“Ahala was the most skilled of all of us,” Dinah said. “He was also more intelligent than our master as well, but loyalty to Gracchus held him in check.”
“You were Gracchus’s best. No one else,” Tabor said. “You overreact because of your bad memories, Dinah. Think. For all your fears, Ahala cannot have discovered much in the short time that Makki has been in Manhatos.”
“I would be willing to bet all the precious metals in my jewelry stores that Ahala has been in Manhatos for months, learning everything he needs to defeat us,” Dinah said.
Tabor slapped his desk and stood. “How?”
Gerhard sat next to his wife and put his arm around her shoulders. Dinah leaned into her husband.
“Think of how many merchant vessels have arrived over the last few months,” Dinah said. “I am sure Ahala was on one of those vessels and then rented rooms in Manhatos. He knows everything there is to know about Manhatos by now.”
“Again, I ask how?” Tabor said.
“It’s the way we were both trained. Scout the enemy for weaknesses. Ahala will know the city’s defenses by heart. He’ll know the weak points, how many soldiers we have, which centurions are the best trained, which are the worse, and maybe even which ones are bribable. I’ll bet he even opened up a dialogue with some of the merchants.”
Tabor squared his shoulders. “What else?”
“His specialty was death by a single knife strike,” Dinah said. “You would be his target here, Tabor. You’re the only one who unites all the factions in Manhatos. With you gone, the city loses the only person holding it together during a siege.”
Tabor grunted and sat back down. Ceti would have thought he’d be more concerned. Instead, his commander looked puzzled.
“So why am I not dead yet, Dinah? Why not get me out of the way before there was even word of the fleet? That way, Makki’s victory would be assured. Perhaps Ahala is not as good as you remember.”
“I doubt it.” Dinah said. Her voice seemed stronger now, more confident. “If he hasn’t attacked you yet, there’s a reason.”
“Maybe his goal isn’t to help Makki win,” Ceti said. Scattered comments in the letters he’d received from other legionary engineers began to make sense, especially combined with the memory of Tabor’s warning to Legate Makki earlier today.
“Explain, Tribune,” Tabor ordered.
“From what I understand from my correspondence, Makki’s popular with his men,” Ceti said. “He takes care to protect them in battle and has more than the usual number of medicus available afterward. The new emperor cares about victory, at all costs, not his soldiers. Soldiers fellow Makki because they trust him. Soldiers follow the emperor because they fear him.”
“I see where this leads.” Tabor nodded. “The emperor could have sent Makki here in a kind of exile, worried that he’s a threat. I taunted Makki with this, but I didn’t expect it to be true. It’s a huge number of men and ships to risk to get rid of one man. I was banished alone, not with my legion.”
“If Ahala’s new master is the emperor, then likely Ahala has been instructed to create a long drawn-out bloody war.” Dinah stood, shaking off her fugue. “This would not only to get rid of Makki, but also damage your power base, Tabor. After all, you could potentially put together a fleet manned by loyal troops and sail to Italy to challenge him.”
“And I am tempted to do just that to teach the bastard a lesson.” Tabor leaned back in his chair.
“We’d miss you,” Dinah said blandly.
Tabor waved a hand, dismissing the idea. “I’m too old for sea voyages. Poseidon and I were never friends.”
Dinah snorted. “But the battle is coming soon. Ahala may decide to kill you now, to even the odds. You must be careful.”
“I see you have a low estimation of my ability to survive an attack,” Tabor said drily.
“No, just a high estimation of what Ahala can do,” she said. “You said I was over-reacting. I’m not. Gracchus kept Ahala’s worst instincts in check. But with Gracchus dead, Ahala is free to indulge in whatever cruelties he wishes along with doing his job. He’s...full of darkness, Tabor. Be careful.”
Tabor nodded. “I hear you. I’ll double my guards. And Mykle arrived today. He’ll be with me.”
“Mykle will help,” Dinah acknowledged. “He’s intimidating enough for ten men. But his presence might also be...distracting.”
Tabor grinned, wolflike.
Ceti judged it a very good thing that the Viking would be here to support his lover. Tabor mellowed when Mykle was around.
Perhaps that was why Gaius never minded the Viking’s presence. Tabor was harder on his stepson than anyone.
“You say not to underestimate Ahala. I agree. Now what do we have that he does not? How can we counter him?” Tabor asked. “Think, Dinah.”
“We have one clear advantage,” Dinah said. “I don’t think Ahala knows who I am. Do you think he recognized me, Gerhard?”
Ah, Ceti thought. That was why Dinah had hidden behind her husband during the confrontation with Mykle.
“I’m certain he didn’t recognize you, wife,” Gerhard said. “He was too surprised at the presence of Ceti’s woman and concentrated on her.”
“She’s not my woman,” Ceti said. “Sky belongs to herself. She’s not a possession.”
Tabor turned his attention back to Ceti. “Speaking of this, what are we going to do about her, engineer?”
“There’s nothing to be done with Sky, Commander, save help her with what she came for. I intend to show her Manhatos. I intend to teach her all I can. I intend to show her that even though we are different people, we can work together.”
“And do you intend to ask your commander’s permission to provide her with sensitive military information?”
Tabor’s question was quiet, but Ceti had known him long enough to hear the anger underneath. The question was a trap.
“She’s not going to discover anything that Ahala doesn’t already know,” Dinah said. “Let it go, my friend. Sky may yet somehow provide the help we need.”
I can stand for myself, Dinah.
“I would hope,” Ceti answered, “that my commander would be foresighted enough to realize this is the best way to an alliance that can help Manhatos.”
Tabor shook his head, conceding the point. “An engineer who has learned to flatter people instead of machines. That may be as much a miracle as someone flying.”
He began pacing.
“You can try, Ceti, but what Sky wants is going to be nearly impossible in the middle of a war.”
“I have heard the word ‘impossible’ before,” Ceti said. “It holds no terror for me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sky sensed a change in Ceti the minute he appeared to greet her. He’d cleaned up, as she had, but now he looked solemn and intense, instead of open and smiling. Everything here had been so unfamiliar, so strange, save for Ceti. And now he was strange as well.
“You look lovely,” he said.
That sounded more like her Ceti, as everyone insisted on calling him. She ran her hand over the sleeves of the light blue tunic. “The color is beautiful and it’s so soft.”
“Blue, the color of the morning sky,” he said. “The weavers here do wonderful work. What do you think of Manhatos so far?”
“Unfamiliar and confusing.” She thought of the baths. “But not completely bad.”
“And interesting too, I hope.”
“It would take me years to sort everything out. People are so...different from what I know,” she said. “And, I have to say, it’s not as interesting as a man falling out of the sky at my feet.”
He smiled. That simple smile almost made her toes curl. Better, much better.
“What did you think of the legate and his men?”
She shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “He makes a fierce enemy.”
“Tabor makes a fierce enemy as well,” Ceti said.
That sounded like a warning. Or perh
aps that was her guilt gnawing at her. “I have no doubt of that, especially after seeing the painting in your great hall and then watching Tabor confront the legate.”
“He’s not that imposing close up,” Ceti said. “Well, perhaps he is. But he can be more relaxed.” Ceti offered her his arm. “Come with me, Sky, and I’ll show you a true Roman dinner.”
“We don’t eat it in the baths, do we?”
He laughed. “No.”
Ceti sobered the minute they entered the dining room, as he called it. Eating, apparently, was odd here, like everything else. In her longhouse, she would have sat on benches in front of a long table. Her mother would have the honored place at the end. The elder relatives would sit closest to the fire, to stay warm.
It was warm in this room, though there was no fire. There was a table laden with all the food, but no benches were next to it. Instead, what looked like large beds with legs turned sideways were set in a circle on the other side of the room. Dinah and Gerhard were already seated on the cushions of one of them, eating from plates they held in their hands.
Sky followed Ceti’s example, picked up a clay plate with green apple trees painted on it and placed the food on it. Ceti directed her to the cushioned bench opposite Dinah and Gerhard. Tabor and Gaius were sitting on another bench set diagonally to the others.
The cushions, Sky realized happily, were very soft. Apparently, Romans liked their comfort. She could not argue with that.
She wanted to bring this strange food to her nose and sniff it, but that seemed impolite, as did asking what it was. Her father had taught her that guests who rejected food made themselves very unwelcome. But when she traveled with him, she at least recognized what she was eating.
She started with the clams. Well, they looked like clams, at least. They’d been removed from their shells and were in a pool of greenish liquid that looked very like soup. She tasted, keeping her face blank as she’d been taught.
Oh, that’s good!
It was some sort of fragrant oil flavored with green flecks of crushed leaves. Slippery but wonderful. She licked her fingers clean.
“Glad you like it,” Dinah said.
Sky nodded and ate another. The baked apples with honey were good as well, though mushy. And now that she was enjoying the food, she noticed no one was talking. They all seemed to be staring at her, especially Tabor.
Gaius smiled weakly, perhaps sensing her discomfort. “Have you ever spoken to Romans before us?”
“Ceti, when he fell out of the tree,” she said. Gaius had the same Mahican accent to his words that Ceti did.
Gaius snorted. “He fell out of a tree?”
She looked over at Ceti. “You didn’t tell them?”
“I told them I crashed and you protected me until they arrived.”
The others looked at him.
“Well, it was true!” Ceti said.
Sky smiled. “True, as far as it went. He crashed into the treetop and he fell from it to the ground.”
“You didn’t try to catch him, did you?” Gaius asked.
She shook her head. “There was no time. And he looked quite big.”
Gerhard laughed. “Smart woman.”
Sky blinked. She hadn’t known that Gerhard could laugh.
“Tell us what happened from the beginning,” Dinah said.
Sky cleared her throat and settled into a storytelling rhythm. She remembered her father’s advice about setting the scene and started with her walk to the fields and how she’d thought Ceti’s aquila some great bird.
She ended with Ceti speaking to her and how surprised she’d been that he spoke her language.
“You’ve left something out,” Ceti said.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Ceti shook his head and waved to the rest of them. “She didn’t tell you how she climbed the tree and rescued the aquila.”
“There is little to tell. It was wrong to leave it in the arms of the tree,” she said.
“Well, if she won’t tell, I will.” And Ceti recounted the story of her descent down the tree with the aquila. He made it sound heroic, but mostly it had just been hard work. His voice caught when he spoke of seeing the aquila slide out of control.
“It was too bulky, it was twisting on her,” Ceti said. “So I jumped up in the tree and grabbed it.”
“I misjudged the weight. It was about to impale me,” Sky said. “You saved me.”
Ceti blushed. “You saved my aquila.”
“Perhaps the gods arranged your meeting,” Gerhard said. “Your name is Sky, after all.”
Sky nodded. “So I believe.”
Ceti shook his head.
“Ah, be careful, Ceti,” Dinah said. “Just because you don’t believe in gods, doesn’t mean they leave you alone.”
“It sounds as if you say that from personal interactions with the gods,” Sky said. Dinah had mentioned some of this earlier, on the boat. What did it mean?
Gerhard grinned. Sky blinked, startled again by the sudden animation in his face.
Dinah grinned back at her husband. “When we have time, I’ll tell you the tale.”
Sky nodded and turned to Ceti. “You don’t believe in gods?”
“I believe in what I can see and touch,” he said.
“Typical engineer,” Tabor said, speaking for the first time. “So, Domina.” He sat forward on the edge of his bench, staring intently at her. “To get back to the question, your answer is that Ceti is the first Roman you’ve ever seen?”
Sky felt trapped, like a bear surrounded by a hunting party. “I’ve seen the Roman ships. And I’ve seen some lone hunters. I’ve never spoken to them.”
“You’ve never been to Seneca?” Tabor asked. It was less a question than a demand for information.
She shook her head. “No. I’ve traveled with my father to the south, but not to the north. My father has met some of the Romans who trade with the Mahicans, but I didn’t accompany him on those trips, as our tribe hasn’t always been friendly with the Mahicans.”
“Legate Makki seemed quite interested in you,” Tabor said.
“Perhaps he’s not met one of my clan before,” She swallowed hard. I think I am not a good liar. “Can you defend yourselves against him?”
“We can, but the cost of doing so will be high, in both blood and property. Makki and his army are built to destroy.” Tabor leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “When you go back to your people, Sky, tell them that.”
When you go back to your people. Sky realized she didn’t have a plan for leaving. Makki’s arrival had made everything far more complicated.
She nodded. “I will tell them, Commander.” She took a deep breath and plunged in. “But the Romans here brought war to us when they came. There are many of my people who won’t see the difference between you and Makki.”
Tabor stood, his face twisted in anger. “They’re fools then.”
“No, only wary. They’ve been hurt, or attacked over and over,” she said. “Some have lost family members to your slavers, long before Makki arrived. If you want us to see the difference, act differently.”
“Act differently?” Tabor tilted his head. “You are here, in my home, being treated as an honored guest, are you not?”
“For that, I thank you,” she said.
Gerhard abruptly stood up from his perch on the arm of the couch where his wife was seated.
“Mykle!” he said.
Gerhard strode to greet a giant of a man occupying the doorway. The newcomer was larger and taller than anyone Sky had ever seen, even Ceti. She thought back to the painting of the Battle for Seneca and realized this man, Mykle, was the one standing next to Tabor on the hill above the battlefield.
Gerhard clapped Mykle on the back. “Welcome, cousin.” He turned back to the rest of them. Sky rose to greet the new arrival.
“This is my cousin, Mykle, from Seneca,” Gerhard said. “Mykle, this is Sky of the Wolf Clan of the Lenape. Licinius claimed her as k
in through his mother.”
“Welcome,” Mykle said, speaking as Gerhard had, in Sky’s own language. The giant’s voice was a deep rumble. “Sif would be pleased to see you. Do you plan to visit Seneca?”
“No, not as yet.” I hadn’t even planned to visit Manhatos.
“You should,” Mykle said.
“I appreciate the invitation,” Sky said, falling back on a non-confrontational phrase learned from her father.
“You are well come, Mykle.” Tabor clasped Mykle’s forearm. With a start, Sky realized the Roman commander was actually grinning. Mykle smiled and it seemed to Sky that the hand clasp was held too long for simple welcome.
“If you’re not too tired, I would like your opinion on the possibility of using the longboats to evacuate Manhatos,” Tabor said. “The information is in my private study.”
Mykle grinned, as if amused by something. “Yes, that’s fine.”
Tabor turned to Sky. “I must go. Ceti will make certain you are escorted properly to your chamber. Good night.”
The Roman commander and the Viking left the room together. Strange. Why did Tabor need Mykle’s opinion? Sky thought that Gerhard was chief of the Vikings.
Oh. Sky’s eyes widened. She sat back down next to Ceti. Of course. The pair had just made polite excuses to leave together.
“You disapprove?” Dinah said, confirming Sky’s conclusion.
Sky shook her head. “No, men sometimes form bonds with other men in my clan, though that can be disappointing if the men don’t also provide children as well. And there are the rare ones like Deep Water who are man and woman combined.” She paused, trying to be as polite as possible. “It is more...um...they seem an unlikely pair.”
“Yes, they are.” Dinah smiled. “Perhaps you should view them as proof that a relationship between people from two different worlds can work.”
****
Once Tabor left, the atmosphere of the dinner lightened, especially when Licinius joined them. Again, the teasing between Gaius and Licinius reminded Sky of her younger brothers.
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