He and Sigrun did their best to fade into the background, like good lictors should, as Livorus spoke with Fritti’s family. Accepted their wrist-clasps, accepted their tearful thanks, on behalf of Rome, and then withdrew. But both parents advanced on Sigrun, and again, there was a long and twisty-sounding conversation. Adam was struck by the polite respect with which Sigrun’s words were heard. Again, no bended knee. But they’re listening to her as if she were a judge. . . all right, technically, she is, I suppose. Ælagol. Whatever. He caught several words he did recognize—Burgundoi, a city on the Pacifica coast, north of Nimes, where he’d been briefly stationed in Novo Gaul. The Odinhall, where Sigrun had studied, probably a temple or something. And Valhalla, where her gods were said to live.
And then she withdrew, with a slight bow of her head and a smile, and instead of a leader of her people, once more became a graven-faced lictor, adjunct to Livorus, and nothing more. Fritti wouldn’t leave it at that, however, and darted forwards, wrapping her arms around Sigrun’s waist, and surprise crossed the valkyrie’s face. A few more quick words in Gothic, and a few shoulder pats, and then Fritti went back to her family. And as they left, Adam glanced back in time to see Frittigil waving shyly in farewell. And a smile crossed his bearded face, just for a moment, before they headed back aboard their plane. “She needed a little more reassurance that your Odinhall wasn’t going to eat her?” he gibed Sigrun, lightly.
“She asked me, if I weren’t too busy, if I would mind exchanging letters with her. I told her I was always busy, but never too busy for that. Training a first-generation god-born is very important. And if I can offer her any guidance, I would be proud to do so.” Sigrun’s tone was calm, as she settled into the plane’s seat once more. At least with these ley-powered contraptions, we don’t have to wait for them to refuel. The batteries are just changed out.
“And now, we must return to work,” Livorus told them both as the plane turned and began taxing once more for lift-off.
“I don’t believe we ever left off, propraetor,” Sigrun told him, tiredly.
Livorus settled his dispatch case on the seat beside him, and leaned across the aisle to speak to them. “We’re going to head back to Rome, by way of Novo Trier. We need a bigger plane to cross the Sea of Atlas, and will likely touch down in Londonium before making our way home. I need to make a full report to the Imperator and the Senate on all these doings here in Caesaria Aquilonis. Additionally, Ehecatl will be out of action for about two months. Ptah-ases . . . probably closer to six.” He grimaced. “Ptah was already due to cycle off of my detail as it is. We’ll pick up permanent replacements for both of them when we get to Rome, I suspect.” He gave Adam a wintery smile. “You will no longer be the new conscript. Instead, you will be the seasoned veteran.”
Adam shook his head. He didn’t like it, but if Ehecatl and Ptah were that badly injured . . . he gave Sigrun a sidelong look. Technically, she could heal them, he supposed. But then again, both men had refused to let her. And, given the physical toll that such healing imposed on her, he couldn’t see letting her do the same for him, either. She might well say she was fine this morning, but her face still looked drawn and tired under the pink residue of the burns. “It’s our loss,” Adam muttered. “I didn’t have a chance to work with them for long, but they’re both damned good at what they do.”
“We might get Ehecatl back when he finishes his recovery,” Livorus told them, with a faint shrug. “He has no immediate retirement plans. Ptah has been looking forward to seeing more of his wife and children, however. We’ll see. In the meantime. . .” he looked directly at Sigrun, “I have a question for you, my valkyrie.”
Sigrun turned, her eyebrows rising. Adam had never heard Livorus refer to her by that term before. Always the light ‘my dear,’ but Livorus never said it in a condescending way, or even a possessive one. The man clearly held Sigrun in respect and affection, but his tone was always . . . detached . . . when he spoke to her. “Yes, sir?”
“Our friend, the late priest of the Morning Star, told me, before he passed, that he’d saved his people. And asked me if I knew where my gods were.” Livorus snorted. “What did he mean?”
Sigrun blinked, rapidly. “His blood was poured out on the earth. His life given for his people,” she replied, clinically. “He could have meant it quite that literally. He saved his people, by . . . becoming their sacrifice. By binding them more tightly to the Morning Star, and giving the god the power of his life.” She shook her head. “But to ask if you knew where your gods were . . . that doesn’t make sense.”
“I know precisely where my household gods are,” Livorus replied, dryly. “On my altar, at home, near the fireplace in the largest receiving room. They’re bound to their images, bound to my home, and have been, for centuries. As to the rest of the gods, as far as I know, they’re either incorporeally listening to prayers in temples, overseeing the virtues in men’s hearts, or, if you’re feeling particularly literal—or Hellene—squabbling on Mount Olympus.”
Sigrun cleared her throat. Livorus raised his eyebrows. “Yes, my dear?”
“Valhalla exists, dominus. To the best of my knowledge, so does Olympus.”
“There are at least three mountains by that name, of which I am aware.” Livorus’ eyebrows remained lifted.
Sigrun shifted, a little uneasily. “There is the physical reality, a mountain in Hellas. And there is the . . . metaphysical reality. That mountain, as best I understand it, contains a gate. An opening.” She gestured, clearly uncomfortable, even a little embarrassed. “To the realm where the gods dwell.” She shrugged. “I am not an expert, sir. In my time at the Odinhall, my instruction in metaphysics was limited.”
Adam shook his head a little. He knew perfectly well that there were other gods. He knew perfectly well that they took physical form—it would be somewhat difficult to have god-born without that prerequisite. Although there were all the Hellene legends about golden showers and women being raped by geese and bulls, which . . . which, on reflection, he really hoped were metaphors. “You mean, if you blunder into the wrong cave on Mount Olympus, you could wind up in the Hellene’s afterlife?” Adam asked now, letting his amused skepticism show.
“I think that if you blunder into the wrong cavern anywhere, and take a bad step, or meet a bear, you’ll wind up in someone’s afterlife,” Sigrun returned, with a faint trace of a smile, and then sobered. “I don’t know if I’d call it the afterlife. If you went through, and were not caught by a guardian and turned back . . . you’d be in the realm of the gods. And that is not a place meant for mortals.”
Adam wanted to be skeptical. . . . but he also knew that there were limits to his understanding of the world. And at the discomfort, yet assurance in her voice, he simply nodded, and Livorus did the same. The propraetor returned to the original subject now, frowning. “I’ve never much concerned myself with where the gods are. It’s . . . a ridiculous question.” He stared at them both. “But a dying man used his last breath to taunt me with it. Why?”
Sigrun stared at him, and slowly shook her own head. “I have no idea, sir.”
Adam lifted his hands. “I don’t suppose that the Chahiksichahiks believe in any . . . physical location for their gods? Any mortal bodies or forms?”
Livorus shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. Turning a captive woman into the semblance of the Evening Star is the closest that they come to that. But they don’t seem to believe that the Evening Star comes to inhabit her during the sacrifice, or any such thing.” He exhaled and turned back in his seat, picking up his dispatch case. “Think on it, while we continue in our travels, if you would. I would very much like to have this question answered.”
“So would I, dominus,” Sigrun murmured, “But a great deal of what just happened outside of Ponca . . . we’re never going to get all of the details, are we?”
That was, in fact, the worst part of this job, Adam had already discovered. They were the trouble-shooters. Livorus was sent in when most
other methods of diplomacy had failed, or when there wasn’t time to lay much groundwork. They were sent in, with minimal information, and expected to get results. . . and while they had to stand for review on incidents that devolved into violence, and Livorus had to stand before the Imperator and the Senate and give an accounting for his decisions. . . they very often were taken out of the loop, once they’d left an area. It was no longer their concern. It was back in the hands of the diplomats who may or may not have made the mess in the first place.
Livorus sighed a little. “Patience, my dear. No, you aren’t members of the diplomatic team, or the investigative team that will be dealing with the whole of this situation for . . . probably a decade or so to come. . . but both of you have unique insights, and keen minds. Any thoughts you have, no matter how odd? Bring them to me.” He looked back down at his papers. “And now, if you’d both begin preparing your written reports? I’ll need them by the time we get to Londonium. My staff will type them from your written notes once we arrive in Rome.”
Chapter IV: Alterations
Electricity, whether alternating current or direct current, is simply not a safe mechanism for the transference of power. The potential for shocks that result in injury or death is simply too great for any ethical person to recommend tamed lightning as a power source. There are multiple methods for generating it, I will agree, and some of these methods are inexpensive, and even, I will grant, inexhaustible, such as wind and solar generation. But other methods, such as burning coal, which should be reserved for warming people’s homes? Hardly seem worthwhile. It makes no sense to burn an entire forest, to light a single lamp. That is why I advocate tapping ley-lines. They exist, have been used for centuries already by ley-mages, are safe, inexhaustible, and, best of all, do not generate smoke, soot, and ash when used. A city which uses ley-energies to provide light for its citizens will be clean and wholesome, and everyone in it will breathe easily, as free men ought, rather than being choked by a slave’s collar made of grime and disease.
—Thomas Mauritus, founder of modern ley-engineering, 1555 AC, in a speech before the Roman Academy of Natural Philosophy.
The incandescent bulb was developed, I must admit, as a toy for my children. I found that I could hold one in my hand, and cause the filament to smolder dimly with only a little transference of ley-energy. I thought of it as a training device for them, so that they could learn to tap ley-lines, and see evidence of their own success. I never imagined that I held in my hand something that would replace candles and whale-oil lamps. Until, that is, my wife told me to hold the ‘jar of light’ closer over her work, and thanked me for providing, clear, steady light that did not flicker or change as she sewed. Suddenly, a whole world of possibilities opened before me.
—Thomas Mauritus, inventor of the light bulb, 1570 AC, in a speech before the Academy of the Philosophers, Britannia.
______________________
Martius 29, 1954 AC
The phone rang, a jarring, invasive sound like a slightly more harmonious dental drill. Adam sat bolt upright in bed, shedding sheets and blankets, and wondering, just for a moment, where in god’s name he was. Dim light filtering in from a window showed him rental furniture, not at all to his taste or comfort, including a Roman-style dining couch and backless, folding stools that filled the pre-furnished apartment he was renting for his stay in Rome. He’d been given the option of staying full-time with Livorus and his family, but had declined, needing a little mental space from the job.
The phone rang again, and Adam stumbled out of bed, taking the two steps required to get to the desk, thumped his shin against the backless chair there, swore, and caught the phone on the third ring. “Ave?” he said, out of habit, in Latin.
“Shalom,” was the reply on the other end, in a familiar voice.
Adam blinked rapidly and changed mental gears. “Shalom, Imah,” he told his mother. “It’s nice to hear your voice.”
“The phone could be picked up from your end, occasionally,” she told him, lightly. “How have you been?”
In the background, he could hear his father’s voice being raised, and the voices of his sisters, arguing about something or another. Theirs was a large, noisy family, much prone to squabbling. “Fine, thank you. And you and Father?”
“He’s been busy at work, as usual.” Maor ben Emmet, Adam’s father, had worked for the Judean Intelligence Office for over twenty years now. Adam largely regarded his father as a distant, if approving force in his life, and had spent many evenings at home with his brother and sister, trying to solve little cryptographic puzzles his father had set them. Usually just letter replacements, until they were old enough to have learned both Latin and Hebrew . . . at which point their father had started swapping between the two languages for his codes. His older brother had hated the game, but Adam had enjoyed it. Then again, he’d been good at it, and Mikayel, two years his senior, had struggled with it. Struggled with seeing patterns, with transposing letters from one alphabet to another, or words from one language written in a different alphabet entirely.
His older brother had had inventive ways of punishing Adam for ‘showing off,’ back in the day. Whether it had been being able to memorize more Torah verses, or deciphering the code of the week correctly, there’d always been a price, at least until Adam had hit his growth spurt. The price wasn’t usually physical—there’d been little hitting tolerated in the house. And he hadn’t, generally speaking, lost whatever treat he’d been given for winning. But winning had, invariably, been a reason for Mikayel to run him down, verbally. To tell him that only showoffs had to win every time. That he wasn’t any better than Mikayel. And, for a number of years, Adam had believed every word his older brother said. Mikayel was, after all, older. He knew more, by definition. However, higher education and four years in the JDF’s special forces, compared to his brother’s stint of two years in the corps of engineers? Had taught Adam to respect himself, and his own abilities. Not to flaunt them, but not to denigrate them, either.
“What did you do for Passover?” Determined good cheer in his mother’s voice.
Adam grimaced, already anticipating his mother’s reaction. “I had to travel over it, actually.”
“Not on Yom Tov, I hope?” The first two and last two days of Passover week were Yom Tov, festival days, and travel on them was forbidden.
Adam sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Yes, and on Shabbat, too.” He’d been called in by Livorus in Britannia on what was, for him, a non-working day, and they’d been on a plane for the New World hours later, landing first in Greenland for fuel, and then in Novo Trier, and then they’d hopped to Marcomanni. They’d arrived so late on die Solis evening—Sunandaeg, whatever—that it had been dies Lunae when they’d finished talking with Fritti’s family and local authorities. They’d gotten a few hours’ sleep, and then, because no planes had been available, they’d driven seven hundred miles the next day to get to Ponca, arriving in late afternoon. And the worst of it was, they almost hadn’t been in time, anyway.
“Oh, Adam, you know better—” Disappointment and worry, comingled, and it irritated him.
“A girl had been kidnapped in Caesaria Aquilonis. We had to cross the Sea of Atlas and get there before she was killed. I think I will be forgiven much more quickly for not observing a high holy day, than for letting a girl die, don’t you think?” Adam heard the irritation in his own voice, exhaled, and tamped down on his temper. His mother didn’t deserve it. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap. But no one has ever, in the history of the world, committed crimes on a convenient schedule.”
“I know, I just worry for you. Two years in all parts of India, and then I thought another two years in Novo Gaul, but instead, now, you’re running all over the world. Britannia, Nova Germania, Rome . . . . ”
I know, he wanted to say, as he stood at his desk. And it’s the chance of a lifetime, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else on earth. But his mother had already gone on, “And in betwe
en all the running around, I wonder if what’s really important isn’t getting lost.”
Adam picked up the phone’s base, tugged the cord gently, and walked back over to the bed. If it was going to be this conversation . . . again . . . he’d prefer to be lying down for it. “I like to think that saving lives is somewhat important, Imah.” He kept his tone gentle, but dryness leaked in, anyway.
“Oh, of course it is! I don’t mean to that your job isn’t worthwhile. I just . . . I see your brother, married now for six years, two beautiful children, a lovely wife, a nice home . . . he has roots. He’s part of the community.”
Adam let the words roll past him. He’d heard them before. He’d undoubtedly hear them again. He even quelled the rebellious voice inside that questioned whether being a ‘part of the community’ in Jerusalem was of any interest to him at all. He didn’t speak until his mother added, quickly, “I just want to make sure that you don’t let life pass you by, Adam. You need a wife, a home here in Judea. I took the liberty of talking to a matchmaking service—”
“No.” His voice was firm.
“There’s nothing shameful in using their services! They find people who are perfectly well suited to one another, and whose families can get along—”
“No, Imah.”
“And how else are you going to meet a nice girl, if you’re traipsing all over the world, hmm?”
Adam cleared his throat. “I do all right.” He smothered the grin that quirked his lips, even though his mother couldn’t see it; it would show up in his voice if he let it get away from him. “You really don’t need to worry about me, Imah. I’m not planning on settling down any time soon. If and when I do, I’ll be sure to tell you, all right? Just, please. Don’t waste money on a matchmaker for me. I’m not likely to be home to meet any of the girls any time soon, and I’m surely not going to get married by proxy . . . or leave someone alone at home to stare at the walls, while I’m out traveling the world.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 15
