The nurse had called the doctor, and the doctor had tried to order him to take the medication, on the grounds that pain would impede his recovery, and Kanmi had, solely for illustrative purposes, picked the doctor up off the ground with his mind, not moving from his perch on the bed. “Do you really want me seeing pink elephants?”
“I assure you, it’s non-hallucinogenic!”
“Just give me some damned aspirin, all right?”
They gave him the aspirin, and cleared away, telling him he could check out after they finished giving him a full IV of antibiotics, and after he picked up his prescription for creams, specialized burn ointments, and more oral antibiotics . . . and that he should probably see his primary care physician in four or five days, or sooner if his condition worsened. I got off easy. Not as easy as ben Maor, who escaped injury by virtue of being underestimated . . . but easier than Matrugena or Caetia did.
He was moodily trying not to pick at his bandages and reminding himself that increasing the rate of flow from the IV would probably do something nasty to his veins, when the phone rang. His dark brows rose, and he picked up the receiver, awkwardly, between two flattened palms. “Ave?”
“Kanmi! Oh, thank the gods. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours. The Praetorians finally patched me through three switchboards to your hotel, wherever you are.” It was his wife Bastet’s voice, speaking Latin, as she usually did when they were together; even after eight years in Tyre, from med school until this past year, when he’d been able to move her and the children to Rome, she still didn’t speak his native Carthaginian. Latin, not a problem; everyone at the hospital spoke Latin. And she was the only doctor they had who spoke Egyptian and Nubian, which meant that she got stuck with translation duty every now and again . . . but he’d always privately wondered why in Baal’s name she still didn’t speak more than twelve words of his language. For his lack of facility in her language, he had the excuse of not having actually lived in Nubia . . . but he’d picked up a toddler’s vocabulary from their children, at least.
“What’s wrong?” Kanmi asked, immediately, however, putting all the usual irritations and strains of working so far away from his wife to the back of his head. “Are the boys all right?”
They’d waited until Bastet was done with medical school, and had intended to wait till she was done with residency, too, before having children. Himilico, their eldest, had been a bit of an accident, and had resulted in them needing to rely on Kanmi’s mother in Tyre for childcare, because Kanmi himself had been off doing Praetorian work and Bastet had been in her apprentice years at the hospital, sometimes away from home for twenty-four to forty-eight hour stretches. Bodeshmun, or Bodi, was only three, and had been a bit more deliberately planned . . . .and now, between their two paychecks, they actually had enough money to afford a good pedagogue for the two boys, a Hellene woman who’d had impeccable references. “Himi had a bad fall,” Bastet told him, quietly. “Yesterday. He was playing with the neighbor’s children, and you know how the apartments here in Rome are . . . all the metal fire escapes?”
Kanmi closed his eyes and swore. He could picture it all too clearly. His family lived on the fifth floor. “Bastet . . . oh, gods, is he all right?”
“He caught his arm in one of the drop-down ladders. It could have been a lot worse.” She sounded ragged. “I was at the hospital when the pedagogue brought them both here. His left forearm’s broken, both bones, and he was terrified, of course . . . but gods, what a little legionnaire. And Bodi wanted to give him his favorite stuffed marmot for the overnight stay at the hospital yesterday.” Bastet’s voice had been proud, but now started to hold an edge. “I couldn’t find you! You weren’t at the hotel where you said you’d be! I had to call the regional Praetorian headquarters, and they transferred my call to you, once I convinced them that I was who I said I was. Were you out drinking or whoring or something?” A hint of bitterness there.
Kanmi was already seething with guilt. He knew it was irrational. Even if he’d been there, in Rome, he’d likely have been at work. But if he’d happened to have been home, if he’d happened to have seen it happen, he could have stopped the boy’s fall from the fire escape . . . or at least, he’d have been more attentive than the pedagogue clearly had been. Of course, it was damned easy to second-guess when you were over three thousand miles from home. But the accusation of being out carousing was particularly irksome, especially since he rarely had more than one or two drinks in an entire week. He couldn’t have more than that, for the same reason as he couldn’t have a narcotic painkiller. He was an extremely powerful sorcerer.
On the other hand, she was clearly upset, and felt guilty because she hadn’t been there, and she was taking it out on him because he wasn’t there, and because he was the only available target. Understanding it didn’t make it any easier. And since they’d been married for nine years, he’d heard it all before. Repeatedly.
Familiarity didn’t make it easier, either. But at least it let him keep his voice even, rather than yelling back at her, as he once might have. “No, Bastet,” Kanmi managed, biting off the ends of his words, “I’m actually in the hospital at the moment, myself.”
There was a clear pause. And then, remorse and shame in her voice, “Oh, gods. I didn’t know! Kanmi, are you all right?”
“Burns. Second-degree. Most of the surfaces of both hands. I look like a mummy, and it hurts like a bitch, but I’ll be all right. I just can’t pick anything up for a week or two.” Kanmi’s voice was clipped, but he was trying to soften it. “Let me talk to the boys . . . no. Wait. What time is it there?” It was past five postmeridian here, add eight hours . . . . “When can I call back, and what hospital are you at? The one you work at?”
“Asclepius Northwestern, yes. Kanmi—I’m so sorry—”
“I know. Me too.”
Yes, you’re always sorry. And I’m always sorry. And I know damned well that I’m going to come home, and we’re going to wait for the boys to be in bed, and we’re going to have the same argument we’ve had a hundred times before. Four years on the Mongol border, and then I was supposed to be home and underfoot all the time, working for the sorcerer’s preparatory school in Tyre or at a university, or something. But when the Praetorians think you’re good enough, and they come calling, you don’t say no. Two years of diplomatic work, where I was just a few hundred miles away . . . that wasn’t so bad. And it was better than me being in Mongolia. But now, not knowing where Livorus is going to be from week to week . . . Kanmi sighed. He knew his wife hated it. He understood why. He wasn’t particularly fond of being away from her for long periods, either; her gleaming dark eyes, the brilliant white of her smile when she laughed, the soft darkness of her arms, had been all he dreamed about when he was away for years. Though lately, it was getting harder to picture her face. And when they were together, he’d never given a damn that she was four inches taller than he was, and had always ignored the stares they got when they walked around, hand-in-hand, in public.
What he could not understand was why she didn’t grasp that his job was important. He wasn’t a doctor, the way she was. But he could save lives. Admittedly, he was better at ending them. But it was what he could do, and he was very, very good at it.
And they’d argue and hash it out, and they’d continue sailing along for another couple of months . . . maybe even another half a year, and then they’d have the exact same argument again. Only next time, it would be louder and more vehement and take longer to patch up. That was the worst part, really. Knowing that absolutely nothing would change, unless he gave up doing what he was better at than about ninety-nine point nine percent of the rest of the world. Unless he asked for reassignment from a damned prestigious position, one that was allowing them to have a pedagogue for the boys and live in Rome, not in fish-stinking Tyre. Because she was never going to change her mind. In truth, being more or less a single mother with an absentee husband wasn’t what she’d signed up for. She’d signed up
for romance, for being swept off her feet, and the promise that she’d never have to go home to Nubia again.
The pause in their conversation had gone on a little long. She had evidently been waiting for him to apologize more, or explain himself further. “The boys would like to hear from you, I think.” Her voice limped out onto the phone line, at the same moment he told her, “But this long-distance call is expensive. Let me call you back when it’s ten or so your time, all right?”
And then they hung up, and Kanmi said every bad word he’d learned on the docks, growing up in Tyre. It was an international port. The list was extensive, colorful, and above all else . . . heartfelt. He’d get it out here, in the room. That way, when he saw his coworkers again, all they’d see was the cynical smile.
____________________
Iunius 15-20, 1954 AC
The next two days passed in a blur for the four lictors. They were all put on administrative leave, because their actions at Teotihuacán had resulted in the deaths of three Eagle warriors and two civilian casualties as well; such things required review. Even if their actions were currently so highly classified that their review board was apt to consist of the Imperator and the commander of the Praetorians and no one else . . . their actions still required examination. Which meant that they were effectively stood down. Ehecatl had submitted his resignation, as he’d said he would, but he’d be going to Rome to stand for review, the same as the rest of them. And to sign any number of non-disclosure documents, more than likely.
Livorus, with a certain resignation in his tone, told them, “I’ll need another full lictor team while you’re undergoing review. I fully expect to be here in Nahautl for the next six months, working out at least a preliminary set of power-transfer arrangements between Emperor Achcauhtli, Governor Dioscuri, the governor of Tikal, and the Quechan rebels.”
“Are we sure that Achcauhtli didn’t have something to do with all of this?” Kanmi asked, dourly, as he sat at the table in Livorus’ palatial hotel suite in Tenochtitlan, very slowly peeling an apple with a small knife. The process with his bandaged hands looked so laborious that Adam finally sighed and took both the fruit and the knife away, cutting it for Kanmi as if the Carthaginian were a child.
Livorus raised his eyebrows at Kanmi. “That will doubtless take countless man-hours over the next year or so to determine, Eshmunazar. The records obtained at Tototl and Xicohtencatl’s estates . . . though I certainly doubt if all have been, or ever will be recovered . . . have yet to turn up more than that each man yearned to make himself the overlord of Nahautl, and to control Emperor Achcauhtli as a figurehead. Each, naturally, after having displaced the other as the main leader.” He sighed. “No one ever quite seems to grasp that triumvirates in government are usually unstable, historically speaking, and even partnerships of only two, inevitably fail as one partner turns on the other. Every time there is a revolution, anywhere, the result is almost inevitably a dictatorship, run by a single man—or woman, I suppose—” he gave Sigrun a quick, almost sly smile, and she raised her eyebrows at him, “with the short-lived revolution of the Gracchi brothers being the only counterexample that I can easily bring to mind. And look what happened to them.”
The Gracchi brothers, who’d lived a century before Julius Caesar, had attempted to institute Hellene-style democratic principles in the old Roman Republic . . . and had both grossly overestimated the will of the plebeians and severely underestimated the amount of corruption already inherent to the old Republic. One of the brothers, with three hundred of his followers, had been clubbed to death after attempting to extend the rights of Romans to non-Roman Italians. The other had been killed, along with three thousand of his followers, shortly thereafter, mostly because Roman plebeians had jealously wanted to retain their rights and privileges without extending them to people outside of the sacred hills of Rome itself.
Livorus sighed. “At any rate, what little we do know about their motivations . . . and little describes the case aptly . . . suggests that Xicohtencatl truly did wish to toss Rome out, but felt that the best way to do so would be to first, provide services that Rome could not—power, for example—and second, to gain power over Achcauhtli and the common people. By religion, if by no other way. His writings seem to indicate that the notion of actually controlling the . . . ah, entity in question . . .” he glanced around, indicating he did not trust their environs completely, “did not occur to him until quite late. Classic example of overreaching and hubris, I believe. Tragic, really. It would make for quite a play, if the entire series of events weren’t classified.” He paused. “Tototl’s motivations appear to have been as outlined by Smoke Jaguar. His writings indicate a preoccupation with uniting the native peoples of the new world against their Roman ‘oppressors.’ And to do so, he wished to re-ignite in them the fires of the traditional forms of worship.” Livorus paused. “One wonders what, precisely, he would have done when he encountered native populations who did not happen to worship or acknowledge his god.” He paused. “Other than preparing them as sacrifices, of course.”
All five lictors stirred around the table, uncomfortably. “I do not wish to imagine that further,” Sigrun acknowledged, quietly. “Bloody internal warfare, I am certain.”
“More than likely,” Ehecatl agreed, tiredly.
Livorus sighed. “I expect that the Praetorians and local gardia will spend the next six months to a year sorting out who else was involved. Who in Xicohtencatl’s ‘research and development’ teams knew precisely what they were dealing with, for example. Such a large endeavor can’t have been the work of two men, working alone.”
Kanmi stirred. “The gardia sent me some typewritten copies and photographs of documents that they found at Xicohtencatl’s office. Pamphlets from a few political groups he was involved in—can’t say I’d want to be a member today, eh?—and the newsletter from a technomancer’s collegia called ‘The Source Initiative.” He shrugged. “I’m reading through it all now, but I’m not finding anything really subversive. Other than a few people proposing that becoming too dependent on ley-energy might stifle creativity and innovation, or something like that. Nothing really world-shattering, though.”
“Keep digging,” Livorus told him, firmly. “Few people are really creative enough to come up with any thoughts on their own. We all absorb ideas from those around us. What we read. What we watch on the far-viewer. Some people have a greater ability to analyze, synthesize, and extrapolate from sources than others, but most people merely know how to repeat what they’ve been told. Our two conspirators might even have been the leaders of their little intended coup . . . but they didn’t draw the idea out of the ether, either.”
“What are your intentions with the Quechan rebels near Tikal, sir?” Sigrun asked, bringing their meeting back on track.
“I do not wish to reward bad behavior, but if it’s a choice between wiping out the entire population of a region, with the potential to ignite two other provinces into rebellion, and this . . . we’ll try some limited regional autonomy.” Livorus gave Adam a chill glance. “With the understanding that if they take what they’re given out of a spirit of benevolence, and continue to agitate, steal, kidnap, and murder, that all autonomy will be revoked, martial law will be imposed, and the legions will march in, to include airstrikes on anything that so much as looks like a rebel base. Women and children will not, under those circumstances, be spared.” Livorus exhaled. “War’s a dirty business . . . but Rome has never shied from it.”
“I’m just sorry we can’t be down there with you until the review has been conducted,” Adam replied, and he meant it. He’d more or less gotten his propraetor into this mess. It was his job to protect the man through the whole process, and what was he getting instead? Downtime. Probably a return to Rome in the next week to give personal testimony in front of someone . . . very high-ranking. Nothing to look forward to, really.
Livorus shook his head. “If it weren’t for the diplomatic business I find myself ensnared i
n, I would be there with you. As it is, I expect to conduct several high-security phone calls from the governor’s palace and will probably face a few closed-door meetings of the Senate when I do return home.” He shrugged. “So long as the Imperator is reasonably well-pleased, I will probably not be censured.” The propraetor spread his hands. “I believe your travel arrangements are for the twentieth, yes?”
Sigrun coughed into her hand. “Ah, about that, my lord?”
Adam turned to regard her in the plushly-appointed hotel room that Livorus and his various servants currently occupied. She looked far better than she had two days ago. No more suppurating mass of weeping blisters and peeling skin. The last traces, really, were a lingering pink burn over most of her body, as if she’d been in the sun too long, and the fact that her waist-length braid was gone. Her hair had still grown back in at a far accelerated rate from human norm, but the strands of fair hair that waved all around her face, like soft down, were no more than three inches in length.
“Yes?” Livorus asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I’ve been summoned to the Odinhall. That, for me, regrettably takes precedence.” Her expression tightened. “The Praetorians do not generally recognize any other authority as superseding their own, but . . . this is not a matter of an earthly organization.” Sigrun was evidently selecting her words with care. “If I do not go to the Odinhall, it is not a matter of being stripped of citizenship, land, titles, or anything so petty. Disobedience to the gods is a capital offense for one such as I am.”
Livorus’ eyes widened slightly. “You received word last night?” He frowned. “Usually, I’m informed when my main lictors receive urgent phone calls.” He glanced at Kanmi for a moment, his expression unreadable; Adam wasn’t sure what that was about, but resolved to ask as soon as the meeting was over.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 46
