very good, boy,” said Priscus softly, but he turned toward Pandareus. “A treasure too holy for me to display even to the scholar whose wisdom and knowledge I respect above those of any other man I know.”

“If you don't mind, old friend,” said Pandareus, “we'll stay in this vault while I tell you some of my history.”

“Sir?” said Corylus. “Should Varus and I leave?”