B007IIXYQY EBOK (103 page)

Domitian turned to Julianus. “Then how dare you interrupt my chastising of this woman.”

Julianus gave the faintest of humble bows. “If I would say more on the matter, we must speak in private.”

At that moment Auriane opened her eyes. Darkness was complete; at first she saw only the flame of a torch as it wrestled with the wind. It illumined the face of a man behind the Emperor. From his voice, she realized this was the same man who, moments before, bade Domitian stop. She came to full consciousness with a jolt.

But for him, I would have died.

She watched this man with her whole mind, as earlier she had watched Domitian, sensing his full nature. And was pulled into memories that came from nowhere she could name, other than the unseen worlds that lurked behind dreams. She felt she had no more flesh and bone than the torch’s whipping flame.

My blood and my heart know you, as one knows the kinsman never met.

Here was a man beside whom the other who had hurt her seemed half formed. There was about that face a fineness of line arresting in itself, but it was the spirit that animated it that brought her to startled attention. She sensed a soul that in some way uncannily matched her own, a benevolent intelligence not bounded by clan, a mind that saw keenly right through city walls. She saw the carefully banked fire in his eyes and knew that, despite his composed expression, this man loathed Domitian.

For a moment she was wrapped in a sacral stillness, aware only of the drag of the night wind, which she knew as the approving sigh of Fria, Mother of all Living. She saw the dying face of the warrior she had felled in the Ash Grove at the last time-of-turning. Was it because, once more, life was altering forever?

There was a man who
was
a fit king.

Julianus felt Auriane looking at him like a sleeper who has flashed awake, and thanked every god for lending him the strength to resist turning to look at her.
Betray nothing,
he commanded himself. How much does she understand? Will she despise me when she realizes I was the one who spoiled her act of vengeance? Will she understand I saved
his
life only because it was necessary to save hers and the lives of others? Who would have guessed, Auriane, you would try a thing no man in this city had the mettle to try? But had you succeeded they would have slaughtered you at once, and you would have unleashed on the world a firestorm of civil war. You want what I want, but this is not the way to get it.

Domitian’s anger was a boiling liquid that must spill one way or another. Finally it brimmed over onto the men of the Guard.

“Secure her,”
he barked. Two Praetorians fitted Auriane with heavy chains. “Now,
get out,
all of you!” Domitian strode among them, making cutting gestures with his hands. “None of this is to be talked about, not to your wives, your boys or your whores, not to
anyone,
and if I hear it whispered of, every man present will be held to account. Go!
You look foolish standing about staring.”

It seemed to the men of the Guard the Emperor meant to punish his loyal protectors more severely than the murderous barbarian woman. Julianus noticed with satisfaction this firmly planted seed of disaffection among them.

When they were alone, Domitian turned round to Julianus. “Now. Tell me why you made me look the fool.”

Auriane listened intently, momentarily forgotten by Domitian but not by Julianus.

“I stopped you from looking
more
the fool. Had you disposed of her that
way—in front your guards and in a heat of rage—it would have trumpeted to the world that you feared her words and believed them the truth.”

From the faint shift of uncertainty in the Emperor’s eyes, Julianus knew Domitian thought him possibly right. But his wrath was not spent.

“Nonsense. That treacherous harpie boils my blood. Any man would have done the same.”

“I tried for long to warn you she was far more dangerous than you knew. And treachery is, in truth, not quite the right term for it.”

“And what would you
term it?”

“The natives’ code of honor. She is its prisoner—and it demands the blood of the
best man
of the enemy tribe. She could hardly help herself.”

Julianus thought he felt a warmth, as if Auriane smiled at him.

Again Domitian foundered. Julianus spoke the words he ardently wished to believe. Now he was trapped between a lust to punish and a fervent desire to find some way to leave her alive. He wanted her to taste terror and helplessness at leisure, but he wanted more to change her mind, to rub her face in mud and blood until he forced her to adore him. Perhaps, he thought, this was in truth not an assassination attempt at all. Does not a beast follow its nature? Possibly this
beast could still be tamed.

He turned round to Auriane, seized the torn strip of her undertunic and ripped it off the rest of the way, baring her back. “Animal predator you may be,” he said, “all the more fitting then you should taste the whip. If you are fortunate, I’ll stop before you die.”

Auriane closed her eyes and bowed her head but uttered no sound.

“I would advise against that,” Julianus said quickly, struggling with the murderous heat accumulating in his hands.

Domitian turned to look at him. “You wretched pedant. I’m in no mood for some sleep-inducing lecture on Stoic principles.”

“You are short of captives for the procession. Harm her and you’ll be much shorter of them, for those captives you hold now in the Praetorian camp will rise in revolt and have to be killed. She is their holy woman—they love her and they’re ready to die for her. If you want to silence those who mock this war, I would leave her be.”

To his relief Julianus saw a jolt of frustration followed by angry resignation in Domitian’s eyes. The silence that followed seemed full of Auriane’s soundless laughter.

At last Domitian said with disgust, “I never despise you more than when you make sense, curses on you.” His temples felt they were being prodded with knives. “My head!
Loathsome woman. Ungrateful city. Piggish populace.” He turned round to Auriane, regarding her with a malignant smile, running his gaze appraisingly up and down her frame as if noticing its sturdiness for the first time.

“I have it then—the right punishment for her, in keeping with her unnatural viciousness and her love of war. And it will be carried out
after
the procession, so we’ll lose no captives.”

She is done!
Julianus thought. What more can I do? I have come to an impassable wall.

Domitian looked steadily into Auriane’s eyes as he spoke. “Tell me, Marcus, good friend, did you attend any part of the September Games?”

“The races, once,” he answered quietly. Julianus tensed; already he felt horror’s first prickling touch.

“A pity you are incapable of appreciating the arena. When we lose sight of the elemental struggle of life against death, we become useless as aging eunuchs. The point of a blade—that is the fulcrum of life. I am sorry you missed my re-creation of the siege of Troy. It was months
in
preparation…I had two architect-engineers build me a wonderful model of the walls of Troy, with trapdoors, a higher tower than anyone’s ever seen, and collapsing walls. We even made small siege engines. Four hundred died that afternoon—and all fought like heroes. It was most inspiring.” He turned to Marcus Julianus, smiling with pride, his headache vanished as he delighted in the memory.

“And you know what else we had, my dear Julianus? Women.
Twenty-nine of them.” He ran a finger slowly down the line of Auriane’s throat as he whispered this. To Julianus there was something horrible in the gesture, as if he imagined slitting it open.

“They were garbed as the Amazons who attacked the Greeks at Troy. Aristos himself was Achilles—can you imagine! He’s an ignorant beast who knows no more of history than a baboon, but someone must have filled his head with tales because he slew the Amazon Queen Penthesilea and ravaged her corpse and gouged out her eyes, just like the real Achilles of history. Clever, no? And all his own idea. The applause he got!

“But Troy—that was
my
creation. I tell you, Marcus, there was not a spectator, plebeian or noble, but who loved it. And the women…. It is so amusing,
watching women fight. There’s such a wild, bestial desperation to it, such low cunning. Women have a savage survival instinct hitherto under appreciated.”

He shrugged and turned back to Julianus. “Unfortunately, none of those women survived. So I’ve got to train a new batch.”

“You cannot mean this.” Now Julianus made no effort to disguise the horror in his voice. He had not felt such impotent rage, such loathing of all life since the urine-soaked Lucius Grannus seized him to drag him to his death.
With all I have gained since those barren days—wealth beyond any procurator’s ability to calculate, influence that is the envy of all, the companionship of philosophers, a school and library that together form a fortress of knowledge—still I can do nothing for her.

“My sweet viper,” Domitian continued, looking severely at Auriane, “I condemn you to the arena. And since you show such precocity in fighting men, you shall be matched against men. You will fight for your life until all the fight is worn out of you.” Terror flickered in Auriane’s eyes, though she did not perfectly understand all this. Domitian finished in a whisper, “I’ll see to it you envy the dead!”

If you live that long, monster,
Julianus thought. You’ll want her trained first to make it more amusing. It leaves me ample time to prepare your death.

To Julianus’ dismay, Domitian swung round, content now and smiling expansively, and put a huge, paternal hand on his shoulder. “My great and good friend! You saved my life. I shall not forget this, not ever.”

“One ostrich, well aimed. Really, it was nothing.”

“Ah!” Domitian clutched his temples dramatically and lowered himself onto a stone bench. “Knives. Knives in my head.” Domitian appeared almost physically smaller now, not imperial at all; he might have been any weary, disgruntled shopkeeper.

“Sit, my lord,” Julianus said. “I will summon the litter so you will not have to walk back to your chambers. I’ll relay to the Guard that you want the woman taken at once back to the camp. And I’ll order your audiences canceled tomorrow.”

“Excellent. I scarcely know what I would do without you. Ah, for the life of a simple artisan!”

Within the temple was a bellpull with which Julianus summoned litter bearers; in moments a litter borne by eight Bithynian bearers in Domitian’s white livery loomed into sight on the torchlit pathway. The litter descended; Domitian climbed in. Swiftly and silently they bore the Emperor off.

Julianus then sought Plautius at his post along the portico. Plautius had lately been brought into the conspiracy, the first man of the Praetorians with whom Julianus had succeeded. It was Plautius who had alerted him, almost too late, that Auriane was to be brought here tonight—a service for which Julianus meant to reward him with a hundred silver
denarii.

“Is it not too
soon?”
Plautius whispered to him. Beneath his gold helmet all Julianus could see of him was a formidable jaw line and eyes that were small, glowing fire-pits. Plautius was still roused by Domitian’s affronts to his dignity.

“That was
her
attempt, not mine,” Julianus explained quickly. “She’s to be taken back. Have that carriage brought round
slowly
—I mean to look about here for a moment.”

Plautius nodded knowingly, not questioning, assuming Julianus meant to investigate the layout of temple and grounds as a possible site for the deed when the fateful time came.

“Clever, discouraging him from destroying the woman,” Plautius whispered. “That shredded the last scrap of my
men’s respect for him—you’ve ripened the fruit for plucking.”

“Don’t try my famous modesty by overburdening it with praise. Go. And slowly!”

Plautius gave him a grim smile, turned crisply about, and was gone. Julianus returned to the small temple of Sylvanus, where Auriane still waited in shackles.

He struggled briefly with a spontaneous fantasy of fleeing the city with her like some hero of old, knowing the notion utter folly even as he thought it—they would never get beyond the first milestone. These were, after all, modern times; if she can be saved, he thought, it will only be through the subtle and methodical labors of the mind.

He halted when he was ten or twelve feet distant from her. She watched him warily, putting him in mind of a wild horse that might bolt at his approach.

I must be prepared for it if she never comes to me, if she lives out what remains of her life in bitterness toward all mankind.

A three-quarter moon had risen over the top of the Alban Mount; he had the sense it was the archaic eye of some sky-riding night hag, old when Diana was young, possessively tracking Auriane. A dark wind animated the fan palms, ruffling her tumbled-down hair. It scarcely seemed possible he was alone with her, attended only by the five bronze serpents watching with malign eyes.