Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013

by Spilogale Inc.

  "Marhavi, tell me of your mother," I said guardedly. "What sort of woman was she?"

  "She was not a woman, sir. She was an ifryt."

  "Ifryt?"

  "A daemon."

  Her answer was so open and sincere that I found myself strangely unsettled. Runaway slaves sometimes claim to have magical powers when cornered, but they are always fearful and desperate. Marhavi was no absconder. Ifryt , the very word conjured images of wispy, swaying things, deadlier than an asp yet no more substantial than smoke. If Vishesti were an ifryt, what then? Why had she lived as a slave in the house of Gaius Maximus? I fought back irrational fears. There are no ifryts , I told myself, only clever and devious slaves .

  "Would you like to see your mother?" I asked.

  "My mother would not like me now."

  "What about your brothers?"

  "My master says that one has become my sister, and the other only cares for killing."

  "All true," said the senator. "The older boy is a gladiator, Takshar the Invincible. He's quite spectacular in action if you like that sort of thing. The other belongs to a rich tribune."

  "I plan to visit Takshar next. He may remember more."

  The senator sagged a little, but there was hopeful pleading in his eyes.

  "So it seems that my precious Marhavi is not much help," he said sadly, asking an unspoken question.

  "Ah, but you will stay at the top of my list," I assured him. "May I ask her a final question?"

  "Please, do so."

  "Marhavi, did your mother do anything more wondrous than dance?"

  "Yes, many things. She made water elephants to tow my father's ships out to sea, melded men with fish to swim underwater, and could turn flowers into gold. She had command of the demons that bring sickness—"

  "Enough!" snapped the senator. "You know how these boasts about your people anger me."

  "No, please let her go on," I said soothingly. "Boasts may conceal a scrap of truth."

  "Oh, very well. Just one last wonder, Marhavi! No more."

  "Once my mother showed me pox marks on the face of the moon, and four little gods attending mighty Jupiter."

  "What spells and charms did she use to do this?" I asked.

  "None. Just a mirror of polished silver and droplets of water on thin slices of glass."

  I left the villa with my head whirling. Crassus had been right. Vishesti had secrets hidden within her head worth enough gold to buy the whole of Gaul.

  TAKSHAR WAS NOT hard to find, and his master was also interested in getting more slaves like him. His hair was black and thick, and like Marhavi he had green eyes and skin like gold rubbed with fine sand. There was a most impressive scar on his right cheek. A beard would have hidden it, but the consul insisted that he be clean-shaven. The scar declared that Takshar was a gladiator, and it gave rugged strength to his strangely fair face. His accent was like Marhavi's, very fluid, with odd inflections.

  "My mother?" he exclaimed when I asked what he remembered of her. "She was clever, yes, that is true. She commanded plague spirits to come and go, and built horses to ride under the sea."

  "Under the sea!" I exclaimed, feigning surprise.

  "Ah, you do not believe me?"

  "I might. Tell me, how many lesser gods attend mighty Jupiter in the sky?"

  "Four."

  I smiled and nodded. The stories of the children tallied. The consul was not present, so I decided to walk down stranger paths.

  "Your mother is not human," I continued.

  "Some would say that," replied Takshar with a slow wink.

  "Tell me more, I'll not laugh. I have traveled widely. Travel opens the mind to strange and unlikely ideas."

  "Mother is an ifryt. Some say they are daemons, others think they are human sorcerers. Whatever the truth, she is very, very learned."

  My fears dispersed, like bats out of a tower. Vishesti was human after all, and no human was a match for me.

  "Do you like it here?" I asked, but only from idle curiosity. "Is there anything in Rome that your homeland lacks?"

  "Gladiators. In Rome I can fight while thousands of people cheer and shout my name."

  "So you want to stay in Rome?"

  "Yes. I live to raise my sword before the crowd. Only gladiators face death with cheering all around them."

  "But the next death may be yours."

  "Until now, it has not been. Besides, I fear losing the crowd more than I fear death."

  I hired a horse and rode to the tribune's estate in the Alban Hills. I had an introduction from the consul and I presented this to his guards, but he did not want to see anyone. Guards barred my way and his slaves began to toss stones at me.

  "One word!" I called to the guards. "Has a woman of the slave Ravindra's race come looking for him?"

  "Be off with you!" shouted the primulus.

  "I want the woman, not Ravindra. She's an absconder. She's his mother."

  That made all the difference. He ordered the others back, then walked out to where I was standing with my horse.

  "Are you hunting her?" he asked softly.

  "There's a reward. Rewards are my profession."

  "How much?"

  "Ten thousand sesterces."

  I expected him to be impressed, but he just looked glum and nodded.

  "My master will pay you twenty thousand for her, alive."

  He wanted Vishesti alive. That meant he knew something of her skills.

  "Vishesti is a physician. Is your master sick?"

  "Sick at heart, yes, but it's Ravindra who needs curing. She came here, she came all the way into the villa without being seen or challenged by any guard, hound, or slave. My master was in the bathhouse when a shadow appeared amid the steam. A woman's voice cursed him and cursed Rome. She said he took what was most precious to her, so she would take what he thought most precious. Can you imagine it? She cursed my master, who never harmed anyone."

  "She cursed your master, yet Ravindra fell sick?"

  "Not deathly sick, boys' disease. Pimples."

  I fought down the urge to laugh.

  "Why is that such a problem?"

  "Don't you understand, each pustule is like a death blow to such a beautiful youth!" he exclaimed. "He won my master prizes at every contest of eunuch beauty. Now his perfect, golden skin is flawed, and my master is inconsolable. That witch did it, the pustules erupted not one hour after she cursed my master."

  "And she escaped?"

  "Yes, she came and went unseen. I gave every guard, hound, and slave a good whipping for that—my arm still aches from the exertion. Spread the word, Marcus Foldor, tell every slave catcher in Rome: twenty thousand sesterces for whoever drags the witch back here so that we can torture a cure for Ravindra out of her."

  There was one other explanation: some eunuchs are not entirely qualified to be eunuchs and are betrayed by the journey to manhood.

  "Is Ravindra definitely a eunuch?" I asked.

  "Of course. His balls are in a jar of sweet wine on an altar to Venus in the larium. The slave physician Oscata was treating him with powerful oils and philters that enhance beauty and keep the skin clear. No eunuch tended by Oscata has ever raised a pustule. The master beat him to death this morning."

  The tribune had killed the great Oscata. Even I knew that was like sitting beside the Tiber and tossing sesterces into the water all afternoon. The reward for catching Vishesti was what a tinsmith of middling skill might earn in a lifetime. As I rode back to Rome, I thought on Vishesti's words. She would take what the tribune thought most precious. He had prized the boy's fairness more highly than frankincense or Cathay silks, so Ravindra was blighted by pustules. Vishesti had indeed taken what the tribune thought most precious.

  I was lying in bed when Vishesti came. It was the light that woke me. A thumb-lamp had been lit and placed on a table between us. In its weak glow I could see the dim form of a woman's body swaying to the beat of finger cymbals. She wore very little and danced like Marhavi, but w
ith a grace quite beyond the girl.

  "See, twenty thousand sesterces, dancing," said Vishesti.

  Her voice was too soft to be a man's, yet too deep to come from a woman's lips. Her Latin was broken and halting, like that of a slave who had been in Rome only a year or so. Her accent was that of her children.

  "Are you Vishesti?" I said.

  "Myself, twenty thousand sesterces. Try collect."

  I sleep with a silken net weighted with lead pellets wrapped around my hand. It is a very compact version of the type that retiarii gladiators use, and I have it with me always. It lets me seem unarmed until it is too late for those who would escape me. With a single movement I threw back my blanket and flung the net at the lissome shape amid the shadows, then launched myself after it. The lamp winked out and my arms closed on nothing. I crashed heavily to the floor.

  A foot caressed my leg. I lashed out with a kick but my foot struck only the table. I got to my feet, cusring loudly and trying to ignore the pain in my toes.

  "Lycius!" I shouted.

  "Lycius, myself, try stopping," said a voice to my left. "Failed."

  I spread my arms and lunged but caught only air. My own net of fine silk descended over me, then my foot was swept from under me and I fell with great force, unable to put out my entangled hands to stop myself. A body with silken soft skin over iron muscles descended upon me and Vishesti's legs entangled mine, pinning them firmly. The ifryt was warmer than a real person, but I could only see a deeper blackness just above my face.

  "I curse you, I curse Rome. Mortal husband, of mine, killed. Our children, stolen. What I love, you taken. What you love, I taken."

  "I never touched your children. I'm trying to return them to you and—"

  She dug her thumbs into my neck, just below the jaw. It is one of the pressure places we slave catchers use to inflict agony on runaways without adding bruises to their skin. As I gasped and writhed in pain, Vishesti exhaled into my face. Her breath compared badly to pig shit mixed with garum in a vomitorium's pail.

  "See, only, Gaius Maximus Secundus," she hissed.

  Again she made me gasp, again she breathed into my face. My senses deserted me.

  A month had passed by the time I awoke. My illness was a brain fever, according to the physician. Askar, my personal slave, had looked after me for the whole time.

  "You've changed something," I said as he sat beside me, feeding me lentils in hot wine. "Your hair, perhaps…or did you once have a beard?"

  "I have always shaved my face and head, master."

  "Have you lost weight, or gained it?"

  "Not that I have noticed, master."

  I was suspicious of everyone. All could be Vishesti in disguise, and Askar was the same height as her.

  "You say Lycius fell and broke his neck?" I said, waving his spoon away and closing my eyes.

  "On the very night you became sick, master. His body was cold when I found him."

  "And you didn't hear me cry out?"

  "No, master."

  Some hours later, I had another visitor. Askar tapped at the door and asked whether I was fit to receive Gaius Maximus Secundus. I greeted Maximus warmly, more out of relief than friendship. When he presented me with ten thousand sesterces, my surprise knew no limits.

  "Vishesti returned to my household and told me how you brought her children to meet her," he said as he paced before my bed, too excited to sit down.

  "I don't remember doing that, but who am I to say? I have been very sick."

  "The first thing I did was have her tell Crassus how to make the oil of bitterness. Imagine my delight when I tried it on one of the small navitars and saw that fish were unable to attack it. I had forty amphorae of the stuff made that very day. It never hurts to have a reserve, whatever the goods may be."

  "So, have you sent word to the emperor?" I asked.

  "Yes, yes, and I was summoned to meet him!"

  "You were?" I gasped.

  "Yes! Can you imagine? I owe it all to you, Marcus. That was three weeks ago. He was charming to a fault, the best of all emperors. He's staged wonderful games and races, canceled the treason trials, and burned the court records. He—"

  "Gaius, I live in Rome, I know the young emperor's a just and popular ruler. Did he like the navitar?"

  "He's only seen a little navitar pulling a toy boat in a palace pool. He had intended to come to Ostia to ride the sea chariot, but then he fell sick. He's only just recovered."

  "I thought emperors were protected by the gods and never got sick. Augustus and Tiberius reigned sixty-four years in good health."

  "Ah, yes, but the gods also smiled on our glorious third emperor, so he's well again. He still wants to ride my sea chariot. That's why I'm in Rome, to make the arrangements for his visit. It's tomorrow. I received a scroll with his very own seal impressed in the wax. Why, I could hardly bring myself to break it."

  Maximus invited me to Ostia to see the emperor ride the sea chariot and perhaps meet him, but I had to decline. Although I was recovering, even the short trip to Ostia was beyond me.

  I WAS STILL UNSTEADY the following morning, but I decided that I needed to be seen. Rumors spread so easily in the Sabura, and if it was being said that I had died of my fever, clients would go to other slave catchers. Askar walked with me, and I noticed that there were a lot of unfamiliar faces in the crowd.

  "Salve Foldor."

  "Salve."

  The man was tall and his voice familiar, yet I did not know him. Once he was past, I turned to Askar.

  "Who was that man?"

  "Titus Polibius, the quaestor."

  "What!" I exclaimed. "Titus is one of my best friends. That man is nothing like him."

  "I have known him for five years, master."

  Again I began to suspect that Vishesti had taken on Askar's form and dumped his body into the Tiber. I stood aside while Askar spoke with the slave of a nuntius about declaring my recovery. Several people greeted me, but although I recognized none of them, I waved and smiled.

  "Marcus Foldor, so you're back from the underworld," said a man wearing the colors of the Aventine College around his neck. "What happened? The ferryman refuse to take you?"

  The man knew me. Clearly I should have known him.

  "He sent me back to catch a runaway slave," I joked. "What brings you to the Sabura?"

  "The attack on Senator Vintus. Are you the only man in Rome who's not heard?"

  Marhavi's master. Imagine two icy hands reaching into your body and squeezing your stomach, and you will appreciate how I felt just then.

  "I've been sick," I managed. "Tell me."

  "It happened last night. Some say that a single man stole into the senator's villa, killed five of his guards, then ripped the eyes out of his head and nailed them to his door with iron spikes."

  "Truly?"

  "As I live, breathe, and fart, it's a fact."

  "What was it about? Revenge? Politics? Women?"

  "How should I—Oi, the nuntius is getting up."

  The nuntius was dressed colorfully so that crowds might focus upon him as he made his announcements. His face was not familiar, but his clothes were.

  "Be notified that Senator Titus Vintus has offered one hundred thousand sesterces to any citizen or freedman who provides information leading to the capture and crucifixion of the vile intruder who blinded him."

  By the time the nuntius got to the announcement about my return to health, most of the crowd had hurried away. The senator had existed to take delight in the swaying bodies of his dancers, but now he was blind. Ravindra had lost the perfection of skin that his master prized so highly. What those great Romans valued most had been taken. Vishesti had attacked me, but had taken nothing. Her curses don't always work , I thought, but I could not believe my own lie. I am cursed, but the blow has not yet fallen . The day was unseasonably warm, yet I stood hunched over and shivering.

  "Master?"

  An unfamiliar slave was standing before me with a scrol
l.

  "I'm not your master," I said, waving him away.

  "Master, it's me, Askar."

  It was only then that I realized the truth. I could not recognize faces. It was not fear that gripped me so much as horror. Even though I continued to go through the motions of living, I could not be truly alive without faces.

  I was lying on my bed when someone tapped at my door. I remembered drinking a cup of wine when I got home, to stop my hands shaking. I drank another cup. I remembered running out of wine some hours later, then I must have fallen asleep. Now the room was in darkness. The tapping at the door sounded like thunderclaps and my head felt like a bag of broken glass.

  "Go away," I mumbled, wincing at the sound of my own voice.

  "Master, it's Askar."

  "Let me die."

  "Master, please. It's important."

  "Show yourself. Bring a lamp. A dim lamp."

  "You won't recognize my face, but hear my voice and know me. You have a visitor. Gaius Maxiumus Secundus. He's in the atrium."

  "What…what's he want?"

  "The emperor burned his villa. The smoke was blowing over Rome all afternoon. You were insensible by then."

  Fear revived me. Besides, there was something important about Maximus…his face! Since my fever, his had been the only face I recognized.

  "Go to the roof, Askar, attach the fountain's pipe to the rain vat."

  In spite of the pain in my head, I managed to get up, vomit, drink some water, vomit again, then shamble out to the atrium. Maximus was sitting on the edge of my little fountain, staring at the flame of a pottery lamp. He was dressed in rags and reeked of fish.

  "Askar says you can't recognize faces," he said, standing as I entered. "I'm Gaius Maximus Secundus."

  I decided not to tell him that I knew his face, alone, out of all others.

  "Sit by the fountain and keep your voice low," I said. "Splashing water muffles words."

  "Can't your slave be trusted?" he gasped, already backing away for the door.

  "What Askar does not know can't be tortured out of him. Just sit, keep your voice low, and tell me all. I lost the afternoon. I was drinking…quite a lot."