Foreign Devils (14 page)
Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
I was beginning to understand.
‘He’s got to be right by them when he does it,’ I said. ‘In the same room.’
Sapientia nodded.
‘Beleth is still in Passaseugo,’ she said.
5 Kalends, Quintilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
‘The Embassy,’ Fisk said, eyes widening. ‘My guns!’ he shouted at Drusilla who, after glancing at Sapientia for permission, ran to fetch our weapons.
We barrelled out of the College of Engineers and down the steps at a run. The race through the streets of Passasuego was blurred and blood-spiked. Fisk found the nearest patrolling legionnaire, commanded him to find a cornicen to blow the alarm and fetch mounts from the nearest watch station. Within moments a horn was sounding through the night air. Fisk pulled himself up on the borrowed mount and raced up-mountain toward the Distrito Rosa and the Medieran Embassy. Winfried and I followed along behind as quickly as we could.
By the time we had arrived, Fisk and two vigiles were standing outside the Embassy, smoking cigarettes with sick looks on their faces.
‘Too late,’ Fisk said, looking at me and shaking his head. ‘Beleth killed them all and ran.’
I went inside. Nothing seemed to be amiss until I found the greatroom. The stench of the blood was overwhelming.
The next morning,
The Passasuego Gazetá
headline read ‘15 Dead At Medieran Embassy including Ambassador’s Family’, and the Icehouse pre-dawn lobby was choked with businessmen taking their coffee and brandies and discussing the imminent and oncoming war. Many of them – especially the gentlemen of apparent Medieran descent, wearing waxed mustachios and suits cut in the Chiban manner, high-waisted and with tapered legs – wondered aloud at Rume’s involvement in the massacre and barely suppressed their outrage.
We checked out early and were tacking out Bess and Fisk’s black when Winfried found us.
‘I’m coming with you.’
Fisk shook his head. ‘Sorry, ma’am. But we’re gonna be moving fast. There’s only one way Beleth can go, east, and you’d just slow us down with your jaunting-hearse.’
‘I’ve left the infernograph with Sapientia. She will safeguard it until I return,’ she said.
Fisk said nothing. He moved to pick up his saddle. Winfried placed herself in front of him. ‘Without the baggage, I can travel on Buquo at least as swiftly as Mr Ilys,’ she said, lifting a hand to indicate me where I stood next to Bess. ‘Forgive me, Mr Ilys, but it is true.’
Now, she might have been right, but my Bess can move fast when she’s of a mind and she never tires. I didn’t much appreciate Winfried’s sentiment.
Fisk stepped around her and slung saddlebags over the black’s rump. He placed the small box that contained the Quotidian in the sack and strapped it down, tight. His sleeping bag and personal effects followed. I loaded Bess with oats. We’d stop at a provisioner as soon as the stores opened.
‘I
will
come with you,’ Winfried said.
Fisk stopped what he was doing and turned to look at her.
‘Why?’
‘I would see him dead.’
‘I told you, that’s not the plan I have for him.’
‘I would be part of the hunt.’
‘Not your job, ma’am,’ Fisk said.
Something in her cracked, then. The expression on her face was fierce and wounded, all at once. A welter of emotion contorted her features. Then, with monumental effort, she controlled herself and her expression went blank, almost placid.
‘I have money, Mr Fisk. I have Buquo, who is every bit up to the job of bearing me on this journey at whatever pace you set,’ she said, each word falling from her mouth like a stone. From her jacket, she withdrew Hellfire. ‘I am armed,’ she said, letting it hang. ‘I am not asking.’
Fisk looked at her for a long time and their gazes held. Finally he looked away.
When Winfried was ready, we mounted up and exited the stable. Winfried walked to Buquo, the massive draught horse, and clambered up on his back. He chucked his head and stamped, steaming in the dawn light.
‘Ia-damn you, Shoe,’ Fisk said, spitting. ‘Ia-damn you and your strays.’
We rode out the north gate and took the Talavera Road east, down-mountain. The White River came in and out of view to our right as we descended. We were making good time and Fisk – his legate’s badge openly displayed – questioned every legionnaire we came across regarding Beleth. None had seen him.
We rode into the night, camped late and rose early. After two days we reached the Sundering Rock where the White River and the Big Rill separated.
‘This is the sticking point. Either Beleth went east, on the White, or south, on the Big Rill. Which is it?’ Fisk asked.
‘Either way would lead him toward Ruman legions,’ Winfried offered. ‘To the east is Fort Brust. To the south, New Damnation and Harbour Town beyond.’
I thought about it a while. ‘He’ll want to get off the continent.’
Fisk looked at me, considering. ‘Don’t know who Beleth is working with, now. Could be the Medierans, could be the Tchinee.’
Winfried looked puzzled. ‘But he killed the ambassador and his family!’
‘No Medieran will know that,’ I said. ‘He’s cunning, Beleth is. Fat old Diegal in Mediera will view this as an outrage. Beleth knew that. He’s pushing us toward war.’
‘War brings confusion,’ Fisk said, his voice disgusted.
‘And that means he’ll be able to travel more freely,’ I said.
Winfried, sounding awed, asked, ‘He would have countries move toward death and destruction solely for his own convenience?’
‘He’s cunning,’ I said. ‘And his knowledge is powerful. But Beleth himself is petty. He would murder hundreds if doing so would ensure that he slept in a feather bed, dined well, and smoked fine cigars.’
‘All that’s neither here nor there,’ Fisk said. ‘Which way would he go?’
We fell silent for a little while. Off in the distance, shrouded by pines and gambels, the White River roared, splitting upon the Sundering Rock.
‘Can’t help but think of that day, last winter, when we spotted him fleeing the
Cornelian
.’
‘And?’
‘He was trucking hard north and west.’
‘So?’
‘North and west was Hot Springs and Passaseugo.’
Winfried turned Buquo so that the horse faced me. ‘You are saying he is direct?’
‘In Hot Springs, he set the boy-
daemon
to kill us without even knowing for sure if Fisk and I were on his trail. In Passaseugo, he came right to our hotel, bold as brass, and laughed in our faces.’
‘I see where you’re going with this,’ Fisk said.
‘The shortest way to get off continent, away from Occidentalia and the Ruman forces here, is south. To Harbour Town, catch a ship bound for New Mediera in the Gulf of Mageras. There he can wheel and deal with the Medieran governor or admiral. Or he could book some sort of passage to Tchinee, remote as it is.’
‘He doesn’t dick around, that much is true,’ Fisk said, turning his black. ‘You’re right, he’s heading south.’ He kicked his horse into a canter and called back, ‘We’ll make the ford after the White Falls! From there, south on the shoal plains until Port Caldo.’
It was a good plan. On the plains, we could give the horses their heads.
Winfried, on Buquo, stomped and churned the earth and then took off after Fisk and his black.
Bess looked back at me, showing green teeth. She was not happy with all the cantering going on. She hawed and nipped at my trouser legging.
‘I know, girl,’ I said. ‘I know.’
She hawed again and after some coaxing, I got her to pick up into a canter.
We forded the White River at a crook where the water widened over an area half a mile in width and it was a short half-day’s ride south until the shoal grasses began tugging at our legs. We rode into the evening, until the light gave up entirely, and camped under the wide expanse of sky.
The next day, we came upon shoal auroch and Fisk took one with his carbine and I butchered it for its tongue and liver and tenderloin. The plains were hushed, as if waiting for something. We ate it that night over a driftwood fire on the banks of the Big Rill. Fisk said, after we’d eaten and Winfried was asleep, ‘You see them, today?’
‘The stretchers? Yes. Why didn’t you mention them?’
‘For the same reason you didn’t,’ he said. ‘Didn’t want to scare Winfried.’
‘Doubt she’d have been scared. Alarmed, maybe. But she’s not one for fear.’
He nodded. ‘Maybe I didn’t want to have to explain their behaviour. They’re hanging back for some reason.’ He had his carbine in his lap and fed Hellfire rounds into it one by one.
‘The one out on the hardscrabble. During the ambush,’ I said.
‘Don’t start with that again, Shoe.’
Almost of its own volition, my hand made a chopping motion, cutting him off. ‘You’ve known me more than a decade now. How many Ia-damned times have I lied to you?’
‘A few.’
‘Fisk—’
‘I got your point, Shoe.’
‘It’s hard to take in, pard, but that
vaettir
was different! It dropped its sword after what it had done to its kin.’
He shook his head but I could see I was getting to him. ‘Hell, Shoe, I thought I understood them. But now …’
‘Damned puzzling thing, how you can know something and then not know it at all.’
Fisk spat. ‘There’s that.’ He thought for a while. ‘Maybe they’re hanging back for another reason. Maybe it has something to do with the hand.’
That puzzled me. ‘How so?’
‘I don’t know, but the same thing that was in me was in Agrippina.’ He shook his head, tossed a small piece of driftwood into the fire. ‘Just a feeling I’ve got.’
‘Ain’t never been one to discount feelings, but that’s a strange one, pard.’
He did not answer immediately, and when he did it was a conversation we’d had thousands of times around thousands of campfires in stretcher territory.
‘I’ll take the first watch. You take the second,’ he said. That’s our normal arrangement. I can see quite well in the small hours of the night when others can’t.
He looked off past the glow of the fire.
‘It’s the Kalends, Fisk. She’ll be writing.’
‘I know,’ he said, opening his hand to look at the scar on his palm.
‘You gonna set up the Quotidian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe I should take the watch.’
‘Get some rest.’
‘Naw. I’ll watch until you’ve done your deal.’
He looked at me, pulled out a Medieran machine-rolled cigarette and tossed it over. Tasted good, the tabac smoke under the stars. And maybe even the possibility of
vaettir
watching made it taste even better. That’s one of those strange things about living under the open vault of sky in
vaettir
country: everything tastes better when there’s stretchers about.
Fisk took out the Quotidian, opened it, unlatched the lid. It cleverly unfolded into a flat surface. He laid it down on the levellest bit of dirt near the fire he could find, withdrew the blood-bowl and knife, inkwell and parchment.
On his knees, half illuminated as he was by firelight, for a moment he seemed some sort of augur or priest to a nameless god about to give sacrifice. He raised his knife to open his palm and begin the blooding.
‘Hold on, pard,’ I said, moving to join him. I opened my hand and held it out. ‘You’re stingy with words, pard. But Livia isn’t,’ I said.
He nodded, once, took my hand, and cut it deep, letting the blood flow.
Foreign Devils
Kalends of Sextilius, Eleventh Hour, 2638 Annum
Ex Rume Immortalis, Near the Aethiopicum Shore,
Bay of Aribicum
Dear love,
Your son within me is still well and thriving, though not much has changed. Carnelia constantly opines on the growing size of my stomach and Lupina keeps me stuffed with food. I daresay I’ve gained two stone since we last saw each other and not all of that is baby.
During quiet times in our journeys – we are back on the
Malphas
and steaming past the dark shores of Æthiopicum – I allow Carnelia to press her head against the taut drum-head of my stomach and listen and feel for young Fiscelion’s martial kicking and gyrations. She squeals and exclaims, touching her cheek in amazement when his tiny foot connects.
The
Malphas
steamed into the port at Ostia on 13 Kalends, the twentieth day of Quinitilius, and only three days before Ia Terminalia. We had been almost thirteen full days at sea, which seemed an amazing speed, even to my father, who was extraordinarily pleased. ‘Mithras’ swollen nutsack!’ he said. (I shall not spare your delicate sensibilities, my love.) ‘We’ve crossed the Occidens in half the time it would take to sail!’ The captain, Juvenus, explained as we prepared to disembark that the shipwrights at the College of Engineers in Ostia had made some improvements on the design of the ship, making it lighter and stronger all at once. But mostly it was the two
daemons
bound in the
Malphas
’ belly. The first, Malphas himself, was an incendiary arch-
daemon
of incalculable ferocity and strength. The fiery energy he poured forth was solely dedicated to the turning of the ship’s great screws. The other
daemon
– one that no one seems to mention, though I have heard the ship’s mess-cook calling his ovens affectionately as
Captain Caiodé,
a strange name for an oven to be sure – remained unheralded, though as passengers we reaped the benefits of his infernal presence with far more immediacy: hot water for our ablutions, hot meals at the Captain’s table, staterooms warmed against the damp chill of the ocean swells. And of course the ship is thrice damned, the last for the sailors lost to sea and war. The
Malphas
is a warship, after all, albeit a small one.
Moments after making dock in the shipyard in Ostia, Mister Tenebrae – who, by the way, is quite an exceptional man and who has become very close to Secundus – had arranged for carriages to take us right away back to Father’s villae on the Cælian, so to be nearer Tamberlaine’s palace for Terminalia. I, personally, had grown quite comfortable on the
Malphas
, and would have preferred to remain there.
Here I will be honest with you, my love.
I swore once to never set foot in Rume again. Part of that was a rebellion against my father and the society that would treat me as chattel; part of that was a fear of the vicious rumours Metellus spread about me to justify his divorce. I was afraid. It is something I rarely feel; I care not what others do and very rarely have physical fear for my own integument of skin. But Rume, for all its history and formalized society, its collegiums and forum, its aediles and vigiles, its laws and libraries, is in its own way as wild and lawless as the Hardscrabble Territories. Power is law, and men – and women too – scrabble just as hard to get it here as they do in New Damnation.
I felt very protective of our child, and fearful of his safety as we climbed aboard the carriages, Secundus gallantly offering his arm, and caromed up the Ostian Way, the Tever River winking muddy brown on our left and the hulking stonework arches of the Ostian aqueduct passing silently on our right. It was a journey of only two hours and the rocking of the horse-drawn carriage made me drowsy. Tenebrae said, ‘The sailors tell me that a swaying carriage ride might make one sick after a long sea voyage.’ He smiled, flashing well-formed white teeth first at me, then at Secundus. Carnelia moaned. ‘Yet, it is the best thing to end the unsteady sensation one can have after disembarking.’
‘Where will you go, now that we have returned? We are no longer your charges,’ I said.
‘We shall see,’ he said, unworried and quite pleased with the world. ‘I am at his Imperial Majesty’s disposal and he will do with me what he will.’
Father, who had been dozing fitfully, snorted and began brushing his mustachios vigorously. ‘I’m quite chomping to show off my new leg.’
‘Or lack of it,’ Secundus said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Here now, lad, don’t be your sister’s mouthpiece when she’s out of commission,’ Father said. ‘And all of Rume will want to see my mounted
vaettir
!’ He crowed. ‘I could charge for viewing!’
‘About that, Father,’ I said, coughing delicately.
‘What?’ Father dislikes being interrupted when excited.
‘My sister and I have decided on the only appropriate gift for Tamberlaine.’
‘This is good news, then, child! Don’t keep me waiting.’
‘Your
vaettir
,’ I said.
It is an amazing thing to see a patrician’s world crumble. And Father has never been one to keep his emotions tamped down hard in his chest. His face, first stunned, became calcified in an expression caught somewhere between shock and misery.
‘No—’ he said, his eyes shifting in his sockets as if looking for some lifeline or exit from this personal catastrophe.
‘Yes, Father,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘Once you stop to think about it – consider Tamberlaine’s current displeasure – nothing else will do.’
‘But …’ He faltered then. ‘Mithras’ cankerous prick.’
‘Father, no need for such profanity.’
‘There is much need. Ia dammit, I need a drink.’
At that, Carnelia called for the carriage to stop and not waiting for any slowing or cessation of forward movement, leaned forward, wrenched open the door, and let fly a thunderous stream of vomit.
Father, looking vaguely disgusted and leaning away from her bilious breath, said, ‘Where do you keep it all, ’Nelia?’
We reached the villa at dusk. A watchful footman with a militant aspect and hefting a carbine considered us closely and after a moment opened the barred gates.
The carriage rolled into the courtyard, surrounded by sandstone walls. Father – possibly having used his one of his own Quotidians to alert Fuqua, his manumitted head of household, that we would be returning – led us inside into a bright atrium that smelled of lemon and myrrh. The slaves and servants stood in an expectant line, waiting to greet him.
Fuqua bowed, deeply. ‘Father,’ he said. ‘We are ready to serve you.’ As a group they bowed until Cornelius walked past, tapping each servant lightly on his head.
‘I am well pleased, Fuqua,’ Father said, spreading his hands as if giving a benediction. My father is many things: childish, abrasive, impulsive, drunken, wise, bellicose, foolish, addled. But he always obeys the traditions and I think
that
has kept him well, through the years. He has risen higher than more intelligent (or moderate) men. His natural choleric demeanour belies a greatness of spirit that you may not have seen, my love. He can be mean, he can be menacing, he can be maudlin, he can be mawkish. How many men have so many aspects warring within them and rise so high? I do not think many.
I recognized none of the slaves’ or servants’ faces. It had been years since I had spent any extended time under my father’s roof: first due to my marriage; then due the divorce and my mother’s illness; last, due to the three and a half years I spent in the west during Father’s governorship in Occidentalia. I have become a stranger in the place I once called home.
We dined in the small triclinium, waiting for our personal effects, luggage, and cargo, to arrive from Ostia under Rubus’ watchful eye.
Father, popping an olive into his mouth and then washing it down with a swig of wine, said, ‘All right, son, you are prepared? I have put the senatorial gears into motion and set my own personal
daemon
in the form of Messalla Corvinus to light the benches on fire for you. He has successfully lobbied to allow you a time to say what you will. You will have the floor on the fifth hour.’
Secundus looked up from his reading material and smiled, a genuine one. On his return home, he’d immediately disappeared to Father’s office and wasn’t seen until dinner where he sat poring over an old, musty tome, watering his wine heavily and eating only the barest amount.
‘I shall be ready, Father,’ he said, brightly. ‘Since I am no senator, as yet, it is quite an honour you have done me.’
‘Nonsense. It is our honour – and your sister’s – you preserve.’ Father’s eyes brightened with interest. ‘How is your speech coming along?’
‘Well, Father,’ Secundus replied. ‘Very well. In fact, I had planned to go to the library at …’
A soft cough came from the door. Fuqua said, ‘A Mister Tenebrae to see young master Secundus, sir.’
Father raised his eyes. ‘Tenebrae? Here? I assumed …’
Secundus hopped up, tossed his napkin onto the near empty plate he’d been pecking at, and said, ‘No, we’re to find one last little nail in Metellus’ coffin in the Trebinal Quarter’s library. Are there horses in the stable?’
Father nodded, pride suffusing his face. Either from Secundus’ pursuit in the reclamation of my (and consequently the Cornelian) honour, or his love of horses, I could not tell. ‘I imagine your Phrineas is still bucking about. He may be a bit more creaky in the moving bits, but I took him out the day before we left.’
‘That was almost four years ago, Father.’
‘Well, he may be a bit creakier. Fuqua’s reports indicate he’s still in fine dander.’
‘I shall see,’ Secundus said, moving out of the triclinium.
Father smiled and occupied his mouth with more of the Falernian. Carnelia, now that she was able to keep down solid food, said, ‘Those two have become quite close.’ She raised her eyebrows in an arch manner and glanced at Father.
‘Tenebrae is a fine young man,’ Father said.
‘Very close,’ Carnelia restated.
‘Yes, yes.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ I said to Carnelia.
‘What?’ She looked at me, batting her eyes, full of innocence. Since that fateful day, last autumn, when we rode out onto the shoal plains for the auroch hunt and Gnaeus was mortally wounded, my sister has not been able to keep her weight. I imagine that most of her sustenance comes from unwatered wine: when she smiled at me, her teeth were roan. ‘Have I said something?’
‘Sister, have you ever been to Gall?’
‘You know I have not, sissy.’
‘In Gall, they have a wonderful way of fattening ducks. They call it
gavage
. Are you familiar with the term?’
‘No,’ she said, only half paying attention to what I was saying and burying her nose in her wine-cup.
‘They take the ducks and shove a funnel down their throats,’ I said. Carnelia giggled. ‘Then, holding the ducks firmly, they pack its stomach full of herbs and feed. In a short time, the birds grow grossly obese and their livers are positively gargantuan.’
Carnelia put down her cup and looked at me, the smile on her face growing wan and failing altogether.
‘I am married with child. Secundus is who he is—’
‘Damn fine lad,’ Father said, oblivious to what I was saying to my sister.
‘Hush, Tata,’ I said. Turning back to Carnelia, I said, ‘Secundus will someday will take a wife, despite any of his other … affections, because he must. And
you
, my sister, now that we’re back in Rume – if only for this short while – will be made available for any men of acceptable birth and political connection.’
A strange expression crossed my sister’s face then, comprised of equal measures of excitement and wariness. She knew I was taking the long route round the villa.
‘Quite right, Livia,’ Father said. ‘Quite right. I still intend to speak with Tamberlaine about Marcus.’
‘Should that fail, we will have to pursue other measures.’ I paused, took a large breath. ‘You are too thin,’ I said, briskly. ‘No suitor would believe that you will be able to bear children. If you do not put down the wine, finish everything on your plate, and eat all of that lovely tart—’ I looked at her as sternly as I was able. ‘I will order two of the burliest slaves to hold you down and I will fetch a funnel and a pail of goat’s milk.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Carnelia said, outraged. ‘Anyway, I would order them to let me go! Where would you be then?’
‘Who do you suppose they would obey?’
Father laughed, wiped his mouth with a napkin and then clapped his hands. ‘This is getting interesting. Fuqua!’
Fuqua came in, peering at a piece of parchment with a half-distracted look on his face.
‘Yes, sir?’ Fuqua said.
‘The girls are going to see which one of them has more control of the servants! I’ll wager ten thousand sesterces that it’ll be Livia.’
‘Respectfully, sir, you don’t pay me enough for that kind of bet,’ Fuqua said. Then he peered first at me and then Carnelia. ‘And even had I that amount and was willing to risk it, I do not think that would be the bet I would take. My pardons, madame,’ he said, bowed to Carnelia, and exited.
Father chuckled and said, ‘Ia’s blood, that man has no sense of adventure.’
I looked steadily at Carnelia. ‘Eat, or I shall call them.’
Carnelia picked up a hunk of crusty bread and shoved it in her mouth and began sullenly masticating. When she had a moment to breathe she said, ‘I don’t understand you, sissy. I hope you’re not like this on the voyage to Tchinee.’
Father, alarmed, sat forward. ‘What’s this? Carnelia? Tchinee?’
I shot Carnelia a withering stare – it was far too premature to bring Father into the discussion – but there’s no unbreaking an amphorae once it’s been dropped.
‘We were, once we’d settled back here in Rume, going to speak with you about this.’
He frowned, his whiskers shifting into a greyish slump. ‘I don’t like being alone, Livia. A father’s solace is his progeny. A father’s joy is his children.’ He looked about. ‘Lupina! Whiskey!’
When Lupina did not appear that instant, magically bearing a glass of liquor, he
harrumphed
, shifted, and settled into his chair like a disgruntled dog might on finding himself sleeping outside.