To his relief Julianus saw a jolt of frustration followed by angry resignation in Domitian’s eyes. The silence that followed seemed full of Auriane’s soundless laughter.
At last Domitian said with disgust, “I never despise you more than when you make sense, curses on you.” His temples felt they were being prodded with knives. “My head! Loathsome woman. Ungrateful city. Piggish populace.” He turned round to Auriane, regarding her with a malignant smile, running his gaze appraisingly up and down her frame as if noticing its sturdiness for the first time.
“I have it then—the right punishment for her, in keeping with her unnatural viciousness and her love of war. And it will be carried out after the procession, so we’ll lose no captives.”
She is done! Julianus thought. What more can I do? I have come to an impassable wall.
Domitian looked steadily into Auriane’s eyes as he spoke. “Tell me, Marcus, good friend, did you attend any part of the September Games?”
“The races, once,” he answered quietly. Julianus tensed; already he felt horror’s first prickling touch.
“A pity you are incapable of appreciating the arena. When we lose sight of the elemental struggle of life against death, we become useless as aging eunuchs. The point of a blade—that is the fulcrum of life. I am sorry you missed my re-creation of the siege of Troy. It was months in preparation…I had two architect-engineers build me a wonderful model of the walls of Troy, with trapdoors, a higher tower than anyone’s ever seen, and collapsing walls. We even made small siege engines. Four hundred died that afternoon—and all fought like heroes. It was most inspiring.” He turned to Marcus Julianus, smiling with pride, his headache vanished as he delighted in the memory.
“And you know what else we had, my dear Julianus? Women. Twenty-nine of them.” He ran a finger slowly down the line of Auriane’s throat as he whispered this. To Julianus there was something horrible in the gesture, as if he imagined slitting it open.
“They were garbed as the Amazons who attacked the Greeks at Troy. Aristos himself was Achilles—can you imagine! He’s an ignorant beast who knows no more of history than a baboon, but someone must have filled his head with tales because he slew the Amazon Queen Penthesilea and ravaged her corpse and gouged out her eyes, just like the real Achilles of history. Clever, no? And all his own idea. The applause he got!
“But Troy—that was my creation. I tell you, Marcus, there was not a spectator, plebeian or noble, but who loved it. And the women…. It is so amusing, watching women fight. There’s such a wild, bestial desperation to it, such low cunning. Women have a savage survival instinct hitherto under appreciated.”
He shrugged and turned back to Julianus. “Unfortunately, none of those women survived. So I’ve got to train a new batch.”
“You cannot mean this.” Now Julianus made no effort to disguise the horror in his voice. He had not felt such impotent rage, such loathing of all life since the urine-soaked Lucius Grannus seized him to drag him to his death. With all I have gained since those barren days—wealth beyond any procurator’s ability to calculate, influence that is the envy of all, the companionship of philosophers, a school and library that together form a fortress of knowledge—still I can do nothing for her.
“My sweet viper,” Domitian continued, looking severely at Auriane, “I condemn you to the arena. And since you show such precocity in fighting men, you shall be matched against men. You will fight for your life until all the fight is worn out of you.” Terror flickered in Auriane’s eyes, though she did not perfectly understand all this. Domitian finished in a whisper, “I’ll see to it you envy the dead!”
If you live that long, monster, Julianus thought. You’ll want her trained first to make it more amusing. It leaves me ample time to prepare your death.
To Julianus’ dismay, Domitian swung round, content now and smiling expansively, and put a huge, paternal hand on his shoulder. “My great and good friend! You saved my life. I shall not forget this, not ever.”
“One ostrich, well aimed. Really, it was nothing.”
“Ah!” Domitian clutched his temples dramatically and lowered himself onto a stone bench. “Knives. Knives in my head.” Domitian appeared almost physically smaller now, not imperial at all; he might have been any weary, disgruntled shopkeeper.
“Sit, my lord,” Julianus said. “I will summon the litter so you will not have to walk back to your chambers. I’ll relay to the Guard that you want the woman taken at once back to the camp. And I’ll order your audiences canceled tomorrow.”
“Excellent. I scarcely know what I would do without you. Ah, for the life of a simple artisan!”
Within the temple was a bellpull with which Julianus summoned litter bearers; in moments a litter borne by eight Bithynian bearers in Domitian’s white livery loomed into sight on the torchlit pathway. The litter descended; Domitian climbed in. Swiftly and silently they bore the Emperor off.
Julianus then sought Plautius at his post along the portico. Plautius had lately been brought into the conspiracy, the first man of the Praetorians with whom Julianus had succeeded. It was Plautius who had alerted him, almost too late, that Auriane was to be brought here tonight—a service for which Julianus meant to reward him with a hundred silver denarii.
“Is it not too soon?” Plautius whispered to him. Beneath his gold helmet all Julianus could see of him was a formidable jaw line and eyes that were small, glowing fire-pits. Plautius was still roused by Domitian’s affronts to his dignity.
“That was her attempt, not mine,” Julianus explained quickly. “She’s to be taken back. Have that carriage brought round slowly—I mean to look about here for a moment.”
Plautius nodded knowingly, not questioning, assuming Julianus meant to investigate the layout of temple and grounds as a possible site for the deed when the fateful time came.
“Clever, discouraging him from destroying the woman,” Plautius whispered. “That shredded the last scrap of my men’s respect for him—you’ve ripened the fruit for plucking.”
“Don’t try my famous modesty by overburdening it with praise. Go. And slowly!”
Plautius gave him a grim smile, turned crisply about, and was gone. Julianus returned to the small temple of Sylvanus, where Auriane still waited in shackles.
He struggled briefly with a spontaneous fantasy of fleeing the city with her like some hero of old, knowing the notion utter folly even as he thought it—they would never get beyond the first milestone. These were, after all, modern times; if she can be saved, he thought, it will only be through the subtle and methodical labors of the mind.
He halted when he was ten or twelve feet distant from her. She watched him warily, putting him in mind of a wild horse that might bolt at his approach.
I must be prepared for it if she never comes to me, if she lives out what remains of her life in bitterness toward all mankind.
A three-quarter moon had risen over the top of the Alban Mount; he had the sense it was the archaic eye of some sky-riding night hag, old when Diana was young, possessively tracking Auriane. A dark wind animated the fan palms, ruffling her tumbled-down hair. It scarcely seemed possible he was alone with her, attended only by the five bronze serpents watching with malign eyes.
She shivered faintly in a night that was colder than it should have been in this season. He unfastened his cloak and began walking toward her slowly.
The diminishing distance between them seemed alive. That was not wariness he saw in her eyes, he realized, but wonder. Those eyes! They were tremulous pools of distilled intelligence, watching him with the bright silence of a woodland creature.
But still he could not guess her thoughts, and the torment this brought was new to him. He came up beside her, slowly drew the cloak around her shoulders and fastened it, careful as he did so not to touch her or look upon her bared breast, lest she despise him and count it one more act of violation in a night of many. Subtle scents of pine and grass drifted from her hair. Her skin sparkled faintly with
gold dust. She lifted her head slightly to hold his gaze—he was taller than she, but barely—and the look in those great, round eyes was like a soft, exploring touch. The silence was like wine, fortifying and warm.
He broke it when he saw the cut from the whip. He put a hand to her chin and turned her head gently to better see.
“The swine,” he muttered softly.
“That is an insult to pigs,” she replied with such sober earnestness that he smiled. Her voice put him in mind of the lower notes of a wooden flute.
“I mean to aid you,” he said hesitantly, feeling he extended an awkward, tentative hand across a gulf between worlds. “I mean no harm…do you understand? I beg you, do not judge me by the others.” More to give comfort than because it was necessary, he reached out and straightened the cloak, which was too large for her and began to slip from one shoulder. “I would have you count me a friend…but that may not be possible.”
With a look she asked the question, Why?
He told her his name. She repeated it slowly, taking possession of it. Her eyes darkened with recognition. “The name is known to me. It is that of my father’s old enemy, the Governor.”
“I am his son. By your custom, I am your enemy. Though for myself, I prefer to select my enemies personally—I do not inherit them.”
Those somber, searching eyes studied him intently. “I count you a friend, even as a friend of old, though I cannot account for this.”
“I too can account for none of this,” he replied, marveling at how she could seem so artless, yet so knowing. Urgently he spoke on. “There is much I must tell you, and I must say it quickly. First, your child is alive—at least there’s no reason to believe she is not—”
“Not truly….? They did not slay her when we refused to open the gates?”
“They deceived you. In truth, they never found the babe. When our soldiers came to Alder Lake, there was no island—and no Ramis.” To Julianus, this meant some clever native had led the Roman forces to the wrong place.
But Auriane took it to mean Ramis rendered the island invisible through sorcery. Joy came like a sudden flush of drunkenness. Warm strength flooded into her, as if a dead limb on her body were rejuvenated with blood. “Blessed night. She lives,” Auriane whispered. In her mind she saw Avenahar growing into knowledge, Avenahar, protected as she was before, the sun at her back, moving through forest glades with Ramis as her guide, awaiting her mother’s return. She shut her eyes for a moment, clinging to rapturous relief as it steadily rose in her.
Then she looked off, eyes silvery with tears. Warmth and peace collected between them; to him it was a marvel. When she looked back at him, he saw recognition in her eyes.
“You are the man who tried to save me in my own country.”
“Yes.”
“And yet, if I had acted as you wished,” she continued haltingly, painfully conscious of how rude her speech must sound, “you would never have seen me again. You would have gained nothing…except the possibility of causing your own ruin.”
“It was a choice of your death or your living free. There were no other choices, then.”
She watched him, considering this, and it seemed her soul edged very close, but still there was a hesitation, a distance. But what truly did I expect? he thought, quietly despairing. It is foolish to think that love, just because it is felt, will be returned in equal measure. She has known abominable things; why should she trust? To do so would be near to madness. “Come then,” he said. “I’ll take you back.”
It was then that she banished his doubts.
She caught up his hand in her own. The simple act was carried out with such passion and urgency that it was as intimate as a coming together of bodies; at the same time it was somehow an embrace of spirits, rich with the rapture of unbounded understanding. His joy in that wild and precarious instant was almost too great; it seemed to close all wounds, and he imagined he knew what some philosophers promised for the moment of death—union in brilliant light with all that was ever desired, ever known, a moment not merely of knowing love but of becoming love—and then he wondered if this night lived too close to the knife-edge of death had left him more than half mad.
She closed her eyes as though overcome. He bent his head, raised that hand to his lips, and softly kissed it.
Then without knowing what prompted him to act, he took the amulet of earth from about his neck, pausing only for the briefest moment to think—have I lost my last scrap of reason? I have worn this all my life. My own father gave it reverence; it is infused with a portion of his soul. It brought me out of Hades and led me into the light.
But it was a night for such impetuous acts and he placed the amulet about Auriane’s neck, certain that this was where it belonged.
Auriane held it to the torchlight, regarding it in dread silence as if it were the most sacred of temple relics. He saw a flicker of fear in her face, then a melting into hopeful amazement. She looked at him.
In a low voice she said, “This is a thing dearly sacred to my people. Who are you, that you have this?”
“I am no more than who you see. As for how I got it, that’s a tale for another time.”
“How can this be? I had its twin…before I bloodied my hands…and crossed my fate.” She started to remove it. “I…I cannot keep it. I lost the right.”
“Who has said so?” he said, smiling, catching her hand. “I’ll not be content unless you take it.”
A long shudder passed through her. She smelled a pine fire and saw a hooded figure in black chanting low, life-bringing words. That I have even seen this holy thing, she thought, signifies that Ramis has opened her eyes to look at me. I bolted off her path. Have I somehow blundered back onto it? Have the gods sent this man as a pathfinder?
From far too near came loud talk and the clink of metal. The carriage was readied. “Plautius!” Julianus called out loudly, to allay any suspicions that might arise among the rest of the Guard. “Help me with her. She’s dead weight here, she lost consciousness!”
To Auriane he whispered, “I mean to get you out of this wretched predicament, or die trying. Do not worry, I won’t let them use you as part of any bloody spectacle. Be of good courage, and do their bidding for now. As I live, I mean to see you free.”
“You have freed me already,” she whispered, thinking of Avenahar. She lifted his hands and held them to her lips, then quickly moved away when she saw blots of light through the oleander, and a torch’s reflection on a gold breastplate.
“Quickly, fall in a faint,” he whispered as Plautius and two of his fellows came up noisily.
Auriane imagined she dropped into warm, nurturing water. Her mind was an overfull cup of honeyed mead, joyously flooding down; the life-giving heat of a hearthfire penetrated through to her marrow; great gratitude to the gods knitted together all within her that had ever been torn asunder.
Avenahar flourishes in her forest nest. And near to me now is a noble presence to whom I am bound by threads of magic. What horror can I not bear up under now? All the while she was aware of the close, tender presence of the moon, seeming to affirm, Yes, still I am here. Yes, still I wait.
And there came then secret, sure, swift-gliding serpent thoughts she knew came from the mind of Fria— Your fate has turned. All dies to rise again. What you learned in darkness, you will learn again in light.
CHAPTER XXXIV
ON THE FOLLOWING DAY DOMITIAN’S SPIES who went about as fishmongers brought him alarming news from the city’s streets. A troupe of actors had presented a play on a makeshift stage before the Temple of Mercury. The protagonist was a young Parthian prince who despised his older brother, who was their father the king’s designated successor. The prince gained the army’s support through bribes, then provoked a war on the barbarian frontier—but the war brought him only ridicule, and he never regained his father’s favor. The unloved prince was tall, tending to baldness, had an inordinate love of eunuchs, and practiced archery.
“How
did it end?” Domitian demanded to know. The young prince, they related, murdered his older brother, but never took the throne himself because he was torn apart by an avenging mob.
This caused the first grave crack in the dam that contained Domitian’s festering rage at the populace. Already Auriane’s words, “You are no fit king” prodded him continuously, seeming in one moment an uncouth woman’s simple nonsense, easily dismissed, and in the next, a prophetic and profound thrust to the heart.
When the hapless players set up their stage in the same location on the next day, a detachment of the Praetorian Guard arrested the cast and scattered the audience, many of whom were crushed to death when they choked the narrow streets attempting to escape. The actor who played the prince was crucified on the stage. The author of the play attempted to hide, but was hunted down and murdered the next day while bathing in one of the cheaper bathhouses.
It brought a wretched gloom to the city’s streets. Overnight, no more plays were performed before the temples; laughter lessened, whispering increased, and the tanner squinted suspiciously at the fuller, wondering if he were in the pay of someone at the Palace. Anyone of education who happened to have an epic poem or ode lying about in his study quietly burned it for fear it might be found by a servant, then turned over to an informer. Every pen carried a burden of fear. Domitian was mystified and hurt when he was told of the people’s temper and accepted no responsibility for it.
In the last days before the triumphal procession, Domitian was often heard to mutter to those about him, “On this day I give the rabble a chance to redeem themselves.” Marcus Julianus prayed the people would pay him proper homage so they would suffer no more.
The dawn of the day of Domitian’s processional entry into Rome found the city washed clean and gaily dressed—streets were swept, temples garlanded, their doors companionably left open. The smoke of thanksgiving sacrifices rose delicately, wistfully, before the temples’ majestic doors. Chaplets of roses were sold in every street. The multitudes of statues of goddesses, gods and men crowding the Forums were wreathed with laurel. All labor, slave and free, was halted for the day.
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