Raptor (21 page)

He was white of hair, and had wrinkles in his weather-tanned, clean-shaven face, but he walked erect and looked hardy for his age. He wore no sort of uniform, but a long coat of fine Mutina wool, elegantly trimmed with miniver. To such a noble, Wyrd and I must certainly have looked like savages that his signifer had grubbed from out of some squalid underground den. Nevertheless, at sight of us, his somber face brightened and he briskly approached, crying, “Caius Uiridus! Salve, salve!”

“Salve, Clarissimus Calidius,” said Wyrd, as each clasped his right hand about the other’s right wrist.

“I must light a flame to Mithras,” said Calidius, “for his having sent you in our time of dire distress, old warrior.”

Wyrd said sardonically, “I wonder why I should be so favored by Mithras. What is this trouble, Legatus?”

Calidius gestured to Paccius to depart, but took no notice of the insignificant me, saying, “The Huns have abducted a Roman woman and child, and are holding them for ransom, and are making impossible demands of me for their return.”

Wyrd made a face. “Whatever ransom you might pay, surely you do not expect the hostages’ return.”

“Verily, I had no faintest hope of it… until I heard that
you
were at the gate, old comrade.”

“Akh, this comrade is old indeed. I am here only to peddle some bearskins and—”

“Eheu! You need not go about bargaining and haggling with every merchant in Basilea. I myself will buy everything you are carrying, and at whatever exorbitant price you ask. I want you to hunt down those Huns and rescue that woman and child.”

“Calidius, nowadays I do not kill Huns, only bears. A dead bear’s surviving relatives are less likely to hunt me across the world and across the years.”

The legatus said sharply, “You did not always speak so. And you did not always answer to the proletarian address of caius.” His next words made me turn and regard Wyrd with surprise and wonder and a new awe. “Uiridus, when we defeated Attila on the plains of Catalauni, you were then respectfully addressed as a decurio of the auxiliaries, and you were with the antesignani, fighting
out ahead of the
standards. Those fifteen years ago, you were not fastidious about killing Huns.”

“Not then or now, you upjumped centurio!” Wyrd snapped back at him. “I simply do not any longer go out of my way to seek enemies to slay. Were I you, Calidius, I should be less concerned with the victims of this abduction than with the weakling men of your own command here. If any scavenger Huns could snatch so much as a horse-tord from a Roman garrison town, then they also deserve all the wheat and wine in your stores. And from now on your every legionary, stationary and auxiliary ought to be shamefacedly feeding on only the barley and vinegar of disgrace.”

The legatus dolefully shook his head. “There was really no disgrace involved, only a headstrong woman.” He grimaced. “A woman named, not very fittingly, Placidia. Her six-year-old son—named Calidius, in honor of myself—has a pony. That pony, not having been ridden over the winter, had got stilted in the hoofs and needed trimming. The stable of Basilea’s best ferrarius is on the farthermost outskirts of the town, but young Calidius wished to go along with his pony to see the work done. So, although Placidia is pregnant with another child, and very near her term, and in no decent condition to be seen in public, the willful woman insisted on accompanying her son. So, without a by-your-leave, she and the boy went recklessly off, with only four house slaves to carry the lectica in which they rode, and one yard slave to lead the pony, and with no military escort at all. Then—”

“Excuse me, Calidius,” Wyrd interrupted, yawning. “I and my apprentice are weary, and in grievous need of a good hot bath. Is all this trivial detail really necessary?”

“Quin taces!
You
can be long-winded enough, as I know very well. And the details are relevant, because the Huns must have been lurking outside the town, awaiting just such an opportunity. A band of them fell upon the little train, slew the four carriers and dashed off, carrying the lectica themselves. The surviving slave returned here with the pony. And the horrid news.”

“You killed
him,
of course.”

“That would have been too merciful. He is confined for life in the pistrinum pit—what the slaves call ‘the living hell’—turning a millstone to grind grain. A life sentence there is not a long one, considering the bone-cracking labor in the stifling heat and the strangling dust. Anyway, two days later there came, under a white flag, a Hun who spoke some Latin. Enough to tell me that Placidia and little Calidius had been taken alive, and were still alive. They would remain alive, he said, if I let him return safely to his band, and if I warranted him safe passage to come here again with the instructions his fellows were preparing for me. Well, I gave my warrant, and the same scurvy Hun came back another two days later, with a list of ransom demands. I will not recite them all—stores of food, horses and saddles, weapons—but suffice it to say, the demands are insufferable and impossible of my compliance. I temporized, telling him that I needed time to decide whether the hostages were worth the price, and that I would give him an answer three days hence. That means the damnable yellow dwarf will be back again tomorrow. So you can see why I was in blackest despair, and why I rejoiced when I heard of
your
arrival, and why—”

“No, I do not quite see,” said Wyrd. “Forgive me, Calidius, for reopening old wounds. But I remember, when your son Junius fell at Catalauni, you told us others of your men not to mourn. The death of one soldier, you said, was not an intolerable loss to an army. And that was your own son. Why, now, for a mere foolhardy woman and her hapless boy, even if he is named—?”

“Uiridus, I had and still have one other son, the younger brother of Junius. He serves under me here.”

“I know. The optio Fabius. A fine lad.”

“Well, the headstrong woman Placidia is his wife, my affinal daughter. Her small son and the child still in her womb are my only grandchildren. If they live… no, they
must
live, for they are the last of my line.”

“Now I see,” muttered Wyrd, looking as grave as did the legatus. “Fabius must immediately have gone in pursuit of them, and gone to his own death.”

“He would have done. But, by a ruse, I had him locked in the guardhouse before he heard of the abduction. He is still in there, raging at me as frenziedly as at the Huns.”

“Then, again, I do not see why you despair,” said Wyrd. “I dislike to sound heartless. But I know well that a man can withstand the loss of a wife—perhaps in time even forget her—at least such a one as this Placidia seems to have been. Fabius is young, and there are many other women, including more placid ones. And children are the easiest commodity in the world to produce. Your familial line need not die out, Calidius.”

The legatus sighed. “I have said exactly that to him. And I am heartily glad that there were iron bars between us when I did. No, Uiridus, for whatever reason, Fabius is besotted with that woman, and he dotes on young Calidius, and he is keenly anticipating the birth of their next child. He swears that, if they are lost, he will take the first opportunity to fall on his sword. He will do it, too; he is his father’s son. I
must
get those hostages back.”

“You mean
I
must,” Wyrd said surlily. “But why do you think the Hun tells the truth? That they are still alive?”

“He has each time brought proof.” The legatus sighed again, delved in a pocket of his coat and took out two small, white, limp things, and handed them to Wyrd. “Each time, one of Placidia’s fingers.”

I turned away, to keep from retching. While Wyrd examined those things, the legatus went on, almost absentmindedly, “Each time one has arrived, I have personally amputated
two
fingers from that miserable slave confined in the pistrinum. If the ransom negotiations should somehow be protracted, he will be pushing the millstone with his elbows.”

“Both of these are forefingers,” Wyrd murmured. “But this one he brought first, yes? Its rigor has relaxed. And this one he brought on his latest visit. This finger was recently alive. Very well, I agree. The woman was at least not dead two days ago. Calidius, have that slave fetched here—this instant—before you whittle him any further.”

The legatus bellowed, “Paccius!” and the signifer promptly emerged from a distant doorway of the building, and as promptly vanished again when he was given the order.

“One thing I have learned about Huns,” said Wyrd while we waited. “They are dismally short on patience. A band of them might have lurked outside the town, hoping to seize
somebody.
But they would not have waited there for long, on the very slim chance that the somebody would prove to be the most precious persons they could hold hostage against the tenderhearted Clarissimus Calidius. They knew for whom they were waiting, and when those persons would appear, and how vulnerable they would be. It strikes me as suspicious that one of the five accompanying slaves so miraculously escaped unharmed.”

“Mithras be thanked,” gasped the legatus, “that I did not yet kill him.”

When Paccius returned, there were two guards with him, dragging the slave between them so that he half ran, half stumbled. He was husky and fair-skinned, but trembly and frightened-looking, and he was naked except for a loincloth and dirty, bloody rags for bandages on both hands. When the man was propped up before us, the legatus’s own hands twitched, as if eager to get at the man’s throat. But Wyrd only calmly addressed the slave in the Old Language:

“Tetzte, ik kann alls,” which means “Wretch, I know all.” He went on, “You have but to verify it, and I promise you freedom from the pistrinum.”

When Wyrd translated that remark into Latin, the legatus made a choked noise of protest, but Wyrd hushed him with a gesture and continued, “On the other hand, tetzte, refuse to admit the truth and I promise you will yearn to go back to the pit.”

“Kunnáith, niu?” croaked the slave. “You
know?”

“I do,” Wyrd said complacently, as if he really did. He continued to translate his and the slave’s words into Latin for the benefit of the legatus. “I know how you first met a skulking Hun on the outskirts of Basilea when making an earlier visit to the ferrarius. How you arranged for the Hunnish conspirators to be waiting when the Lady Placidia and her son went to call on that ferrarius. How you assured her that there would be no danger, and so lulled her that she summoned no guards for an escort. How you stood cowardly by while your fellow slaves tried bare-handed to fight off the Huns, and died doing it.”

“Ja, fráuja,” mumbled the tetzte. Cold though it was in the garden, he was suddenly perspiring. “You do know all.”

“All but two things,” said Wyrd. “For one, why did you do it?”

“Those yellow reptiles promised to take me with them, to let me roam free with them in the forest, to be a slave no more. But then, when they had what they wanted, they laughed and told me to be off—and to be thankful that they had left me my life. I had no recourse but to return here and pretend I had been a victim myself.” He gave a fearful sidelong glance at the legatus, who was silently seething. “And I
had
been a victim, had I not?”

Wyrd only sniffed and said, “The other thing I wish to know. Where did they take the lady and the boy?”

“Meins fráuja, I have no idea.”

“Then where is their camp, their den, their hiding place? It cannot be too far from here, if they have spent so much time sneaking about these precincts. And if they had to transport a heavy lectica there.”

“Meins fráuja, I truly do not know. If, as they promised, they had taken me with them, then I would know. But I do not.”

“I assure you, simpleminded tetzte, you would not have gone far with them. But you
have
talked with those Huns. Did they never mention a place, a landmark, a direction?”

The slave frowned and sweated in an effort to remember, but at last could say only, “They pointed, now and then, but in the general direction of the Hrau Albos, nothing more. I swear it, fráuja.”

“I believe you,” said Wyrd resignedly. “The Huns are much more cunning and prudent than you are, wretch.”

“Then you will keep your promise?” the slave asked piteously.

“I will,” said Wyrd, at which the legatus roared and reached with hooked hands for the slave’s neck. But Wyrd had anticipated him. In one smooth motion, Wyrd drew his snake knife and plunged it into the slave’s abdomen, just above his loincloth, and ripped him up the front until the blade struck against his breastbone. The slave’s eyes bulged at the same time his intestines did, but he made no sound, and sagged dead upon the supporting arms of the two guards. Paccius led them and their burden of carrion out of the garden.

The legatus said through his teeth, “By the Styx, Uiridus, why did you do that?”

“I keep my promises. I promised to free him from the pistrinum.”

“So would I have done, but infinitely more slowly. Anyway, the brute told us nothing useful.”

“Nihil,” Wyrd glumly agreed. “Now I shall have to wait for the Hun to get here, and follow him when he leaves. Tell him, Calidius, that you agree to all his demands, so that he will go speedily back to tell his band.”

“Very well. Then what will you do?”

“By the ponderous brass feet of the Furies, how do I know? I must give this some thought.”

“And preparation. Warriors, horses, weapons—I will give you whatever you need.”

“You cannot. The emperor could not. What I need is the invisibility of Alberikh and the unfailing good luck of Arion. Like the Huns, I must effect a secret abduction. But I cannot afterward flee through the forest with a weakling woman—one who is both heavily pregnant and injured besides. On foot or on horseback, we would surely be caught.”

The legatus pondered, then said, “This will sound as heartless as your own earlier words, Uiridus. But could you bring back at least the boy Calidius?”

“Akh, that would certainly be a more feasible venture, yes, and one with more chance of success. You said he is six years old? He should be able to keep pace with me. Still, it will be no easy matter to steal even a small boy out of an encampment well guarded and on the alert.”