B007IIXYQY EBOK (119 page)

“Get your miserable carcass in there, spawn of a whore and a goat,” Harpocras grumbled, coughing in her face as he herded her through the door, then wagged a split-nailed forefinger in her face. “One hour by the water clock is all you get. And remember, if you get yourself with child in there, don’t think it’ll get you out of a single day of training—and you’ll see it drowned at birth.”

He slammed the door so hard it raised dust eddies and sent the twin flames of the lamp into a skittish dance.

“Marcus,”
she said, her voice hoarse with longing.

With one motion he turned about and threw back the hood of the cloak. She hesitated for an instant, caught and held by the sight of his face with its brisk, impatient glance, the patient benevolence beneath. Already that face seemed a safe, familiar country. She ran to him, her last step a jump for which he was not prepared; he staggered backward, laughing as he caught and steadied her.

“And who is this sleek and frisky mountain cat?” he exclaimed, smoothing back her hair. “Living in a den of horrors seems to agree with you.”

With infinite care he lifted her face to his. He spoke her name and she realized she had nearly forgotten the sound of his voice with its solemn quietness, its faint, comforting edge of roughness—it made her feel like a caressed cat. She met his gaze, shivering within, feeling bare and defenseless, wanting to kiss him but unaccountably fearful—
what if I am utterly wrong, and I desire more than I am desired?
But she moved toward him anyway, making a step into darkness, trusting she would be caught.

She was. It was as if Fria kindled the same notion in both their minds. He seized her mouth gently at first; then he was ardent, fierce. She felt every sense flash awake. A bolt of heat shot through her body. Its warmth suffused her, and she melted languidly into a pool of sunny comfort. She wanted not to move, forever, to simply stop life, as if one moment held all its store of grace. This, then, she thought, is what it is to kiss a man dearer than life. It is greater than all earthly wealth.

I should offer all I own to the Fates for letting me know this before I die.

A fever took her, born of too many nights of fearing she had dreamed him—and one hand roamed over him of its own accord, reveling in the feel of taut muscles beneath the cloth, while with the other she searched determinedly for the fastenings of his tunic.

When he saw she was prepared to stop at nothing, he gently disengaged from her, caught the adventuring hand and kissed it. “I fear I must interrupt this act of rape,” he said, smiling. “We have little time and we must talk.”

She looked at him sleepily, caught up short and somewhat abashed. He gathered her close.

“You must have thought I abandoned you.”

“No, I did not.” She hesitated. “Well once or twice, in the deep of the night. But you’re in fine company—I also thought the Fates abandoned me.”

He laughed softly and held her more tightly, giving wordless comfort. “It took me that long to find a breach—this place is sealed tighter than a tomb. It drove me close to madness at times to think of you in this charnel house.” He smiled at her affectionately and added, “Though at times it seemed the school was in more danger from you than you from it. Thank Nemesis you’ve left off trying to destroy the place.”

“I caused you great trouble.”

“You did not. Think of it no more.” He took a linen-wrapped packet from his cloak. “In here is a skin of mead and some hard cheese imported from northern Belgica—not quite your own, but close. And a roasted chicken. Your charming friend Harpocras won’t rob you of it. He knows I’ll know if he does, and he’s greedy to do business with me again.”

“Sunia will worship you for this.”

“Sunia?”

“My…my kinswoman.” Auriane thought, Sunia would drop in a faint if she heard that.

“Auriane, I’ve come with great good news,” he went on, pulling her close again. “You are going to be free.”

He did not see the start of uneasiness in her eyes.

“Now listen carefully,” he went on. “I’ve managed to win the confidence of the Empress. At the time of the Festival of
Parentalia
—mid-February,
that is—she plans to go to her villa near the town of Arretium, as she does every year. She will travel alone—meaning without her husband—but she’ll have with her a small escort of Praetorians and ten carriages bearing her maids and hairdressers and personal effects. And you, my wild creature, will be among them, disguised as one of her wardrobe maids.” He paused to stroke her hair, then continued.

“On the eve of her departure the school will be given over to the Heroes’ Feast, one of the most abandoned celebrations of the year. The guards will not be so careful that night about who goes in and out. We’re going to dress you as one of the prostitutes. Matidia, mistress of their guild, will see you provided with a yellow stola and garish paint. Harpocras if he behaves will have the honor of secreting them into your cell. You’ll hide in one of Matidia’s private chambers off the First Hall until cockcrow, when you’ll be spirited out with the prostitutes after the feast is done.”

He felt her tense in his arms as if she braced for a blow, but assumed she feared capture and punishment.

“Rest at ease, it will all be quite safe. You’ll be brought to Matidia’s house—she dwells on the Via Nomentana just outside the walls. The Empress’s entourage will come by that road at dawn and you’ll be taken into one of her carriages. Domitian will fly into a fury when you’re discovered missing—he’ll have you quietly and thoroughly hunted down. Possibly blockades will be set up on the roads. But you must not worry, you will be in the safest possible hands. The Empress is the last person anyone would suspect of abetting your escape. Domitian himself will never think of it—for what has his wife to do with you? And no troops you meet on the way would dare think of halting her to search her carriages. After you reach her villa, you will continue on north, in the company of one of my clients who peddles woolen cloth. You will be far ahead of suspicion. As for me, I’ve matters to attend to here. But once you’re safe, if there is a way for us to be joined, I will find it. Know for now—the blood-drinking Colossus shall be cheated of one victim.”

Slowly Auriane began to pull away from him. Her eyes were somber pools with greater darkness churning beneath. She fixed her gaze on the still flames of the lamp, as if to drink in their knowledge of eternity.

“Auriane, what is wrong? You do not look at all pleased.”

“I cannot leave,” she whispered hoarsely. She felt his disbelieving silence as a pressure on her chest, forcing the breath from her.

“What are you saying?” he said softly, frowning.

She forced herself to look at him. The hurt and incomprehension in his eyes was as painful as the touch of a brand. “A fearsome thing has happened.”

“Auriane, what is it?” he pressed more gently. “You look as though you gaze on the walking dead. Whatever it is, let me put it right.”

“Even you cannot put this right.”

He seized her shoulders. “Auriane, what could possibly keep you here?”

“Our warriors’ council has met—”

“Warriors’ council?”

“My tribespeople who are captive in this place. And they called for one of us to come forth and ride the black horse.”

He frowned in concern, recognizing the tribal expression for the vengeance rite.

“And before them all, I swore on a plait I would not quit this place until I have slain Aristos.”

“What are you saying?
Aristos?
Is this some sad and pathetic jest?”

But from the look in her eyes—veiled, intransigent—he realized with horror it was not. A host of ancestors looked out of those eyes; he faced not one woman, but a tribe.

“What is this nonsense? Why Aristos?
And why
you?”

“I will try to explain it,” she said with care, as if each word were a blow she must try to soften. “Aristos is really Odberht, son of Wido—” she began.

“Auriane, all military reports say that man died. But no matter who
he is—”

“He is alive. Would I not know the man who savaged me when I was hardly more than a child?”

A look of abhorrence and pity swept over his face; involuntarily he took up her hand and held it securely. “Auriane, no.”

The pain so evident in his face undermined her, but she fought the sadness that welled up; she wanted her wits about her so she could bring him to understand.

“Listen to me, I beg you,” she pleaded, dread in her voice. “At the war’s beginning Odberht led his men against our back. To us, this is the most monstrous of crimes, far greater than your people’s, for Romans are just natural predators, like the wolf from which your race sprung. Odberht came from the heart of the grove. His soul is not separate from ours. When the kin-bond is so savagely desecrated, all our acts bear poison fruit. And indeed, in this last year we learned from tribesmen most recently taken captive that our crops have failed, a murrain has taken our cattle, and fever rages unabated among our people. It is because
he lives
,” she whispered, the gentle mourning in her voice accompanied by a growing intensity in her eyes.

The lamp’s faltering light softly remodeled her face, obscuring her eyes, leaving occult pits of shadow in their place—and he imagined in one instant that she wore a coldly beautiful ceremonial mask. She was Artemis, poised to purify with fire.

“Until I purge this poison from our blood, we will know nothing but tears and pestilence.”

“I am sorry, but that is preposterous.” Impatiently he backed away from her and strode off a pace. In spite of a great effort to remain dispassionate, his anger rose, fueled by a growing sense of helplessness. Reason was the weapon he knew best, and he sensed that in this battle it was worth little.

“Auriane, you must listen to me. There are many in the world who do not hold your beliefs about vengeance—I among them. Some would say it cruel nonsense to maintain putting one man into the ground can restore others to life. Among my people the wisest hold the law of vengeance does not stem from nature’s laws at all but from man’s habit,
issuing from the basest passions of the mind. Is a belief true,
simply because you’ve always held it? Even among your own tribesmen of the second generation dwelling here in Rome, they call it magical superstition after they’ve had a bit of Greek schooling. The world is larger than that. You seal yourself into a tomb.”

She broke away from his gaze. The mask vanished and a woman, frightened and alone, was revealed. She put one hand to the
aurr as
if it were an irritant—and he had the sense that dark amulet of earth was somehow his ally in this matter. The shudder he saw in the flame of her certainty encouraged him.

“It is poisonous nonsense and you must let it go. And I like it not at all that they put
you
forward,” he pressed on. “Have you considered they might be using you to their own ends?”

“Using me?
We are one body. Can the foot take advantage of the hand?”

“Why then cannot one of the men slay him? Why cannot the man called Coniaricus do it?”

“The life of the people was entrusted by the gods to me,
not Coniaric, when Odberht betrayed us. They call me their holy woman, full of godly power. I am their living shield, their Daughter of the Ash. They believe with all their hearts, more firmly than I believe it, that if I set out to do the deed, it cannot fail.”

“How convenient for them.”

“Please do not speak so. The Fates brought me to this place, Marcus. Whatever you think of vengeance, in my homeland we are bound to it still. And I do not know if you know it, but this man Odberht, before the gods, is the true slayer of my father Baldemar. I am his closest living kin still fit for battle—the five sons of his sister Sisinand were slain in the war. There is no one left
to avenge my father, except me. If I fail, then I leave the task to my daughter, Avenahar. And if she despises weapons when she is grown, then she must raise a son to do it. I will not put that upon her. I will not have her whole life corrupted by seeking vengeance, as mine is.”

“Ah, the perfect snare. You are enmired forever in your people’s beliefs. Nemesis!” He strode off and stopped, silent for a time, unable to believe he could not find a breach in her resolve. Then he swung about; his tone harsher now. “What of your people? Are you not abandoning
them?”

Again he saw a shift of uncertainty in her eyes.

“They love you and are sustained by you,” he pressed on. “The greatest good you can do for them is to preserve your own life.”

“But…to save my life that way is to lose it. That is a niding’s path. And…and there is this, too, Marcus,” she said, keen to find a reason that would claim his sympathies. “Odberht is amassing wealth. It is rumored that he sends money to the Cheruscan king. When he quits this place, he expects to establish himself in their lands and rule over those people. The money he sends, I’ve heard from fresh captives, is being used to pay Cheruscan raiders to attack my tribe. My people are being harried again, now that they are sick and bowed down.”