by David Drake
Two tall Nubians had entered, bearing a platter with a domed silver cover. The actor playing Mercury cried, "Behold, great leader! The head of Geryon, conquered by your prowess!"
He whisked off the cover, pointing toward the platter with his free hand. On it was the head of a man whose tawny moustache flared back into sideburns of a paler color. His face had mottled during strangulation, and his eyes started in their sockets.
"The bandit Corocotta!" shouted a spectator who recognized the dead features.
"Corocotta!" shouted the crowd as a blurry whole. "The head of Corocotta!"
Alphena had heard--from gossiping servants--about the coup that Meoetes, the impresario, had arranged with a help of a great deal of Saxa's money. A noted Sardinian bandit, Corocotta, had been captured after years of terrorizing the countryside. Instead of being crucified in Caralis, Corocotta had been brought to Carce and marched through the streets before being strangled in the prison on the edge of the Forum.
Corocotta's body had been dumped in a trench outside the religious boundary of Carce, but his head had been preserved for this performance. Saxa's triumph was greater than that of the Governor of Sardinia, who had caught the fellow to begin with.
The audience stood and began stamping its feet in delight. Saxa sat straighter on his golden throne: beaming, flushing, and happier than Alphena had ever seen him before.
She grimaced. She hadn't given her father much reason to be happy in her presence. She had resented him, and she had resented the world that said that a daughter wasn't free to do the things that sons were encouraged to do. Varus could be a military officer, could rise to general even--but Alphena, who was easily able to have chopped her brother to sausage in battle, had to threaten a tantrum merely to be taught the manual of arms by the family trainer.
Being forced into close contact with Hedia had given Alphena a different perspective. Alphena's ability to use a sword had been helpful and occasionally very helpful. Hedia wouldn't have considered gripping a sword hilt and wouldn't have known what to do with the weapon if she'd been forced to handle one.
But for all her ladylike disdain for swordsmanship and combat, Hedia had shocked her stepdaughter with her ruthless determination. Hedia had brought Alphena back to the world she had fallen out of, alive and uninjured except for some scratches and blisters.
Alphena blushed, remembering the way she had sneered at the older woman as a pampered weakling. Hedia certainly pampered herself, and if threatened she would bend like a young willow in a storm. When the storm passed, the willow would stand straight again; and it wouldn't break, not ever, no more than Hedia would.
The Nubians pranced the length of the long stage, giving every section of the theater a good opportunity to view the head. I wonder what my brother thinks of this? Alphena wondered.
She bent forward slightly, then remembered that her father's plump bulk concealed Varus--and Pandareus--unless she leaned out over the Tribunal railing. There was no need of that.
From the time Alphena had begun to be aware of the world around her, she had been mildly contemptuous of Varus. He wasn't crippled, but he was completely disinterested in the physical sports that were open to boys. He spent his time with books and his writing, the sort of thing that an old man or a weakling would do.
Varus wasn't a weakling. When the blazing demons of the Underworld began to climb into Carce, he had sat as calmly as a Stoic philosopher, chanting a poem. At the time, Alphena would have preferred Varus help her fight the fiery onslaught; but--candidly--he wouldn't have been much use as a warrior.
She couldn't see that his poetry was much use either, but at the end of the night Carce and the world had survived. Alphena's sword had not defeated the threat, so perhaps her brother's verses had.
At any rate, Varus hadn't run. He was as true a citizen of Carce as any legionary who stood firm against charging barbarians; as true as the sort of man Corylus would be when he returned to the frontier as an officer.
Alphena's eyes slipped unbidden into the audience again. Corylus sat very close to the woman beside him. She wasn't young--she must be almost thirty!--but she wasn't bad looking in a coarse way.
A lower-class Hedia, Alphena thought, and for an instant embarrassment overcame her anger. Hedia saved my life!
Corylus' neighbor was from a knightly family like his own, shown by the two thin stripes on the hem of her tunic. She wore a linen cloak too, longer than the warm temperatures demanded but just the thing to conceal a man's groping hand.
Did Corylus and the hussy meet here by plan?
Alphena jerked her eyes away; but after a moment, she found herself looking at Corylus again.
***
"My goodness, the excitement just makes me dizzy," said Orpelia, the woman seated to the right of Corylus. "You'll keep me from falling over if I'm overcome, won't you, dear?"
She toppled--lunged would have been another way of describing it--against Corylus' shoulder, shifting her arm back so that her breast flopped against his forearm. As if that hadn't been a clear enough signal, she tried to wriggle closer.
Orpelia was the wife of a ship-owner named Bassos, a Greek born on Euboea who had become extremely wealthy. Also, according to Orpelia, Bassos was very old and at present inspecting his estates in Sicily.
Corylus suspected "old" meant middle aged; and Bassos might well be here in Carce, though he probably didn't care a great deal about his wife's recreations. The claim of wealth was likely enough, though, given that Orpelia's jewelry included a ruby tiara along with other expensively flashy items.
Corylus didn't care how Orpelia conducted herself either, so long as her activities didn't include him. Which was much harder to arrange than he had expected it to be.
"Master Pulto," he said, looking over his shoulder. Pulto wore an amused expression which he quickly blotted from his face. "I wish to be a little higher for a better view. Trade places with me, if you will."
Pulto had served twenty-five years in the army with Corylus' father and had followed him into retirement. Pulto had been Cispius' servant, his bodyguard, and most important his friend. When it was time for Corylus to be trained in rhetoric by a professor in Carce, Cispius had sent Pulto along.
Pulto wasn't going to coddle Corylus any more than he would have coddled a new soldier in the company. On the other hand, if the boy showed signs of really going off in the woods, Pulto would bring him back to reality. A troop of Sarmatian lancers hadn't been able to move Pulto from where he stood over the unconscious form of his commander, and Hercules himself knew that no matter how drunkenly angry Corylus got, Pulto would be obeyed if he thought he needed to be.
"It's my honor to serve you, master," said Pulto in a sepulchral voice, "no matter how dangerous the duty may be. If I don't survive, I hope you'll see to it that my grieving widow is cared for in her final days."
Orpelia sat bolt upright, looking as furious as her rice-flour makeup allowed without cracking. "Well, really!" she said. "I'm astounded at the rural boors who claim to have been honored with knighthood!"
"Well, don't get too upset, honey," said Pulto as he and Corylus changed places. "His daddy and I were on the Rhine when your Greekling husband was being marched to Carce in chains, so it isn't us who made a slave of him."
Laughing, he chucked Orpelia under the chin. She squealed and made for the aisle, dragging her maid behind her.
Corylus allowed himself a smile. He'd grown up in the cantonments around military bases. He was a tall, good looking youth and the son of an officer besides, so it hadn't been uncommon for older women to suggest they would like to know him better.
Even whores who were feeling the pinch toward the end of the army's pay cycle weren't quite as brazen as some of the women Corylus had encountered here in Carce, though. The metropolis had its own standards--and they weren't as high as those of the barbarian fringes of empire. Corylus wasn't a prude or a virgin, but neither was he desperate enough to be charmed by the attentions of a slut.
On stage, the head of "Geryon" had been placed on a stand beside Hercules. Its wax eyes stared out from beneath bushy brows as lines of actors paraded before it, wearing placards indicating what Lusitanian tribe they were supposed to belong to. Nemetatoi, Tamarci, Cileni....
Corylus frowned as a thought struck him: were they actors, or were they real Lusitanians, either purchased locally or shipped in from the province in order to make the production that much more lavish? If Saxa was paying his impresario a percentage over the expenses, Meoetes had every reason to run the costs up.
He glanced up at the Tribunal, looking for his friend Varus. Instead he saw the profile of Hedia, as crisply chiseled as the portrait on a coin. She started to turn toward the audience, and Corylus as quickly jerked his eyes away.
In the orchestra beneath him sat Marcus Sempronius Tardus, accompanied by three men of foreign aspect. Corylus knew little of the Senate, but he had met--better, had seen--Tardus seven days ago. He doubted whether Tardus would remember him; he certainly hoped the senator wouldn't remember him.
Tardus was a member of the Commission for the Sacred Rites, the ten senators who guarded the Sibylline Books and examined them if called on to do so when the Republic faced a crisis. Seven days ago, Tardus had been on duty in the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline Hill; the Books were kept in a crypt beneath the temple floor.
The Underworld ripped open through the floor of the temple that night. Tardus had seemed to be asleep, the victim of a magician's spells. It might be awkward if he now remembered seeing Corylus when he awakened in the temple.
Tardus' three companions were thin-faced and, though they wore ordinary woolen tunics, were not natives of Carce or of Italy. Two had wizened cheeks and skin the color of polished walnut. They wore their hair over their left ears in tight rolls into which brightly colored snail shells had been worked. One had pinned a small stuffed bird with spread wings over his right temple, and the other had a tuft of small yellow feathers in a piercing in his right earlobe. Corylus had never met anyone with their particular combination of costume and features before.
The third man had short hair, a black goatee, and gold rings in both ears. If Corylus had seen him alone, he would have guessed the fellow was a seaman from somewhere in North Africa; in company with the other pair, his background was more doubtful.
Tardus sat upright on his ivory chair, as still as a painted statue. If he was following the action on stage it was only with his eyes, which Corylus couldn't tell from behind.
His three companions squatted instead of sitting on chairs of their own, and they were wholly focused on the Tribunal. The sailor-looking man curled the fingers of his left hand, then spread them one at a time as though he were counting. His lips moved; Corylus wondered if he was murmuring a prayer under his breath.
Why are they so interested in Saxa? Assuming that it's Saxa and not his wife or children that they're staring at.
While Zephyrs in flowing silks and mountain nymphs who wore revealing goatskins danced attendance, the Lusitanians continued to arrive from stage left and march past Hercules. They were carrying more treasures, this time in hand barrows instead of on mule back.
Corylus wasn't sure what the major products of Lusitania were, but he guessed hides and fish would cover the vast majority. This procession emphasized red-figured pottery of the highest quality.
A broad wine-mixing bowl, displayed on edge, showed the infant Hercules strangling the serpents which had attacked him in his cradle. At least there's a connection with the mime, Corylus thought. And in fairness, there were doubtless Greek colonies on the coast of Lusitania.
He looked at Tardus again, frowning slightly. The Senator was completely still. He couldn't be sick or even asleep, not and remain upright on a backless chair. His lack of animation seemed unnatural, even granting that this display of Saxa's wealth would be of less interest to another senator than to the members of the urban proletariat who filled most of the seats in the theater.
For the first time, Corylus speculated on the relationship between Saxa and Tardus. The internal politics of the Senate weren't greatly of interest to the son of a provincial knight, but most of Pandareus' present students were themselves sons of senators; it was inevitable that Corylus would hear a great deal.
Much of it was gibes directed against Saxa, since Varus was clearly the best scholar in the class and held his well-born fellows in contempt. The fact that he associated with Corylus, a mere knight, made the implied insult to his peers even sharper. Nobody was going to physically attack the son of so rich a man, but there was free discussion of Saxa's reputation as a superstitious fool who lived in Aristophanes' Cloud-Cuckoo Land.
If that bothered Varus, he didn't show it. Corylus suspected it did bother him, simply from the fact that his friend never referred to the comments when the two of them were alone.
Tardus was the subject of similar comments, however. He was Saxa's elder by fifteen years and had a become a Commissioner of the Sacred Rites through a combination of seniority and interest. Unlike Pandareus' friend Atilius Priscus, however, Tardus was known for credulity rather than scholarship.
Saxa had shouted at Tardus in the aftermath of the chaos at the Temple of Jupiter, blaming him for what had happened. At the time, Corylus had thought that was a clever ploy: it had prevented others, particularly Commissioner Tardus, from looking closely at the role Saxa's own family had played in those events.
Now Corylus found himself wondering what Tardus remembered of that night. He wondered also who the strangers accompanying Tardus were, and why they stared so intently at Saxa and his family in the Tribunal. There might, of course, be no connection.
On stage, the "suppliant tribesmen" were kneeling, and the various sprites and spirits had frozen in their dance. Mercury faced the audience, one arm pointing back toward the gleaming pomp of Hercules.
For an instant the only things moving in the scene were the twisting heads of the three metal snakes which protruded from the boss of Hercules' shield. According to Hesiod, Vulcan's genius gave the serpents the semblance of life. Here in Carce, a clever midget hidden in the belly of the shield moved them.
"All hail our ruler, the master of Lusitania under the majesty of the gods!" Mercury boomed, a neatly turned compliment for Saxa framed in a fashion that would not offend the emperor. The latter had by reputation been paranoid when he was young and in good health; the rigors of age had not mellowed him.
The actors on stage cheered; the audience echoed them, even most of the senators in the orchestra. Tardus remained as silent as a stone, and his three companions stared toward the Tribunal like greedy cats eyeing a fish tank.
CHAPTER 2
Corylus stepped down into the fourteenth row again. He'd been punctilious about following the rules when he put his freeborn servant in the row behind him, rather than getting Pulto a ticket for the Knights' section as Orpelia--and hundreds of others--had done for the slaves attending them.
"No reason not to sit beside you now," he said.
"There was no reason not to before, except you're so stiff-necked," Pulto said with a broad grin. He glanced in the direction Orpelia had disappeared and said, perfectly deadpan, "Too bad the lady had to go. We could've had an improving conversation, I'm sure."
He nodded his head toward the stage and added, "Better than going on up there, anyhow. What are they supposed to be doing now?"
The curtain had been drawn over stage left while the company, including Hercules on his rock, danced a complex measure. "They're moving, marching," said Corylus after a moment's consideration. "I don't know where to."
Mimes had their own visual language, as surely as birds and animals did. Corylus hadn't spent enough time in Carce to be fluent in it yet.
Pulto snorted in disgust. "It's not what I remember route marches being like," he said. "Which is good, mind you, because my knees aren't what they once were."
The curtain drew back. The thirty feet of st
age closest to that wing was now water on which flats of sea creatures floated on shallow rafts: a ribbonfish, an octopus painted an unexpected green, and what was probably meant for a whale. Corylus had never been to the mouth of the Rhine where it emptied into the German Ocean, but he was pretty sure that the whales which were sometimes glimpsed there didn't arch their bellies, lifting their tail flukes and their long, grinning jaws into the air simultaneously.
"Here will I found a city," boomed Hercules. "In later years, great leaders will come here in the name of the Caesars, my equals in Olympus!"
Even granting that his mask contained a resonating chamber, the fellow's voice was impressive. Pulto must have been thinking the same thing, because he muttered, "That one's got the lungs of a first centurion on him. Wish he wasn't dressed like a clown, though."
Corylus chuckled. "I quite agree with you, old friend," he said, "but the impresario had literary justification for each of his choices. Well, a kind of justification. Probably because writers in the past were just as determined as Saxa is to give their audiences the most impressive show they could."
The Hercules of ancient legend carried a plain oak branch for a club and wore a lion-skin cloak. Later myth made the skin that of the gigantic Nemean lion, sprung from the blood of the monster Typhon. No writer before now had suggested that the lion's skin had been sprinkled with gold dust so that the spectators in the highest seats of the theater could see it sparkle, but Corylus supposed that might be an aspect which had simply gone unremarked in the past.
Euripides had given Heracles a brazen club, the gift of the god Hephaestus. Saxa had gone the Greek one better by gilding the club, but either metal was too sophisticated for the rustic hero.
Heracles' armor--here golden--and the shield banded with gold, silver and ivory had even more ancient evidence: the poet Hesiod, second in time and--some said--second in literary importance to Homer himself.
