Blood Games

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

PART II Chapter 19

  WHAT LITTLE LIGHT there was reached the underground cell through the foot of a light well. Those who lived under the stands of the Circus Maximus often used it to dump garbage and other, less attractive things. On this humid afternoon, the stench from the light well was miasmic.

  In the center of the little cell there were two pillars placed close together. Between these pillars Saint-Germain hung from the fetters that bound his wrists. He had been there twelve days.

  "Still breathing?" the Master of the Bestiarii mocked from the door. He had made a point of coming each day to jeer at the prisoner. "They're going to kill you, foreigner. "

  "Go away, Necredes," Saint-Germain said wearily through bruised and torn lips.

  "You can't give orders here, Franciscus: This is my kingdom, and I give the orders. I can order them to whip you again," he said as if this were a delightful new idea instead of the one he had had each day. "Another twenty lashes, Franciscus, what do you say?"

  Saint-Germain was silent. They would bring the flagellum whether he spoke or not. His shoulders were raw from the previous beatings: his black dalmatica was in tatters. He closed his eyes and waited for Necredes to say the rest.

  "I told you that this day would come, but you, so fine and foreign, you wouldn't believe me. " He relished this moment of vindication. "Now you know that you should not have defied me. Your slave deserved whipping, and you'll take the strokes for her now. " He pressed against the bars. "I'm going to count each blow, Franciscus. I want to hear you scream. "

  "Have you yet?" Saint-Germain asked ironically. His refusal to cry out was infuriating the Master of the Bestiarii. "If I indulge you, will you whip me less?" He stood straighter and flexed his fingers, feeling lightheaded. He had had no nourishment since he had been seized. The food they brought him he refused. He doubted it was possible for him to starve, but it might be that his hunger-his special hunger-would madden him. Twice before he had been imprisoned for long periods and each time he had become senselessly ravenous. He did not want to remember those times, or repeat them.

  "Answer me!" Necredes demanded, and Saint-Germain realized that he had not been listening.

  "Why?" It was a safe response, one that did not admit his attention had wandered.

  "Crocodiles don't frighten you, then?" Necredes was incredulous. "These are the big ones; three times your height, nearly four times. Those jaws can go through logs as if they were loaves of bread. Think what they will do to you. "

  Saint-Germain did not move. Crocodiles. Water, running water. Vampire limbs did not grow back. Vampires torn in pieces died as true a death as anyone. Water. Sunlight. If they removed his earth-lined boots, he would have no protection, and he was already weak. If his hunger were great enough by then, it might give him a desperation that would serve as strength for a time. After that, he would be at the mercy of the crocodiles and the water and the sun.

  There was a sound as the bolt was drawn and Necredes came into the little cell, carrying a metal-tipped flagellum. When he had come up beside Saint-Germain, he pressed the base of the whip against his face to look at the dried blood on it. "No scars yet," he said, disappointed.

  "There won't be any. I've told you. " He knew that Necredes did not believe him, yet he said it as he had before. "Get on with it. "

  Necredes laughed slowly, savoring the moment. He took three steps back, so that there would be room for a good swing, and brought down the parchment lashes with the full force of his arm.

  Saint-Germain caught his breath as the whip struck, grateful for once for the fetters that held him upright. He did not want to fall before Necredes. The pain went through him like living fire, narrowing his world down to his flesh, where the parchment and metal claws tore at him. With the pain came a terrible fatigue, a lassitude that he knew was dangerous.

  "Tomorrow, Franciscus," Necredes promised when he had finished. His face was flushed from effort and there was a slight glazing to his eyes. "That will be the last. The day after, you go on the sands. " He took a handful of Saint-Germain's hair and pulled his head up. "I'm going to watch you die, Franciscus. I'll enjoy it. " Still holding the bloodied whip in his hand, he went to the cell door, letting himself out with insulting slowness.

  To forget the hurt that raged in his body, Saint-Germain let his mind wander. His memories spanned very nearly two thousand years, and now, with an aquatic venation two days away, those years did not seem enough to him.

  A sliver of sunlight angled its way across the floor, preternaturally bright in these dim surroundings. Saint-Germain watched it avidly, giving it his whole attention as it marked the passage of the sun. It climbed a section of wall, faded, and was gone. The light well was now a soft amber color, and this once Saint-Germain did not mind the stench. His arms were almost entirely without sensation and his eyes felt as if they had been burned into his head. When they took him down, the day after tomorrow, he thought he might fall, and he did not want to do that. He stiffened his legs, held himself erect until his thighs shook. It was easier, easier and less painful, to hang in the fetters. Night had begun to close in on the city, lightly shrouding the Seven Hills, lending the Tiber its darkness and stars.

  There was a noise near at hand and Saint-Germain winced as he remembered the huge rats that had scurried through his cell on the previous nights. One of the rats had been attracted by the blood caking his shoulder, and had climbed his trousers and dalmatica to stand on his shoulder, on the raw flesh, and nibble at what he found. He considered his revulsion ironically. It was strange that he, of all men, should be upset by the rat with a taste for blood, but so it was. He steeled himself to endure the rats.

  Another sound, sharper and more metallic, brought him out of his thoughts. He tried to turn his head to see what had made it, but the pain in his lacerated shoulders flared as he moved, and he held himself still, waiting for what would be next. He had not been flogged twice in the same day before, but he was not surprised to find that it could happen. Was it Necredes? he asked himself, wishing he knew who had come into the cell on this quiet, oppressive, beautiful night.

  "Saint-Germain?" The hand on his arm was light, long-fingered, kindly.

  He dragged his mind away from the despairing fears that had taken hold of it. "Olivia?" he breathed.

  She touched his face, her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Saint-Germain. What's become of you?"

  "Olivia?" he repeated, his exhausted eyes on her, so it seemed she brightened and fluttered, like a torch in the wind. There was the light touch of her mouth on his, her trembling hands on his fettered arms. "How?. . . "

  "Rogerian found you," she said quickly. "He asked a few of the children who live under the stands, and an old trainer, who said he knew you and had heard the Master of the Bestiarii talk about you. We've been looking for days. " The whispered words stopped. "I have left my father's house. I have left Justus. My mother is dead. She's been dead for some time. " Her lips compressed to a tight line.

  "I'm sorry," Saint-Germain said, feeling useless. He wanted to take her in his arms, to draw her close to him so that the pain and the dark would be shut away from him. There was one other thing he wanted of her, wanted so desperately that he dared hardly think of it. He forced his mind away from it.

  "He said things. . . They were like the things he did to me. . . " She looked around suddenly as a rat dashed across the earthen floor. "How can you bear it here?" she asked, stifling the hysteria she felt in herself.

  "I don't have much choice in the matter," he replied with a degree of sardonic humor.

  "But here. . . a dungeon!" She glanced upward once at his wrists.

  "A dungeon is a dungeon, whether in Nineveh, or Rome, or Lo Yang. I've been in dungeons in all three places, and there's little difference. Once you are in a cell, it becomes the world, Olivia, and it matters little if those outside are Romans o
r Parthians or Hyperborean barbarians. " He pushed himself far enough forward to be able to brush her face with his lips. "I'm glad you've come. I've thought of you a great deal. "

  "We wanted to find you sooner," she said. "Saint-Germain, does it give you much pain?"

  He was startled at the intensity in her face. "I've known worse," he answered noncommittally.

  "Do they take care of you?" She knew the question was inane.

  "As you see. " Olivia started to reach for the fetters at his wrists. "Olivia, don't do that," he said quietly.

  "But your arms-" she began.

  "First," he said harshly, "I would rather remain standing, and this is the only way I can. Second, the fetters are burred on the inside. If you move my hands, the fetters cut me. "

  She drew back as if the metal were white-hot. "Burred-that's unspeakable!"

  "Then let's not mention it again. " He did not want to talk about what had happened to him since his imprisonment, so he asked her with genuine curiosity, "How did you get here?"

  Olivia met his eyes with difficulty. "One of the gladiators who. . . used me once"-her voice sank to a whisper-"was willing to show me where you were. He'd heard about the prisoner being held in the second-level cell. He took me down the nearest stairs, and pointed the way. "

  "Was there a price for this?" he inquired gently, searching her face. He wanted to hold her pressed against him, to blot out the dim, fetid cell with passion and need.

  She closed her eyes a moment. "No. There was no price. "

  He sighed, relieved.

  "Would it have mattered?" she asked in a small voice. "You know what my life has been. How could one more make any difference to you. "

  He stared at her incredulously. "It would be different because you had to suffer that on my account. By Charon, Olivia, what else would I mean? Roman virtues are very unimportant to me. " He attempted to laugh. "Why should they be otherwise? A woman leaves my embrace exactly as chaste as she came to it, if penetration is your standard for chastity. " He looked down at her, feeling an overwhelming sorrow. "Olivia, I will miss you as much as I have missed anything in the world. " He regretted his words the moment he said them, for her face went blank with anguish.

  "No," she said from the depths of her soul. "You won't die. " There was a kind of madness in her eyes.

  "It is not what I would wish to do, either," he said, trying again to ease her hurt. "Rogerian is new to me, but he is good-hearted and learns quickly. You will do well to keep him near you. There are precautions you must learn, for later. There is not enough time to tell you all that you must know. " How many hazards she would face, he thought, and how much she would have to accomplish in very little time. "Have one of your gardeners fill a couple of chests with your native earth, and be certain that it is always near at hand. You will need it when you travel. You must travel. Once we change, we age very little, and there are many who notice such things. Give yourself ten, at the most, twenty years in a place, and then move elsewhere. You may always return to the first place later. I have a great number of shipping and importing businesses, and it is a good way to make money, and gives you escape should you ever need it. Don't interrupt," he said sharply. "Be careful where you live. You will do better in cities than in villages. "

  "Don't talk like that!" she said wildly. "If I must know these things, I will ask you then. "

  "But I may not still be with you," he said. There was a grave tenderness in his dark eyes. "Olivia, this grows difficult. I have no wish to hurt you, but you must hear these things from me, and forget your pain, truly you must. Otherwise I will have failed you more terribly than I failed Kosrozd and Tishtry and Aumtehoutep. "

  Some of the frenzy left her eyes. "I will listen, Saint-Germain. "

  The night breeze had sprung up and wafted the charnel smell of the Gates of Death to them. Olivia hated the sweetly rotten odor, and tried to ignore it, to concentrate on the haunted expression in Saint-Germain's dark eyes, to listen to his worn, beautiful voice give her instructions.

  "When you come into my life," he said some while later, "you will be tempted to set aside your humanity. It is easy to do. I did it, for a time. That's an emptiness that leads nowhere but to the true death. Loneliness is better than abuse; you must know that, my Olivia. It is never easy to resist the seductive lure of cynicism, but cynicism is its own little death. Guard yourself against it. Our kind cannot afford to be uncompassionate. You will find it a formidable task of times, when the ignorant and zealous despise you and those you care for shrink from you. It will happen, Olivia. When it does, try not to feel contumely. Intimacy like ours is frightening to those who have never known it. Olivia," he said in another, deeper tone, "I had meant to be with you when you woke, but it may not be possible. If I am not there-"

  "Saint-Germain. . . " she said quickly, wanting to stop what he would say next.

  "If I am not there, remember that there is no shame in your desires. And remember that the blood is so much chaff if there is nothing more than blood. "

  She could not keep her misery out of her voice. "The only lover I want is you. " She knew there were tears on her face and smudged them away with grimy fingers.

  "You will want others," he said with a wise, sad smile. "It is our nature. "

  "But now?" She knew his mouth was torn, but she kissed it as deeply as she knew. "Don't you want this?"

  "Infinitely," he said wryly. "I have had no. . . nourishment since our last night in your garden. " He smiled at her shock. "I want that strength from you, I admit it. But more, I want your love. " He swung his arms, grimacing at the pain it gave him. "I can't take you in my arms. I can't caress you. If that is repugnant to you, kiss me again, and then go. I don't think I can stand to have you so near and not hunger for you. "

  Olivia looked at him, her face possessing a new serenity that she had never had before. "Love me, then. " She stepped next to him and loosened her paenula. The long cape fell to the floor and left her dressed only in a light sapparum, as if she were going to enter in a race or other sporting contest. She saw his brows lift quizzically and glowered at him. "I had to get in here unnoticed," she said severely. "I thought I'd dress as if I belonged here. "

  "Very wise," he agreed. "It becomes you. "

  Her chin went up, though there were tears in her eyes. "What now?" she asked.

  "Come closer, so you can lean against me. " His voice had deepened and some of his private grandeur had returned.

  "Lean against you?" she whispered. "But your wrists. . . I can't, Saint-Germain. "

  "My wrists will not trouble me," he lied. "It's because of them that I'm not likely to fall. " He set his jaw and moved his arms in proof of this. He could feel the chafing of his wrists and the hot wetness as the burrs scraped.

  She took one more step, and her body touched his. "I want to hold you," she confessed softly. "But your shoulders. . . "

  "Put your arms around my waist," he told her, his lips against her hair. She turned her head and their mouths met, this time with fire and reckless abandon. It seemed he had breathed his very soul into her with that kiss, enfolding her in the whole glory of his desire as surely as if he clasped her in his bleeding arms.

  TEXT OF AN ORDER FROM THE SENATE AUTHORIZING THE SEIZURE AND DETAINMENT OF ATTA OLIVIA CLEMENS, DOMITA SILIUS.

  To the Watch and the Praetorian Guard, greetings:

  You are hereby authorized and mandated to find and hold Atta Olivia Clemens, Domita Silius. The woman has left the house of her husband and the house of her father and her present location is not known to us.

  There are grave charges laid against this woman, that will be heard in court as soon as she is found and can appear to speak for herself. Of the nature of the charges we are not at liberty to reveal except to inform you that the crimes are capital. F
or this reason we ask that you treat this woman with great circumspection.

  Upon the finding and seizing of this woman, the Senate is to be notified at once, and there will be proper provision for her made at once. If you fail to treat this woman with the honor and respect due to her station and lineage, you will be punished for such actions to the full limit of the law.

  For the Senate, by hand and messenger,

  Alastor

  Procurator Senior