by David Drake
Hedia saw the woman’s arm muscles bunch to pull away. She wasn’t successful, though the youth’s smile didn’t slip.
“Well, you’ll never see me again!” the woman cried. Her companion had been staring first at Hedia and Alphena, then—wide-eyed—at their escort. She tugged her louder friend toward the entrance into the courtyard; their maids followed, laughing openly.
“Ah,” Abinnaeus said in a lightly musing voice that wasn’t obviously directed toward anyone. “If only I could be sure of that.”
He turned and bowed low to Hedia. “I’m so glad to see your ladyship again,” he said, sounding as though he meant it. “And your lovely companion! Please, honor my shop by entering.”
“Come dear,” Hedia said, but she swept the younger woman through the gate ahead of her. “Abinnaeus, this is my daughter, Lady Alphena. We’re looking for dinner dresses for her.”
“You could not do better,” Abinnaeus agreed. He was a eunuch; his fat made him look softly cylindrical instead of swelling his belly. “Please, be seated while I find something worthy of yourselves.”
One of the attendants was closing the shutters: barred openings at the top continued to let in light and air, but street noise and the crowds were blocked by solid oak. The other attendant had carried out a couch with ivory legs and cushions of silk brocade; he was returning to the back room to find its couple.
Hedia gestured Alphena to the couch; she dipped her chin forcefully to refuse. Hedia sat instead of reclining and patted the cushion beside her. “Come, daughter,” she said. “Join me.”
Alphena hesitated only an instant, then sat where Hedia had indicated. The youth appeared with the second couch. He eyed them, then vanished back into storage with his burden.
Abinnaeus returned with six bolts of cloth over his left arm. “Sirimavo,” he said to the youth who had bolted the shutters, “bring wine and goblets, then go fetch some cakes from Codrius. Quickly now!”
“No cakes for me,” Hedia said. “Though if my daughter…?”
Alphena gestured a curt refusal, then consciously forced her lips into a smile. “Not at all, thank you,” she said.
The girl really is trying. Soon perhaps I can introduce her to some suitable men without worrying that she’s going to tell them she’ll cut their balls off if they dare to touch her again.
“It would be remiss of me not to offer your ladyship every courtesy,” the eunuch said. “What you choose to accept is your own affair, but I will say that my friend Codrius just down the portico has even better pastries than my beloved father at home in Gaza.”
“No one has ever been able to fault your hospitality to a customer, Abinnaeus,” Hedia said. The tramps he had just turfed out of his shop might have quarreled with her statement, but they weren’t proper customers. “It’s been too long since I’ve been here.”
“We have missed you, your ladyship,” Abinnaeus said, setting down five bolts. “Your custom is always welcome, of course, but even more I’ve missed your exquisite taste. So like mine, but more masculine.”
He and Hedia laughed. Alphena looked shocked, then went still-faced because she wasn’t sure how she should react.
Abinnaeus stretched a swatch from the last bolt and held it close to Alphena’s ear. “There, your ladyship. What do you think about this with your daughter’s coloring?”
Hedia gave the fabric sharp attention. It was faintly tan—the natural color of the silk, she was sure, not a dye—but it seemed to have golden highlights.
“Is that woven with gold wire?” she said in puzzlement. Surely no wire could be drawn that fine.
Abinnaeus chuckled. “To you and you alone, your ladyship,” he said, “I will tell my secret. No, not wire—but the blond hair from women of farthest Thule. They let it grow till they marry, then cut it for the first time. The strands are finer than spider silk, purer than the gold of the Tagus River.”
“And you, dear?” Hedia said to her daughter. Abinnaeus stepped back with the cloth spread in a shaft of sunlight through the clerestory windows. “It complements you perfectly, but do you find it attractive?”
Alphena had swollen visibly while Hedia and the proprietor discussed the matter as though she was a dog being fitted with a jeweled collar, but she had managed to control herself. “It’s all right, I guess,” she muttered. “It’s—well, it’s all right, if that’s what you want.”
When we’re back in the litter, I’ll remind her that we came for information; and that I had to put Abinnaeus at his ease. He wouldn’t be able to imagine Lady Hedia caring about anybody else’s opinion on matters of taste and fashion.
The attendants returned, each carrying a small table already set with a refreshment tray. There was a passage to the courtyard shops from the back room, but the wine was probably from Abinnaeus’ own stock. He kept better vintages on hand for his customers than could be purchased nearby.
He eyed Hedia and gestured minusculely toward the wine. “Three to one,” she said, answering the unspoken question. That was the only possible choice with her daughter present, and it was what she probably would have said regardless.
Turning to Alphena, she said, “I used to visit Abinnaeus more frequently before I married your father, dear. I lived close by; just across Broad Street, in fact.”
To Abinnaeus she went on, “I sold the house to a Gaul from Patavium; Julius Brennus, as I recall. Do you see any of him, Abinnaeus?”
“Well, not Master Brennus himself, your ladyship,” he said, kneeling to offer each of the women a silver cup. “But his wife, Lady Claudia, visits me frequently, I’m pleased to say.”
So the wealthy—extremely wealthy—trader from the Po Valley married a patrician after moving to Carce, Hedia thought. Good luck to both of them.
She sipped her wine, which was just as good as she expected it to be. Alphena had leaned forward slightly to lift the silk for closer examination. An attendant moved the bolt slightly closer. He didn’t speak or otherwise intervene for fear of causing the young customer to rear back. It must be like bridling a skittish horse.
Aloud Hedia said, “I recall Brennus having some very odd-looking servants. Is that still the case?”
“Odd?” said Abinnaeus, pursing his lips. Discretion warred with a desire not to lose the chance of a present sale. “Well, I don’t know that I’d put it quite that way, your ladyship. But it is true that many of Master Brennus’ servants did come with him from the north … and one could say that they brought their culture with them. One could scarcely claim that boorishness and bad Latin are unusual in Carce, though, I’m afraid.”
Hedia laughed. “No, not at all,” she agreed, holding out her cup for a refill. “I thought he had a number of fellows in shiny costumes, though. You’ve never seen anything like that?”
“Nothing like that, no,” the proprietor said, clearly puzzled. “Ah—it is possible that Master Brennus added moving automatons to his courtyard, though. Alexandrine work, I mean, worked by water. I’ve never been inside the house.”
“That could be the story I’d heard,” Hedia said as if idly. “Well, I think this first pattern will be a fine choice. What else have you for us, Master Abinnaeus?”
The afternoon wore on. The familiar routine was pleasurable during those moments when Hedia forgot the danger which had really brought her here, and such moments were more frequent as she became absorbed in fabric and fashion. Alphena was showing real interest also, which was a success beyond expectation.
The maids waited silently, their backs against the counter. There was nothing for them to do, but they too were entranced by the lovely cloth.
It was time to be getting back. Hedia rose and stretched.
“Have these eight patterns made up,” she said, “and send them to the house. I’ll tell our majordomo to expect them. I daresay we’ll be back for more, though.”
“You are always welcome, your ladyships,” Abinnaeus said. The attendants were rattling the shutters open as he bowed. “Your intellige
nce and taste brighten an existence which sometimes threatens to be about money alone.”
He made a quick, upward gesture with a plump hand. “Taking nothing away from money, of course,” he added. “But there can be more.”
The sun was well into the western sky when Hedia followed her daughter into the street. “You did very well, dear,” she said; truthfully, but mostly to encourage the girl.
Hedia looked idly toward the great sundial. In the wavering sunlight she saw three glass figures glitter like sun dogs in the winter sky.
“Ah!” she cried, grasping Alphena’s arm.
“Mother?” the girl said. The alerted escorts were pulling weapons from beneath their capes and tunics.
None of them saw anything. Hedia didn’t see anything—now.
She forced a clumsy laugh. “I tripped on these foolish shoes,” she said, “but I don’t seem to have turned my ankle.”
She wiggled her shapely leg in the air.
“Let’s be getting back to the house, shall we?” Hedia said. The others were staring, though they had started to relax. “There’s nothing more for us here.”
She hoped that was the truth; but she was sure in her heart that it was not.
* * *
VARUS REALIZED he was holding his breath as he waited for someone inside the house of Sempronius Tardus to open the door. No one did. He breathed out, then snorted fresh lungsful of air.
The chief lictor banged again and growled, “Open it for me or by Jupiter you’ll open it for a cohort of the Guard!”
Apparently Varus had been unable to hide his smile. Pandareus looked at him and raised an eyebrow in question.
“I was wondering how it would affect our mission if I were to faint from holding my breath,” Varus said. “I think it better not to make the experiment.”
He opened his tablet and resumed his notes. This was, after all, an official activity of the consul and therefore part of his self-imposed duty of recording the ritual business of the Republic. There was at least the possibility that his records would be of service to later historians, whereas there was no chance at all that anyone in the future would have wanted to read the Collected Verse of Gaius Alphenus Varus.
The door jerked open. A tall man with the beard of a Stoic philosopher and a cloth-of-gold sash that suggested he was the majordomo stood in the opening, looking flustered.
“Your Excellency,” the tall servant said, “my master, Senator Marcus Tardus, will be with you in a moment. If I may ask your indulgence to wait here until the senator is ready to receive you—”
“You may not,” said the chief lictor, prodding his axe head toward the servant’s stomach. “This is the consul, you Theban twit!”
He shoved forward with the remainder of his squad following. The majordomo hopped backward.
“My goodness, what an unexpected slur from a public functionary!” Pandareus said. “Though he caught the Boeotian accent correctly, so I can hardly describe the fellow as uncultured.”
They started into the house. Saxa seemed oblivious of the interchange between servant and lictor. Varus looked sharply at his father, wondering if he could really be as lost in his own world as he generally seemed to be.
Perhaps so. Saxa was insulated by his wealth, which would one day become the wealth of his son Varus. If Varus survived him. If Carce and the world survived.
Sempronius Tardus trotted into the entrance hall from a side passage. He was tightening the wrap of the toga which he must have put on only when the lictor banged for admittance. A dozen servants fluttered around him, all of them frightened.
“Saxa?” Tardus said. “That is, Your Excellency. You’re welcome, of course, but I don’t see…?”
Tardus looked dazed. Well, this business would be startling to anybody, but it seemed to Varus that more was going on than surprise at a consul’s unannounced formal arrival. Though the emperor was known to be erratic, and even the most loyal and honest of men probably had something in his life that could be turned into a capital offense.
“I am here with my learned advisors…,” Saxa said. “To inspect the Serapeum on this property.”
He turned slightly and indicated Varus and Pandareus with a sweeping gesture. This is probably the first time Father has used the rhetorical training that I’m sure he got when he was my age.
“If you will lead us to the chapel,” Saxa continued, “we will finish our business and leave you to your privacy, Lord Tardus.”
“What?” squeaked Tardus. “I—this is a mistake! Saxa, I must ask you to leave my house immediately. You have been misinformed!”
Pandareus looked up quizzically, as though he expected Varus to do something. Varus felt the crowed hall blur about him. There was barely room to move, but he found himself walking forward in the familiar fog.
A bull snorted nearby. Varus turned his head sharply, but he could see nothing in the fog though the sound had come from very close. He walked on, picking his way past outcrops. Some of the rocks looked like statues, or anyway had human features.
He wondered where the Sibyl was. Usually in these reveries, he would have come upon her by now.
Varus heard the bull again, this time behind him, and glanced over his shoulder. The fog had cleared enough for him to see a figure that would have been a giant if its human body had not supported the horned head of a bull. It snorted angrily.
A voluptuous woman reclined on the stony ground behind the creature. She caught Varus’ startled expression and smiled lazily.
He stepped into sunlight. The Sibyl held a small glass bottle in her left hand, the sort of container in which perfume was sold. Something moved inside it, but the glass was iridescent and Varus couldn’t be sure he was seeing a tiny figure rather than the sloshing of liquid.
He bowed formally to the old woman. “Sibyl,” he said. “My father has entered the house of Sempronius Tardus, but the senator denies there is a chapel of Serapis in the property. Will you help me find the chapel, please?”
The old woman’s laughter was like the rasping of cicadas. She pointed with her right hand, down the craggy reverse slope of the ridge.
“Why do you ask me to tell you things you already know, Lord Magician?” she said. “You stand beside the entrance now.”
Varus followed her gesture. He saw himself in the garden behind Tardus’ house. The plantings were unusually extensive, covering a greater area than the building itself. Palms grew on either side, and water flowed down and back along a pair of lotus-filled channels in the center. The gazebo where Varus stood was between them, reached by small bridges to either side.
Pandareus was on his right; his father was to the left. Tardus was with them, but all the other people visible in the garden were members of the consul’s entourage. The household servants had vanished into corners of the house where they hoped to escape attention.
“How…?” Varus said. Then he said, “Thank you, Sib—”
As the final word came out of his mouth, he was again with his companions, beneath a dome supported by thick wooden columns shaped like papyrus stalks. Tardus stared at him numbly.
“—yl.”
Varus blinked. His father and Pandareus were staring at him also: Saxa in concern, the teacher with keen interest.
“I’m sorry,” Varus said. He coughed, because his throat was raw. “I’ve been daydreaming, I’m afraid.”
“You have been repeating, ‘There is a certain dear land, a nurturer for men,’ Lord Varus,” Pandareus said. “Repeating it quite loudly, in fact.”
“Shouting, my son,” Saxa said. “I was rather worried about you.”
“And you led us here to this pavilion,” said Pandareus, who beamed with cheerful satisfaction. Turning, he added to the waxen looking householder, “The motif is interesting, Lord Tardus.”
Varus looked at the gazebo into which he had walked unknowing. The domed ceiling had an opening in the center, but around that was a frieze of men in boats in a landscape of tall reeds. Som
e were hunting ducks with throwing sticks; others were trying to net the variety of fish shown swimming on a bottom register which was painted sea-green.
“If that’s meant to be the Nile,” Pandareus said, musing aloud, “and I suppose it is, I would suggest that brown would have been a more suitable color. I recall thinking that it seemed thick enough to walk on.”
Varus grinned; neither of the other men reacted.
The floor was a pavement of jasper chips in concrete, but in the center was a round frame about a mosaic of a priest with a bronze rattle. Varus looked at it, then raised his eyes to Tardus.
“There’s a catch here,” Tardus said, sounding as though he had received a death sentence. He opened a concealed panel in one of the columns, disclosing a lever. “You’ll need to step off the mosaic.”
Varus, Pandareus, and a moment later Saxa as well stepped back between pairs of pillars.
Tardus threw the lever. The circular mosaic sank into the darkness with a faint squeal. It must have been counterweighted, because it had not required more effort on the lever than to draw a bolt. Broad steps led downward; Varus couldn’t see the bottom in the shadows.
“I had forgotten this old grotto existed, Consul,” Tardus said, looking distinctly ill. “I suppose it’s been here for many years. Since my father’s time, no doubt, or even longer.”
Tardus is an old man, thought Varus. That was true, of course, but in simple years he was younger than Pandareus. Official discovery of a banned chapel on his property seemed to have ripped all the sinews out of his limbs.
“The worship of Sarapis is legal nowadays, of course,” said Saxa, apparently trying to calm his fellow senator.
“There are now official temples of Sarapis in Carce, Lord Saxa,” Pandareus said. “Note, however, that they have not been permitted within the religious boundary of the city. This chapel—”
