The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  And so, for the next hour or two, Adam stood in a tile-lined hallway outside of a room, the other side of the door guarded by Trennus, with Kanmi outside the balcony window, while Ehecatl went invisible and patrolled the grounds. And Livorus . . . negotiated . . . with Centehua Izel.

  Adam watched, expressionlessly, as various other women took men . . . and other women. . . to their various rooms, turning the signs on the outside to read ‘occupied,’ and then, after an allotted amount of time passed, escorted them back out again. At least they don’t clock in and clock out, he decided, distantly, and just watched the faces. Memorized them, mostly out of habit. And did his level best to ignore the noises from past the door he guarded. My job could be worse. It could be a lot worse, in fact.

  When Livorus emerged, his expression and body language were absolutely no different than when he’d passed into the room. Adam, blank-faced, gestured for his charge to follow him, and led the way out, Kanmi and Ehecatl once more bringing up the rear. Back in the car, Kanmi once more electrified the vehicle, shorting out any listening devices—or plain melting them—and Adam asked, neutrally, “Did you obtain any information, sir?”

  “The name of the rebel leader. Information on him, his interests, and methods of getting in touch with him down in the Tikal region. A good expenditure of time, I think. Chan Imix K'awiil . . . which translates to, apparently, ‘Smoke Jaguar.’” Livorus picked up his newspaper, and asked Ehecatl, “Know anything about him?”

  “It’s a Quechan name. The same as one of their early rulers. Either he wants to ally himself with that ancient king in the popular imagination, or his parents had pretentions to grandeur. Or, he actually could be noble-born.” Ehecatl’s voice was detached.

  Livorus nodded, and began to read, while Kanmi shook his head and looked out at the dark city. Trennus rubbed at the amulets around his neck. And Adam just drove. Trying not to think at all.

  As they arrived back at the hotel, however, and as Livorus headed up the stairs, under Trennus and Ehecatl’s watchful eyes, Adam turned back to the bar to get a drink . . . and Kanmi joined him, at least for a while. The Carthaginian was surprisingly fastidious, asking for an earthen bowl with water, and a glass of arak . . . and then put a fingertip just above the surface of the water and murmured under his breath for a moment. The water seethed, suddenly boiling, and steam rose from it. Adam paused, his own glass touching his lips, but not drinking, and continued to watch as Kanmi murmured again, and this time, the water stilled. The steam vanished. And, after a moment, a thin skin of ice formed atop it. The sorcerer tapped on the ice with his fingers till it broke, then added the water to his arak, which turned milky-white, immediately.

  “Don’t trust the water, eh?” Adam said, after a moment.

  “No. Do you?”

  “I’m drinking wine for a reason.”

  After sitting, staring into the milky glass for a while, Kanmi finally said, dryly, “Two gold aurei for two hours? Enough money to pay my rent in Rome and feed my family all month without having to touch my wife’s salary from the hospital. “ He shook his head. “Her pussy must be an independent life form, capable of sitting up and performing tricks.”

  Adam inhaled at an inopportune moment, and choked on a sip of boiled wine. “That is . . . not really a mental image that I wanted, Eshmunazar.”

  “But it is the one that occurred to me, and now I give it to you. Free of charge. And I wish you well of it, until you can pass it along to some other poor, unsuspecting person.” Kanmi swigged back his drink. “Going to be a gods-be-damned long drive tomorrow. Into the next day, even.” He shrugged, and began to stand. “Get some sleep—”

  Adam held up a hand. “Before you go? Wanted to talk to you.”

  Kanmi looked surprised, and sat back down again. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Team-building, really.”

  “I thought we did that back in Rome.”

  “No, we addressed team tactics. There’s a difference. We’re not really used to working as a proper team yet, and that’s partially my fault. I’m not used to working with this much raw magic.” Adam smiled, faintly, trying to show he wasn’t trying to antagonize Kanmi. “That being said, we’re in danger of isolating ourselves from each other.”

  “Part of that’s the hours. We’re each pulling a six-hour shift as the official ‘on-duty’ lictor with one other person awake at the same time—the person who just got off shift.” Kanmi beckoned the bartender over for another drink. Adam was surprised and pleased that the Carthaginian wasn’t fighting him on the issue, or acting insulted. “Having Itztli aboard will help with that, a little. And the additional Praetorians, even if we do wind up having to keep an eye on them, too.”

  “That’s true, but I want to mix up the rotation. And now that we’ll have some additional help, we can at least have people off-rotation at the same time, and do more than just fall on our faces and sleep. Maybe we can get some sparring practice in, together. Cards. Anything that works, really.” Adam shrugged.

  Kanmi gave him a cynical look, and laughed. “You don’t think a few card games is going to make us all swear eternal brotherhood, do you?”

  Adam snorted. “No. But it’s something to do together that we all can manage.”

  “Could try drinking games when we’re all actually off-duty at the same time. No, wait. Caetia probably can’t physically get drunk, and Matrugena and I are very high on the list of people who never, ever should lose control of our inhibitions. What does that leave . . . ? Oh, I know. Floral arrangement. That’ll do nicely.” Kanmi’s tone was caustic. “Or maybe ceramics. We can all sit around using potter’s wheels and create lumpy coffee mugs and call them art.”

  Adam found himself chuckling. “When you come up with something more useful, let me know. Till then, good night, Eshmunazar.” Adam was fairly pleased with how that had gone. He’d managed to suggest to Kanmi that he shouldn’t isolate himself, without directly telling Kanmi that he’d been tending to isolate himself and Trennus, and had regained control over the conversation, when Kanmi had been about to dismiss him.

  ____________________

  In the morning, as they all prepared to head to the south, packing their motorcars with their luggage and the propraetor’s goods and servants, Sigrun asked, cheerfully, “So, did you have a good time at your mysterious errand?”

  Adam grimaced. “Can we not talk about that?”

  “What’s the matter?” Sigrun frowned.

  “Nothing’s the matter. I just don’t want to talk about it.” Adam shrugged. It wasn’t her fault that they’d all gotten quite a bit more of an eyeful—and an earful—last night than was probably healthy. “How about if you tell me, on the way down to Tikal, what happened with Livorus in the Mongol-Qin Provocation.”

  She studied him. “No. Not a fair bargain.”

  “What?” Adam stood up so fast, he clipped his head on the trunk of the car.

  “Just ask Trennus. He’s all about bargains. You tell me about last night, I tell you what little I know about the events in Qin.”

  Adam debated it for a moment. He’d be driving with her, while Kanmi and Trennus were to be driving with the propraetor and the body servants, and Ehecatl had the vehicle with the additional new Praetorians, to whom Adam had just introduced himself, a few minutes ago. It would while away a long drive. “All right, but you first.” He slipped into the driver’s seat.

  Sigrun got into on the passenger’s side, closing the door of the ley-powered car behind her. She leaned back in the seat and cleared her throat as Adam started the engine. “So, the Mongol-Qin Provocation. Livorus had been an ambassador in Qin . . . mid-ranking . . . for about a year when it started. I wasn’t on his detail yet. I was not assigned to him until he got back from Qin.” Scenery started to blur past, as they and the rest of the vehicles in their small convoy got underway, crossing one of the suspension bridges on their way out of Tenochtitlan, light reflecting back from the murky waters of the brackish lake that
cradled the heart of the city. “So, you know that various bands of Mongols periodically harass Raccia and Qin. They’re poor, they’re nomadic, and they cross the borders pretty much indiscriminately. The Khanate doesn’t firmly control all of their people . . . or at least, claims not to. Sometimes, they use various tribes as cat’s-paws. To see what Qin or Raccia will do, in response to an attack. To test their will.” Sigrun sighed. “So, 1949, three minor khans crossed the border into Qin and attacked a ley-line tapping facility on the periphery of their grid. It was just being built, too. They killed the guards, and took the engineers hostage. Half the engineers were Roman, half Qin. Just . . . people doing their jobs.” She turned to look out the window. “They sent one of the local villagers with one of the guards’ heads back to the closest outpost of the Qin empire with a message. ‘We have hostages and we have demands. We want the Qin occupation of this, our traditional land, to come to an end. A withdrawal of your garrisons. And the destruction of all ley-stations in this area, as they are an affront to the earth and the spirits.’”

  Adam exhaled. “That . . . couldn’t have gone over well.” He paused. “The Empire doesn’t usually negotiate with hostage-takers. Not unless it’s someone very high-ranking.” And then, if the price is a ransom, they might pay it . . . or they might use the negotiations as a stall tactic until they can find where the hostage is, and send in a team to effect a rescue.

  Sigrun nodded, leaning back as they finally left the outskirts of Tenochtitlan; they now had a twenty-hour drive ahead of them. “Generally, Rome doesn’t negotiate,” she agreed now. “But they were in the middle of Qin. There were no Roman garrisons nearby, other than Roman embassy guards and a few lictors. And if Livorus had mustered out troops and driven from where his consulate was to the Mongol border, he might have offended his Qin hosts. So Livorus gathered his lictors, just his personal bodyguards, and drove out to the border, after telling Qin authorities he meant to try to get his people back . . . theirs too, if he could manage it. They gave him leave to try, but told him that they were mustering their garrisons, and that he had best talk quickly.”

  “Weren’t the Mongols apt to kill their captives if they felt threatened?” Adam asked.

  “If they killed them too quickly, they would lose leverage, or at least, lose human shields.” Sigrun grimaced. “So there was Livorus, with just himself, the fasces, and four lictors, meeting with three minor khans and several hundred of their soldiers. He told me he’d made sure to empty his bladder and bowels before beginning negotiations. He was lucky. They offered him hospitality, and he told them, plain and simple, that his people and theirs had fought before, when the Khanate sent troops into Asia Minor and from there, down into Byzantium and Judea, seven hundred years ago . . . and that the western khans perpetually test the will of Rome along that short border. He told them that he, and Rome, had no interest in the dispute between them and Qin. But that if they forced Rome’s hand here, today, that Rome would have no choice but to become interested.” She shrugged. “They did not want to risk the enmity of their own people, if Rome began attacks to the west. So they released the Roman engineers, most of whom had been beaten and tortured, to Livorus. He bundled them all into the trucks, but he couldn’t, no matter how he tried, convince them to release the Qin engineers. He tried telling them it was a gesture of good faith. They saw it as a symbol of weakness. So he drove away, a hero in the eyes of Rome . . . but had to leave seventy men behind.” Sigrun sighed. “By the time the Qin garrison got there, the Mongols had decamped, rather than face the Qin army directly. They had destroyed the ley-facility . . . .and they had left all of their prisoners behind. Impaled on pikes.”

  Adam swerved to avoid a pothole in the poured-stone road, and stayed completely silent for a long moment. “That . . . puts the propraetor in a whole different light,” he said, after a moment.

  Sigrun nodded. “I respect the man. I really do. I also suspect he still has nightmares about the men he had to leave behind. Qin or no, I think he sees it as a failure on his part.” She paused. “All right. I’ve fulfilled my half of the bargain. Speak. Where did you all go last night?”

  Adam’s eyes shifted to the rearview mirror, where he could just see part of one storm-gray eye and the curve of her cheekbone. “Ah, Livorus wanted to go to a brothel.”

  Sigrun’s head snapped towards him. “You’re pleased to jest. That was all he had in mind?”

  Adam’s lips twitched ruefully. He’d noticed that her mode of speaking with the other lictors, and even Livorus himself, tended towards the painfully formal. No contractions, no slurring of words in Latin. However, with him, once in a while, she’d slip into a colloquial form . . . as she just had. Still, she didn’t sound entirely shocked. “I swear, it’s true.”

  She shook her head. “Well, it has been a while—not for a year, I think? He doesn’t frequent them often.” She quirked him a grin. “Ptah-ases used to ask to go with him. His wife never cared. So did Villu. Something about being able to charge it to their expense reports.”

  Adam did his best not to swerve off the road, and did his best not to laugh out loud. After a moment, cautiously, he asked, “I thought you’d be bothered.”

  “No, why should I be?” Her voice was almost carefully casual.

  “Germania and Gaul don’t permit it, I thought.” He couldn’t quite believe he was having this conversation.

  “It’s permitted, so long as the facilities are licensed and clean. There just aren’t as many brothels per capita in our cities. Largely, I think, because our women are much freer than in other provinces.” Sigrun shrugged. “Societies with clean, licensed, and regulated prostitution, in the Roman fashion, have lower incidences of violence against women. It provides an outlet that’s safe for all, and a livelihood for women who have . . . limited education and options. And some of the women are actually highly educated. Would I like to see them have more options? Yes. But at least I know that in a legal brothel, the women are there by choice, and haven’t been picked up as runaways and forced into a life of slavery, or aren’t selling themselves on a street corner.” She shrugged again. “There’s a difference.” She paused, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see her expression shift. “So, how is your expense report looking?”

  Adam choked, and then laughed out loud. “I’m not looking to add anything from the Entertainment category, if that’s what you’re asking.” He paused. “A few extra drinks from the bar on getting back to the hotel, but other than that, the accounting department shouldn’t be spending any overtime on sorting mine out. Or any of us, really.”

  “Well, that’s . . . surprising, really.” Sigrun blinked. “At least, as regards Kanmi. But then, you and Trennus do seem to be good boys.”

  Adam turned his head just enough to grin at her. “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. So very, very wrong.”

  Sigrun laughed, a ripple of sound that was surprisingly dark-toned and pleasant. Adam gave her a look, and then added, “So what’s with this nice boys talk, eh?”

  “Trennus seems young, in some ways. Inexperienced, in others.”

  “He’s a year older than I am.”

  “Yes, but you come across as older.” She shrugged a little, and rolled down the window of the car to let the steamy air whip across their faces.

  Adam glanced behind them, verifying that no one seemed to be following the convoy at the moment. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as one.” Her tone was unruffled, but she paused and noted, “Yesterday was Frigedæg.”

  “Dies Veneris, yes.”

  “And today is Sæternesdæg.”

  “If you’re asking me why I was out after sundown with the propraetor, and why I’m driving today, the answer is ‘because Livorus and the rest of the world will not work on my schedule, no matter how nicely I ask him.’” Adam glanced at her. “But if you want to take a turn driving . . . I wouldn’t say no.”

  “When we come to a rest area, of
course I will.” Sigrun paused. “Your god will not be angry with you?” Her tone was concerned.

  “I run my life by the general assumption that my god thinks of his people as grown-ups. There are guidelines for behavior, but by and large, we’re expected to make our own choices and deal with the repercussions of them ourselves.” He shrugged. “Every faith says that we’re the children of the gods. But I personally think that what every parent wants, more than anything else, is to see their children grow up. What’s the point of having children if they just stay children?”

  Sigrun nodded, lifting her eyebrows. “Not a bad philosophy at all.” She paused. “But that being said, you could have told Livorus. The propraetor is flexible about his lictors’ faiths. He’s rarely objected to me wearing the chicken-suit, for example.“ A smile curved the corners of her lips.

  “Yes, but if I didn’t go last night, he’d have been short a bodyguard.”

  “I could have gone.”

  Adam’s head turned completely towards her, just for a moment, even as he continued driving. “You could have gone?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “To a brothel?”

  “I don’t see why I couldn’t have managed.” She sounded embarrassed and annoyed at once.

  Adam whooped with laughter, and absolutely couldn’t stop for the next half mile. Every time he almost managed to catch his breath, Sigrun would ask “What?” and he was off again on another jag of laughter. There was no possible way in which he could tell her, in words, what a bad idea this was, so, after a few moments, he took a hand off the wheel, and very lightly tugged on her braid. “You know, on the whole, I think my god would think it a much better thing that I do my job, and you know . . . prevent bloodshed.”

  “I don’t think I’d kill anyone, Adam. I can control myself.” She sounded vexed.

  “Trust me. There would have been blood.”

  “Adam, I’d be standing there in armor, holding a weapon. I don’t think anyone could possibly be confused as to my purpose there.” Vexed, bordering on waspish. Also, confused.