B007IIXYQY EBOK (155 page)

I should not outlive her. She is dying for us.
Sunia gripped the arm of Acco, who stood in back of Meton. “I beg you, let me have your dagger.”

“Silence, woman. If you want to die, it can be arranged. But not with my dagger.”

Auriane felt herself dying. Her every muscle seemed battered into quivering pulp; her every stratagem failed. She had tried for a day and a night to launch an attack, and could not.

I leapt too far into the torrent and found it too strong for me.
Fria, Wodan, holy earth, why have you abandoned me?

Her people, all hope, all love, seemed dim and distant as stars. Life ended as it began, full of fright and pain.

She sensed an obstacle at her back. Too late she realized she had been driven up against the water organ. First she struck its bronze windchest, then rolled onto the keys. Its multiple mechanisms were set into rollicking motion—the small bronze dolphins dropped their valves into cylinders, the air compressed within the windchest, and resonant, jangling screeches merrily piped forth.

Aristos’ heaving laughter, breathless but triumphant, accompanied this soul-shredding cacophony. She had been troublesome to catch, but at last he had managed it.

A rumbling groan rippled down the vast sweep of seats, broken by scattered laughter. Wails of protest floated down from the women’s gallery.

Domitian grinned at the water organ’s windy howls. “Aurinia plays that thing better than all your musicians!” he remarked to Plancius. Intently, he sat forward.
Aristos, give me my omen now.

Auriane felt the oak base of the water organ grinding into her back. Aristos’ shadow engulfed her.

“Breathe your last, wretched father-killer,” he shouted between gasps as he lashed out with a flurry of stabbing motions, trying to catch her with his sword’s point. Each strike missed by less than a finger-width as she frantically heaved from side to side, all escape blocked by the massive oaken instrument. She made an attempt to dive beneath his arm but he blocked her with a leather-encased foot, then struck her shoulder a bruising blow with the boss of his shield. She felt her will to defend herself ebbing away.

She saw with taunting clarity the arrangement of the runes upon the white cloth—the sign for death and rebirth.
Death comes first, before resurrection. I am yours, Odberht—the Fates do not want me.

Petronius was quietly admitted to the imperial box. He halted beside the throne, feeling intensely uncomfortable as he waited for Domitian to give him a moment of attention. Petronius tried not to look at the Emperor’s hands—the puffed, bluish flesh squeezed painfully between those many rings reminded him of the veal-and-fennel sausages he had seen in the market earlier that day.

Domitian’s gloomy gaze halted halfway between his Guard’s Commander and the struggle by the water organ.

“Shyness is no virtue in a Commander of the Guard. Out with it.”

Petronius leaned close to speak discreetly into the imperial ear. For one numbing moment he forgot entirely what he was supposed to say. If this interruption were not thought justified, his next audience might be in the arena with a pair of highly unsympathetic Molossian dogs.

“Your Excellency, you must accept the apology of your good servant for this interruption…. If this matter did not concern your mortal safety as well as the welfare of all who live within your
imperium
—”

“Why don’t you recite the whole of the
Aeneid
before you tell me,”
Domitian muttered with a murderous scowl as he returned his full attention to the arena. Somehow the cunning witch had evaded three more thrusts at close range—but surely the end was near.

“A plot has been unearthed. They plan to do you to the death within the hour, right where you sit.”

Domitian sat up abruptly, his face rigid, eyes sharpened to knives. All concern with Aristos and omens vanished before the announcement of a threat serious enough to be reported by his Praetorian Guards’ commander.

He signaled for Petronius to speak on in a covered voice. He had no wish for Plancius to learn any of this.

“This villainy started among your most trusted chamberlains,” Petronius went on, “—Parthenius, Stephanus, and Satur—and we believe they may have also seduced a few men of the lower ranks of the Guard insane enough to listen….”

Domitian was profoundly irritated when he heard these names. So his own household
had
turned upon him—just as Marcus Julianus had warned him they would if he did not reduce the severity of their punishments.
Why do the gods love to embarrass me by unfailingly bringing to pass whatever that man predicts?

My
household.
Minerva, I knew
I had worms in my cupboard. An exceedingly dangerous business, this is.
So many complicated, crossed loyalties. They must be skillfully questioned in order to pry out the names of all their hidden confederates….

And Domitian found himself thinking, against his will— Marcus, you sly reprobate who thinks he knows more about my household than I do—undoubtedly you’d have some stimulating advice to give me on this matter…. No. It wouldn’t look right to humble the man, then turn around and beg a favor of him.

“They’re a pathetically inept crew of villains—laying a trap for them was like pinching a
denarius
from a blind man. I sent a man to one of their meetings and arrested them all when they tried to enlist him. I beg you, repair to some place where you can be easily protected—your own chambers in the Palace would be strategically best. The traitors are assembled now in your bedchamber. I arranged it so you can question them yourself without rousing too much curiosity, so the whole sorry matter can be disposed of before alarm spreads. If we move quickly, the whole city need not know of it.”

Domitian ordered the attendant Guard to draw the curtains so the populace would not see the empty throne.

“The matter’s still quiet then?”

“It is so. A closed litter is ready for you in the Guards chamber.”

“Well done, then. I will use your litter. Go ahead of me. And Petronius…” He hesitated a final time, then said, “I go first to the prisons. Before I question these criminals I must have a word with my former First Advisor.”

Petronius suppressed a start of alarm.

He will see Marcus Julianus
now?
There is not time. In an hour my Guards will be dismissed—and that boot-licking Servilius has the next watch. If Domitian delays too long, the loyalists will destroy us all. I pray Julianus knows what time it is, and how to get rid of him!

As they departed down the carpeted steps leading from the imperial box, the throng’s cries rose into a single tumultuous roar. Both men felt they walked beneath a waterfall thundering down a mountain. Domitian smiled. That, surely, was a victory cry for Aristos. The woman was dying. The plot would be crushed. Tomorrow would come. Life and fear would go on as always.

The door of the earthen chamber was pulled back and the harsh light of a torch invaded the blackness of the cell. Gradually Julianus discerned the faces of the two intruders—one was a young prison guard; the other wore the broad leather apron and black gloves of an interrogator.

Julianus was slow to react, for he battled his way through spirit-numbing sadness. He knew from the guards’ talk that Auriane and Aristos had begun their bout; in the last quarter hour the guards had spoken of little else. He assumed that by now Auriane was dead—skilled as she was, still Aristos was Aristos. He felt his heart had been mauled by an animal; in that moment he cared for nothing and no one.

But his mind began to function, almost in spite of himself.
An interrogator. They have come for Bato as I knew they would.

The assassination was but an hour away. He could not sit idly by while Bato exposed it.

We must set ourselves free. With the first blow of the dagger, Domitian will pay for Auriane.

When Bato saw the interrogator, he crawled toward the back of the cell, threading his way around the seated and prone forms of seventeen new prisoners—so many had been arrested for disorderly conduct in the last hour that the cell had grown crowded. Bato clawed furiously at the back wall as if he thought he could burrow into bare rock to escape the torturers.

Julianus thought rapidly. He was encouraged when he realized this guard was part of a crop of recent recruits, not long resident in the city.

Both men know me by report, of course, but how well do they know me by sight? And now my face is begrimed with soot, cut and swollen, and my body is hung with rags
…
.

If the wrong man steps forward, will they know it?

And if they have momentary doubts, who would believe a man would volunteer for torture?

He could only pray that Servilius did not come to oversee the questioning.

“Bato,” came the guard’s chillingly casual command. “Come forth.”

From Bato came a canine whimper and a sob. Julianus moved swiftly to him in the dark and put a firm hand over his mouth. “Silence,” he whispered. “I go in your place. Stay still, and say nothing.”

Slowly Julianus rose and approached the interrogator, affecting the fragile step of one paralyzed with terror. When he came close, the guard thrust the torch in his face to examine him.

The guard saw a man of frightful, owlish appearance; glassy eyes stared with feral intensity out of a blackened face. He resembled one of the Lemures, those spectral-eyed spirits of ancestors abroad on moon-bright nights—except for the all-too-human trembling of his hands.

“You are Bato?”

“I am Bato.”

The guard squinted critically. Julianus found himself invoking Mercury, a god who favored tricks and stratagems.

Finally the guard gathered up his chains and jerked him forward. “Come then. We’ve some business with you.”

CHAPTER LVIII

A
RISTOS’ BLADE BIT DEEP INTO THE
oakwood of the water organ; with a curse he jerked it free. The next downstroke carved flesh from Auriane’s shoulder; she bit back a cry. Pain and outrage lent her a surge of strength; she managed to beat his blade upward and gained just enough time to break past him, sliding rapidly sideways. Abruptly she felt open space at her back—at last she was free of the water organ.

As she collected her balance and leapt into a defensive stance, an idea flashed into mind, and with it, a calm certainty that it was wise.

She would cast aside the teachings of the school and fall back on the simpler ways of her own wild forest. Swiftly she disengaged her left hand from the strap of her shield and let its rectangular wooden bulk drop to the sand.

The action momentarily perplexed Aristos; he paused in midstep; a crosscut flailed too high. In the precious time she won, Auriane wrenched off her helmet and threw it down as well. Murmurs of bewilderment spread through the throng.

She knew there was no other way. She was tiring more quickly than he, and she could tolerate no encumbrances. She would fight as her people had always fought—with head and heart exposed to sun, sky and gods.

In the viewing chamber, heads shook and murmurs of derision arose.

“You are wrong,” Meton corrected them, voice intent, his face pressed to the grate. “It’s mad, yes—but for her,
it’s right. This one knows what she’s about. Now she has less weight to bear, and she can block his cuts with double-holds. She’s gained strength and speed—and she has the skill to take advantage of those things.”

Now Aristos battered her as continuously as a hail of javelins, pressing close to her newly exposed left side, slashing with playful viciousness at her unguarded head. But she vaulted and thrust to the beat of a drum whose tempo had increased, reveling in this new lightness, feeling more of the air than of the ground. She was everywhere at once like a bee-swarm, evading him through sheer unpredictability. When Aristos had had enough of this, he gave out a mastiff’s growl and rammed her with his shield; all that bullish solidity struck her bloodied shoulder.

And at last she saw a chance.

She gave way on impact, then rolled aside. He hurtled past her. While his momentum carried him still, she whipped round in a full turn, then executed two quick, deep, opposing diagonal cuts at his back.

She broke through. As he pivoted about, her blade caught him twice, just beneath his sword arm. A chevron-shaped cut appeared in his leather tunic, and she knew by the feel of it that she had struck a rib. Blood spread rapidly through the leather. He stole a look at the wound, and she saw spirit-panic flash across his eyes. He believed she had marked him with some baleful witch-sign—surely, he thought, it released a poison in his blood. He touched the preserved wolf’s muzzle to his forehead while angrily muttering the words of an aversive charm.

“One of them is hit,” Meton shouted feverishly. “By the whims of Nemesis—
Aristos
is hit! It cannot be!” Others in the room drove Meton aside, desperate to see.