When Placidia didn’t respond, Gigi added, “Please believe us. We would never lie to you.”
“So you say.” Placidia shook her head in frustration. “You did save the children, for which I am indebted. But … if I am to become regent, will I ever see them again?” Her voice caught. “And my Marga? Dare I hope … ?”
Gigi shrugged. “We don’t know, Placidia. We have no idea what will happen to them, because … it hasn’t happened yet, and there’s nothing recorded except that they all died just as we said.”
“Oh, God!” Placidia leaned against Gigi and wept. Magnus embraced them both, and they let the queen mourn.
After a few moments, Placidia wiped her eyes. “It seems I have a role to play, and I do not wish to delay the inevitable. I want to return to Barcino, to meet my fate.” She paused and looked out at the distant sea. “You told me once you know how to sail. Perhaps that is the best plan to get the children out of harm’s way. Escape with them. Take them somewhere far away, across the very ocean if you must, and I will cherish the thought of them growing strong and wise and safe in a land of beauty and peace and sun. This knowledge will keep me strong in the years ahead.” Her voice faltered again, and she buried her face on Magnus’s shoulder and wept.
Gigi looked into his eyes. He looked as devastated as she felt.
He wrapped his arms around both women and whispered, “We love you, Placidia. And we will love your children as our own. In fact, we already do.”
• • •
Late that afternoon, they were ready to begin their descent toward Barcino. They would travel most of the night under cover of darkness, then rest and finish the trek in the morning. Placidia did not want to enter the city in the dark, without the people of Barcino as witness to her arrival.
Knowing they could not return to the city without risking capture, Magnus and Gigi would hang back, keep watch, and eventually make their way to the cove and the planned rendezvous with Lucius.
“I still do not know what to think,” Placidia said, as they stood by their horses. “But my heart tells me you are sincere. I have seen some of the items you carry, and witnessed what they can do. They are marvelous and terrible beyond my ken, and it makes sense they come from the future. Based on this, and the love I know you have for me, for my family, I have chosen to step forth in faith.” She kissed Gigi’s cheek, her voice thick with emotion. “I have cherished our time together and love you as a sister.”
“I love you, too,” Gigi said tearfully. “I wish we could make this easier for you.”
They embraced a moment more, and then Placidia turned to Magnus. “My protector, my true brother, please know that I will forever honor your name and your memory. You have been my closest friend, my greatest advocate, and I love you dearly.”
Eyes brimming, Magnus swallowed hard and could only nod in response.
Placidia touched the flute strap on Gigi’s shoulder. “Play your flute for the children. Play for yourself and for Magnus. And, once in a while, play for Athaulf and me. Write a song about the love we shared. Something beautiful. I’m sure I will hear it in my heart, and it will bring comfort to me.”
At a loss for words, Gigi nodded.
There was a last round of hugs, and then Magnus and Gigi watched as Placidia, Leontius, and Elpidia mounted their horses. Wallia saluted Magnus, then turned his mount and led the group down the hillside.
Gigi and Magnus followed the others at a careful distance. The day passed uneventfully, and if not for their grief and the sense of foreboding, Gigi would have enjoyed the mountain trek. Late that night they were within several miles of Barcino when Placidia’s group made camp.
Speaking very little, and then only in hushed voices, Gigi helped Magnus pitch their own meager camp and they hunkered down. The night air was oppressive, her thoughts dark, and she knew sleep would be elusive.
A great clamor sent Gigi and Magnus out of their bedrolls in an instant. Gigi had her gun drawn, Magnus, his sword. Light was just brightening the sky, and the horses were agitated, but not alarmed. Gigi looked at Magnus. The racket was not close by, but it had all the hallmarks of an ambush. Placidia’s camp was being attacked!
“Should we help?” she asked.
Magnus shook his head. “No, I believe history has taken hold, and Placidia’s fate is out of our hands.”
“So we just leave?”
“How long was the forced prisoner march?” Magnus asked.
The questions shook Gigi. Implacable history would have its way, and she shuddered at its power. “I think it was about ten or so miles, but I don’t know what that is in Roman mille.”
Nodding, Magnus turned to her. “I think we are about ten miles from the outskirts of the city.”
Gigi leaned against Magnus and holstered her gun. “I hate this.”
“She will be fine. You know this will bring the people out against Sergeric, and that is good.”
Gigi nodded. “Would it be safe to follow and watch?”
“Perhaps. In any case, it would greatly ease my heart.”
When they were packed and mounted, Gigi and Magnus were able to get close enough to the others to see what was going on.
Placidia’s party was surrounded by several dozen troops wearing new colors, Sergeric’s colors. Sure enough, Sergeric was at their head, taunting the queen, Wallia, and his men. Their horses had been confiscated, and everyone was bound at the wrists and forced to march on foot.
It was hot and dusty, and Sergeric hurled insults at every opportunity. As the group drew closer to Barcino, local people lined the roadway, silent and sullen.
Gigi saw a little boy recklessly dash out and press a flower into Placidia’s hand, before he was shoved to the side by a soldier. Many of the people prayed, some wept, and as Placidia’s group got closer to the city, townspeople began to pelt Sergeric and his soldiers with whatever they had at hand.
As Gigi watched with tears in her eyes, Magnus touched her arm. “We have risked too much already,” he said. “It’s time to follow our own path and let her go.”
With a ragged sigh, Gigi agreed. They mounted their horses and skirted Barcino in silence, heading toward the cove.
It had grown dark, a deep, moonless night, and they couldn’t see if the ship was there. Hoping they weren’t too late, Magnus lit a pair of torches and waved them back and forth.
Before long, they heard the soft lapping of oars in the water. Lucius was rowing toward them. They unsaddled their horses, set them free, and climbed into the boat.
“Welcome aboard,” Lucius whispered. “The freedom ship and her crew await.”
• • •
The door shut and Placidia stood mute in her bedchamber. How dare he! How dare Sergeric come here and tell her she would not be allowed to attend her husband’s funeral mass!
Shaking with rage, she turned to Elpidia.
“We shall honor the king before the Lord, right here,” Elpidia firmly stated. “Our prayers will be heard. By God, Sergeric’s will not, for his words will fly straight to hell.”
Grief supplanted rage and Placidia thought back to her last moments with Athaulf. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she realized there was one thing yet to do, one more thing before they prayed.
She went to her sewing kit and withdrew her shears. “Help me, Elpidia. It is time I honor my husband as a true Visigoth queen.”
Her old nurse nodded, took the shears in hand, and began to work.
• • •
King Sergeric left the cathedral and stepped into the bright sunlight with Bishop Sigesar at his side. The High Holy Mass had been packed with the bereaved, mourning the loss of King Athaulf and his children. Outside, the streets were just as congested, the people silent in their sorrow.
He squinted, shading his eyes as he looked about, congra
tulating himself on thinking to keep Placidia at the castellum under heavy security. Neither the Visigoths nor the people of Barcino had much liked it when he’d forcibly brought her back to town, along with her protector, Wallia, and his men, all bound at the wrists and trudging behind their horses. He’d later gotten word she had shorn her hair, as if she were a Visigoth! Had she been seen in church after that, she would have elicited even more sympathy, perhaps to the point of causing a riot.
But that had not happened, for she was locked up. Sergeric was confident he had made the right moves in that and all other matters before him. He’d even put forth a huge sum of his own coin as a bounty for Athaulf’s assassin.
Assassin. Where the hell had Eberwolf gone off to, anyway? Seven days and he’d still not resurfaced. Neither had any trace of the children he’d murdered. This ongoing mystery was giving Sergeric sleepless nights. He wanted to be done with it, knowing many in Barcino were convinced Eberwolf had acted on Sergeric’s command, despite his insistence the mimi had been Honorius’s plant.
As his personal guard surrounded him, Sergeric bowed to the bishop, thanked him, and then moved down the steps. The crowd parted before him, still silent, although their eyes spoke of anger and hatred.
Refusing to show any hint of the nervousness he felt, Sergeric held his head high and kept his gaze forward as he made his way toward the castellum.
Once he’d turned a corner and the cathedral was out of sight, a creeping sense of dread pricked at the base of his neck. He shrugged it off, but the sensation only grew.
The utter silence, the pulse of anger pouring off the people who filled every street along his route, was palpable and disturbing.
It’s the heat, he told himself. It’s just the heat.
Pearls of sweat formed across his upper lip and he licked at them, hoping the oppression might be eased at last by a thinning of the crowd, or maybe a breeze from the sea.
The next street. The next street will be better.
Turning the corner, the road was blessedly empty of people and ablaze with sunlight and color. Sergeric sighed with relief. He was nearly to the castle.
Suddenly, the sense of dread he’d felt earlier became overwhelming. He could no longer fight the urge to turn, and spun around to face the threat, whatever it was.
Eyes wide, Sergeric realized too late that his guard was gone, evaporated into the crowd who swarmed to cut off any further advance. A glance told him Visigoths made up the angry mob, his kin, his people, bent on revenge.
They pressed in on him, silent, eyes glinting with fury. He knew. They knew. Words were not necessary. He would die for the crimes they were sure he’d committed. Crimes he would have committed, given the chance. He tried to back away, but felt hands shove him forward, into those he faced.
“No!” he screamed as they pressed in on him.
“No!” he screamed again, as pain seared his body, as hands gripped, pounded, tore at his flesh.
“No!” King Sergeric screamed a final time, his voice carried off by a breeze.
He lost his footing and fell.
A final glimpse of the sun, before his eyes were gouged from his head, but darkness did not end his pain, blazing white-hot until he was torn apart, until death finally ended his agony.
Chapter 19
September, A.D. 415, Ravenna, Italy
It was the fifth day of September, the day of the blood moon, the second one to occur since she had arrived in Ravenna, the third in less than a year.
By royal command, Dipsas had been given leave to be alone again in Venus’s garden. She held the crimson legatus cloak and childhood bulla that had belonged to Quintus Pontius Flavus Magnus, objects that until now had languished under lock and key in one of the emperor’s private warehouses.
She thought back to her previous sojourn in Venus’s garden, when she found the niche behind the statue. At that time, she had not been able to envision Magnus, having touched nothing he had cherished.
Such fools! Why hadn’t anyone in the palace thought of requisitioning his things from the warehouse before this? Was she supposed to divine their existence?
She shook her head, determined, at long last, to find out more about him. She needed this knowledge, for in this, she would have the very thing no one else could provide Honorius: information on where he and his flute-playing wife could be found.
The answer awaits, for the blood moon is coming. It is coming.
She held the cloak to her nose, inhaled, and waited. A faint hint of sacred myrrh tweaked her senses, and she pictured a tall man with dark hair, but nothing more.
She waited. Still nothing. She glanced at Venus, and the statue stared back, mute and unseeing. Had the goddess fled?
Her guts knotted. Had she lost her powers?
Anxious, she pressed the bulla to her thundering heart. “Speak to me! Goddess of Old, I beseech you! Before the blood moon rises, you must reveal the truth! Please, Great One, where are Quintus Pontius Flavus Magnus and Gigiperrin hiding? I would ask for their destruction, for they wronged my nearest kin, my only, my dearest sister!”
She felt sudden warmth emanating from the golden bulla. It was deep, penetrating, and gentle. The goddess had taken note of her pleas. She was here.
“O Venerable One,” she repeated, rocking back and forth, “where is Quintus Pontius Flavus Magnus?”
Dipsas closed her eyes. The warmth spread over her body, as if she stood before a glowing campfire. She did not open her eyes; she did not dare. Long moments passed. She felt the glow engulf her until the heat flared into a fire raging through her veins, until she fell, screaming in pain, as if she were being burned alive. She thrashed and rolled toward the water of Venus’s pool to immerse herself, to save herself, and then the heat was gone.
You must not curse them.
The words came softly, as if they had been spoken from somewhere inside her skull, just behind her right ear. Dipsas clawed the earth and shivered, stock-still and suddenly cold as ice.
You must not curse them.
Why not? her mind cried out.
They shelter your blood kin, the fey-child, the one called Margareta.
Stunned, Dipsas opened her eyes and stared out. A vision rose above the water, that of a beautiful girl with white blond hair and eyes that sparkled bright blue. Deeply thankful the goddess had stayed her hand against the curse, Dipsas struggled to roll over and caught a glimpse of the Seven Sisters twinkling above, blue as Margareta’s eyes.
Randegund’s granddaughter! Dipsas knew this child would surpass all of them. She would be great one day, and must be protected.
Dipsas threw off the shackles of age and terror, and scrambled to her feet. She twisted her body with all her might, until she could raise her arms to the sky in blessing.
The moon was rising, blood red and bewitching. “Margareta!” she called out. “Hear me, precious one. You shall be safe! The goddess has spoken.”
She closed her eyes and was blessed with a final vision; that of the beautiful fey-child standing on a distant shore, living far to the west, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, beyond Honorius’s reach.
“Margareta, beautiful pearl,” Dipsas said the name gently, like a prayer. And she resolved to help her grandniece in any way possible, to curse those who would seek her ruin, and protect those who now provided her shelter.
Chapter 20
Livid, Honorius headed to the realm of the magicians, deep within his palace. His lightning bolt weapon had ceased to function and he needed to hold someone accountable.
Leaving his entourage in the corridor, he stormed into the room, held up the weapon and screamed to the magicians and their apprentices, “Have any of you idiots discovered how to restore its godly power?”
Surprised and terrified, the men gasped and cried out, and Honorius had his answe
r.
“You craven scum!” Honorius felt a thunderous rage as they cowered before him. He stormed toward the table holding Magnus and Gigiperrin’s things. Throwing the useless lightning bolt weapon to the floor, he stomped on it, and then overturned the table, sending everything crashing down.
He pointed to his magicians, about to pronounce death sentences upon them all.
“Forgive the intrusion, Serenissimus, but I have urgent news.”
Livid, he turned. His Master of Offices, Rutilius Namatianus, stood in the doorway.
Honorius’s blood still roiled. He clenched his jaw and spat out, “What?”
Namatianus bowed. “O most worthy emperor, I have momentous and glad tidings. The Visigoth king, Athaulf, is dead, murdered in his bath last month in Barcino. As you requested, General Constantius has sent the man’s pickled remains. The courier awaits you in the throne room.”
Honorius gaped in astonishment. “And … my sister? Did she survive?”
“Indeed, my lord, she is alive and well, but I heard all of the royal children were killed.”
Honorius clapped his hands, laughing with delight. Athaulf dead! His brats gone! Placidia unharmed, and soon to be returned and once more living under his sway. These were indeed momentous and glad tidings.
He turned back to the magicians. “Thank the stars for the Visigoth king’s murder, because his death just gave you back your lives.”
Then he left, eager to see what had been pickled. Chuckling, he sauntered toward the hall.
• • •
Honorius sat on his balcony as his slaves put the finishing touches on his hair, hands and feet.
Smiling, he gazed at the sea, pondering all that had happened in the past few hours. In addition to Athaulf’s remains, the pickled body of Titus Africanus had also been delivered to the palace, and now a famed embalmer worked on it. Honorius wanted only the best for his favorite and most noble legatus, and the embalmer was a genius, having studied with the few remaining Egyptian priests practicing the ancient art of preserving bodies. Africanus’s corpse would not be mummified, of course, but still, he would look glorious as he lay in state. Honorius planned to celebrate the man’s honorable death with thirty days of games, circuses, and banquets, a fitting tribute for his loyal service.
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