That was more than enough of an answer. I lay down on the bed, turning away from her. "Good night, Aurelia."
She said my name, but I didn't answer. Nearly a minute of silence passed before her footsteps padded out.
The following morning, Valerius had plans for me before I began any training. He sent a servant to scrub me, trim my hair, and, in his words, try to make me look like a "presentable Roman." I wasn't sure what that meant, but the haircut was definitely necessary, and the bath was a luxury beyond any I'd ever imagined possible. I had never had a bath before, but I was given the entire area of the senator's tepidarium to use. It filled almost one whole room, with inlaid patterns of tile on the floor and walls, and marble seats built into the sides for people who wished to visit while they bathed. I stayed in it until my skin wrinkled, and even then I might never have left, except the servant told me the women of the household may be using the baths soon. That hurried me out.
Afterward, I was given a tunic almost as fine as Crispus's toga. I ran my fingers along the smooth creases of neatly woven fabric, tracing the blue edging, and noting how odd it was to wear something that didn't scratch my skin.
Crispus came in afterward, with a pair of sandals in his hands. Even after he held them out, it still took a moment to realize they were for me.
At first, I only stared, unsure of what to say or do. "I won't know how to walk in them," I finally said.
Crispus handed them to his servant who fit them on my feet and began lacing them up my calves. "You'll learn," Crispus said. "If you want to be free, then you must walk in the shoes of a free man."
When the first sandal was finished, I wiggled my foot and smiled. "It feels so different."
Crispus shrugged. "The leather will relax after a while."
"No," I quickly added. "Different is a good thing. Different is an amazing thing." I stood and tested both sandals on the floor. It was odd to feel something beneath my bare foot other than rocks or sand. I looked over at Crispus. "Thank you." The words weren't nearly enough, but they were all I had.
After that, the servant set me in front of a polished brass mirror so I could see my reflection. I'd seen pieces of myself at times, my face in the waters of a mud pond following a rainstorm, or the corner of my eye reflected on a metal jar, but never so much of me all at once. I stared at my own image. With the way they had cleaned me up, I didn't look like a slave, nor did I feel like one. For the first time in my life, I felt that I deserved my name. I was Nicolas Calva.
Which inevitably brought my thoughts back to the way last night had ended with Aurelia. I wondered how she would respond to seeing me this way. Probably it wouldn't matter at all. Her opinion of me had nothing to do with outer appearances. Whatever I wore, she would always see me as less than her.
Once I did see her, Aurelia was back to her normal self. A little subdued perhaps, but then, so was I. She was at breakfast with Crispus, who excused his father, saying he had early business in the forum. The table was full of fruit and fresh bread and a white fish to be dipped with honey. While they reclined to eat, I sat as close to the table as possible, unable to eat fast enough. At one point, I caught Crispus staring at me, probably horrified at how much I was consuming, but I didn't care. My time here wouldn't last much longer -- it couldn't -- so I wanted to eat everything while I had the chance.
When I reached for some cheese, Aurelia caught my arm and unwrapped the bandage from it. She gasped loud enough to get everyone's attention and said, "This wound is so much worse! Why didn't you say something?"
I rotated it to see it better. I knew it was getting bad, but so many other issues had pressed harder on my mind that I'd nearly forgotten it. I couldn't see the entire wound, but what I could see wasn't good. No wonder it hurt the way it did.
Crispus sat forward, obviously concerned. "I'll inform my father," he said. "We need to get that examined right away."
While Aurelia rewrapped it, she said, "No, I've taken care of things like this before, and I can do it again."
But I pulled my arm away. "If your treatment stings as bad as you said before, I'll lose a whole day of practice just recovering."
"You could lose that arm!"
"And I'll lose my life if I don't learn this magic!" It sounded brave, but the truth was far more cowardly. Aurelia's treatments sounded like the kind of thing I wanted to avoid for as long as possible. Even the thought of her scrubbing that deep wound made me cringe. "We'll do it tonight, before bed."
Aurelia objected, but my mind was made up. Crispus quickly agreed with me, not because he cared about the pain her treatment would cause, but because he wanted the practice time as much as I did.
So he reclined again to eat, and slowly his eye wandered from me to Aurelia. "We could probably find out who your father was," he said to her. "Surely there are records kept of exposed children. Then it would be a matter of narrowing down the possibilities."
"Please don't," she said.
"Why not?" I asked. "If he can help --"
"It wouldn't help." Aurelia looked from me to Crispus, then her eyelashes fluttered and she returned to her food.
Not for the first time, I wondered who her family was. Were they poor, like my mother, and so exposure had offered her some hope of a better life? Or wealthy, like Crispus? If so, then my friendship with her was forbidden. Maybe that's why she had paused last night, when I'd asked if we were equals. Because she already knew the answer.
Crispus had gone back to eating. He'd probably only offered as a matter of good manners anyway. Unless Aurelia suddenly announced she was his sister, I doubted he'd give the matter a second thought.
"And what about you, Nic?" he said. "You told me your mother was Roman, but had fallen into slavery. Did she have skills to become a household slave?"
"Maybe." I had been so young when Sal sold her away from us, I really didn't know. "Five years ago, she brought my sister and me to the mines and told me it'd be safer if she lived elsewhere. I think she came to Rome, but I could be wrong about that."
"Wait," Aurelia said. "What did your mother mean that it was safer?"
I shrugged. "It was long ago. I was too young to ask such questions."
Crispus seemed to consider that settled. He got to his feet and said his father had suggested I begin practicing magic as soon as possible.
"Deep within the vineyards is a tract of land cleared for replanting," he said. "That would be a good place to practice, when you're ready."
I stood as well. "I'm ready now." Despite the worries that lingered inside me, I had to admit I was excited to finally learn how to control the magic. Every day it flowed with more strength, moving deeper inside me. At last I would have the chance to learn everything I could do with it.
The three of us walked side by side to the vineyards. Aurelia had somehow acquired a new bow and a quiver of arrows, and had already threatened me twice if I broke them. I told her I wouldn't break them if she agreed not to shoot me.
As we walked, Crispus explained that the origins of his family's vines could be traced back hundreds of years, much like his family's history.
"For a patrician in Rome, your family name is everything," he explained. "With a good name, you cannot fail here. With no name, you cannot succeed."
I glanced at Aurelia, who was making a serious effort to pretend she hadn't heard the talk of families, and wondered then about mine. From what I understood of my father, claiming his name wouldn't have helped me in life anyway. Maybe when Livia and I left Rome, I would offer to bring Aurelia with us. Then she wouldn't have to care so much about her name either.
"Is Valerius a good name, then?" Aurelia asked.
"It's a very fine name," Crispus said. "My family boasts of military leaders, senators, and other high officials. My father has hoped that I might one day become emperor myself."
Walking between Aurelia and Crispus, I couldn't help but notice the way she smiled when he said that. Aurelia got her reward money last night, so maybe she
considered Crispus her equal now. And why shouldn't she? In comparison to Crispus, I had nothing to offer her. Then I snorted quietly. In comparison to anyone at all, I had nothing. The unfortunate man who plucked the emperor's armpit hair could give her a better life than I could.
"But my becoming emperor is only a fantasy for my father, it could never become a reality," Crispus said sadly. "Much as I want to please him, I don't enjoy politics, so he rarely discusses it with me. I know I disappoint him."
"It doesn't seem that way," I said.
Crispus shrugged. "Things are rarely what they seem."
I didn't reply, mostly because I knew he was right.
We reached the open field, which was larger than I had expected, but also as private as Crispus had described. He said all the workers had been dismissed from this part of the vineyard for the day, so if anything happened, as long as the damage wasn't too massive, it was probably acceptable.
I understood what that meant. If I accidentally set a fire or created an earthquake that destroyed centuries-old vineyards and forever ruined his family name, that would be bad. Anything short of that should be fine.
I rubbed my hands together and smiled with satisfaction, then asked, "How about it? Shall we learn some magic?"
The vineyards were different from anything I'd known at the mines. There, the world was gray and dusty, and the people weren't much better. But though I always knew I'd find a more beautiful world one day, I had never expected anything like this vineyard. The rolling hills carried row after row of green vines. Here, where I stood with Crispus and Aurelia, we were surrounded by tall trees that must have been there since the first breath of man. At the far end of the field was a pile of ruins that looked as if they had been decaying for hundreds of years. It seemed odd to find rubbish in an otherwise fine field, and I asked Crispus about it.
He shrugged. "I don't know much. My father said it's the ruins of an old temple that used to be on this land. The temple once held the body of a vestalis who was punished for violating her oath, probably buried alive. A few years ago, I tried to get closer and see it, but a large wolf appeared so I ran away. There wasn't anything to see anyway, just broken rocks." Then he clasped his hands. "Shall we begin?"
Aurelia and I stood in the shade of one of the tallest trees with blank expressions. Neither of us knew where to start. Such as it was, I was the only one here who'd actually used magic, and since most of those experiences had been disasters, I suddenly felt nervous about practicing.
"My father believes the magic responds to your emotions," Crispus said. "It comes on strongest when your emotions are most intense. You were terrified in that arena."
"That's ridiculous." I forced out a laugh and eyed Aurelia to see if she would think worse of me. "Terrified isn't the right word at all." Which was a perfectly true thing to say, though admittedly, this was only because what I had felt then was far beyond terror.
Aurelia didn't seem to care. She only said, "Crispus is right. When you bent the metal in the caravan, you were angry with Felix. And what about when Radulf attacked us underground?"
Crispus's jaw dropped. Obviously he didn't know that story. "Wait a minute," he said. "You've already fought Radulf once?"
I shook my head. "No. And if it was a fight, then I lost. But you are right about my emotions being connected to the magic."
"Which is what makes this magic so dangerous," Aurelia said. "Emotions can be unpredictable and hard to control. I don't decide to get angry or sad or even happy. I just feel the way I do."
Inwardly, I smiled. Maybe she didn't decide to become sad or happy, but I'd certainly seen her get angry.
"Then that's what I have to learn," I said. "I have to let myself feel enough to generate the magic, but then control the emotion."
Crispus seemed ready for that. "My father had servants working down here throughout the night." By then, he had grabbed a rope with a wooden handle at the end. The rest of it was strung up high into the tree, though the rising sun made it impossible to see where it was tied. "Here, Nic. Take this."
I grinned. "Why?" My hands were already on the handle, so I hoped it wasn't anything too risky.
"Just hold on." He started to walk away, then turned back to me. "Seriously, hold on."
I redoubled my grip and by the time I looked back at him, he was already midway through releasing another knot around the tree. Before he was entirely finished, the rope pulled violently from his hands and flew into the air. At the same time, I noticed a stack of bricks almost above my head plummeting to the earth, mortared together and attached by the same rope. I was at the other end, and as they came down, the rope flew through a pulley above us and yanked me high into the air.
"Nic!" Aurelia yelled. It had happened so fast, I wasn't sure that she had seen what happened. Beside her, Crispus was laughing harder than someone ought to, given that I was now dangling nearly thirty feet above the earth. With the pulley above me, I was too low to reach the nearest branch and too high to jump. Another branch was below me, but a ways behind me as well, and I didn't trust that I could reach it from here.
"I bet that bulla is warming now!" Crispus said, regaining some seriousness.
"Are you joking?" I scowled down at him. "Get me down!"
"Is the bulla warming?"
I closed my eyes and felt for it at my chest. At first there was nothing, but then the bricks settled and the rope punched me even higher. I gasped as I almost lost my hold. The bulla definitely reacted to that.
"It's warm," I said. And with that acknowledgment, magic flooded in through my chest, so fast that it nearly suffocated me. "I'm going to fall!" I yelled. The heat alone was making my hands sweat. "This is too much!"
"Not if you control it!" Crispus pointed to the bricks, now in a pile on the ground. "Lift them and you'll come down. But not too fast. Control it."
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to breathe, and feeling the flow of magic. Last night's experiment with the Divine Star had been like cool water through my veins, but the bulla was warmth, closer to the way sunlight feels after a cold night. It might respond to my strongest emotions, but magic was so much bigger than a simple emotion. It was strength, and power, and raw energy. And with each use, I was becoming those things too.
Using that strength now, holding on to the rope became easy, so I focused on the stack of bricks. A quick test from my fingers rustled them.
"You're doing it!" Aurelia said.
With some effort, I allowed more magic into my hand. When I first sent it to the bricks, they rose in the air by a few inches. Then as I started to descend back to the ground, more magic emptied than I had intended. It shot from my hand with far too much force and hit the bricks like an explosion. The bricks flew into the air and I worried they'd come back down on Crispus and Aurelia, so I used another nudge of magic to push them farther away. That sent the bricks spiraling around one of the branches where they quickly became tangled in the thicket of leaves. I lost my grip on the rope, and would've fallen except the force of pushing the bricks had also blown me backward. Suddenly I found myself clutching the tree branch that had been behind me.
"This is a terrific plan you came up with!" I yelled to Crispus. "I'm having a great time!"
Now it was Aurelia who was laughing, so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks. "You should've seen your face!"
"If it's so funny, then come up here and describe it to me!" I swung my body to the top of the branch but it was already groaning beneath my weight.
Below me, Aurelia removed the bow from over her shoulder and nocked it with an arrow. "I can help you," she said. "I'll shoot the arrow into the tree. Tie your rope to it and then you can slide down."
It was a terrible plan. But better than what I had now, which was no plan at all, so I scooted aside to make room for her arrow. She shot it, but instead of hitting the tree, it arced to the right, heading straight for me.
I ducked as it flew past me, grazing my hair. "I forgot how not help
ful you can be!"
She glared at Crispus. "He shoved me!"
Crispus only shrugged. "You're up there to learn magic, not to be rescued by a girl."
"You're right." Then I leaned down as far as I dared. "Aurelia, do that again."
"Are you insane? No!"
"A day ago, I wouldn't have had to ask you to shoot me."
"A day ago, you deserved it."
I shook my head. "Listen, I felt something when the arrow went by. If you want to help, then shoot me."
Aurelia began muttering under her breath. I couldn't hear the words, but Crispus was chuckling, so I was pretty sure it was a string of insults about me. She drew another arrow, aimed directly at me, and let it fly. The arrow whooshed past me. I heard it move through the air and even watched its spin. Every feather on the shaft was as clear as if I were studying it up close. The arrow wasn't moving any slower than usual, but I saw it that way as it flew past me. As soon as that one passed, she sent another one. This time when the arrow approached, I reached out for it. I felt it brush through my fingers, but then it was gone.
In the attempt, I lost my balance and my hold on the rope and began falling. Air rushed through my hair and I was pretty sure Aurelia and Crispus were yelling at each other to help me, though there would be nothing they could do. I crashed through some lower branches as the ground came ever closer, ripping away the remnants of the bandage on my arm. I sent out all the magic in me, with no thought in my mind except to slow my fall. But when the magic hit the tree above me, all I heard was a terrible cracking sound.
I landed hard on my back, and directly on my wounded arm, which exploded with pain. But there wasn't a moment to waste, for the tree was already beginning to tip.
"Run!" Aurelia yelled.
"Nic!" Crispus sounded panicked, but kept running. I got to my feet just in time to see the trunk of the tree and its load of tangled bricks coming directly at me.
Nic! Nic!" Aurelia was screaming my name. She and Crispus were pushing at the tree, trying to move it off me, but it was as large as a ship and they were having no luck. Then she shushed Crispus. "What is that sound? Nic, are you laughing?"
I couldn't help it. Nor could I remember a time in years when I'd laughed so hard. This entire situation was so completely ridiculous, what else was there to do? Of course I was laughing.
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