Roman Dusk (4 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fantasy Fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Occult & Supernatural, #Historical Fiction, #Vampires, #Rome, #Saint-Germain
“And I am glad to hear what you have to say,” said Ignatia, wondering how she would persuade her uncle, Nymphidius Tiberius Laelius, to hand over enough money to accomplish these things. “I will not punish you for saying what you believe to be best for the horses.”
“Thank you.” He pulled the pair in as they reached the line at the Porta Nova.
A Praetorian centurion in full brass lorica and helmet with a broad, dyed horsehair fan atop it, was stopping every person departing the city, asking names and destinations, and occasionally ordering his scribe to make notes.
“I am Pax Ignatia Laelius, I live in the Via Decius Claudii on the Esquilinus Hill,” she said when it came her turn to speak. “This is my slave Philius. We are bound for Villa Ragoczy, beyond your camp.”
“The foreigner’s estate; the one with the fine gate and fences. I know it,” said the centurion. “Why do you seek him?”
“To summon him to treat my mother, who is an invalid,” said Ignatia. “There is some urgency.”
“Be sure you return through this gate, and if you delay very long, I must have the scribe make note of it,” said the centurion.
“Of course,” said Ignatia, and nodded to Philius. “Drive on.”
The road beyond the walls was also busy, but not as much as the city streets had been; bigae and chairs carried merchants to and from the broad field where their large carpenti were left for the day, and sellers of fruits, meats, and flesh held the sides of the road, crying their wares. Philius avoided the greatest crush, and turned on the Via Cingula, then whistled his pair up to a trot and held the gait for the next thousand paces. They soon reached the Via Prenestina, and headed northeast past the Praetorian Camp. The wind picked up and the rain fell harder.
“The road to Villa Ragoczy is not far ahead. There is a stout wooden gate at the entrance,” said Ignatia.
“I remember,” said Philius. “I will find the place.”
“Excellent,” Ignatia approved shakily. She was so cold that her teeth had started to chatter and she was shivering, both of which mortified her: to show such weakness in front of a slave! She would not know what to say to her mother if Philius should speak of it among the rest of the household. Gathering her paenula more tightly around her, she pulled the hood even farther forward and did her best to keep her teeth clamped.
“This is the turn, I am certain,” said Philius, slowing the pair to a walk and preparing to leave the well-paved road for a graveled one. “Best hang on with both hands, Doma.”
“That I will,” she said, doing her best to keep from being thrown off-balance as the biga jounced onto the loose river stones that paved the road leading to the entrance to Villa Ragoczy. She noticed that the stones had been tended recently, and this calmed her a bit, for it made the chance of an accident less than it would have been on an ill-kept road.
“The stables here once housed over a hundred horses, or so I was told when we came here in November,” said Philius. “Now there are only forty or so.”
“Many breeders have reduced the size of their stables,” said Ignatia as if she had to convince herself of this accepted fact.
“Do you suppose the taxes are the reason?” Philius asked. “Your uncle reduced his herd because of taxes.”
“I have no idea. I am not in Sanct-Franciscus’ confidence,” said Ignatia stiffly; her paenula was flapping open, so she took hold of it with one hand and resigned herself to having to struggle to stand.
At the gate Philius drew up, securing the reins around the brake-handle before he stepped down to approach the gate. “I will summon the warder,” he said.
“Very good,” Ignatia said automatically.
“You there!” came the shout from beyond the gate. “State your name and purpose here.”
“I am Philius, the slave of the Laelius household. I bring my mistress, Doma Ignatia, daughter of Domina Laelius, to speak with the foreigner Sanct-Franciscus.” His voice carried well against the wind.
“You are welcome,” the warder announced, and drew back the heavy wooden bolt that secured the gate. “Enter, and take your biga around to the west side of the main house. One of the household will meet you there to guide you in the villa.”
“Thank you,” said Ignatia; a moment later Philius climbed back into the biga and took the reins again, kissing to the horses as the gate swung open.
The grounds of the villa were well-tended and prosperous-looking; the orchards just beyond the garden were coming into bloom, and the scent of apple blossoms was strong in spite of the rain. The approach to the main house was cobbled with bricks, and had recently been raked free of debris. Only the roofs of the stables could be seen beyond the house, and they were in good repair. A groom in a hooded leather cloak was jogging toward the biga, calling out, “Draw in. I’ll take them.”
Philius did as he was told. “Very prompt,” he said approvingly as he stopped the horses and released the reins to the groom. “If you would have their hooves picked clean as well as giving them water?”
The groom nodded as he went to the pair’s heads. “Certainly.”
Ignatia got out of the biga, and without waiting for one of the household slaves to offer her the protection of a rain-shield, went up the steps to the larger section of the villa, which, unlike most Roman homes, boasted two atria and two distinct sections of the building. A footman met her as she crossed the threshold. “I am here to see Sanct-Franciscus. Where may I find him?”
The footman—a young man from eastern provinces by the look of him—ducked his head, saying, “If you will follow me?”
“Of course,” said Ignatia, knowing Philius would go to the stables with the biga and horses and would not accompany her.
They went down the side of the larger atrium, then through a corridor and along a peristyle on the exterior of the rear of the rambling house. At last they reached a double door located roughly at the meeting of the two sections of the house; the footman tapped on it, and waited.
Sanct-Franciscus was wearing a simple, black woolen dalmatica, deep-red femoralia, and heeled Scythian boots. He gestured welcome to Ignatia, saying, “I am surprised and happy to receive you, Ignatia Laelius. Please come into my study. Girav, if you would bring a jug of hot wine with honey? And some butter-cakes? Tell Aedius it is for my guest.” He stood aside so that Ignatia could enter the room; the chamber was sizeable with windows in three walls. Most of the room was behind a segmented screen that was decorated with intricate carvings of the loves of Jupiter, with Semele dominating the center panel. There were also shelves with bound parchment sheets stored on them and a stand of pigeonholes filled with rolled scrolls. Three painted panels from Egypt hung high on the walls, with illustrations and hieroglyphics covering them; Ignatia had seen Egyptian art before, but nothing like these panels, in which a jackal-headed figure stood with an ibis-headed one, and a wrapped mummy was rising from the ground between them, a small bird flying away from the mummy’s head toward a disk with many long, golden arms. She looked around at Sanct-Franciscus. “That is most unusual. Do you know what it says?” she asked, caught by the striking images.
“Yes,” he replied. “And I will tell you one day, but not now, when you have such urgent business with me.” He glanced at the footman. “My guest is hungry and thirsty.”
The footman hurried away after he closed the door.
“I offer my apologies for interrupting your work,” she said a bit hesitantly.
“You have no reason to apologize,” said Sanct-Franciscus.
“No? I would have thought you were busy, but—Your villa is wonderfully warm,” said Ignatia as she let her paenula fall open.
“The holocaust has been cleaned of all ash, and the floor tiles have been taken up so that the channels could be scrubbed,” said Sanct-Franciscus, who was punctilious in such matters, although cold and heat had little effect upon him. “If you want to put your paenula aside, I have a lacerna you can wear until you are warmer.”
She looked at him as she threw back her hood, a touch of suspicion in her blue-green eyes. Guardedly she said, “I would like that.”
“The sleeves are a little long for you: turn them back if you like,” he said as he went behind the sectioned screen, to return at once with a splendid lacerna in dark-red silk. “Here, Ignatia Laelius. Let me take your paenula. I will hang it over the back of that chair”—he pointed to the one in front of the stand of pigeonholes—“until you are ready to depart.”
Feeling strangely daring, she turned so that he could remove the paenula and replace it with the soft, warm, enveloping lacerna. “This is very nice, Sanct-Franciscus.”
“You say that like a well-schooled child,” Sanct-Franciscus said, a trace of friendly amusement in his face.
“I was taught carefully,” said Ignatia, her cheeks turning rosy for no reason she could account for.
“And you are a credit to your teacher, and to your gens.” As she fumbled for something to say in return, he changed his tone. “Now that you have observed the niceties, perhaps you will tell me why you have come on such a wretched day as this?”
She was somewhat taken aback by the abruptness of his question. “It is a wretched day, to be sure, and I realize I am intruding, but I assure you it is important, or I would not have come.”
“So I assumed,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “This is not a capricious call.”
“No,” she said. “Alas, it is not.” She pulled at the sleeve of the lacerna. “I fear my mother is doing poorly, and has sent me to ask you to—”
“To provide her with such relief as I am able to,” he finished for her. “I will, of course.” He drew up a deeply upholstered hassock for her. “Sit. This is the most comfortable of any furniture in the room.”
She regarded him dubiously, but sank obediently down onto it, and discovered it was both soft and supporting. “It is quite … pleasant.”
“Good.” He offered her a one-sided smile. “Now, if you will tell me what it is your mother requires, other than a return to health, which I fear no physician can give her?” The kindness in his eyes took the sting from his words.
Dutifully, Ignatia began her report. “Her head aches. She is suffering from weakness, lassitude; she cannot stand alone, or so she says, and so has remained in her bed. Her appetite is failing, because she claims it is hurtful to eat. She has had difficulty swallowing.”
“Does she have a fever?” Sanct-Franciscus asked.
“Not that I can detect—she complained of being cold this morning, and her face appeared … slack.” Ignatia joined her hands together. “I worry that she will not be able to eat, and will finally starve.” She lowered her eyes and tried not to sneeze.
“You have reason for such concerns,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “Can you tell me if she is in pain?”
“She says so.” She looked up, daring to meet his eyes with hers. “The tincture of willow-and-pansy you provided is nearly gone, but it seems to alleviate the worst of her hurt.”
“Then I shall bring more with me. Pain, at least, I can alleviate.” He went behind the beautiful segmented screen and came back with a small case in his hands. His dark eyes were compassionate, and he spoke soothingly. “You need not fear that your mother is dying : that will not happen for some time unless she succumbs to a putrescence that is not presently troubling her. But she has a malady that has no cure, and it is deep in her bones.”
Ignatia sighed. “I can’t help but worry. She grows worse, you know, and nothing has arrested the degeneration.” As she said this, she felt she had betrayed her mother, and she turned away from Sanct-Franciscus. “If you say you can do nothing.”
“Unfortunately, no one can heal her.” He was spared the necessity of saying anything more to Ignatia as Girav rapped on the door. Opening it, Sanct-Franciscus took the tray from him, saying, “If you would, go to the stable and have Mora and Axion yoked to my new biga. And tell Raens to have my oiled-wool paenula ready—the black one with the dark-red border. Thank you.” He stepped back to allow the slave to close the door, then took the tray with its jug of hot, honied wine and plate piled with butter-cakes to Ignatia.
She looked up. “How good of you,” she said softly.
“Only courteous,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “Now, while you recruit yourself, I will go prepare you another few vials of willow-and-pansy.” With that, he went around the screen again, leaving her to pour the wine into the cup provided, and to eat a few of the butter-cakes while he completed his preparations for treating her mother.
Text of a letter from Senator Marcus Laurentius Gaius Fulvius Cneo to Telemachus Batsho; delivered by personal courier.
To the decuria Telemachus Batsho, Marcus Laurentius Gaius Fulvius Cneo, Senator of Roma, sends his greetings and his recommendation that the petition of Ragoczy Germainus Sanct-Franciscus to occupy the house of the widow Atta Olivia Clemens near the Temple of Hercules be granted acceptance without delay. Since the law now requires such foreigners as Sanct-Franciscus to live within the city walls, it is presumptive folly to prevent anyone from complying with the law. I expect this to be carried out at once, with your customary efficiency.
You have the Writ of Permission for Occupancy from the Widow Clemens, and you have the residence-transfer tax paid by Sanct-Franciscus himself, and so there is no pressing reason that his move should be delayed, and every reason for it to be expedited. Let me remind you that Sanct-Franciscus has no blood ties to any of the various barbarians raiding our borders, and no position in any other government that might compromise his dealings here. Even his dealings in Egypt are those of trade, not politics, and his alliances are strictly commercial. No one has accused him of acting against Roman interests, and since he is an exile, he has no reason to seek Roman support for his own aims.
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