“They’re a pathetically inept crew of villains—laying a trap for them was like pinching a denarius from a blind man. I sent a man to one of their meetings and arrested them all when they tried to enlist him. I beg you, repair to some place where you can be easily protected—your own chambers in the Palace would be strategically best. The traitors are assembled now in your bedchamber. I arranged it so you can question them yourself without rousing too much curiosity, so the whole sorry matter can be disposed of before alarm spreads. If we move quickly, the whole city need not know of it.”
Domitian ordered the attendant Guard to draw the curtains so the populace would not see the empty throne.
“The matter’s still quiet then?”
“It is so. A closed litter is ready for you in the Guards chamber.”
“Well done, then. I will use your litter. Go ahead of me. And Petronius…” He hesitated a final time, then said, “I go first to the prisons. Before I question these criminals I must have a word with my former First Advisor.”
Petronius suppressed a start of alarm.
He will see Marcus Julianus now? There is not time. In an hour my Guards will be dismissed—and that boot-licking Servilius has the next watch. If Domitian delays too long, the loyalists will destroy us all. I pray Julianus knows what time it is, and how to get rid of him!
As they departed down the carpeted steps leading from the imperial box, the throng’s cries rose into a single tumultuous roar. Both men felt they walked beneath a waterfall thundering down a mountain. Domitian smiled. That, surely, was a victory cry for Aristos. The woman was dying. The plot would be crushed. Tomorrow would come. Life and fear would go on as always.
The door of the earthen chamber was pulled back and the harsh light of a torch invaded the blackness of the cell. Gradually Julianus discerned the faces of the two intruders—one was a young prison guard; the other wore the broad leather apron and black gloves of an interrogator.
Julianus was slow to react, for he battled his way through spirit-numbing sadness. He knew from the guards’ talk that Auriane and Aristos had begun their bout; in the last quarter hour the guards had spoken of little else. He assumed that by now Auriane was dead—skilled as she was, still Aristos was Aristos. He felt his heart had been mauled by an animal; in that moment he cared for nothing and no one.
But his mind began to function, almost in spite of himself. An interrogator. They have come for Bato as I knew they would.
The assassination was but an hour away. He could not sit idly by while Bato exposed it.
We must set ourselves free. With the first blow of the dagger, Domitian will pay for Auriane.
When Bato saw the interrogator, he crawled toward the back of the cell, threading his way around the seated and prone forms of seventeen new prisoners—so many had been arrested for disorderly conduct in the last hour that the cell had grown crowded. Bato clawed furiously at the back wall as if he thought he could burrow into bare rock to escape the torturers.
Julianus thought rapidly. He was encouraged when he realized this guard was part of a crop of recent recruits, not long resident in the city.
Both men know me by report, of course, but how well do they know me by sight? And now my face is begrimed with soot, cut and swollen, and my body is hung with rags….
If the wrong man steps forward, will they know it?
And if they have momentary doubts, who would believe a man would volunteer for torture?
He could only pray that Servilius did not come to oversee the questioning.
“Bato,” came the guard’s chillingly casual command. “Come forth.”
From Bato came a canine whimper and a sob. Julianus moved swiftly to him in the dark and put a firm hand over his mouth. “Silence,” he whispered. “I go in your place. Stay still, and say nothing.”
Slowly Julianus rose and approached the interrogator, affecting the fragile step of one paralyzed with terror. When he came close, the guard thrust the torch in his face to examine him.
The guard saw a man of frightful, owlish appearance; glassy eyes stared with feral intensity out of a blackened face. He resembled one of the Lemures, those spectral-eyed spirits of ancestors abroad on moon-bright nights—except for the all-too-human trembling of his hands.
“You are Bato?”
“I am Bato.”
The guard squinted critically. Julianus found himself invoking Mercury, a god who favored tricks and stratagems.
Finally the guard gathered up his chains and jerked him forward. “Come then. We’ve some business with you.”
CHAPTER LVIII
ARISTOS’ BLADE BIT DEEP INTO THE oakwood of the water organ; with a curse he jerked it free. The next downstroke carved flesh from Auriane’s shoulder; she bit back a cry. Pain and outrage lent her a surge of strength; she managed to beat his blade upward and gained just enough time to break past him, sliding rapidly sideways. Abruptly she felt open space at her back—at last she was free of the water organ.
As she collected her balance and leapt into a defensive stance, an idea flashed into mind, and with it, a calm certainty that it was wise.
She would cast aside the teachings of the school and fall back on the simpler ways of her own wild forest. Swiftly she disengaged her left hand from the strap of her shield and let its rectangular wooden bulk drop to the sand.
The action momentarily perplexed Aristos; he paused in midstep; a crosscut flailed too high. In the precious time she won, Auriane wrenched off her helmet and threw it down as well. Murmurs of bewilderment spread through the throng.
She knew there was no other way. She was tiring more quickly than he, and she could tolerate no encumbrances. She would fight as her people had always fought—with head and heart exposed to sun, sky and gods.
In the viewing chamber, heads shook and murmurs of derision arose.
“You are wrong,” Meton corrected them, voice intent, his face pressed to the grate. “It’s mad, yes—but for her, it’s right. This one knows what she’s about. Now she has less weight to bear, and she can block his cuts with double-holds. She’s gained strength and speed—and she has the skill to take advantage of those things.”
Now Aristos battered her as continuously as a hail of javelins, pressing close to her newly exposed left side, slashing with playful viciousness at her unguarded head. But she vaulted and thrust to the beat of a drum whose tempo had increased, reveling in this new lightness, feeling more of the air than of the ground. She was everywhere at once like a bee-swarm, evading him through sheer unpredictability. When Aristos had had enough of this, he gave out a mastiff’s growl and rammed her with his shield; all that bullish solidity struck her bloodied shoulder.
And at last she saw a chance.
She gave way on impact, then rolled aside. He hurtled past her. While his momentum carried him still, she whipped round in a full turn, then executed two quick, deep, opposing diagonal cuts at his back.
She broke through. As he pivoted about, her blade caught him twice, just beneath his sword arm. A chevron-shaped cut appeared in his leather tunic, and she knew by the feel of it that she had struck a rib. Blood spread rapidly through the leather. He stole a look at the wound, and she saw spirit-panic flash across his eyes. He believed she had marked him with some baleful witch-sign—surely, he thought, it released a poison in his blood. He touched the preserved wolf’s muzzle to his forehead while angrily muttering the words of an aversive charm.
“One of them is hit,” Meton shouted feverishly. “By the whims of Nemesis—Aristos is hit! It cannot be!” Others in the room drove Meton aside, desperate to see.
“Is it grave?” Sunia asked, her voice low and eager.
“It’s a place that bleeds,” Meton responded. “It will weaken him. If enough, who knows? It’s a mistake, though. Now she’s really maddened him.”
Aristos’ followers could not understand why their hero was suffering this mettlesome menace to live so long. “Punish her for that!” they shouted at him.
“Skewer the bitch for roasting!”
Soon the news flew to the gates of the city—Aristos was hit.
Aristos then threw down his own great, rectangular Samnite shield and pulled off his gilded helmet, letting it fall to the sand. This brought applause sprinkled with laughter from those who loved him. So much for her newly won advantage.
Aristos’ freshly exposed face was not pleasant to look upon. His cheeks, swollen from heat and rage, were plum-purple and blue; across his forehead was an angry helmet welt. Sweat caused the black dye to run from his hair; it hung in sodden ropes, and red-blond streaks showed through. He grinned at her, flaring his broad nose, exposing two fanged side teeth. His heavy chest heaved like the sea in a gale—it seemed it could burst chains. He opened and closed his naked hairy left fist, as if emphasizing its new freedom.
Aristos charged. Now their swords were both weapon and shield. He took the lead and manipulated an opening; his sword’s point lashed out like an adder’s tongue, piercing her thigh. Blood trickled freely into her laced boot. Aristos’ supporters shot to their feet, laughing and clapping heartily. Her own devotees responded in a more muted way, moaning, uttering prayers to Juno—for they were still in terror of the bowmen. No one realized their Emperor and God was no longer among them, for the curtains of the imperial box were often closed, but their fear of him would have lingered after, even had they known.
Aristos paused, legs planted firmly apart, taking stock of the damage he had done; he felt he had the situation firmly in hand. That vile wound she gave him pained him and was certainly an annoyance, but it was nothing a skilled physician could not put right. He grinned at the sight of her reddened leg.
“This is a more difficult than killing your father, is it not?” he taunted her. “But then, his arms were bound!”
To Aristos’ irritation her eyes remained tranquil; she was as unmoved as if he sung lines of a nonsense rhyme.
Within, she was wryly amused. Odberht, you have not kept apace. That verbal strike requires two—one to execute it, and one to believe in it. She felt her spirit was loose and serene as a hawk, ascending weightlessly over shame’s old battleground.
And then suddenly, Auriane knew. Why had she not guessed it before? Her shame had acted as a veil, preventing her from discerning acutely the hearts of others. Now she was free to observe Odberht with a ganna’s gently piercing sight.
What formed in her mind first as a shrewd guess illumined to hard, luminous certainty. The crime Odberht so eagerly accused her of, again and again, must be his own. The shame he tried to bury, so long ago, would not stay buried, and so its ghost spurred him to fling it at her again and again.
“Odberht…,” she said so quietly that he had to ease closer to hear her. A guarded look came into his eyes at the sound of his true name. “… you are the murderer of Wido.”
Turbulent memories welled up in her mind then: The covered moon. The mysterious hunter’s net unfurled above the fray, that fatally entangled Wido’s horse, allowing Baldemar’s Companions to flow over him and strike him down….
“You slew your own father,” she went on quietly. “You are the one who threw that net.”
She knew instantly her spear had struck its mark. The look in his eyes was hard, blank, final—inside him, stone doors slammed closed. The word “No,” issued from him, half groan, half amelodic animal cry.
“Oh, yes, I see it as I see you,” Auriane continued. “What a clever murder. All close witnesses were killed soon after, then you got off free. If a father-killer can ever be said to be free.”
The words were hot pincers peeling back his skin, leaving him hideously naked before the people, before the ancestors. Witness, the perpetrator of the greatest crime of all humanity! he heard a chorus of Wodan’s battle-sylphs singing as they pointed him out to the Fates for punishment.
But she could not have seen it, he thought frantically. No one saw. Yet somehow this venomous sorceress, this sister of blue-faced Hel, knew.
The chorus of protesting voices in his head confused him and he imagined the whole of the amphitheater had heard Auriane’s words. They too were dumbstruck by his evil. He trembled as if the ground quaked beneath him.
Fierce refusal-to-know converted to fury.
“I’ll cut out that lying throat!” He bore down on her.
Auriane stood tensed and ready, exultant with success. At last he was maddened blindly, helpless as a rudderless craft tossed about on a tumultuous river.
Meton announced, mystified, “He’s off his step. Something’s sent him into one of his frenzies!”
Aristos’ followers cheered him, certain this was some amusing new game he played with her.
He lashed out at air before he reached her, putting more force than skill into every sweeping cut, slashing as if he believed he could cut out the truth with his blade. To many in the throng he did not seem much changed—more energetic, perhaps. But to Auriane he was a runaway cart bouncing downhill.
She leapt into range, missing his blade so narrowly that it ripped open the side of her tunic. Then she steadily drew him on while hardly spending herself at all, letting him drain himself in strokes that were too wide, overstrenuous footwork, and thrusts that were vigorous but poorly timed. With every stroke he rasped, “Die, die, foul night-crawling sorceress!” until he became short of breath. Finally, as he completed one flailing cut, she hammered his blade down, striking it at right angles. Their hilts locked for an instant while he careened sideways. She then jerked him hard in the direction he was already moving. As he staggered for balance she pulled back with a return stroke that slashed vertically up into his ribs, lodging in the breast. Black blood sprang forth. A grave hit, she knew, close to the heart. She felt a measured exhilaration.
In his shock and pain he reacted with a spasmodic jerk too fast to block, and his sword’s point flashed out, inflicting a deep puncture in her shield-arm. The wound seared like fire; her eyes ran with tears.
In his rage he never slowed; he heaved after her, swaying slightly as he ran. Where the hair of his chest showed, it was matted with glistening blood. She judged his wound was taking a greater toll then hers, and knew with all her mind and body the end must come soon.
I must finish him now, or be finished. Fria, descend.
She flung herself at him in all her final, unbounded fury. The tempo of the dance flashed up to demonic speed. To the multitudes she might have been a maddened Maenad possessed by Dionysus, ready to rip out throats and rend beasts limb from limb. A massive silence descended over the flights of seats. Meton could no more follow her strokes than could a spectator at a race’s finish discern the individual hoof-strikes of the winning horse as it thunders to the rope. Her attacks seemed wholly random, but each made sense to him an eye-bat later. She seemed to keep him off balance by sheer force of mind. Though she was as unconscious of herself as a vaulting gazelle, Meton recognized the terrific power of concentration in every stroke. As they progressed closer to the barred window, he saw she used even her eyes as a weapon, dropping her gaze when her target was high, softening their focus just before she struck. Gradually Meton was able to discern how she turned his wrath to her advantage, crowding him when he overstepped, teasing him, sensing his careless openings almost before he left them.
No human agency taught her this, Meton thought. This came from gods. He remembered hearing Erato say once: “It may never be known, perhaps, the extent of what she can do.” He felt he was seeing it now.
Aristos was giving ground. A groan of disbelief came from the crowd, punctuated by shouts of outrage from Aristos’ more fanatic followers. Some in the throng laughed. There was something droll in the sight of the august Aristos being battered back—it recalled the always-awkward sight of masters waiting on their slaves during the Festival of Saturnalia.
But many felt they were witness to some dread prodigy. Their hush was touched by fear of bewitchment, as if they attended a monstrous birth. Curious glances turned to the imperial box to
witness the reaction of the Emperor to this humiliation of his favorite, but strangely, even before this most astonishing of scenes, the curtains remained drawn.
Auriane felt this last jet of energy begin to lose its momentum. Every muscle was aflame. Now she felt death invading her limbs, pulling her slowly down. But she saw death in Odberht’s eyes as well. His nostrils were gaped in pain and fury like some gored bull. His eyes were bright not with hope of victory but with the frantic light of an animal caught in a snare. He was full of mad recklessness, though, and so was in some ways more dangerous now, not less.
They sank to a final exhausted pause, glaring at each other over the landscape of corpses. It seemed that for months nothing had existed but herself and this enemy standing before her, bloody and heaving.
I have struggled for too long. I am beginning to forget why all this began. I want only peace, and if possible somehow, life for the one within me.
She wondered if Marcus Julianus was among the spirits already, watching her, awaiting her.
Then suddenly Aristos lifted one of the corpses—a slightly built Numidian boy. With his sword-hand he gently pushed the bloody hair from the boy’s forehead, as if he just recognized him as one beloved, slain by accident. As Auriane moved around Aristos to find an opening—for the body made an excellent shield—he began to mutter soft words of love. Auriane began to worry that heat and fatigue had taken her mind. As she looked on, curious but sickened by the strange turn Aristos’ madness was taking, he found the boy’s lips with his own and kissed him.
Without realizing it, she was tricked from her intensely focused mind-state, distracted from sensing all of him.
Aristos erupted into motion; he flung the boy’s body at her with all the power at his command. She was taken wholly by surprise. The corpse struck hard against her midsection and propelled her backward onto the sand. Almost simultaneously, he lunged. As she fell, his blade came down on hers with a formidable hammer-strike.
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