On the third day following Nerva’s accession, Auriane nudged herself from a sleep that felt like a welcome death. She sat up, expectant, seized with an urgent melancholy that left her with a strong sense that her time in this place was done. Dawn furtively infiltrated the chamber. She put her hands on her belly in an instinctive attempt to comfort the child within. The tumult outside had faded many hours ago. Now she heard the school guards’ harsh voices, growing louder as they approached her cell.
She was up like a cat. A guard noisily slid back the bolt of the door. A secretary from the Prefect’s staff stood behind him with bored formality, a rolled document in his hand. In back of them was Sunia, looking elated and a little lost. Auriane thought it odd she wore a rough weather cloak; where was Sunia going at this hour?
The secretary intoned in colorless voice, “Aurinia, greetings.” As he spoke on, she felt something quietly inevitable in his words, like the quickening of dawn.
“We come to inform you that by the order of Emperor Nerva, you have been manumitted. By his hand you are granted the status of one born free—an honor not given to many. Here are your proof of status and manumission documents, signed by the Emperor Nerva himself, before witnesses.” He added with faintest contempt, “You, Aurinia, are now a citizen of Rome.”
A citizen of Rome? She stared at him, feeling fastened to earth only by her body’s pain. Sunia tried to catch her glance with a reserved smile of amusement, but Auriane kept her face impassive, suddenly not caring to let this man know what an arrogant gift she felt this was.
The secretary motioned her forward. “It is unlawful for you to be held here, and you must go.”
“What of Sunia?”
Sunia answered with veiled eyes, the flicker of a conspiratorial smile. She is hiding something, Auriane realized. “I’m free as well. Well, not quite. At this moment I belong to Marcus Julianus, who bought me from the school in order to manumit me. It’s not complete—there are papers to be written still.”
“And…Coniaric…and Thorgild?”
“He has done the same for them. And also for…” But Sunia stopped; the anticipatory smile returned to her face. What mischief is this? Auriane wondered. “Thorgild comes with us,” Sunia continued, “but Coniaric has chosen to stay—he plans to sign on as a free fighter. He thinks the arena will make him celebrated and dependent on no one. It does not surprise me.”
Auriane sadly nodded. She had noticed for some time that the spirits of this place had filled Coniaric with a new soul.
The guard met Sunia’s knowing smile, then said to Auriane, “There’s a woman here who would speak with you, sent from the Palace.” He turned and motioned for the woman to be brought forward.
“A woman?” Auriane said, perplexed. She knew no woman in this place other than Sunia. She looked questioningly at Sunia, whose smile only broadened.
Night shadows lurked on in the passage; as Auriane looked, the form of a woman, small and proud, her head gracefully draped in a palla, separated from the gloom.
She knew it with her subtle senses before she knew it with her mind. A hand went to her throat. Her knees were wobbly as a newborn foal’s. A warm amazement slowly overtook her.
“No!” A paralysis of joyous disbelief pinched her voice to a whisper. “No, it cannot be…”
Auriane broke into a hobbling run.
Frightful images of the past flashed before her then: white flesh against black earth, which was all she remembered of the attack on her mother while the hall burned. The sight of Athelinda as a sad sentinel by the edge of her fields, wrapped in unapproachable solitude after Baldemar’s death. Five Wells afire—yellow flame-tongues stretching into the cold blue of the morning sky, Roman soldiers swarming in like wasps, and the heart-shredding shrieks of the children her people could no longer protect. She felt Berinhard rearing steeply beneath her, Athelinda’s strong pull on the rein, and its dreadful snap when she struck it with her sword blade.
Mother, do you forgive? I left you collapsing in the mud. What has your life been since?
Her words were half prayer, half question.
“Mother?”
Two strong hands affirmatively seized her shoulders. Doubts lingered; in her memory Athelinda was taller—an enveloping, protective presence—and the top of this woman’s white head only met her chin. She drew her closer to a wall sconce and saw those so-familiar eyes taking her in with gentle ferocity, that mouth that served as model for her own, except now it was corrupted by sorrow and clamped closed in the way of one forced to keep too many silences.
Athelinda examined her critically, alert to an impostor and cruel disappointment.
“This cannot be,” Auriane whispered. Hot tears blurred her sight, and ran freely to her breast. “How come you to be here?”
Relief flooded into Athelinda, spilling over into her hands, which shook, and she pulled Auriane into a long, death-denying embrace. “I came by a journey of many months,” she said into Auriane’s hair, “from an island in the sea. The nobleman who brought me here—he will tell you how it all came about.”
To Auriane her mother’s body felt frighteningly perishable, a thin envelope of skin supported by bones brittle as twigs. The life in those eyes, though, was green and strong.
“Mother, do you forgive!” Auriane whispered, suddenly looking off, ashamed. “I cut the rein to save us…. I had no notion they’d had orders to take me alive….”
“Foolish as ever you are, to think I would judge such a thing now.” She pushed Auriane back to arm’s length to get a mother’s appraising look at her. “You are here, and we are alive together on earth!”
Auriane felt her heart compressed to silence. Her look betrayed she envisioned what her mother must have endured.
“Do not torment yourself,” Athelinda said firmly. “Indignities do not kill. You look well, more than well!”
“Well, yes, they feed you passably well here, Mother,” she said, striving to sound buoyant, “and the lodgings are comfortable enough. It’s just that they expect you to kill someone for them now and again.”
Athelinda gave a sharp wave of the hand, meant to dismiss the school, the city of Rome, and all its dominions. “Hives of nidings. Our wide Middle-world teems with them—I had no notion. Pay them no mind, they are not important to the gods.”
With one hand Athelinda possessively smoothed back Auriane’s hair and dropped her voice to its prophesying register—“Beloved daughter. You are great to the gods. I have heard it, Auriane. You have brought me the highest joy. You avenged Baldemar and he has ascended to the Sky-Hall. The heavens parted when you squeezed the life out of that monster. I saw Baldemar on his high-seat. Are you woman or lioness?”
“The unaccountable thing was it was but a death,” Auriane whispered, looking away, “not different from yours or mine or the lark’s…”
“Speak no unholy words. Do not rattle the tranquillity of the heavens on this day. How cunningly the prophecy at your birth has played out.”
Knowledge flickered in Athelinda’s eyes. She held Auriane’s face in her hands. “Your soul burns doubly bright. You carry a child.”
“Yes.”
Athelinda looked long, slowly absorbing this, then whispered, “Blessing of blessings. May Fria give this one Arnwulf’s soul…. Such a small spirit, light as a drift of fleece, such a short life…”
The guard intruded then.
“Aurinia, you must make ready. We’re charged to accompany you to the house of Marcus Arrius Julianus. Go and gather your possessions.”
Auriane moved to collect her meager things—the basket in which they had kept the food Marcus sent, a terra-cotta water jar, a brown wool cloak heavy with grime, a tied bundle of crudely penned love poems from her devotees—then stopped. No, she decided, to take these things would be like hugging onto old, worn despair. She would bring nothing but the clothes she wore and the bundle of rune-sticks tied in white cloth at her waist; it seemed right to go into the new world as empty-han
ded as a newborn.
As they moved off down the passage, Auriane stepped gingerly into freedom, not quite believing it. It seemed impossible that no one now could bar her way, that she could go anywhere. She realized then how deeply enslavement had burrowed into the bone—the simple act of walking out the front entrance of the school seemed outlandish and wrong, like a fish taking to land.
For the last time she descended the stone steps from the Second Hall. As they gained the ground floor and moved past the gaping dark emptiness of the practice arena, an evil draft seemed to gust over it, charged with darkness and pain. How many paused here on their way to death? Auriane turned once and looked back, feeling she had forgotten something. Then she realized she felt a probing gaze on her back—familiar, abrasive, but kind. She sensed Erato, lingering, watching with concern, wishing her well. Yes, he was here. He was the only one in this place she would sorrow over.
Silently she said to his spirit, “Farewell, good friend,” and walked on.
As they entered the street, the lightening sky was Fria’s opening eye; the cobbles beneath her feet a lover’s bed. Some otherworldly celebration seemed in progress. Elves looked on benignly from high windows. In the frail light the water gushing from the street fountains sparkled like the brazen adornments of whirling ghosts. Every cross-street seemed a path into a new world. How strangely beautiful this Middle-world is, she thought, with its bewildering twists and turns too swift and unexpected for the heart, which always lags, anguished, a step or two behind.
Avenahar, now no hand is raised to separate us. Do you know I come, you who are old enough now to be taught the magic of the fields? Soon we will all be planted in one soil. My fate asserts itself like the bony structure through the flesh of one who ages. Are fates always so ironic? I who so loathed Ramis am here to pass on her teaching.
They climbed cracked steps that sprouted hardy weeds, moving up the Esquiline’s slope; when they came to Marcus Julianus’ house, tears flooded her eyes when she saw the doors thrown open and garlanded.
Julianus awakened to the reassuring smell of a healing fumigant made of sweet balsam, rose leaves and cassia. The dull, digging pain in his back was rendered just manageable by the heavy draught Anaxagoras had given him—a decoction of poppy juice and henbane that made him feel he nested cozily among clouds. He wrestled for clarity, then slid reluctantly back into numbing haze. Something had been patiently nuzzling his hair, and had been, he realized, for some time. Had some animal gotten in?
He thought the discipline of remembering might help chase off the fog. Vaguely he recalled being carried to this bedchamber in his own house. As to who unlocked it, made it ready, and summoned Anaxagoras, he did not know. Petronius, he supposed. He remembered advising Nerva through the second night—Nerva had sat next to him in the medicinal smoke as he lay unceremoniously on his stomach, and they had laid out strategies while Anaxagoras did his best, beginning by bathing the gaped wounds with myrrh dissolved in wine. Julianus remembered ordering the arrangements for Auriane. Was all truly done? Somehow even now he feared some evil fate might overtake her. Why did they not bring her to him? Then he could rest.
Again he felt that animal nuzzling. Who—or what—was with him now, and who let it in? A spurt of annoyance gave him the strength to drag open his eyes.
And he saw two gray eyes looking inquisitively into his own, two sensing, touching, testing eyes full of tender impatience.
“Auriane,” he said, his voice hoarse, hushed. Tears swiftly pooled in his eyes, and he had no thought of concealing them. “It is really you! Dearer than life…” He reached out unsteadily, meaning to circle a hand about her neck, claim her and draw her closer, but it was impossible while flat on his stomach; even that small movement caused multiple eruptions of pain.
She caught the extended hand and gently replaced it on the mat, while never disengaging her gaze from his; both felt intimately near to the gods, as if they witnessed some small, secret miracle in a temple.
“I am sorry,” she said finally. From the huskiness of her voice he knew she had recently cried. “I awakened you. I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Perhaps you did not. Dreams are like this—day-on-day life, never!” His smile broadened. “Look at you! You came out of this far better than I, you scamp. I can scarcely stand. And you look hardly the worse for having recently rid the world of a rampaging behemoth. It scarcely shows!”
She smiled at this, basking in an exhausted tranquillity that put her in mind of the first flushed moments after the birth of Avenahar. Then she nodded once toward the door through which Anaxagoras occasionally entered and exited. “I do not like that man. Someone snatched his soul and set it in quicklime. And it’s the soul that heals—knowledge of the plants is not enough. But, praise to the Fates, he promises you will live and be strong—through Fria’s ministrations, not his!”
He grinned at this decisive dismissal of the most celebrated physician in all the Greek provinces. “I’ve no choice. Too many depend upon me. Anyway, I’m not eager to stand face to face with Domitian so soon. He’s in Hades, I’m here—I like that distance between us!”
As he spoke, she eased toward him as if love overburdened her and she could not sit upright; delicately, gravely, she found his mouth with her own. It was a complicated kiss that balanced greeting, promise, consolation. She shivered at the fine-honed intimacy of even this small introductory touch; it made her feel the length of her naked body was stretched luxuriantly against his.
After long moments of rich, contented silence, she found herself suddenly anxious that he know everything.
“Marcus, there are two things I must tell you…. One is joyous—or I hope you’ll find it so—and the other is…dark and marvelous….”
She paused, momentarily silenced by caution. Restlessly she took up one of Anaxagoras’ stone stamps that he used for marking his myrrh-sticks and began testing its smoothness in her hand. Finally she said firmly, “I should not tell you now.”
“Not fair. Now you’ve pricked my interest.” He smiled. “Frustrated curiosity slows healing—I think Anaxagoras wrote a treatise on it.”
“It is a thing that may disturb you greatly. I do not know—”
“I cannot imagine anything you could tell me that would…unless—is it that you have decided not to go with me? Is it that, Auriane?”
“No. I want with all my heart and mind to go with you. But know this”—she paused, replaced the stone stamp, and carefully watched his expression—“in about five months there are going to be three of us.”
Auriane saw sharp dismay come into his eyes. Then he shut them and turned away. “Is there no end to fortune’s inhumanity!” he whispered.
She felt alarm rapidly filling her heart.
“You do not want my children?”
“Do not be ridiculous. Of course, I want your children. Oh, it is too hideous to contemplate. You struggled through all those months alone…you fought Aristos…while you were with child. It is appalling. You should have sent word to me.”
“I would have had to let Erato know. Anyway, you would have stopped me.”
“Of course I would have stopped you. I should have been with you.”
“Well, the thing is done, and all has come out well, and the gods have been given their due. Cannot we just—”
“A child,” he said wonderingly. “Yours, mine…a fresh new life…a thousand more things to consider….” He pulled her protectively closer.
She felt light as a hawk’s feather. “It all seems uncomplicated enough to me, Marcus. The mountain cat stalked her prey, and, at long last, brought her prey down. Now she slinks off to bear her litter. What else should one expect from a woman half beast?”
“All the sooner I must make that beast my wife.”
At this, the smallest flash of unease came to her eyes.
“What?” he asked softly, smiling.
“You brought me right to the door of the troublesome thing.” She pulled away from him
slightly. “I should not say this now, either….”
“You know my opinion on that!”
“Very well then. You shall know it.” She met his eye solemnly. “I can go with you. I can share a house with you. But I cannot be a wife.”
“Well, that’s a departure from the dull and commonplace! This city swarms with women desperate to be a wife, who relentlessly stalk husbands, preferably rich ones—women who’ve no intention of becoming the mother of children. Our mountain cat has it all refreshingly reversed.”
“You are not angered by this?”
“Angered? Amused and amazed is closer, and, yes, saddened a bit. What has happened? It is what we spoke of before?”
“That…and a bit more. Since last we saw one another I…I have learned that the staff of our highest Holy One will one day pass to me. Not for many years, though—our Veleda still has all her powers. But those who are one day to administer the highest rites of Fria must never throttle and bind her highest gift—earthly love. Our Old One despises the permanent shackling together of woman and man just as does your own Diana. It is a curse of newer times, you see, a thing that belongs to the age of iron—”
“Diana’s whitethorn torch bursts into conflagration! The part of me that serves philosophy understands at once—what purpose can ever be set over the seeking of divine knowledge? But I do not like it, truthfully. It presents problems. With inheritance, with—”
“But it does not prevent me from going freely with you as one beloved, and staying with you for long times…leaving only to attend to sacred duties.”
“Why is it that opposing you feels like a violation of natural law? As if wrenching you from your path were like trying to coax a tree to grow on bare rock, or breed a donkey to a doe? I knew a man once, a philosopher called Isodorus, who was under the spell of the time of Saturn. I believe he would have held you up as a model for man. Long ago, on the night before he went to his death, he asked me to look after his pupils. I never understood it, for he had no school—his pupils wandered from gutter to bridge. But I think now that he meant you.”
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