"My lord, Gaius Julius—for all his faults—is right about one thing. We must move from these rooms. Not immediately, but surely within the week."
"Why so?" the Prince growled, but his anger was beginning to fade.
"Here, my lord." Abdmachus brushed the section of wall behind him. The symbols that he had been drawing were pale and faded. Under his fingertips, the plaster shaled away from the wall in a big chunk, clattering to the floor. Behind it, the lathes of the wall were revealed, corroded and eaten by termites and worms.
"You see? The building itself is being eroded by the power of the curse. Soon the walls and ceiling will collapse. I have checked the upper floors—they are no longer safe to walk on. There is a sewer main under the northern corner of the house. I fear that the mortar of its walls is weakening as well. If we remain, the building may soon collapse."
Maxian sighed and slumped back in his chair. The weight of the effort was telling upon him. Each day some new complication arose, and still they had found nothing of note in the old books and records. The public histories of the early Empire were filled with nothing but praise for the first Emperor. The other records were all horrifically mundane—the daily accounts of clerks and scribes. Any books of sorcery or magic from the dawn of the Empire were well hidden away by the thaumaturges of the time or their current contemporaries. Maxian was sure that a single circumstance had precipitated this chain of events, but so far there was no sign of it. Further, there must be some mechanism, or several, that promulgated the curse through the centuries. Again, there was nothing that had stood out from the reams of dry parchments and papyrus.
"Then we will have to move. Where to?" The Prince's voice was exhausted.
Abdmachus frowned now; this was an important consideration. Slowly he spoke. "Someplace near the city, but not within it. The curse is too strong within the walls. Someplace that is free from this influence... I don't know. The suburbs are unknown to me."
Gaius Julius, still rubbing the knot on the back of his head, spoke up. "If I understand you, magician, it should be a place that was not built by Romans. Perhaps someplace where the owner used imported laborers?"
Maxian slowly turned and stared at the dead man for a long moment. Then he smiled a little. "Abdmachus, our dead friend has the right of it. We need a villa or a summer house outside of the city, one built by a foreign ambassador, or merchant, or exile. Somebody that wanted a taste of home in their new surroundings. But it will have to be built by foreign hands, perhaps even with materials from beyond Italy or at least Latium. Can you find such a place while I pack the books and other materials?"
Gaius Julius raised a hand. "I will find the place, Prince. Abdmachus has important chanting and mumbling to get to. I will start this very evening."
Maxian nodded. They needed a safe haven.
—|—
"I feel three and a half kinds of a fool, Prince Maxian," Gaius Julius said as the two of them topped the rise on their horses. Maxian was riding a dappled chestnut he had borrowed from the stables maintained by his brother. The dead man was riding a skittish black stallion. Though he was obviously a masterful rider, the horse was tremendously nervous around him. Behind and below them, the vast sprawl of the city filled the valley of the Tiber. They were northeast of the city, not too far from the famous estate of Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli. Here, low rolling hills rose up from the swampy bottomlands toward the distant spine of the Apennines.
The road they followed was in poor repair. The stone blocks were ridged by grass and some trees had sprouted at the edge of the road, cracking the carefully fitted stones. Still, the air was clear and the smell of orange trees filled the air with a heady scent. Maxian felt better already, just being out of the city. The contagion exerted ever more pressure on him now, and he felt it as a bone-deep weariness. They came to a high dark-green hedge and followed it through a tunnel of overarching trees to an ancient gate. Maxian pulled up, surprised to see that there were two sphinxes flanking the gateway.
Gaius halted as well and turned his horse. The corners of his eyes were crinkled up in amusement. He gestured at the gateway. "I felt the fool first for forgetting that this place was here at all. Second, for forgetting that I had paid for it. Third, for forgetting that I had urged its construction and a half for being addled enough to bring her here, to the city."
Maxian shook his head, puzzled by the rueful look on the face of the old man. "Who?"
Gaius laughed and spurred his horse through the gate. "Who? Don't they teach that story to the young rich men anymore? A scandal indeed. She was a Greek all right, she came as a gift and nearly walked away with the whole party."
Maxian followed and they rode up a short lane that ended in a circular garden. Beyond the garden, now overgrown with flowering shrubs and tall grass, stood a striking building. Twin lines of pillars flanked the central entrance on the opposite side of the garden. At the end of each line of pillars, a slab-sided obelisk rose. Two facing statues guarded the doorway, their half-man, half-beast bodies facing one another. Beyond this a flat-topped building rose up with two floors. Though perfectly situated on the grounds and within the context of the hills and the long slope behind it, it seemed an unexpected foreigner found—startlingly—at a family gathering.
"The Summer House of the last of the Ptolemies: Kleopatra, Pharaoh of Egypt. Built by Egyptian and Phoenician craftsmen imported months in advance of her arrival in the city at my side. The stone was shipped by barge from the Upper Nile to Alexandria and thence, to Ostia. Five hundred stonemasons, carpenters, architects, and laborers came with it. It took them six months to raise this, after they had flattened the ground and built a berm down there to keep the slope from slipping."
Gaius Julius pointed downslope, where a ridge was now overgrown with saplings and oak trees.
"Here she held court, while I muddled about in the politics of the city and prepared for my great expedition. It was a house of beauty, Prince, filled with scholars and philosophers. No real Roman, of course, no Senator, would come within miles of the place. Look around; they still do not build close to here. They felt that she was the very devil-temptress of the East. A harbinger of an 'oriental despotism.' And see what Octavian gave them... he who cursed her name the loudest."
"Huh," was all Maxian said, staring around at the grand edifice. Even over long years, it still stood, an exemplar of the craftsmen that had built it. "Who owns it now?"
"Why," Gaius Julius said with a grin, "you do, my lord. Or, rather, your brother owns it. It is a property of the state, but a forgotten one. We should be quite undisturbed here."
Maxian swung himself down off his horse. He walked up the broad sandstone stairs to the first level of the house. The front portico was apparently solely for show; the pillars enclosed a long arcade on either side of the garden and shaded the front of the house. The roof was pocked with holes where stones and lumber had decayed and fallen down. He picked his way across the entryway and into the first room. In the dimness, he fumbled along the wall, then stopped, cursing himself. Gaius Julius, after hobbling the horses, joined him.
Maxian muttered and a pale-yellow light sprang up from his raised hand. Gaius Julius hissed in surprise.
"I had forgotten this was here," the dead man said, looking past the Prince into the house.
The sorcerous light had revealed a half-circle of a room. The walls were marble and the floor a great mosaic of many colors. A great deal of litter, blown in from the garden, lay in drifts across the floor, but the ceiling was still intact and in the facing circle of the chamber, on a broad marble pedestal, stood a statue of a man. He was tall, taller in stone than in life, and nearly naked, though a breastplate and leather kilt had been cunningly carved upon his torso. In one hand he leaned upon a tall spear and the other reached toward the viewer. Curly hair graced his head, and the artisan—from life or more than life—had made him handsome. At his feet the figures of men, much smaller than he, bowed before him or lay dead. The sculptor ha
d been a man of surpassing skill, for the personality of the figure was like a stunning blow to Maxian.
"Alexander..." breathed the Prince.
At his side, Gaius Julius snorted with disdain. "You paid attention to least one of your pedagogues, I see. It has suffered through the long years. A pity, it was quite a work of art when it still had paint on it. She was obsessed with him, you know. Often she would try to convince herself that I was his spirit, invested in flesh once more."
Maxian turned. The dead man's voice had an odd, almost haunted quality to it. "What do you mean?"
Gaius Julius sighed. "I don't know. Near the end I think that I was under her spell. I believed it too, that I would be the new Alexander. They killed me over the cost of the appropriations for my expedition, you know. I was emptying the treasury of every last coin."
Maxian shook his head. "I don't remember that. I thought you were preparing a campaign against the Dacians. That's what my tutors said, anyway."
The dead man snorted, waving his hand in negation. "I read that history too. Written by someone ninety years after the fact of the matter. No, I had a grander plan than that, my young friend. I intended nothing less than the conquest of Persia—even as Alexander had done—and then to swing north and conquer the Scythian lands north of the Sea of Darkness and fall upon Dacia upon my return, from behind."
Maxian stared at the old man in shock, his eyes suddenly widening in apprehension.
Gaius Julius looked back at him with puzzlement. "What is it, Prince?"
Maxian shook his head. "Nothing, just something I had heard before. Let us look at the rest of this house and see if we can use it."
—|—
The girl, brown and quiet as a deer, crouched in the rhododendrons on the hillside. Below her, in the old house, she could hear the faint voices of the two men as they moved from room to room. Her long dark hair was tied back in a braid and stuffed down the back of the light cotton tunic that she wore. Her feet, tucked under her, were wrapped in leather and sandals. A light, leather girdle circled her narrow waist. From it hung two pouches, a hard leather case, and, in the small of her back, a thin dagger in a plain scabbard.
Behind her, the brush rustled quietly.
"Sigurd." The girl hissed, not bothering to look back. "Quit staring at my butt and get back to the horses. Take them over the hill, out of the wind, so that the ones down in the garden don't smell them and say hello."
The brush whispered again and Krista felt the sensation of being watched recede.
Men, she thought, mighty easy to distract... It's a wonder they get anything done.
Below, the voices suddenly became clearer as the two men walked out onto the rear porch of the villa. More exposed to nature on the open slope, it was in much worse shape than the front, and they picked their way carefully across a band of broken tile and collapsed fountain drains.
"...do, old man. Arrange for wagons to bring all of the materials from the insula up here. I'll begin moving in immediately, and I'll fix the water mains so that it's livable, at least."
Krista parted the brush enough to get a clear look. Then she grimaced. She recognized both men. This was very interesting, much more interesting than either she or her mistress had anticipated. Quietly she returned the brush to its original position and slipped away up the hillside. Time to return to the city. There was more work to do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Trapezus, The Eastern Theme of Pontus
A bitterly cold wind cut across the deck of the Mikitis. Thyatis and Nikos, wrapped in all of the cold-weather gear they had, huddled in the lee of the forward deckhouse, staring across the choppy waters of the bay at the shore. A steep headland plunged down to the sea, leaving only a narrow margin of black-sand beach at the waterline. The sky was gray, the color of old pipe. The ship was anchored a quarter mile from the harbor quay. Rain spattered out of the sky at random intervals.
Nikos, bundled up in a fur-lined coat he had browbeaten out of one of the Turks, muttered something unintelligible at Thyatis' side.
She turned her face away from the wind. "What? I didn't catch that."
Nikos pointed up in the sky. Black birds with broad wings were soaring above the ship on the gusts of wind from the north.
"Colchis," he said. "The cormorants."
Thyatis shook her head. "I don't understand."
Nikos turned away from the barren shore as well, his arms crossed over his chest. He leaned close. "In the tale of the Argolid—the sailors came to Colchis, a barren and dreadful shore, and the birds would have attacked them if they had not made a great noise by beating on their shields."
Thyatis shook her head. She did not understand the reference.
Nikos looked sideways at her and sighed. "The benefits of a classical education, Centurion. A band of Greek pirates under their captain, Jason, came here looking for a fleece of gold. They put ashore, legend has it, here and made common cause with the daughter of the King. They murdered her father and took the gold. When they got home, they were heroes."
Thyatis grimaced. "A parricide doesn't sound very heroic to me."
Nikos smiled. "I think you'd like her, the Princess in the story. She was strong and beautiful and knew her own mind. Later her husband is unfaithful, so she feeds his children to him in a stew."
Thyatis smiled at that. "You think I would kill an unfaithful husband?"
Nikos shrugged, he had never thought of his commander in that light.
"I think," she said, "that I would just leave. If he was dishonest, then there is no reason to stay. I can make my own way in the world—a man would have to be a companion, not a lord."
The wind dropped a little. Boats put out from the harbor, though the heavy sea made it rough going. She gestured toward the boats. "Play it low key with the customs officers. The ship will draw enough attention in these waters without some run-in with the local prefect. I'm going to go below and get into my demure-daughter-of-nobility outfit."
Nikos nodded, wondering if she would be able to carry through and not cold-cock some minor official for getting fresh with her. He smiled at the thought of his commander in a dress—it was true she looked great, but she did hate it so. He too scrambled down onto the lower deck and shouted for Arastus and Jochi to join him. There were palms to grease.
—|—
The town of Trapezus was built on a broad shelf of land above the cliffs of the harbor. In ancient days, a road had been cut from the harbor shore and the black-stone quays to the plateau. Trapezus was built to the edge of the cliffs, all whitewashed buildings with dark streets. The houses were covered with vines and ivy with little pearly flowers. Here, under the looming massif of the Tatus Mountains, the rain was plentiful and the growing season long. The main road south out of the city was ancient too, with mile markers far older than the coming of Rome. The dark pine and spruce forests that clung to the mountainside had seen kingdoms rise and fall on the narrow plain between them and the sea.
Nikos scratched at his new beard. It was scraggly and grew in irregular tufts. He did not like it, but it was necessary. He jammed the colorful triangular hat back on his head and settled the leather vest that he now wore over his tunic. Even in summer it was nippy here in early morning, under the shadow of the mountains. He pushed open the stableyard gate. Behind him Jochi and his brother, Kurak, urged the two mules forward. The wagon rolled out of the back of the inn and the other members of the detachment mounted their horses.
The Sarmatians could not be happier; they had purchased some good horseflesh with Thyatis' coin back in Constantinople and had suffered with their beloved charges all through the sea voyage to Trapezus. Now they were mounted again and seemed, at last, to be happy. They cantered off down the road, whooping with joy.
The others either rode in the wagon, now with clapboard sides advertising the traveling show, or walked behind. All of their gear was in the wagon or on their backs. Nikos was not particularly pleased that the centurion had elected to ha
ve them travel in the guise of players, but it did mean that they were both beneath the contempt and the attention of all but the meanest officials that they might encounter.
Thyatis was still in her demure-daughter outfit, though now she was riding on the top of the wagon, with her boots hooked into the back of the wooden seat that the two Turks were sitting on. Hidden by the top of the clapboard sides, she had a bow and her shortsword by her side. Nikos scrambled onto his own horse, a bay stallion with a gentle disposition. He urged the horse ahead to the turn in the lane that led into the back of the inn. The cock had barely crowed, so the street was empty. He waved an all-clear back to the wagon and the whole troop set out. It was a long road to the south, and the first days were a hard pitch up the passes of the Tatus.
—|—
Thyatis sat in the shade on a mossy boulder by the side of the road. The oilskin packet that the Emperor had given her was open in her lap. She spread the vellum map out, carefully creasing down the corners. Ravens complained in the pines just up the slope from her. The shade fell from the steep side of the canyon and the granite cliffs that loomed at either side of the road. Here there was a narrow verge by the side of the road, and the little caravan was stopped in a grassy area. The other side of the road was edged with worked stones and a swift stream rushed past at the bottom of the canyon. One of the Greeks, Tyrus, had stopped by while she was reading over the orders and had left her a lunch of bread, dried meat and cheese. She idly picked at the cheese.
Above her the looming cliff sheltered a thin four-story building wedged into a flat ledge above the trees. Empty windows stared down at the road. Parts of the brick walls were crumbling or covered with the thick wild ivy that grew in the mountains. The peasants in the valley below said that it was haunted and that it had been a temple in the time of their fathers' fathers. Crows and ravens roosted in it now, and owls hunted from it at night. Thyatis had scrutinized it when the party had stopped for lunch, but it did not have an ill-feeling.
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