B007IIXYQY EBOK (66 page)

It was not until the horses burst forth and Auriane was lost in their jostling, thundering midst that she realized Odberht, adopted son of Chariomer, was among the riders.

He was positioned perhaps twenty horses away, draped in a fine blue cloak, his hair sleeked back from a massive forehead, and he was astride a chunky farm beast of coarse conformation—a poor mount, she reflected, considering his wealth. The sight of that face with those spoiled lips, those pale eyes so strangely empty of feeling, that look of a man who would mutilate the body of an enemy after he was dead, caused her to contract with coldness and nausea. When she stole a second look at him she found him watching her calmly, assessing her as a warrior might one he stalks, weighing agility, quickness, strength of bone.

All at once her first concern was no longer winning the race but staying alive.

The line of horses broke up slowly as each sought its own pace; soon their order was as random as scattered seeds. She held Berinhard back to save his strength for the finish, and was momentarily relieved when Odberht was nowhere to be seen; she assumed he had surged into the lead.

The course was laid out in a great circle; most if it lay beyond the sight of the throng. At the extreme western end was a treacherous rockslide, terminating in a jumble of boulders far below; beyond that was the shifting, blue-green ocean of the Hercynian Forest, rolling to a horizon that melted into plains of creamy mist. The track was narrow along the rockslide, and there was not room for more than five horses running abreast; in years past horses and riders had fallen to their death, driven over the edge when too many tried to take the pass at once. Those who died were said to have given themselves in sacrifice to Hel, queen of death, as she prepares to don her winter shroud.

Auriane reached the rockslide alongside three other riders; two buffered her from the frightful slide. Then as if at a signal these two held their mounts back—she was sharply uneasy when she realized both wore the blue cloaks of the Cheruscans, Odberht’s adopted tribe. Simultaneously a horseman ahead of her abruptly lost ground and found his pace again when he was alongside her, occupying the inside position—while she now galloped alongside the edge of the slide.

The horseman was Odberht. Berinhard’s hooves spit stones, sending them rattling down the near-vertical slope. The son of Wido grinned at her—a look of malign sensuality that assumed her complicity in some great, unnamed crime. She smelled again the rot of the bogs, felt that bullish strength, remembered her terror, on that night he had savaged her in the swamp grasses.

She scarcely had time to recognize him before he pulled out a length of leather he used as a riding whip, shouted words lost in the rushing wind, then abruptly reined his horse into hers, ramming Berinhard like ships at war. The dappled stallion was badly jolted. Auriane lurched forward, grasping the silken neck to keep her seat. The slide with its tearing teeth was so close she felt she galloped over it rather than hard upon its edge.

“Betrayer!” she cried out hoarsely. “Fight me honorably, you son of a flea-ridden wolf!”

He grinned in answer and swung his mount into hers a second time. His horse was a solid beast, seeming heavier than Berinhard by half, less suited to racing, better adapted to pulling great loads. Had he chosen this beast solely with murdering her in mind?

His horse’s shoulder slammed into her leg, numbing it. At the same time Odberht lashed at Berinhard’s face with the length of leather. She felt her stallion’s forelegs fumble; now Berinhard’s fore hooves were on solid ground while his hind legs grappled desperately with the slide. Auriane cried out in terror.

The leather strap fell again, striking her face. Blood blurred her vision. But she was so panicked she did not feel the pain. She strove frantically to help her horse by throwing her weight on the side of safety.

Just as Berinhard managed to scramble onto level ground, Odberht came for her once again. This time she heard him over the wind.

“Kiss the feet of Hel today, kin-killing spawn of Baldemar!”

The words
kin-killing
cut more painfully than any lash. An ungovernable fury took her. She seized the long ends of her reins and used them as a whip, laying them across Odberht’s back, his horse’s neck, drawing blood. Once again he strove to pull his horse into hers, but now his mount was terrified of her; the beast skittered away, white showing in its eyes, refusing to obey the rein.

She withdrew the dagger from her belt. The two trailing riders gradually pulled ahead of them; now she and Odberht were alone. They left the slide behind; their horses moved at a jolting canter through a wide meadow bordered with brambles. Berinhard twisted sideways as she struggled to pull him into Odberht’s horse.

“Coward,” she shouted as she struck at him with the dagger, tearing at air. “I sent you a challenge to single battle—you did not answer!”

He guided his horse in a serpentine path to elude her, taunting her with the vengeance he would not let her take.

“Fight me!”
Her throat felt inflamed and raw.

Abruptly he pulled his horse around so that he was broadside to her, forcing her to halt to avoid crashing into him and injuring her horse.

“You are not worthy, killer of kin,” he called out teasingly. “Come, follow me down the off-trail and I’ll show you what you’re worthy of, you frothing bitch-dog.”

“I shall have you. Death will not take me before I avenge. I shall have you if I have to hunt you though nine worlds!”

But already Odberht was turning his horse, and he galloped off onto a half-hidden path that led north into the country of the Cheruscans, leaving the race, forcing her to make a desperate decision.

Should she abandon the race to pursue him? When Berinhard, swift as he was, still might catch and pass the field before the finish? Perhaps his whole purpose was this—to make an attempt on her life, and failing that, to ensure that she did not win the prize for her people. He would not dare come near the finish where Witgern waited, and so many others who had sworn vengeance against him.

With scarcely a pause, Auriane chose the race. He would not face her honorably in accordance with the laws of single battle, so what was the use of pursuit?

Once more he had his will with her, then went off satisfied on his way.

Berinhard bolted joyfully after the scattered horses as they disappeared into a birch forest, his strides lengthening rapidly; he was as eager to catch them as she was. She felt she’d been shot from a catapult. She no longer sat a horse; she was in the grip of a rampaging force of nature, as when the earth moved or fire bolts forked down from the sky. She watched the lead horses, still far ahead, as they sailed with deer’s grace over a stone wall. Steadily they grew larger in the distance.

We will win,
Auriane thought with a silent shout of joy. The finish was still far enough off, and Berinhard was tireless as well as swift. He had time to regain the lead. Powerfully, steadily, Berinhard pulled abreast of the riders in the rear. They caught and passed horse after horse.

When at last the racing horses were visible from the finish and the throng saw her coming fast from behind, they knew this was a prodigious effort, and folk of all tribes roared with one voice, urging her on. Berinhard was rippling gray fire, head and belly low to the ground, his dark tail raised like a victory banner, Auriane almost invisible on his back.

Only a single horseman of the Tencteres galloped ahead of her now, and Berinhard was bravely closing the distance.

But the finish rope flew at them too soon. The warrior of the Tencteres crossed it half a horse-length ahead of her. A bitter unvoiced cry caught in her throat.

Odberht had his victory. Were it not for him, the prize certainly would have been hers—and her people’s. As she galloped past the crowds, she could not look at Witgern or Athelinda, shutting her ears to her tribespeople’s shouted protests to the Fates. Odberht was a human manifestation of her ever-living shame, appearing suddenly as if in a magic mist, snatching her peace, then departing.

She despaired of ever having the chance to set things to right.

ROME

CHAPTER XVII

T
HEY WILL NEVER PROVE IT WAS
murder.

Though they will try,
Domitian thought as he stood at the bedside of his brother, the Emperor Titus, who lay dying at Vespasian’s family villa in the small Italian village of Reate.

The deathbed had been carried to the atrium so that the imperial ministers and an historian could be witness to Titus’ last words. The stale fruity perfume of freshly pressed grapes from the autumn harvest hung heavy on the air. A bee drifted in on the shaft or red-gold sunlight slanting from the lightwell, its determined ellipses seeming to beckon to the soul of the dying man, its buzzing insistent in the formal silence.

After Vespasian’s natural death Titus had ruled but two years and two months when he was stricken with a mild summer malaise. The Palace physicians ordered him to his country estate to rest. The physicians of the estate reported to the Senate that he would soon recover. But yesterday evening, to everyone’s astonishment, Titus’ condition grew markedly worse.

I have to take solace in my cleverness
, Domitian thought. I do not have the good fortune to be loved, as you are, Titus, curses on your name. It falls to my lot to do what is necessary, and be despised for it. You chose lenience and love over discipline and fear. As always, you leave the unpleasant tasks for me.

Domitian looked briefly at Marcus Arrius Julianus, now a senior magistrate of the courts, who stood across from him among the ministers. There was something active, troubled, in those solemn, clear eyes; they held a hint of sad resignation, as of one who against his wishes readies himself for war.

He cannot suspect me—he’s got no evidence.
And my ascension to the throne is the greatest good fortune that could befall him, because he knows I intend to raise him up and give him every honor. He must actually be
mourning
my brother. I thought he had better taste.

Marcus Julianus, never have I needed you more than now. You shall make the first speech introducing me to the Senate when they confirm me in my office. Your gift of being loved is even more remarkable than my brother’s, for he gained it late in life with the help of supreme power. Yours
issues wholly from your own nature. It shall be put into my service.

Titus’ right hand struggled up.

Domitian tautened in terror.

Now he will point me out and accuse me.

But that hand only groped at emptiness, as though making a last feeble grasp at the awesome power it had held.

Domitian had waited many too many years to claim his rightful place. First his imperial father, then his brother had kept him in enforced idleness. Vespasian had allowed him no hand in governing while Titus was handed the most exalted posts and eventually, stole the imperial seat itself. Domitian was certain that before their father Vespasian died, Titus had tampered with the will to ensure that he, Titus, and not Domitian became the next Emperor. Had Titus not always boasted of his ability to forge names?

Titus’ hand dropped as if his spirit had flown out in a rush. Cleomenes the physician pushed past Domitian with his silver tray of aromatic decoctions and sponges, feeling for pulses, for breath.

“He is gone,” Cleomenes said, the last word living on in their minds like the stern toll of a bell. From an inner room came the sound of a woman crying.

Domitian closed his brother’s eyes. All heard the staccato of galloping hooves in the carriageway as a messenger sped to the Senate with the grim tidings. About the villa the servants began planting cypress trees, the tree of death.

Only then did Domitian allow himself a dark shiver of ecstasy. It was difficult to comprehend all that now lay at his feet: the city of Rome, from the sewers and teeming tenements to the gilded basilicas, the aristocratic mansions, the holy House of the Vestals. The Senate that scorned him, the haughty Palace servants who played cruel tricks on him. His mind drifted to the thriving cities of the provinces flung out over the earth like so many precious gems, whose inhabitants would live their lives and go about their business in the shadow of his golden statues. The Mediterranean Sea was his own private lake. Legions stationed in lands he would never see were poised to do his bidding. Barbarians beyond the frontier would live by his sufferance. The fates of people from Britannia to Asia to Africa could be altered with a stroke of his pen.

But for some reason he could not fully name, the thought that the Colosseum was now wholly his own brought the sharpest pleasure of all—that family shrine his father had begun and his brother had christened in blood—that greatest of all monumental building works to which he would now add the final tier. Perhaps it was because the new amphitheater was the world he ruled in microcosm, with its well-defined place for every rank of society, from Senators to freedmen and slaves, its ambassadors from subject nations who would look to him with reverence, its life-and-death battles on the sand that would be orchestrated by himself, its exotic beasts representing the far-flung lands at his feet, and its always hungry mob, their adoring eyes turned to him for largesse.