The Legions of Fire (22 page)

The servants babbled like a flock of geese; they even fluttered their arms in the air.
All they have to do is to begin spraying green shit all over the landscape to complete the resemblance!

With servants dancing attendance but afraid to touch the noble ladies even to help, Hedia reached the gap where the gate had been. They could
go into the street and get behind what was left of the perimeter wall, but she doubted blocks would roll this far through the piles of building materials. Besides, the earthquake seemed to be over for now.

She released Alphena. The girl drew herself up with returning dignity. From the look on her face, she was wondering whether to scream at her stepmother for treating her like a child or to hold her peace, since Hedia had, after all, done the right thing. Even if she hadn't been polite in the way she did it.

“Your ladyship!” cried Phidippides. Fear and confusion made the priest of Tellus sweat like the pig he so greatly resembled. “Whatever's the matter? What did you do?”

“We didn't do anything, you fool,” Hedia said. “The earthquake knocked over the lamp stand and the statue too. Midas.”

The deputy steward was standing close, ready to move the priest away if requested to. He wore a troubled expression.

“Get some of your men to put out the oil that spilled from the lamp. Smother it with the sand piled over there, I suppose.”

Midas turned, relaying the order with a bellow. The workmen's tools were stacked in the shelter of the roofed colonnade to the left of the temple proper. One of the servants had noticed that along with the shovels, trowels, and cramps, there were tightly woven baskets for carrying loose materials. He shouted to get his fellows' attention and started tossing baskets down.

“But your ladyship?” Phidippides said in horrified wonder. “There wasn't a—”

He paused. He'd apparently heard the words that had just come out of his mouth and decided instantly to change the tenor of his comment.

“Ah, that is,” he said, “we were waiting here in the street as you directed. With your men. We heard, ah, rattling, but we didn't feel an earthquake. Your own man Midas can tell you that, can't you, dear fellow?”

“Don't you contradict her ladyship, you Milesian toad!” said Midas, grabbing a handful of Phidippides' tunic and shoving him backward.

“Enough of that, Midas,” Hedia said. The priest edged away, ready to run if Midas reached for him again. “Now, listen to me:
did
you feel an earthquake?” She gave an angry flick of her hands. “And
don't
just say you did because you think that's what I want to hear,” she said. “Tell me the truth or I swear I'll have you flayed.”

The deputy steward's face went blank. He bowed low and said, “Your ladyship, I heard tiles breaking and I thought there'd been a gust of wind. But I didn't feel anything through my sandals. Or feel wind. Your ladyship.”

“There had to have been an earthquake,” Alphena said. She was hugging herself. “The statue fell. And I heard it
speak
.”

“Midas,” Hedia snapped, “leave us. And make sure this temple rabble keeps clear also! Lady Alphena and I have matters regarding the divination to discuss in private.”

“At once, your ladyship!” the steward said. In a voice that could be heard in neighboring apartment buildings, he went on, “Ferox and Mensus? Break the legs of anybody who comes within twenty feet of their ladyships!”

As people sprang away from them—the household servants dragged or pummeled temple personnel, who were afraid to defend themselves in the presence of the great ladies—Alphena said, “It said I was going to marry Spurius Cassius. It's
horrible
. I don't even know who Spurius Cassius is!”

Hedia doubted that the girl had consciously waited until the servants were out of earshot before she started talking about what had happened. If Hedia hadn't acted quickly, all the hundreds of household servants—and all the thousands they talked to or who talked to somebody who talked to them—would have been chattering about the terrible omen during the marriage divination.
Try to arrange a decent marriage for Alphena then!

“I don't think you should take the voice you thought you heard too seriously,” Hedia lied. The girl was distraught. Besides, they were both tired and they'd drunk quite a lot of wine. “I suspect it was the wood squealing when the statue of Tellus fell over, don't you?”

“It wasn't,” Alphena said. She bent over, bracing her buttocks against the wall as she pressed the knuckles of both hands against her mouth. “The goddess spoke to me. I saw her
mouth
moving!”

Is she about to begin screaming? That could be passed off as a reaction to almost being crushed by the toppling statue, of course. In fact it might go some way to balancing the stories about the girl's unnatural interest in masculine pursuits
.

“I'm not going to marry Spurius Cassius,” Alphena said through her fists. “I've never heard of Spurius Cassius. I won't!”

“Get yourself together, Daughter,” Hedia said without raising her voice. “Venus, girl! Don't put on a show for the servants.”

Alphena straightened with a wide-eyed stare, as though Hedia had slapped her—which was more or less what she had done, though with words.
The girl looked around, aware of her surroundings for the first time since they'd stumbled from the temple.

When she saw that the nearest people, Ferox and Mensus, were over twenty feet away, she relaxed. With their backs to the noblewomen, they brandished cudgels threateningly toward other servants and the gawkers who'd come from neighboring residences.

“And even if what you thought you heard really was a spirit speaking to you …,” Hedia continued. The edge that had been in her voice a moment before had vanished; she was now the soothing mother—or perhaps the older sister. “Just remember that bad marriages are like bad colds: they're unpleasant, but they're too common to bother talking about. And they don't have to last long.”

“Do you know Spurius Cassius?” Alphena said.

“No,” said Hedia. “Perhaps your father does. Don't worry, we'll learn who the fellow is—if he even exists, as I said.”

The lantern bearers were all outside the five-pace circle she'd decreed, but she and Alphena stood in full moonlight. Everyone was staring at them. They would have to do something before long. The girl seemed to have settled down adequately.

Alphena looked up suddenly. She'd gathered herself together, but Hedia now saw anger in her expression.

“Mother,” she said. “Did my father do this?”

“Saxa?” Hedia repeated. The question had taken her aback; she could scarcely imagine anything that would have seemed more improbable. “No, dear, I can't imagine him doing anything of the sort. I know he's not—”

She turned her palms upward; she supposed that was in subconscious hope that a softer phrasing would drop out of the sky into them.

It didn't. She went on baldly, “Saxa doesn't pay much attention to anyone but himself. But dear? Insofar as it's in him, he does love you and your brother. He wouldn't deliberately harm you.”

“But Father told you to bring me to the Temple of Tellus, didn't he?” Alphena said fiercely. “And that's the goddess who spoke to me!”

Hedia frowned in frustration. “He was renovating this temple,” she said. “And it's close to the house; it's the natural choice. Believe me, dear, your father doesn't have it in him to hurt or frighten you in any way.”

Alphena was wavering.
She accused her father because she needs someone to be angry at. Otherwise she can only be afraid
.

Hedia put her arms around the younger woman. “Be strong for me, Daughter,” she lied. “This business frightens me terribly; I need you to cling to. But”—she straightened and leaned back to look Alphena in the eyes—“we mustn't attack people who aren't our enemies just because we're afraid. And Saxa isn't our enemy.”

“I'm sorry,” the girl muttered to the ground. “I wasn't …”

“Come, dear,” Hedia said brightly. “Let's get back to our own beds. Tomorrow we can start asking about this Spurius Cassius.”

She led the girl out to the litter. “Midas, we're returning to the house,” she called.

The priest hovered beside the deputy steward, dancing from one foot to the other as though the stone pavers were too hot for the soles of his feet. While Alphena got into the litter, Hedia paused with a hard smile.

“Master Phidippides?” she said. “I'll talk to my husband tomorrow. It appears that your goddess will have a new statue after all.”

Hedia settled herself onto the seat and gave Alphena a pleasant smile. No one seeing her composed face would guess that she was thinking that while Saxa certainly hadn't done this, his friend Nemastes probably had. In that case, the danger to Alphena was much worse than merely a bad marriage.

C
ORYLUS WALKED AT A LEISURELY PACE
, thinking about what had just happened in the temple. Unlike his friend's prophecy during the reading yesterday, this one didn't seem to come from a malevolent spirit. Neither time had Varus himself been speaking, though.

The moon gave good enough illumination that Corylus could have gone much faster—even trotted, if he'd felt like it. He wasn't in a hurry, and moving fast at night in Carce called attention to you. He was ready for trouble, but he wasn't looking for it.

A double line of heavy wagons pulled by four oxen each was rumbling down the center of the boulevard, carrying storage jars of wine. They were outbound, like him, but the only time the pace of an ox rose above a crawl was if the beast was lightly loaded and smelled water at the end of the day.

They shouldn't have been abreast. The wagoneers who properly would have been at the back didn't want to wait extra hours to unload.

They were hauling Greek wine landed at Ostia and brought up the Tiber on barges. These wagons were hauling it to taverns on the outskirts of the
city. Because of the expense of land transport, it was cheaper to do this than it would be to bring wine overland even as little as twenty miles from vineyards in the Sabine Hills.

The wagon wheels were iron-shod, spitting sparks from the paving stones and ringing like Vulcan's workshop. Corylus didn't want to follow the wagons all the way to his apartment, but getting around them even on a street as wide as the Argiletum was tricky. If he misjudged, he took the risk of being squeezed between two wagons or even slipping under a wheel. The weight would take off whatever body part was between iron and the paving stones as thoroughly as a German's sword could do.

Somebody shouted from ahead. A drover's whip whacked over the sudden frustrated lowing of oxen. The leading wagons had met an equally large vehicle coming the other way.

A narrow alley led off to the left. Corylus ducked into it rather than thread his way through the mess ahead. Neither the teamsters nor the draft animals were going to notice a slim youth if he happened to be in the place they intended to pass through.

He heard something scuttle in front of him. He guessed it was a dog or a drunk—it was too big for a cat. He didn't suppose it mattered so long as it was going away. He'd lost the light. The moon was behind buildings, he thought at first, but he didn't see the outline of the roofs against the lighter sky.

He looked back toward the Argiletum. He didn't hear the wagons anymore. Instead, an owl called. The sound was familiar—but not in Carce.

Corylus moved forward, walking on the balls of his feet and holding his staff at a slant before him.
I'm having another spell like I did during the reading. My body is in Carce, but my mind has gone somewhere else
.

The air was cold, and the wind carried a hint of snow with it. There were trees around him in this dream, towering conifers whose needles matted the ground. This time he seemed to have a body, though. He kept moving, taking long strides as he'd learned to do with the scouts when they had to cover ground quickly before daylight caught them.

The ground had been rising almost imperceptibly. Corylus came into a clearing and at last saw the moon again: it was in its first quarter and just above the horizon. In Carce the full moon had been at zenith when he left his friends at the base of the Capitoline Hill.

He heard wolves to his left and behind: one and two, then many. They filled the night with their harmony. They had picked up a scent.

They howled again, noticeably closer. Corylus was pretty sure whose scent they had.

Corylus turned to his right and broke into a trot, dropping his toga as he ran. He'd worn his best to meet Atilius Priscus tonight, but he could replace it for money. If he survived.

There were no paths in this forest, but the trees smothered the under-growth between their mighty trunks. He should be heading in the direction of his apartment, if he ever fell back out of this dream into the world where his apartment existed.

The wolves continued to howl. Two were noticeably ahead of the remainder of the pack. Corylus knew he could outrun them; but if he did that, their ten or a dozen fellows who were loping comfortably behind would bring him down exhausted not long thereafter.

At the edge of his consciousness, Corylus sometimes caught glimpses of streets and buildings. He didn't recognize anywhere in Carce for certain; he couldn't even swear that what he thought he saw was the city in which he had started this night.

He would trade this forest for passage to the shadow city, though, no matter what might be waiting for him there. He'd seen the bodies of wounded men whose friends hadn't found them before the wolves did.

The leading wolves yipped in excitement. Corylus didn't dare look over his shoulder—a slip would be fatal—but he knew that the pair had him in sight.

He lengthened his stride, knowing it was just a matter of time. No matter what he did, the result would be fatal.