“Consider, too,” Julianus went on, “that these natives would only steal the weapon of an enemy they revered.”
This brought an approving calm to Domitian’s eyes. Julianus was again conscious of what precise, delicate tools words were, how they could be used to provoke the exact state of mind he wanted in the Emperor.
“I would say, if we deal gently with them from this day forward, they may release the hostages unharmed,” Julianus continued. “And clemency will cause their warriors to be more likely to desert to us.”
“I thought they burned captives alive as a matter of course.”
“I fear you’ve been consulting sources woefully out of date. We know far more about their customs and ways than in the days of Caesar’s Commentaries. I suggest you delve into my father’s works on the tribes—”
“Don’t test me. Your father’s banned works on the tribes.”
Julianus suppressed an amused smile, “—in which he explains this tribe is in the habit of spearing their prisoners in the side and hanging them from trees, for so died their one-eyed god, Wodan. But my guess is our noble captives are still alive. Surely the Chattians know bargaining with us is their only hope.”
“Perhaps I accept that and perhaps I do not,” Domitian responded as he leaned back, affecting a look of cultured boredom. Then without warning those jaded eyes sparked with playful malice.
“I’ve observed a woeful tendency on your part of late to neglect your personal grooming. Rectify that.”
“Only if the ban on the baths is lifted for everyone.”
“Let them soak in there like frogs and croak for all I care. Have you had enough pleasure at my expense for one day? Now go from me!”
On the next day at the tenth hour Julianus awaited Gallus in one of the warm rooms of the fortress’s baths, judging that a meeting in a public place would rouse fewest suspicions. He knew those he approached afterward would come with him all the more easily with Gallus in his camp. Licinius Gallus was a man who combined few strong political opinions with a pure, naïve loyalty to the Senate, a man who had the gift of rousing no one’s ire as he made his way in the world. Even Domitian’s suspicious nature was never pricked by him. The man somehow made conspiracy seem tame and proper, almost tasteful.
Gallus found Julianus in the steamy sky-lit haze of the vaulted chamber, seated on the marble bench with a drying cloth carelessly draped over one shoulder, regarding him with calm directness. Gallus crossed the hollow steam-heated black-and-white mosaic floor and sat close but not that close, so that their presence together would appear accidental. Then he eased his eyes closed, as though resting.
From the adjacent tepid room came the hollow echoes of many conversations rebounding off stone and the splashing of bathers so amplified by the vaults a whale might have slapped its tail on the water.
“That was well done,” Gallus said in a fervent whisper, smiling to conceal his own nameless fears. “I don’t know what you said or did, but it worked a miracle. He’s stayed the order for the execution of the centurions—I heard it an hour ago.”
“It was but half my doing, half the grace of Fortuna. You’re a fool to come here, you know,” Julianus said, smiling easily. “This could well have been entrapment.”
Gallus tautened in terror. “But…were it anyone else but you…you’re not saying—”
“Calm yourself. What I plan requires fools—no one too drearily sane would come along with me on this course I mean to propose to you now.”
“Well, I’ve not your recklessness—or boldness. Curses, you’re distressing me—this is about that list, is it not? It seems there’s nothing we can do but keep our wills up to date.”
“Not so. There’s no need to go trussed and bound to our deaths. You see, I too have a list. And his name is first and last on it.”
There was a moment of taut silence.
“Are you saying what you seem to be saying?”
“I fear I am.”
“Madness!”
“No. Madness would be to do nothing.”
Gallus looked at him. Steam veiled and unveiled their faces. Gallus was trembling. He had a guileless face rounded by well-fed middle years; his earnest hazel eyes protruded slightly with fright. A bold bead of perspiration traveled from his mat of curling black hair, down his short, thick neck, on down the twin hillocks of his chest and belly. His breathing roughened.
“Have you found some design in all this monstrousness?” Gallus said finally. “Or perhaps he needs none?”
“All the victims were recipients of Titus’ greater acts of generosity,” Julianus replied evenly. Gallus wondered how he remained so composed. “Tertullus, for example, would have been forced from the Senate rolls from poverty through no fault of his own, had not Titus restored to him his fortune. Serenus had hordes of relations from Oplontis and Pompeii who were stripped of all but the clothes on their backs after Vesuvius erupted with fire, and Titus gifted them generously from his own purse and saw them all given farmland.”
“I am a dead man! Who does not know I sacrifice to Titus on his birthday? One of the illegible names was probably mine.”
“Do not weave demons from the dark. We must consider no one safe. The whip we hold over Domitian is his great fear of what historians will one day write of him. He’s obsessed with the damnatio memoriae—the Senate’s power to damn his memory after his death—so if Jove is with us, his need to murder in secret will slow him down enough to allow us time to do what we must.”
Gallus felt the pricking point of a blade at his chest, so clearly did he hear the word assassination dangling unspoken in the air between them.
From somewhere near, a low whistle sounded. “We are out of time,” Julianus said, gracefully arising. Gallus guessed someone loyal to Veiento approached.
“Do you want a token of faith?” Gallus whispered more softly.
“Your word is enough. I want now only to know who is with me.”
“If I am not with you, who am I with? Him? Of course I am with you.”
In the next days, as Marcus Julianus went about his assigned duties, researching precedents for the laws the Emperor meant to propose, Auriane’s face rose before him with gentle insistence, a bold sylph brooding over his study, drifting into his dreams.
She is Arachne, weaving, binding, holding my spirit still.
He tried unsuccessfully to control the vision but all that held beauty called her up: the fire of gold, the spirit of a horse, the jeweled surface of the river, the mischievous smile of a camp follower’s girl. The vision of her was antic and perverse, flitting off when he looked at it directly, then flashing close, becoming humanly present when he turned his mind away.
This is the most awkward of times to become a lovesick youth. I am too old and burdened with duty for this. Are there any I dare tell of it who would not think me mad?
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CHATTIAN HOST TOOK SHELTER IN a marsh, remaining for a month to bind their wounds. Their victory celebration was muted somewhat because of the dwindling supply of mead. They gathered up the Roman spoil stripped from the dead—bronze helmets with iron skull-plates and horsehair crests, richly worked scabbards and gilded belt-plates inlaid with black niello, embossed cuirasses, heavy military cloaks—and gave them to the marshy lake as an offering to Wodan while Geisar prayed and Sigreda wailed a hymn of praise.
Auriane took no part in the celebration, though all credited the victory to her keen sight; she watched the celebrants from the hide tent that once was Baldemar’s while nursing an arrow wound to the neck and shivering from a light fever.
We have pulled a few hairs from a huge unfeeling creature, and still it comes, terrifying in its calm persistence.
She tried to sleep through the night’s drunken revelry, but could not, for she heard the whispers of the dead and was certain that Avenahar lay somewhere terrified and ill.
Avenahar, I might not see you by summer’s end as I promised. Will you forgive me if I’m k
ept away until spring, or possibly next summer?
Decius, I miss you like I miss a warm cloak, a fast gallop at dawn over hard terrain, an extra fur on the bed at night. There is love there, painful love. But the moorings were cut and I’ve drifted too far away. Ever widening black waters separate us now. Distance shows clearly the outline of the shore on which we lived. Perhaps ours was not a love of a great and eternal order, like Athelinda’s for Baldemar. That makes me desolate. But why should I even think of this? I am dedicated to the gods.
But I do think of it. What a coarse jest of the Fates my life has become. I want to fight where there is chance of victory. Hylda said I would lead my people to freedom—why have I not yet? I want to build a hall in some vale where peace is dependable as summer. I want my babe to have my own milk.
Auriane often watched the three tribunes they had taken hostage. These were the first Romans of high rank she had seen. They were kept in a wicker cage drawn in a cart, awaiting the next Assembly, which would decide their fate. She noted that Roman arrogance increased greatly with rank—these men made Decius appear humble. They sat still as wooden effigies in their wicker cage, staring out with the fierce, blank look of eagles, their whole manner saying: Gawk at us, you cattle and sheep. We are the shepherds of your shepherds, the masters of your masters. They would not touch the food that was brought to them, and when Auriane attempted to communicate with them through an interpreter—she knew better than to even attempt using the camp Latin she learned from Decius—they faintly turned their heads, their features contracted in mild disgust as if her speech fouled the air. She learned what they normally ate and sent them foods not too dissimilar from their own—flat cakes of einkorn wheat, salted pork and apples, rough Gallic wine. This was as much because she felt it beneath her to harm anyone placed at her mercy as because of her certainty they were the greatest prize of the war. But still they refused to eat and daily they weakened.
At the Assembly hers was the only voice raised for their preservation.
“Sacrifices enough have been given,” she protested. “I say they should be treated well, so when the war is done they can be bartered for the return of our people taken captive.” But Geisar and Sigreda thought they would make a regal offering that might well bring victory. Auriane’s will prevailed but barely.
When the hostages learned she caused them to be spared, two began to pick at the food she brought. But the most important of them, the one interpreters said was called Novius Clarus, still did not. She guessed his was a cold, calculated embrace of death, by which he meant to triumph over his captors.
The warriors often prodded them with the butts of their spears and pelted them with the intestines of sacrificed sheep and pigs. One day she angrily scattered their tormentors and placed a guard by them made up of five of her own Companions, letting it be known to all that the captives were under her protection. The younger tribunes looked at her with barely disguised appreciation; Novius Clarus’ steely contempt did not soften. By the next full moon he was dead, and the pitiful skeletal body was dragged out to be burned. Auriane alone thought it a sort of tragedy.
It was in these times that Sigreda was driven off forever, barely escaping with her life. It happened that a severe ague broke out in the camp, causing violent shivering, chills and swift death. First Thrusnelda was called on to build a need-fire. She carried out the task with rigorous attention to the laws of ritual, using nine varieties of wood for tinder and kindling it with the friction of two sun wheels. When the fire burned hotly, the sick were passed quickly through the healing heat. But in spite of this, over two thousand perished. And so Auriane went round from tent to tent and laid the sword of Baldemar on the sick. When five of these died immediately following her ministrations, Auriane’s suspicions were roused, and she called Thrusnelda’s medicine women to look at the bodies. They pronounced that the victims had been poisoned. Thrusnelda then forced her way into Sigreda’s tent and found great quantities of yew juice and monkshood stolen from the herb-stores. She declared before all the people that Sigreda was a poisoner; the young priestess’s actions, Thrusnelda maintained, were a desperate attempt to destroy the people’s belief in Auriane’s holiness.
A savage cry was raised against Sigreda. Even Geisar dared say no word in defense of his chosen successor. In the end Geisar was forced to break the staff and condemn her himself, although it was obvious he did not wish to. He and Sigreda shared one mind, Auriane often observed, just as she and Baldemar had, only this mind schemed to harness others to its will.
The people set upon Sigreda and would have bludgeoned her to death, but Geisar took her into his own tent, promising them justice on the next day. Then he set a light guard about her, and at midnight she escaped. The following day Geisar too quit the camp, outraged that the people reverenced him so little that they forced him to condemn his successor. And so old Geisar abandoned the host—he who for three generations had propitiated Wodan and determined his will. To compensate for the loss of the favor of Wodan—the people feared the god might punish them for their harsh treatment of his first priestess and priest—Auriane arranged for the sacrifice of a white cat and a white sow to Fria, imploring the great, burning Sun Mother to serve as protectress of the host.
Before the time of the next quarter-moon, the tale went round that Sigreda had sought refuge at Mogontiacum and revealed to the Romans the location of Five Wells, their fort of final refuge. Some thought this unthinkable, but Auriane believed Sigreda capable of it for there was a darkness in Sigreda whose boundaries were unplumbable as bog-lakes at night. Privately Auriane uttered prayers of thanksgiving that Sigreda and Geisar, her longtime enemies, were put to flight. But she found she sometimes half missed them; troubling as they were, they yet were part of the hearth and bedding of the old life, and their passing seemed one more sign of the coming of the shrieking winds of chaos.
When one moon had passed since the attack upon the Eighth Augusta, the main body of the Chattian army abandoned the three hill forts they had occupied since the war’s beginning and began to march northeast, for scouts of the legionary cavalry were steadily encroaching on the native strongholds, and Auriane feared they would be besieged. As the army retreated along the Taunus ridge, often they came upon multitudes of black kites with their squealing cries, gliding above heaps of rotting dead—most were refugees from villages, caught and slain by outriding cavalry.
The army took refuge in a more northeasterly fort on the Taunus crest. Auriane began to grow anxious that there was no news of Sigwulf, and prayed the cause was only that his runners could not find them. In these times no one remembered their one small victory. They strove constantly to arrange a second ambush, but conditions were never again right. The legions camped always on high, open ground that favored their methods of fighting, staying well away from thick forests and treacherous marshes that allowed her people the opportunity to steal close under shelter. And the number of native auxiliaries and cavalry that covered the legions’ advance was greatly multiplied. Auriane knew with fatal certainty that the legions now owned the Taunus, though she would never say it before others.
The provisions wagons traveled on ahead of them, making torturous progress toward Five Wells, where the supply-women would winter along with the tribespeople who could not fight. The way was treacherous, the trails no more than deer paths; she feared the provisions carts would be caught in the snows. The wagons moved forward only by night; by day, Romilda ordered them disguised with brushwood. Though every day put more distance between the wagons and the legions, Auriane worried over them continuously. She knew Roman ways too well: They will do what is efficient, no matter how dishonorable, and if they destroy the provisions wagons the war will be over.
At the new moon the messenger from Sigwulf came at last. She knew at once Sigwulf lived and was victorious—the youth shouted it out to the whole of the camp as he galloped his dun pony beneath the hill fort’s timber gate.
The freckled youth grinned as h
e gave his report to the leading warriors, flushed with importance at being called to deliver messages to such a legendary personage as the daughter of Baldemar and the illustrious elders of Baldemar’s old retinue, Witgern and Thorgild.
“Odberht’s brigands overran the Village of the Boar,” the messenger related. “They lapped up the wine like thirsty hounds and staggered into the forest to sleep. Sigwulf’s men fell on them and slaughtered them to a man. Sigwulf is camped now on the grasslands to the north and will rejoin you before next the moon is full.”
This was met with muted murmurs of approval, for everyone’s capacity for rejoicing seemed to have worn thin. Auriane regarded the youth critically. “And what was the name of the warrior who slew Odberht?”
There came into the messenger’s eyes the hesitation of an animal that does not know which way to dart. He decided it was better not to disappoint this audience.
“Sigwulf himself…I think.” Then he thought better of this. “Well, in truth,” he admitted, speaking forcefully to cover his uncertainty, “I was not told. That is all I was given on the matter, like it or not.”
“Who viewed the corpse?” Auriane persisted.
“Everyone. I do not know all their names! He must have seen slain, or I would not have been given that message,” he said with growing unease.
Auriane met Witgern’s gaze. “Something is wrong in this.”
“I agree,” Witgern replied. “Whoever carried out this deed is the most celebrated warrior of our age. Everyone would know his name—he would make certain of it.”
The boy looked perplexed and hurt, as if he had offered them a gift that had been pushed back at him.
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