by Camilla Monk
A few inaudible words were exchanged, then a nod—from the centurion. His men gauged us from under the polished brass brow of their helmets. I didn’t like their eyes; there was something wary, shifty about them. Next to me Victrix and Hastius seemed equally skeptical of this understated welcome, the former leaning back in his saddle with his arms crossed, while the latter studied the cavalrymen with a soulless smile.
Clearchos veered his stallion around and headed back toward us, his mouth set in a lopsided line. “Move off the road!” he bellowed to our comrades. Then, lowering his voice, he told us. “We’re setting camp here. Hastius and Vatluna, you stay to watch over the pack. Victrix, Irius and Constanter, with me.”
Behind Hastius, Vatluna raised his four-fingered hand to acknowledge the order and drew his horse to the carts, barking orders for them to move out of the way. Hastius backed away, too, but not before he reined his horse close to mine and whispered, “Looks like the Overseer has a singular sense of hospitality. When you’re in there”—his good eye darted to the distant walls whose colors blended with that of the clouds— “Don’t drink or eat anything they give you. And keep your eyes open.”
I acquiesced and squeezed his shoulder briefly, as he did mine, before galloping to catch up with Clearchos and the others, who were already trailing away from the convoy to follow the Overseer’s envoys.
A misted drizzle started dusting the plain as I joined them, which did little to improve Victrix’s sour mood. He glared at the soldiers and muttered to Irius’s and my attention. “Are we seriously setting camp outside the walls, after all the battles we won for them? What are we, dogs?”
It was so rare to hear the quiet hum of Irius’s voice that it almost surprised me when he replied, “We are men who fight for money and heed no god.” He cast a stony glance at Victrix. “The Overseer couldn’t care less what battles you fought for him. He sees Aus’s doing in every victory; men are mere instruments and fate the expression of his god’s will.”
“So, we’re nothing to him…” I completed, ignoring Victrix’s tightly clenched jaw. “Why did he invite Clearchos, then?”
“Why would a kindhearted god reach out to a sinner?” Irius asked in return, his empty gaze set on the silver wolf cloak cascading down Clearchos’s back and blanketing his horse’s hindquarters.
“To save him,” Victrix answered, before he heeled his mare sharply to ride at his father’s side.
35
It was the silence that struck me first. We rode through the military camp, and beyond it, a cluster of brick houses scattered along the banks of the Utur. There, a quiet, gray throng scurried away from market stalls at the sight of the soldiers’ gleaming armor and powerful warhorses. The children didn’t play. The beggars didn’t sing or shake their wooden bowls. The clatter of hooves against the pavement was thunderous in the dead streets, and this time I derived no pleasure from the anxious glances the townspeople cast my way. Like the cold in winter, their fear seeped through my leathers all the way to my bones.
We passed a wide bridge lined by marble statues twice the size of a man on each side—the first, and likely the only, guard of honor I’d ever get. They must be important men: prefects, emperors, or maybe the old kings who had built these walls, I mused, craning my neck to stare up at the curtain of white stone ahead of us. Down below, a few feet above water level, a row of ugly beasts carved in the stone retched sewer swill into the Utur through their maws.
Iron gates came ajar with a rumbling moan, beckoning us into a darkened walkway as long as Palica’s walls were thick. Then the light returned, pouring from the sky over the roofs and streets. My jaw went slack. Gone was the sense of impending doom permeating the muddy camp and gray streets outside the walls. In its place was the closest thing I had ever seen to Elysion.
Clearchos and the equites didn’t spare a glance for the magnificent marble buildings encircling the gate’s esplanade, but Victrix’s eyes were as wide as mine, and even Irius threw discreet glances at the gilded columns supporting the pediment of a temple on which stone nymphs crowned some long-dead emperor. And the flowers. Everywhere, fragrant white garlands cascading down the walls, hanging down wrought-brass balconies… more beauty and riches than I’d ever seen in my life, even in Nyos.
And not a sound.
Shadows glided behind the bubbly glass of the windows, and we rode past men wrapped in their linen togas, followed by servants and sometimes even children. But no boisterous haggling or idle chatting, no laughs. No music. Only silence and flowers.
“This shit is starting to creep me out,” Victrix murmured as we passed a fish stall behind which a rotund man handed a bag of clams to a veiled young woman without speaking a word. “Hey, why is it so quiet in here?” he asked the equites—his question shattering against the cold stone walls of lavish villas.
It was Clearchos who answered, his own voice low and dispassionate. “Aus’s followers seek peace and silence, to make the world of man a heavenly realm.”
The gravity of his tone proved enough to curb Victrix’s petulance, who scowled but nonetheless rode behind the equites in quiet solemnity after that. Their horses snorted to a halt under the triumphal arch leading into Palica’s forum. Sitting on stone thrones atop the main passageway, two faceless deities guarded the entrance to the vast square ahead. I recognized Loris’s sword and Tellus’s basket of seeds, but their features had been hammered off, along with the lightning bolts that Loris ought to have clutched in his left hand.
In this city whose heart no longer seemed to beat, it was the first visible sign that Palicans were in fact capable of anger—against their old gods. I started to notice, then, that not all the flowers were fresh; some were wilting, their brown-spotted petals skillfully tucked under sprightlier ones.
There was no more life in the forum than in the rest of the city, but it was well guarded. Whereas we’d trotted past a few small units of legionaries on our way to the arch, here it was an entire century standing guard on the checkered pavement all around the long square.
The old centurion who led our procession turned to Clearchos. “Dismount. No horses allowed in the forum,” he stated, getting off his steed in a slither of leather and metal.
His men stepped foot on the pavement as well and tied their horses to a limestone trough resting against the side of a building. Victrix and I exchanged a wary look but complied shortly after Clearchos and Irius did. Remembering Hastius’s hushed advice, I felt a chill of unease seeing our horses greedily lap at the trough’s crystalline water… The pavement was smooth under my boots, studded with flower petals and polished over the centuries by the steps of thousands of scholars, lawyers, and idiots flocking to witness a good trial.
But today it was just us.
“This way.” The centurion motioned to the square beyond the colossal arch.
Clearchos nodded, and immediately iron scales clinked as the equites moved to surround us, so close I could pick up the scent of sweat-soaked linen and the tallow they greased their loricas with. I made sure to let my hand dangle close to my scabbard, ready to draw. Our little escort treaded across the square under the watchful eye of the soldiers standing guard in front of every building, until the centurion stopped in front of an imposing stack of arches and columns—a basilica? That would be where the prefect ran the affairs of the city and judgments were made.
“Surrender your swords and daggers,” the centurion ordered.
Victrix raised a leery eyebrow, but when he saw Clearchos reach under his wolf cloak to unfasten his scabbard from his belt, he did the same, and I followed their example, feeling suddenly naked, vulnerable.
Once we’d been disarmed, the ancient wooden doors creaked open to let us in and a wave of hot air rushed out, heavy with the scent of herbs burning in finely sculpted braziers. Here, too, the silence was thick, enveloping, and the clatter of our footsteps on the sleek marble deafening. I marched alongside Victrix and Irius behind Clearchos, trying
to keep my chin up and not let it show that I felt dwarfed, daunted by the crushing beauty of the painted walls and coffered ceilings so high it seemed one wouldn’t reach them even with wings. Changing light spilled from the windows’ stained glass, mingled with that coming from enormous candelabra hanging from brass chains.
It was when the centurion led us under the main cupola that I understood at last that I would see no judge, no library in these walls. This place was no longer a basilica, but a temple. Looming over us, so tall his head was crowned by the dome’s golden mosaic, Aus looked down at us. Kindness itself etched in alabaster, his arms stretched out as if to welcome his worshippers.
Victrix and I looked up like children, enthralled. Clearchos’s hawkish eyes, however, were set on the altar standing at the very end of the nave, behind which a gaunt old man guided the hand of a blond child through the text of a scroll. If they noticed us, they gave no signs of it, murmuring together the words on the parchment.
The equites’ centurion removed his blue-crested helmet and tucked it under his arm as he walked to the altar without a word. He stopped a few strides away from the flowers, knelt, and placed his helmet in front of him. The rest of his men, too, uncovered their heads in the same fashion, went down to a knee, and all bent to kiss the floor like one man. Clearchos and Irius watched them with a shuttered expression, while Victrix cast me a sideways look and raised an eyebrow. I responded with an imperceptible shrug, to signify my agreement that, yes, pretty much everything and everyone in Palica was… strange.
Only after the centurion and his men were back on their feet did the old man look up from the scroll, his thin lips curving to acknowledge our presence. The child didn’t smile. In his dark eyes I read curiosity, battling no small amount of disgust. My unease turned to shock as I saw the golden band around his head. Two nacre discs in the center for the moons, framed by sigillaria leaves. How old could he be, around eight or nine? His gaze set on Clearchos, a pout pinching his little mouth.
“Will you and your men not kiss our sacred ground, hideous monster?” he quipped, the high pitch of his voice dripping contempt.
I was never one to bow or keep my head down, but there was little doubt we were standing in front of Bassianus the Overseer, and Nisephorus, son of Manicus and emperor of the West. I went to one knee lightning fast, as did Victrix and Irius, and I’d have gladly let the lips of my mask kiss the floor in mild panic had Clearchos not raised his hand to stop us.
The three of us froze like idiots, our noses hovering right above a brand-new mosaic of Aus taming a blue wolf. Above us, Clearchos laced his fingers and spoke to the young emperor, his eyes meeting the Overseer’s. “The ground is not yet sacred for us, my revered lord. But I wager it will be very soon.”
The boy’s cheeks colored crimson. “I’ll have you scourged and boiled, impudent!”
I saw Victrix’s fist tighten on the floor, and I, too, rose imperceptibly, ready to shield Clearchos if things went out of hand. Yet a soft pat from the Overseer’s hand on Nisephorus’s golden curls placated the child instantly. I let out a slow breath as the Overseer told the emperor, “There, there, my benevolent lord, let us not surrender our hearts to anger in this most sacred house of Aus.” He closed the roll and adjusted the heavy folds of his plain linen toga over a finely embroidered purple silk tunic. “You are rash, Clearchos, my friend, and blunt as a hammer. But you have fought bravely for our empire and I know our gracious lord can appreciate the value of a man who knows what he wants.” These last words were spoken with a genial smile to young Nisephorus, who nodded solemnly in response.
The boy gauged Clearchos with renewed interest, his arms crossed over a purple tunic and white toga that seemed an exact replica of the Overseer’s. “You have come before me, Clearchos, to be anointed by our Overseer, and become the Hand of Aus.”
My ears perked up. The old Spurius from the Thirteenth was called that too: Hand of Aus over the Southwestern provinces—a cluster of large islands shaped like the wings of a bird and which demarcated the Eurean and Lorian seas, south of Cispirina. Was it the same as a prefect then? Or maybe a provincial consul?
Meanwhile, the Overseer told Clearchos, “You want land, for you and your son.”
This last word cracked in the air like a whip. My head snapped up. Next to me, Victrix’s jaw quivered with his effort to keep still and silent. His eyes were wide, hopeful, and unblinking, perhaps expecting a rebuttal from Clearchos. But the latter made no attempt to correct the young emperor. A part of my heart silently reached out to Victrix. It had taken twenty years, but it was done. At last, he was no farm boy, no bastard, but the son of his father.
The little emperor considered the two of them with an arch look. “We shall see if your desire to serve Aus is sincere. Until then, be my guest, Clearchos. You are welcome to tread the heavenly ground of Palica and enjoy the pleasures of our hospitality.”
The Overseer nodded, his smile that of a master whose student had recited his lesson well. He flicked his wrist to the centurion and his men. “Have our litters brought at once.” Then to Victrix, Irius, and me, he said, “Rise, brave young men, and let me gaze upon Clearchos’s best.” He stepped closer to study Victrix, carrying in his wake a hint of perfume and something a little sour, like vinegar—maybe medicine. His balding skull and wrinkled skin were those of an old man, but there was something youthful and almost feminine about his long face and milky skin. He trailed graceful fingers along the bristles covering Victrix’s chin and told Clearchos, “The boy has your eyes.”
Clearchos’s scarred lip twitched with the barest hint of fatherly pride.
“And that would be your barbarian from the north,” the Overseer mused, eyeing Irius’s tattoos—I sensed distaste in the pursing of his pale lips.
“Is this one a monster as well? I shall like to see his face.” I went rigid and stared straight at Aus’s bare feet when the young emperor planted himself in front of me, his small fists on his hips.
The Overseer’s eyes crinkled, lending his smile a predatory edge. He motioned to the orichalcum greaves covering my shins. “He is the faceless boy whose legs are so fast his adversaries see nothing but a bolt of silver lightning before falling dead, the warrior who managed to wound Parthicus himself.”
Nisephorus frowned, the scowl wrinkling the dust of blond hair that were his eyebrows. “But he must have a name.” He glared up at me. “Take off your mask and tell us your name.”
A twitch of hesitation prickled from the tip of my fingers up my arm. Victrix, too, sensed the danger, and darted a questioning look at Clearchos’s impassive features. With spies in every corner of the empire, rumors of my being a eunuch must have reached the Overseer’s ears. But at almost seventeen, I looked less and less a boy with every day that passed, and there was no telling what the Overseer’s keen eyes would see if I revealed my face to him.
The child’s nostrils flared in impatience. “Do you mean to slight your emperor?”
My molars grinding together, I reached to unfasten the leather laces around my head… only to be stopped by the Overseer’s fingers as they pressed on the iron lips of my mask. I drew a discreet sigh of relief as his hand glided away and he turned to Nisephorus. “The crusamantes lose their light when we pick them, as heroes do when we make them into mere men. What does it matter to us who the boy under the mask is, when the legend is Silverlegs?”
Nisephorus relented with a resigned sigh, and I caught the victorious quirk of Victrix’s mouth from the corner of my eyes. Legend. No one had ever called me that. Was it what I would become, if I disappeared for good under my mask? I pictured Constanter the beardless boy dissipating like smoke under the scales of my armor and leaving behind an empty shell of steel: the invincible Silverlegs. I liked and feared the sound of it.
Behind us, the clatter of nailed boots announced a cortege of soldiers carrying a pair of tented litters on their shoulders. They lowered it so the young emperor and the Overseer could cli
mb in and prop themselves against heaps of gold-embroidered cushions.
The Overseer waved to Clearchos. “Come with us, my friend. Let us discuss your future over a pleasant meal and a cup of warm wine.”
We followed their wavering litters out of the temple and into the forum. The drizzle had stopped, and high above, lazy clouds stretched in graceful arcs across the azure. Drenched in sunlight and dressed in lush garlands of flowers, Palica had never seemed so resplendent. Our horses were still alive, after all—and well refreshed. They swished flies with their tails and nuzzled the flower petals covering the pavement to pass time while a richly adorned carriage awaited the Overseer and the emperor at the center of the square.
An equipage of our white horses drew the emperor’s carriage under the triumphal arch, boxed in by an escort of some twenty equites. Clearchos motioned for us to follow, the rest of the soldiers closing the march behind us. As we trotted up the broad avenue leading up to the prefectural palace along newly greening sigillarias, Irius brought his mount close to Victrix’s. To others, it might have been a trick of the late-afternoon light, but I saw a smile peek through the brown braids of his beard.
Clearchos’s son and heir leaned back in his saddle and gazed up at the faint outline of the moons in the sky. “Looks like spring is coming.”
I could recall only one time when I had seen him so merry and unburdened… The bittersweet memory of Victrix’s first attempt to kiss me after tattooing my arm welled up in my chest, warm. When he looked away from the clouds and our eyes met, his were the same clear gray as that night in Nyos.
36
“You might call it a country retreat from the agitation of Cispirina. I believe it is what calls to me in Palica: its simplicity.”
The Overseer’s casual statement was met with awkward silence. Perhaps because we’d stopped counting the painted columns and porticos since entering the ground of the prefectural palace, or maybe it was the fact that an actual piricaria stood under the cupola of the dining room, whose wide trunk was contained in a sculpted urn the height of a man. Even the servants in their sleeveless silk tunics looked like kings and queens—had I not seen them busy arranging horns of fruits and fuming dishes on a long oval table, I’d have thought they were guests too, what with all the gold and colorful pearls tinkling around their wrists and shimmering in their hair.
