Raptor (131 page)

I was waiting only for the proper moment, that moment when any man is totally vulnerable and helpless and unaware, the moment of ultimate sexual spasm and ejaculation, when
nothing else in the universe
matters to a man. For Tufa, that moment must have been the most exultant he had ever known in his life, considering that I had prepared him for it in a way so foreign to him. He clutched me tight, and mashed his bearded lips onto mine, and forced his tongue into my mouth, and I watched his eyes go unfocused. Then he joyously flung his head back and uttered a long, wild, ululating wail, and I felt the first pulsing gush of his ejaculation deep and high inside me, and I stabbed him in the back. I placed the point precisely, just so, to my right of his spine, below the shoulder blade, between two ribs, and I gave the rod a hard yank toward me. Then, hand over hand, as if I were strongly, swiftly climbing the rod, I forced it down through Tufa’s body until the point broke through his chest skin and pricked my own.

There was just time for Tufa’s eyes to come back into focus, and to glare at me in angry surprise, before they glazed over. But some other things also happened during the brief flicker of his dying. I was already crammed full of his fascinum, but I swear it bulked suddenly bigger inside me, thicker around and vastly longer, as if it were still alive though he was not. And it continued to pulse its gushes of fluid far up in me, even as Tufa’s other vital bodily fluid crept stickily over my bare breasts. I remember thinking, in a vague sort of way: well, Tufa has died a happier death than poor Frido did.

And then—I could not help it; I could not hold it back—I convulsed in my own spasm of release. (Surely, I said to myself afterward, it was understandable after so much unavoidable excitation; surely it was impelled by the undeniable fact that I
was
still being rutted on; surely it was not impelled by the memory of dear Frido that had come to me unbidden.) As the soft, sweet internal bursting occurred, and copious amounts of my own fluids mingled with those already spilled down there, I cried a long cry of jubilation.

When I had ceased trembling, and recovered my wits and breath and strength, the rest was easy. Tufa’s wound had not bled a great deal; it was a very small hole that I had put through him. That closed neatly, and bled no more at all, when I drew out the rod. I slid from under his dead weight, and used his toga to wipe my breasts clean of blood and my lower body clean of the paler juices. Then I dressed again, and rebent the breast guard into its usual spiral—not taking time to do it too tidily—and put that on again too. Then I walked to the door, having to do it carefully because my legs were still quivery, and calmly stepped out between the two waiting guardsmen. I simpered at them in a whorishly shameless way, and flipped a careless hand to indicate Tufa collapsed across the bed back there.

“The clarissimus dux is sated,” I said, and giggled. “He sleeps. Now…” and I kept my hand out, palm upward.

The guards companionably but a little contemptuously returned my smirk, and one of them dropped a richly jingling leather purse into my waiting hand. The other gave me my cosmetics case and my confiscated ornaments. Unhurriedly, I fastened the necklace about my throat and pinned the fibula to the shoulder of my tunic, then just as unhurriedly closed the bedroom door behind us and said, with another salacious simper:

“Of course, the dux is only sated
for now.
You gallants know where to find me when he wants me again, as he is bound to do. Now, if you will see me out…?”

And they did, unbarring the various doors and gates through which we had come into the palace, and, with further smirks, bidding me “gods dags” at the open street. I strolled away, still outwardly calm and collected, but inwardly quaking for fear that Tufa’s wife or one of his chamber servants might dare his wrath to look in on him and see what was taking him so long.

But I got clean away, and Hruth was waiting with the two horses. He glanced at my tousled hair and the smeared fucus and creta of my face, his expression compounded of inquiry, concern and a trace of moralistic disapproval.

I said, “It is done.”

“And the marshal?”

“Coming. I will hold his mount. You ride on and Thorn will catch you up.”

Thorn did, as soon as I could change clothes and cleanse my face. Hruth’s horse was moving at an easy jog trot when Velox cantered up beside him on the Via Aemilia. He heeled his mount to match the faster gait. It was not until we were well clear of Bononia’s western outskirts, and I slowed our pace, that Hruth was able to ask:

“The lady Veleda is not going north with us?”

“Ne, she will remain—in covert—in case King Theodoric has need of her services among the enemy again.”

“Peculiar services,” mused Hruth. “And she seems to feel no self-disgust at what she does in the king’s cause. I daresay she is to be commended for her bravery and loyalty, and her wielding so well the only weapon a woman has. Still, it makes a man glad—does it not, Saio Thorn?—that he was born a man, not a mere woman.”

“Tufa was
mine
to slay,” Theodoric said, in a measured voice that conveyed more anger than a bellow could have done. “That obligation and privilege belonged to me, Saio Thorn. You contravened your king’s authority and far overstepped your own. Only a king can pretend to be a judex, lictor et exitium all in one.”

He and I and a number of his senior officers were met in the Basilica of St. Ambrose, which Theodoric had appropriated for his praitoriaún in Mediolanum. The other men sat stern and silent while our sovereign continued to upbraid me, and I stood with head bowed, enduring the reprimand submissively because I knew I had risked incurring it. Meanwhile, I remembered how curtly Theodoric had expressed his reprehension of a malefactor on other occasions. He had not paused for deliberation or squandered words before he drove his blade into Singidunum’s legatus, Camundus, and into Strabo’s princeling, Rekitakh. I deemed it a considerable testament to our long friendship that he was chastising me
only
with words.

So I simply stood and let the words wash over me, while I pondered on happier things. Every time I rejoined Theodoric after a lengthy absence, I was struck anew with the realization that he got ever more kinglike in appearance and demeanor as he got older. His beard, as golden-bright as a new-minted solidus, had formerly been heroic of aspect; now it was magisterial. His posture and gestures were dignified; anywhere he sat was a throne. His forehead wore the lines of one who thought deeply, and his cheeks the lines of one who had known sorrow, but the corners of his eyes were crinkled by the lines of ready merriment, and the fine blue eyes themselves could go instantaneously from gleeful to grave to fierce…

I recalled how once, long ago, while admiring a younger Theodoric, I had wistfully thought: “Akh, could I but be a
woman!”
Now, admiring the maturer man more ardently still, I wondered why my recent, sudden, startling flights of Veleda imagination should have fixed on the fancy of my embracing young Frido—or
any
other, lesser man than Theodoric. Just days ago, my inmost Veleda mind had substituted an illusory Frido for the real but inconsequential Tufa with whom necessity had coupled me. That made me further wonder: could it be that my imagination, even more fancifully, had all this while been substituting the apparition of Frido for that of Theodoric? Was it possible for a mind to engage in such complexities, independent of its owner’s will?

Theodoric now was glowering at me and demanding, “Speak up! Can you justify your preempting of the king’s right to condemn Tufa, niu? Have you anything to say in extenuation of your criminal willfulness?”

I might have suggested, and with righteous indignation, that as a holder of both high rank and high office, I ought to be entrusted to make my own decisions when I had to deal with weighty matters in places far from my king’s immediate supervision. In fact, that is what I did point out to him, but not indignantly; I made a jest of it.

“The malfeasance was your own fault, my king.”

“Eh?” His blue eyes blazed; his bearded jaw dropped; everyone else in the room held his breath.

“You elevated this nonentity Thorn to herizogo. You appointed this upstart Thorn a marshal. Can I be blamed for believing that my sins ought to be equivalent to my status?”

Everyone stared at me. Then Theodoric erupted into hearty laughter and, after him, so did his officers, even the sour old Soas. Well, it was no wonder that I—like all his subjects—admired and adored our king. He was proof that a kingly nature could be warm and engaging as well as majestic and strong.

“Akh,” he said, when he was done laughing, “I suppose I ought to be grateful, Thorn, that you did not remain longer at liberty, and single-handedly scour the whole peninsula clean of my opponents. At least you have left Odoacer for me to take care of personally.”

“And a few Roman legions here and there,” General Pitzias growled warningly.

Theodoric waved a dismissive hand. “Here and there, ja. No unified front. The entire remaining Roman army must be confused and uncertain what to do, with its king in hiding and its chief commander defunct. I expect no formidable resistance. A matter of sweeping up as we go along, no more.”

From the ensuing discussion, I learned that Theodoric had inflicted on the Romans at the Addua River a defeat quite as calamitous as the one at the Sontius. And when that army had been dispersed, a few days’ hammering at the gates of Mediolanum had sufficed to make its Roman garrison throw open the gates in surrender. Now, the first significant battle of this spring had been fought by the Visigoths who had come from beyond the Alpes. Under their General Respa, they had vanquished another Roman force holding the city of Ticinum, and currently were encamped there, awaiting Theodoric’s orders.

“Does this mean,” I asked warily, “that the Visigoths’ King Alaric is going to claim credit for helping in the conquest? That he is going to demand a share of the spoils—a piece of Italia, perhaps—for his own?”

“Ne,” said Theodoric. “This contemporary Alaric is not as rapacious as his great-grandfather namesake. He seeks no extension of his own hegemony. Alaric, like many another present-day king, yearns for a return to the time when the Roman Empire comprised the whole of the western world, when its every constituent kingdom could enjoy the security and prosperity of the Pax Romana.”

“Remember,” Saio Soas said to me, “most of the Germanic rulers supported Odoacer as long as it seemed
he
might bring back the great old days of Rome. Now, clearly, they hope Theodoric can do that. Alaric sent a fighting force to help. But his General Respa brought us embassies, as well, from King Khlodovekh of the Franks and old King Gaiseric of the Vandals and even young King Hermanafrid of the far-north Thuringi. All express their friendship and favor, and offer to contribute any other aid we might require.”

General Herduic, grinning broadly, added, “King Clovis even offered to contribute his sister.”

“What?” I said. “Who is Clovis?”

“King Khlodovekh. He prefers the Roman version of his name. His sister has at least retained the good Old Language name of Audefleda.”

“And what,” I inquired, “was Clovis offering his sister to
do?”

“Why, to be Theodoric’s wife and queen.”

On hearing that, I confess, I felt a pang of feminine chagrin. It took me quite unexpectedly, because I had never felt any envy or antipathy toward the late Lady Aurora, and never in the time since then had it distressed me to see Theodoric take a woman to share his bed for a while. Well, I thought resignedly, he was bound
someday
to contract a formal marriage. He had so far sired only daughters, and they the offspring of concubinage. He would of course want a son for an heir, and a son of royal blood. However, try though I might, I could not find that thought very consoling.

General Ibba explained further: “Clovis’s offer indicates that he fully expects us soon to possess all of Italia—and that his sister, before too long, will be sharing Theodoric’s reign over not only Italia but a vast, revivified Roman Empire. Not just Queen Audefleda,
Empress
Audefleda. And if Clovis is so confident of our success, then all the other kings must be too.”

“Including this king?” I boldly asked of Theodoric.

He nodded soberly and said, “As of now, we command the entire north of Italia, from the Alpes to the Sontius. I foresee not much difficulty in our sweeping southward over the rest of the peninsula, within another year at most. In effect, ja, it is all over but the shouting of the triumph.”

I feigned deep disappointment. “As I feared, you have won the war without me.”

“Not quite,” grumbled Soas. “A triumph cannot be celebrated without the conferring of the laurel crown. Until Odoacer relinquishes that…”

“Come now, Saio Cassandra,” I mocked him. “Surely the Emperor Zeno does not require us to deliver Odoacer’s smoked head, as we did with Camundus and Babai.” I turned again to Theodoric, and urged, “Let Odoacer
have
his little swampy corner of the peninsula. Let him squat there until he rots from the damp. Meanwhile, when all the rest of Italia is yours, and all the rest of the world knows it is yours, Zeno will have no choice but to proclaim you the rightful—”

He held up a hand. “Ne, Thorn. Fortune has intervened, and not to our advantage. I have word that Zeno is right now very ill. He may be dying. Anyway, he can proclaim nothing. And no successor can be named until and unless Zeno does die. So if, during this interregnum, I am to be awarded any laurels, I must do it myself. And the world must watch me do it. Now, more than ever, it is necessary that I make ostentatious overthrow of Odoacer.”

I sighed. “Then I hate to be the one to tell you this, but we will need something more than our armies to do it. I have observed the terrain around Ravenna. An overland assault is impossible and a landward siege would be futile. The crops of that Flaminia province had just been harvested at the time Odoacer retreated into his stronghold, so he certainly took in with him a bounteous stock of fresh provender.”