The Legions of Fire

by David Drake

  Aloud he said, “We’ll proceed now, Candidus. We’ll go through the Forum, then by the Sacred Way.”

  That wasn’t the most direct route toward Saxa’s town house, but it would take them closer to Pandareus’s apartment. Varus tended not to think much about money. Every once in a while, something like the discussion between his teacher and Atilius about school fees reminded him that others might not have the luxury of ignoring money, and that a learned scholar might be in actual want.

  To Pandareus he said, “I’m not frightened, really, but I’m lost.”

  He thought for a moment and went on: “What I’m frightened about is that I’ll do something terribly wrong. That I’ll”—he lifted his hands as though he were flinging out a heap of possibilities—“destroy the world in fire or, well, anything.”

  “It sounds as though someone else is already working to destroy the world in fire,” Pandareus said. They were walking past the back of the Temple of Concord. The sheer stone wall was blank and forbidding in a way that the Capitoline Hill, broken up with bushes and vines all the way to the top, was not. “Perhaps you can cause the waters to rise. Deucalion’s Flood was a very long time ago, after all.”

  Varus blinked. “Sir?” he said. Only then did he realize that his teacher had been joking. Or rather, poking fun at his student’s dour seriousness.

  Varus cleared his throat and said, “The reasoning portion of my mind doesn’t think that the earth and heavens rotate around me, sir. I’ll try to keep that reasoning portion more generally in control than my previous comment may imply.”

  “I think it’s quite reasonable for you to feel lost,” Pandareus said. “I certainly do. My friend Priscus is more fortunate in that respect. He knows exactly how to deal with the crisis.”

  “Through the Commission, you mean?” said Varus. “As you said in the vault, with a banquet for the gods or a new temple?”

  “Priscus believes that the gods have spoken,” Pandareus said. “He and his colleagues on the Commission have the duty of determining the Republic’s proper response to the gods’ warning. Whereas I—”

  He paused in midphrase, waiting till Varus looked up and met his eyes by starlight. They were ambling along at Varus’s usual pace. That was probably slower than the teacher would be walking on his own, but it was a better rate for talking anyway.

  “—am not sure that the Sibyl is speaking the words of the gods. Indeed, I’m not sure that the gods exist, Gaius Varus. Which is not an admission that I would make generally, even in so large and sophisticated a city as Carce.”

  “No sir,” said Varus. It wasn’t likely that Pandareus would be executed for blasphemy the way Socrates had been in Athens centuries before, but if there was a loud to-do about the matter, he would lose students. Whatever they might think privately, very few politically inclined fathers would want themselves and their sons to be associated with someone who denied that the gods fought for Carce.

  Varus met his teacher’s eyes again. “And sir?” he said. “Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Though I do believe in the gods.”

  The more so after what I saw tonight. But those words caught in his throat when he considered speaking them aloud.

  “I was praising your ability to consider all sides of a question,” Pandareus said. “Not your opinions themselves. Though I hope”—his voice lost some of its lightness—“that you don’t think I’m saying that I’m smarter or wiser than my friend Priscus. We’re in disagreement on the point at issue, as we are on a number of points. Whether the authorship of the Nicomachian Ethics can really be ascribed to Aristotle, for example. One or both of us must be in error on many issues, but I will say”—Pandareus smiled much more broadly than he usually did—“that my friend and I make far more subtle and intelligent blunders than the ordinary run of men do.”

  Varus pondered for a moment. His hesitation wasn’t over what question to ask but rather whether he should speak at all.

  “Ask, my student,” said Pandareus in the tone of dry pedantry that he generally employed in class. “You needn’t fear that I will consider you stupid; and as for ignorance: all men are ignorant, are we not?”

  “Sir,” Varus said, keeping his eyes for now on the pair of linkmen two paces ahead. They were the closest servants. He doubted they could hear the conversation, and if they did, there was no one they could repeat it to that would matter.

  “What do you think the solution to the …,” Varus said. Threat? Danger? “To the situation, that is, will be? Since you don’t have confidence in the sort of response that the Commission will recommend.”

  “I think, Lord Varus …,” Pandareus said, subtly changing the dynamics of the discussion. Heretofore they had been teacher and scholar. Now he was addressing Varus with the formality owed by a foreigner to a senator’s son. “The answer will come from you. You have twice demonstrated knowledge which goes beyond where scholarship and logic have taken me.”

  “Me?” said Varus, so startled that he managed to kick the heel of his right foot with his left toe. He almost went sprawling. “Sir, I don’t know anything. I didn’t even hear myself speaking when you say I did. I mean, I believe you, but I can’t guide you.”

  “Perhaps,” said Pandareus, but his tone didn’t suggest that he agreed with Varus. “In that case, someone or something is guiding you. I hope that we—that all of us, that the Republic—can benefit from that guidance through you.”

  “Sir, I …,” Varus said. He didn’t know what to say next. The servants leading the entourage had slowed to a loiter at the intersection ahead, where the street which led east toward Pandareus’s apartment branched from the Sacred Way. Varus needed to go north to get home.

  “Ah, Master Pandareus?” Varus said. “Would you like us to escort you the rest of the way to your suite?”

  “It’s scarcely a suite, young man,” said the teacher drily. “And no, I’ll be fine from here.”

  “Candidus?” Varus said on a rising inflection. He felt relieved that the conversation was ending. He didn’t want to terminate it formally, but he didn’t see any good direction to go from where it was now. “Send a linkman and another servant home with Master Pandareus. Men who won’t have problems at this time of night.”

  “Hey, send me, Candidus!” a burly servant called. Varus didn’t know his name, but he’d noticed his accent in the past. He was from the northern border of Britain—or from across it. “I wouldn’t mind knocking some heads again.”

  To Varus, learning was the primary goal, and he knew that exalted rank didn’t guarantee exceptional learning. Therefore he didn’t have the concern for rank that his sister and stepmother did. The servant from North Britain was obviously no scholar, but his enthusiasm for keeping the old man safe shouldn’t become cause for punishment.

  “Candidus,” Varus said before the under-steward could react, “send the Pict. And Master Pandareus, you will take an escort tonight. I wouldn’t sleep if you didn’t.”

  “You’re a fine student,” Pandareus said. “I would be remiss as your teacher if I did anything to interfere with your getting necessary rest.” He winked, undercutting the deadpan delivery. “And besides, I’m not at my sharpest and most observant tonight, Lord Varus. I don’t want to have my head knocked in because I failed to notice somebody with a brick who was looking for the price of a jar of wine.”

  To the servants Candidus had chosen—the Pict and a tall man who carried his lantern hanging from the tip of an iron rod—Pandareus said, “Come along, my good fellows. Which chariot teams do you fancy? I confess to a liking for the Whites, as they represent the epitome of purity. Unfortunately, I find that they almost never win races.”

  The three men headed south at a more rapid pace than they’d been keeping in Varus’s presence. And no doubt Corylus was trotting along as blithely as he would have done by daylight. Well, individuals had different skills; and the noble Gaius Varus had never claimed to be an enthusiastic pedestrian.

  “Home, Candid
us,” he ordered. They set off again.

  Varus found himself smiling. Ever since Homer, poets had been describing men as pawns in a game of the gods. He had done the same himself in his abortive epic of the First Punic War.

  He’d never expected to be one of those men whom the gods were playing with, however.

  HEDIA STAGGERED ACROSS THE YARD of the temple. Alphena tried to stop as soon as they were under the open sky again. Hedia dragged the girl with her, snarling, “Come on! If the building collapses, stones will come bouncing out for Hercules knows how far!”

  The servants babbled like a flock of geese; they even fluttered their arms in the air. All they have to do is to begin spraying green shit all over the landscape to complete the resemblance!

  With servants dancing attendance but afraid to touch the noble ladies even to help, Hedia reached the gap where the gate had been. They could go into the street and get behind what was left of the perimeter wall, but she doubted blocks would roll this far through the piles of building materials. Besides, the earthquake seemed to be over for now.

  She released Alphena. The girl drew herself up with returning dignity. From the look on her face, she was wondering whether to scream at her stepmother for treating her like a child or to hold her peace, since Hedia had, after all, done the right thing. Even if she hadn’t been polite in the way she did it.

  “Your ladyship!” cried Phidippides. Fear and confusion made the priest of Tellus sweat like the pig he so greatly resembled. “Whatever’s the matter? What did you do?”

  “We didn’t do anything, you fool,” Hedia said. “The earthquake knocked over the lamp stand and the statue too. Midas.”

  The deputy steward was standing close, ready to move the priest away if requested to. He wore a troubled expression.

  “Get some of your men to put out the oil that spilled from the lamp. Smother it with the sand piled over there, I suppose.”

  Midas turned, relaying the order with a bellow. The workmen’s tools were stacked in the shelter of the roofed colonnade to the left of the temple proper. One of the servants had noticed that along with the shovels, trowels, and cramps, there were tightly woven baskets for carrying loose materials. He shouted to get his fellows’ attention and started tossing baskets down.

  “But your ladyship?” Phidippides said in horrified wonder. “There wasn’t a—”

  He paused. He’d apparently heard the words that had just come out of his mouth and decided instantly to change the tenor of his comment.

  “Ah, that is,” he said, “we were waiting here in the street as you directed. With your men. We heard, ah, rattling, but we didn’t feel an earthquake. Your own man Midas can tell you that, can’t you, dear fellow?”

  “Don’t you contradict her ladyship, you Milesian toad!” said Midas, grabbing a handful of Phidippides’ tunic and shoving him backward.

  “Enough of that, Midas,” Hedia said. The priest edged away, ready to run if Midas reached for him again. “Now, listen to me: did you feel an earthquake?” She gave an angry flick of her hands. “And don’t just say you did because you think that’s what I want to hear,” she said. “Tell me the truth or I swear I’ll have you flayed.”

  The deputy steward’s face went blank. He bowed low and said, “Your ladyship, I heard tiles breaking and I thought there’d been a gust of wind. But I didn’t feel anything through my sandals. Or feel wind. Your ladyship.”

  “There had to have been an earthquake,” Alphena said. She was hugging herself. “The statue fell. And I heard it speak.”

  “Midas,” Hedia snapped, “leave us. And make sure this temple rabble keeps clear also! Lady Alphena and I have matters regarding the divination to discuss in private.”

  “At once, your ladyship!” the steward said. In a voice that could be heard in neighboring apartment buildings, he went on, “Ferox and Mensus? Break the legs of anybody who comes within twenty feet of their ladyships!”

  As people sprang away from them—the household servants dragged or pummeled temple personnel, who were afraid to defend themselves in the presence of the great ladies—Alphena said, “It said I was going to marry Spurius Cassius. It’s horrible. I don’t even know who Spurius Cassius is!”

  Hedia doubted that the girl had consciously waited until the servants were out of earshot before she started talking about what had happened. If Hedia hadn’t acted quickly, all the hundreds of household servants—and all the thousands they talked to or who talked to somebody who talked to them—would have been chattering about the terrible omen during the marriage divination. Try to arrange a decent marriage for Alphena then!

  “I don’t think you should take the voice you thought you heard too seriously,” Hedia lied. The girl was distraught. Besides, they were both tired and they’d drunk quite a lot of wine. “I suspect it was the wood squealing when the statue of Tellus fell over, don’t you?”

  “It wasn’t,” Alphena said. She bent over, bracing her buttocks against the wall as she pressed the knuckles of both hands against her mouth. “The goddess spoke to me. I saw her mouth moving!”

  Is she about to begin screaming? That could be passed off as a reaction to almost being crushed by the toppling statue, of course. In fact it might go some way to balancing the stories about the girl’s unnatural interest in masculine pursuits.

  “I’m not going to marry Spurius Cassius,” Alphena said through her fists. “I’ve never heard of Spurius Cassius. I won’t!”

  “Get yourself together, Daughter,” Hedia said without raising her voice. “Venus, girl! Don’t put on a show for the servants.”

  Alphena straightened with a wide-eyed stare, as though Hedia had slapped her—which was more or less what she had done, though with words. The girl looked around, aware of her surroundings for the first time since they’d stumbled from the temple.

  When she saw that the nearest people, Ferox and Mensus, were over twenty feet away, she relaxed. With their backs to the noblewomen, they brandished cudgels threateningly toward other servants and the gawkers who’d come from neighboring residences.

  “And even if what you thought you heard really was a spirit speaking to you …,” Hedia continued. The edge that had been in her voice a moment before had vanished; she was now the soothing mother—or perhaps the older sister. “Just remember that bad marriages are like bad colds: they’re unpleasant, but they’re too common to bother talking about. And they don’t have to last long.”

  “Do you know Spurius Cassius?” Alphena said.

  “No,” said Hedia. “Perhaps your father does. Don’t worry, we’ll learn who the fellow is—if he even exists, as I said.”

  The lantern bearers were all outside the five-pace circle she’d decreed, but she and Alphena stood in full moonlight. Everyone was staring at them. They would have to do something before long. The girl seemed to have settled down adequately.

  Alphena looked up suddenly. She’d gathered herself together, but Hedia now saw anger in her expression.

  “Mother,” she said. “Did my father do this?”

  “Saxa?” Hedia repeated. The question had taken her aback; she could scarcely imagine anything that would have seemed more improbable. “No, dear, I can’t imagine him doing anything of the sort. I know he’s not—”

  She turned her palms upward; she supposed that was in subconscious hope that a softer phrasing would drop out of the sky into them.

  It didn’t. She went on baldly, “Saxa doesn’t pay much attention to anyone but himself. But dear? Insofar as it’s in him, he does love you and your brother. He wouldn’t deliberately harm you.”

  “But Father told you to bring me to the Temple of Tellus, didn’t he?” Alphena said fiercely. “And that’s the goddess who spoke to me!”

  Hedia frowned in frustration. “He was renovating this temple,” she said. “And it’s close to the house; it’s the natural choice. Believe me, dear, your father doesn’t have it in him to hurt or frighten you in any way.”

  Alphena
was wavering. She accused her father because she needs someone to be angry at. Otherwise she can only be afraid.

  Hedia put her arms around the younger woman. “Be strong for me, Daughter,” she lied. “This business frightens me terribly; I need you to cling to. But”—she straightened and leaned back to look Alphena in the eyes—“we mustn’t attack people who aren’t our enemies just because we’re afraid. And Saxa isn’t our enemy.”

  “I’m sorry,” the girl muttered to the ground. “I wasn’t …”

  “Come, dear,” Hedia said brightly. “Let’s get back to our own beds. Tomorrow we can start asking about this Spurius Cassius.”

  She led the girl out to the litter. “Midas, we’re returning to the house,” she called.

  The priest hovered beside the deputy steward, dancing from one foot to the other as though the stone pavers were too hot for the soles of his feet. While Alphena got into the litter, Hedia paused with a hard smile.

  “Master Phidippides?” she said. “I’ll talk to my husband tomorrow. It appears that your goddess will have a new statue after all.”

  Hedia settled herself onto the seat and gave Alphena a pleasant smile. No one seeing her composed face would guess that she was thinking that while Saxa certainly hadn’t done this, his friend Nemastes probably had. In that case, the danger to Alphena was much worse than merely a bad marriage.

  CORYLUS WALKED AT A LEISURELY PACE, thinking about what had just happened in the temple. Unlike his friend’s prophecy during the reading yesterday, this one didn’t seem to come from a malevolent spirit. Neither time had Varus himself been speaking, though.

  The moon gave good enough illumination that Corylus could have gone much faster—even trotted, if he’d felt like it. He wasn’t in a hurry, and moving fast at night in Carce called attention to you. He was ready for trouble, but he wasn’t looking for it.

  A double line of heavy wagons pulled by four oxen each was rumbling down the center of the boulevard, carrying storage jars of wine. They were outbound, like him, but the only time the pace of an ox rose above a crawl was if the beast was lightly loaded and smelled water at the end of the day.