The Field of Swords

by Conn Iggulden

  With so many new houses being built by the Tenth, Servilia had sensed the owner could be pressured, and the final price was a bargain, even with the furnishings to come. Some of those would have to be shipped from Rome, though a swift inspection of local seamstresses resulted in a string of smaller payments and deals.

  With the house in her possession, she paid for an outgoing merchant to take a list of her requirements back to Rome. At least four more women would be needed, and Servilia took great care in choosing their characteristics. It was important to establish a reputation for quality.

  After three days, there was little to be done but give the house a name, though that gave Servilia more trouble than she expected. Though there were no clear proscriptions in law, Servilia knew instinctively that it should be something discreet and yet suggestive. Calling it “The House of Rams” or suchlike would not do at all.

  In the end, Angelina surprised her with a suggestion. “The Golden Hand” was sufficiently erotic without being crude, and Servilia had wondered whether Angelina’s light coloring had prompted the idea. When she’d acquiesced, Angelina had leapt up and kissed her on both cheeks. The girl could be adorable when she had her own way, there was no doubt about it.

  On the third morning after entering the city, Servilia watched a delicately drawn sign lifted onto iron hooks and smiled as a few of the Tenth cheered the sight. They would spread the word that the house was open for business, and she expected the first night to be a busy one. After that, the future was assured and she fully expected to be able to pass over control to someone else in a few months. It was tempting to think of a similar establishment in every city of Spain. The finest girls and the feel of Rome. The market was there and the money would pour into her coffers.

  Servilia turned to her son’s guards and smiled at them.

  “I hope you will be able to get passes for tonight?” she said lightly.

  They looked at each other, aware that the dock watch had suddenly become a valuable counter in their purses.

  “Perhaps your son could intercede for us, madam,” the officer replied.

  Servilia frowned at that. Though they had not discussed it openly, she suspected Brutus was more than a little uncomfortable with her business. For that matter, she wondered if Julius had been told about the new house and what he thought of the idea. He might not have heard of her plans away in the south at his mines, though she couldn’t see how he could object.

  Servilia ran a hand idly along the line of her throat as she thought of him. Today was the day he was due to return. He was probably eating in the barracks at that moment, and if she set off without delay, she could be back at the fort before the day was wasted.

  “I will need permanent guards for the house,” she said as the thought occurred to her. “If you wish, I will ask the general to post you here,” she told the officer. “I am a Roman citizen after all.”

  The guards looked at each other in wild surmise. Wonderful as the idea seemed, the thought of Caesar hearing their names in a request to guard a whorehouse was enough to cool any man’s ardor. Reluctantly, they shook their heads.

  “I think he would prefer local men as guards here,” the officer said at last.

  Servilia took the reins of her horse from one of the Tenth and leapt into the saddle. The leggings she wore were a little loose on her, but a skirt or stola would hardly have been appropriate.

  “Mount up, lads. I’ll go and ask him and we’ll see,” she said, wheeling her horse around and kicking it into a canter. The hooves rattled loudly on the street and the local women raised their eyebrows at this strange Roman lady who rode like a soldier.

  Julius was greeting an elderly Spaniard as Servilia rode up to the gates of the fort. During daylight hours the gates were left open, and the guards passed them straight through into the yard with only a nod. Her escort from town led their mounts back to food and water, leaving her alone. Being Brutus’s mother was proving extremely useful, she realized.

  “I would like to have a word with you, General, if I may,” she called, walking her horse over to the pair.

  Julius frowned in barely concealed anger.

  “This is Mayor Del Subió, Servilia. I’m afraid I have no time to see you this afternoon. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  He turned away to guide the older man into the main building, and Servilia spoke quickly, acknowledging the mayor with a swift smile.

  “I was thinking of riding out to the local towns, General. Are you able to recommend a route?”

  Julius turned to the mayor. “Please excuse me for a moment,” he said.

  Del Subió bowed, glancing at Servilia from under bushy eyebrows. If he had been the Roman general, he would not have left such a beauty to pout alone. Even at his age, Del Subió could appreciate a fine woman, and he wondered at Caesar’s irritation.

  Julius walked to Servilia.

  “These hills are not completely safe. There are rogues and travelers who would think nothing of attacking you. If you’re lucky, they will just steal the horse and let you walk back.”

  With the warning delivered, he tried to turn back to the mayor again.

  “Perhaps you would like to join me, then, for protection?” Servilia said softly.

  He froze, looking into her eyes. His heart thumped in his chest at the thought before he gathered his control. She was not easy to refuse, but his afternoon was filled with work. His eyes raked the yard and caught sight of Octavian coming out of the stables. Julius whistled sharply to catch the boy’s attention.

  “Octavian. Saddle a horse for yourself. Escort duty.”

  Octavian saluted and disappeared back into the darkness of the stable block.

  Julius looked at Servilia blankly, as if the exchange were already forgotten.

  “Thank you,” she said, but he did not reply as he took Del Subió inside.

  When Octavian reappeared, he had already mounted and had to lean low on the saddle to clear the arch of the stables. His grin faded at Servilia’s expression as she took a grip on the pommel and threw a leg over her saddle. He had never seen her angry and, if anything, the fury in her eyes made her more beautiful. Without a word to him, she started forward into a gallop through the gates, forcing the guards to step aside or be knocked down. Eyes wide with surprise, Octavian followed her out.

  She rode hard for a mile before reining back to a more sedate canter. Octavian closed the gap to ride at her shoulder, unconsciously showing his expertise with the way he matched her pace so exactly. She handled the horse well, he noted, with the skilled eye of the extraordinarii. Small flicks of the reins guided the blowing animal left and right around obstacles, and once she urged her mount to jump a fallen tree, rising in the saddle and taking the landing without a tremor.

  Octavian was entranced and told himself he wouldn’t speak until he found something sufficiently mature and interesting to say. Inspiration didn’t come, but she seemed willing to let the silence continue, taking out her anger at Julius’s snub in the exertion of the ride. At last she reined in, panting slightly. She let Octavian approach and smiled at him.

  “Brutus said you were a relation to Caesar. Tell me about him.”

  Octavian smiled back, completely unable to resist her charm or question her reasons.

  Julius had dismissed his last supplicant an hour before and stood alone by the window that looked out over the hills. He had signed orders to recruit another thousand for the developing mines, and granted compensation to three men whose lands had been encroached by the new buildings on the coast. How many other meetings had there been? Ten? His hand ached from the letters he had written, and he massaged it slightly with the other as he stood waiting. His last scribe had retired a month before and he felt the loss keenly. His armor hung on the wooden tree by his desk, and the night air was a relief on the sweat-darkened tunic underneath. He yawned and rubbed his face roughly. It was getting dark, but Octavian and Servilia were still out somewhere. He wondered if she was capable of keepin
g the boy late to worry him, or whether something had happened. Perhaps one of the horses had become lame and had to be walked back to the fort.

  Julius snorted softly to himself. That would be a lesson well learned, if it was so. Away from the roads, the land was rugged and wild. A horse could easily break a leg, especially in the gloom of evening, when pits and animal holes would be hidden in shadow.

  It was ridiculous to worry. Twice he lost patience and strode away from the window, but as he thought through the tasks for the next day, he found himself edging back to the view over the hills, looking for them. Away from the breeze, the room could be stifling, he told himself, too weary even to believe his own self-deceptions.

  When the sun was little more than a red line against the mountains, he heard the clatter of hooves in the yard and stepped hurriedly back from the window rather than be seen. Who was the woman to cause him so much discomfort? He imagined how long it would take for the pair of them to brush and water their horses before coming inside. Would they be joining the officers’ table again for a meal? He was hungry, but he didn’t want to entertain a guest. He would have food sent up to him, and—

  A low knocking at his door interrupted his thoughts, making him start. Somehow, he knew it would be her even as he cleared his throat to call “Come in.”

  Servilia opened the door and walked into the room. Her hair was wild after the ride and a smear of dirt marked her cheek where she had touched it. She smelled of straw and horses and he felt his senses heighten at the sight of her. She was still angry, he saw, summoning the will to resist whatever she had come to demand. It really was too much that she walked in without even an announcement. What was the guard doing below? Was the man asleep? He would hear about it when she had gone, Julius swore to himself.

  Without speaking, Servilia walked across the wooden floor to him. Before he could react, she pressed the palm of her hand against his chest, feeling the heart thump under the cloth.

  “Still warm, then. I had begun to wonder,” she said softly. Her tone held an intimacy that unsettled him and somehow he couldn’t muster the anger he expected. He could feel where her hand had rested, as if she had left a visible sign of her touch. She faced him, standing very close, and he was suddenly aware of the darkness of the room.

  “Brutus will be wondering where you are,” he said.

  “Yes, he is very protective of me,” she replied. She turned to leave and he almost reached out for her, watching in confusion as she crossed the long room.

  “I wouldn’t . . . have thought you needed much protecting,” he murmured. He hadn’t really meant her to hear it, but he saw her smile before the door closed behind her and he was alone, his thoughts swirling in chaos. He breathed out slowly, shaking his head in amusement at his own reactions. He felt as if he were being stalked, but it wasn’t unpleasant. His tiredness seemed to have vanished and he thought he might join the table below for the evening meal after all.

  The door opened again and he looked up to see her, still there.

  “Will you ride out with me tomorrow?” she asked. “Octavian said you know the area as well as anyone.”

  He nodded slowly, unable to remember what meetings he had planned and not caring, particularly. How long had it been since he’d last had a day away from his work?

  “All right, Servilia. Tomorrow morning,” he said.

  She grinned then without replying, shutting the door noiselessly behind her. He waited for a moment until he heard her light step going downstairs and relaxed. He was surprised to find he was looking forward to it.

  As the light faded, the furnace turned the workshop into a place of fire and shadow. The only light came from the forge and the glow lit the Roman smiths as they waited impatiently to be shown the secret of hard iron. Julius had paid a fortune in gold for them to be taught by a Spanish master, but it was not something to be handed over in a moment, or even a single day. To their exasperation, Cavallo had taken them through the entire process, step by step. At first, they had resisted being treated as apprentices, but then the more experienced of them had seen the Spaniard was exact in every part of his skill and begun to listen. They had cut cypress and alder wood to his order and stacked the logs under clay in a pit as large as a house for the first four days. While it charred, he showed them his ore furnace and lectured them on washing the rough rocks before sealing them with the charcoal to burn clean.

  They were all men who loved their craft, and by the end of the fifth day they were filled with excited anticipation as Cavallo brought a lump of iron bloom to his furnace and poured it molten into clay racks, finally turning out heavy bars of the metal onto a workbench for them to examine.

  “The alder wood burns cooler than most and slows the changes. It makes a harder metal as more of it takes the charcoal, but that is only part of it,” he told them, thrusting one of the bars into the bright yellow heat of his forge. There was barely enough room to heat two pieces at a time, so they clustered around the second, copying every move and instruction he gave them. The cramped workshop could not hold all of them, so they took turns coming in and out of the cooling night air. Only Renius stayed throughout as an observer and he poured with enough sweat to blind him, silently noting each stage of the process.

  He too was fascinated. Though he had used swords for all his adult life, he had never watched them being made, and it gave him an appreciation for the skills of the dour men who worked earth into shining blades.

  Cavallo used a hammer to beat the bar into the shape of a sword, reheating it again and again until the spike looked like a black gladius, crusted with impurities. Part of the skill came in judging the temperature by the color as it came out of the forge. Each time the sword was at the right heat, Cavallo held it up for them to see the shade of yellow before it faded. He filed and beat the soft metal as his own sweat sizzled on it, falling in fat drops to vanish on contact.

  Their own bar was matched to his at every point, and as the moon rose, he nodded to the Romans, satisfied. His sons had lit a low pan of charcoal as long as a man, and before its metal cover was removed, it glowed as brightly as his forge. While his sword heated again, Cavallo signaled to a row of leather aprons on pegs. They were clumsy things to wear, thick and stiff with age. They covered the whole body from neck to feet, leaving only the arms bare. He smiled as they pulled them on, used by now to following his instructions without question.

  “You will need the protection,” he told them as they struggled to move against the constricting coverings. At his signal, his sons used tongs to lift the cover from the charcoal pan and Cavallo pulled the yellow blade from the furnace with a flourish. The Roman smiths crowded closer, knowing they were seeing a stage of the process they did not recognize. Renius had to step back from the sudden wave of heat and craned to watch what was going on.

  In the white heat of the charcoal, Cavallo hammered the blade again, sending sparks and whirring pieces of fire into the air. One landed in his hair and he patted the flame out automatically. Over and over he turned the blade, his hammer working it up and down without the force of his first blows. The ringing sound was almost gentle, but they could all see the charcoal sticking to the metal in dark crusts.

  “It has to be fast here. It must not cool too far before the quenching. Watch the color . . . now!”

  Cavallo’s voice had softened, his eyes filled with love for the metal. As the redness darknened, he lifted his tongs and jammed the sword into a bucket of water in a roar of steam that filled the little workshop.

  “Then back into the heat. The most important stage. If you misjudge the color now, the sword will be brittle and useless. You must learn the shade, or everything I have taught you has been wasted. For me, it is the color of day-old blood, but you must find your own memory and fix it in your minds.”

  The second sword was ready and he repeated the beating in the charcoal bed, once again scattering embers into the air. It was clear enough by then why they wore the leathers. One Roman g
runted in pain as a fiery chip settled on his arm before he could pluck it away.

  The swords were reheated and shoved into the charcoal four more times before Cavallo finally nodded. They were all sweating and practically blind from the moisture-laden fog in the workshop. Only the blades cut through the steam, the air burning away from their heat in clear trails.

  Dawn lit the mountains outside, though they could not see the light. They had all stared into the furnace for so long that wherever they looked was darkness.

  Cavallo’s sons covered the tray and dragged it back to the wall. As the Romans breathed and wiped sweat from their eyes, Cavallo shut up his forge and removed the bellows from the airholes, hanging them neatly on hooks ready to be used again. The heat was still oppressive, but there was a sense of it all coming to an end as he faced them, holding a black blade in each hand, his fingers wrapped around a narrow tang that would be encased in a hilt before use.

  The blades were matte and rough looking. Though he had hammered each using only his eye, they were identical in length and width, and when they were cool enough to be handed around, the Roman smiths felt the same balance in each. They nodded at the skill, no longer resentful of the time they had spent away from their own forges. Each of them realized they had been given something of value, and they smiled like children as they hefted the bare blades.

  Renius took his turn with them, though he lacked the experience to be able to judge the weight without a hilt. The blades had been taken from the earth of Spain, and he stroked a finger along the rough metal, hoping he would be able to make Julius understand the glory of the moment.

  “The charcoal bed gives them the hard skin over a softer core. These blades will not snap in battle, unless you leave impurities within, or quench them at the wrong color. Let me show you,” Cavallo said, his voice stiff with pride. He took the blades from the Roman smiths and gestured them to stand back. Then he rapped each one hard onto the edge of his forge, causing a deep tone as if a bell sounded the dawn. The swords remained whole and he breathed slowly in satisfaction.