Air and Darkness (14 page)

“I thought my father was a fool,” Alphena said. She was speaking almost to herself. She met Corylus' eyes and said more clearly, “I grew up believing he was a fool, and when he married Hedia I wondered if he'd gone mad. But I see now that he was right about H-he … about
Mother
. And I think maybe he was less of a fool before than I thought he was too.”

Corylus nodded agreement. His eyes were far away for the moment, and a slow grin spread across his face. Alphena felt herself blush.

“I wish Hedia was here to tell us what to do,” he said quietly. “And I wish even more that Gaius Varus was here. Because he's got the kind of mind that you need to
appoint
generals.…”

The driver shouted to his team; the coach began to slow again. Alphena gripped the frame of the bench so that she wouldn't rock forward too badly when they stopped.

Corylus doesn't use the word because it would mean an unpleasant death for Corylus and Varus both if anyone heard him and reported that he'd said my brother would be a good emperor. But that's what he means.

That was something more for Alphena to think about. There was so much to consider about people, if you just thought of them as people.

*   *   *

C
ORYLUS HOPPED DOWN AND OFFERED
Alphena a hand. She took it instead of slapping him away, as she might have done not so very long ago.

He hid his smile. Many wonderful things had happened in the months since his friend Varus had given a public reading and loosed demons from the Underworld. In some ways the change in Alphena's attitude was the most remarkable of all, as well as being more positive than most of the others.

The coach and escorting wagons had drawn up in the yard of bare dirt in front of the buildings. The main structure had been built as a manor house, but it couldn't have functioned as one in decades, probably not since Herennius was proscribed. It wasn't run-down, exactly, but the repairs had been functional rather than decorative.

As built, the facade had mimicked that of a temple, though it had pilasters instead of columns and the triangular pediment over the doorway was painted instead of being carven stone. The building was now a factory and warehouse for the estate's olive oil production.

The plaster that had flaked away from the pediment over the years had been replaced to waterproof the core of wattle and daub, but there had been no attempt to keep up the decoration. In the corners, fragments of the original showed the feet of reclining figures—white for a woman, reddish for a man. They were probably Venus and Mars, but that didn't matter.

Nothing at all mattered to Herennius, executed seventy years ago. He had died either because he was an enemy of one of the Triumvirs or because he was wealthy and the Triumvirs needed money for their war against the murderers of Julius Caesar.

He'd be dead now anyway,
Corylus thought. Perhaps that was all you could really say about any human being: once he was alive, and now he is dead.

Corylus had spotted half a dozen members of the estate staff as the convoy of vehicles drove into the yard; there were at least that many youngsters playing in the yard. More people appeared, most of them heads peering out of windows on both levels of the main building, but moments later a man bustled out the front door. He wore a clean tunic over the undertunic that was probably his sole garb when he wasn't receiving visitors.

He was a big fellow, probably in his early forties. His arms were knotted with muscle, and his hands were callused.

His eyes scanned the new arrivals and focused on Corylus. Pulto had helped Pandareus out the back. Both had come to join Corylus, but they didn't look as though they might be in charge.

“Gentlemen!” the fellow said. “I am Gaius Julius Andromedus, the manager here. How may I help you?”

Corylus opened his mouth to reply. Before he got the words out, Alphena stepped in front of him and said, “Andromedus, I am Lady Alphena, daughter and representative of my father, Alphenus Saxa, the former consul.”

She snapped her fingers and held her hand out. “Master Corylus?” she said.

Corylus, startled, put the document he was holding into her hand. She had not bothered to look back at him.

“Here is our authority,” Alphena said, holding the rolled parchment out toward Andromedus. It was tied with red silk and sealed. Seleucus, Saxa's chief librarian, had supervised the creation. It included a copy of the signet of Gnaeus Curtianus Major, the estate's present owner, who had written Saxa eighteen months before to borrow a set of Corinthian bronze vessels for a formal dinner party.

Despite the rush nature of the job, the forgery was a much more impressive document than anything Curtianus himself would have sent. Saxa's staff had been delighted to show their skill.

Corylus didn't let his amusement reach his lips. Saxa, a pleasant and generous man,
had
lent the bronze vessels, so you might say that Curtianus had already been paid for this brief intrusion on his property.

“The senator directed us to pay particular attention to the well that was in use when Marcus Herennius owned the property,” Alphena said. Her tone throughout had been one of cool boredom that she must have learned from her mother.

Andromedus took the document from Alphena, but he didn't bother to open it. He might not have been able to read it anyway—it was written in Latin, not Greek—but it would distress Seleucus to learn that his effort hadn't been appreciated.

“Your Ladyship?” Andromedus said in obvious concern. “The owner here is Curtianus and the steward I report to is Phileas. Or do you mean the fellow before Phileas? I was just a foreman then and I don't recall his name.”

I won't tell Seleucus,
Corylus thought.
And I'll warn Pandareus not to say anything, either.

Aloud Corylus said, “I believe that's the well, Your Ladyship.” He pointed toward a bramble-covered mound; the leading wagon was parked almost in front of it.

“A well?” said Andromedus, turning to follow Corylus' gesture. “Oh, right, but it's been all filled in, Your Ladyship. We've got a pipe from Lake of the Woods if you need water.”

“Candidus?” Alphena said to the understeward whom she had brought along. “That well needs to be reopened. Will you need additional resources?”

“No, Your Ladyship,” Candidus said. He bowed to Alphena and began organizing the operation with crisp orders. The members of the escort had been chosen for their skills as well as for brawn. Along with the personnel, the wagons carried pry bars, grabs, ropes, and even a shear legs.

Corylus had never warmed to Candidus, but the understeward had always shown himself to be competent. He had ridden in the second wagon instead of in the coach, as he had believed his dignity justified. He might have argued the matter with Pandareus, but Corylus had suggested that Candidus not do so.

Candidus had known better than to have raised the matter with Pulto. On the frontier Pulto had formed his views of the rights of a slave flunky against those of a freeborn citizen and veteran. He was likely to put his opinion to the understeward with more force than delicacy.

Twenty feet to the other side of the disused well was a massive oak tree. A semicircular wicker bench curved around half the trunk. The master—or now the farm manager—would sit on it while judging disputes among tenants, moving with the shade or sun as the season dictated; the parties and spectators squatted on the ground before him.

It was the ancient way of life in rural Italy. Corylus wished Varus were here to discuss it with him.

He grinned.
I wish Varus were here, period. And Hedia too.

The farm manager was talking to Alphena, who for the most part maintained a cool silence. It was possible that despite preparation they would need something the estate could provide, so Andromedus' goodwill could be useful.

Pandareus examined a flagstone in front of the door, running his index finger over the surface. From the stone's shape Corylus guessed it might have begun life as a memorial tablet.

Under other circumstances Corylus would have joined his teacher, but there was a more useful witness for him to chat with. He walked to the oak tree and sat on the bench, resting his right palm on the trunk. As he expected, after a few moments his mind entered the green silence of the tree's soul.

Corylus' mother and grandmother had managed a hazel coppice that provided spear and arrow shafts for the army. Most of the local residents were Helvetian: Germans from across the Rhine.

The settlers hated and feared the local women, claiming that they were witches and tree spirits. During the terrible storm the night Corylus was born, the settlers had invaded the coppice and cut down the two full-grown hazel trees that grew above the hundreds that were stunted from repeated clipping.

Corylus' mother and her mother had died that night. The next day, all the settlers had died except for the very few who had managed to flee across the Rhine before the men of Cispius' battalion could catch them.

There might have been an investigation if the massacre hadn't been so thorough, but from what Pulto had said, Cispius was as well liked by his noble superiors as he was by the men he commanded. The basic job of the army on the Rhine was to kill Germans, after all.

Officially, Corylus told people that his mother was a Celtic woman whom his father had met while on active service. In Corylus' heart of hearts, he knew that the Helvetians had been right about his mother's race.

They should have remembered that the Army of Carce didn't need witchcraft to handle barbarian murderers, though.

A figure slowly coalesced from the green translucence: a majestic woman, as tall and broad as a statue of Armed Athena. She reached up and combed the fingers of both hands through her long hair; it was blond with a greenish tinge.

“Greetings, Dryas,” Corylus said. “If I'm disturbing you, I'll leave.”

The nymph gave a throaty laugh. “Do the women you're disturbing often ask you to leave, young man?” she said. “I'm not exactly a woman, of course, but then, you're not exactly a man.”

She touched her shoulders with her hands; her breasts bobbled. “In any case,” she said, “your visit is welcome. Why are you here?”

“A magical amulet may have been buried in the well here,” Corylus said. “That was long ago, during the Proscriptions.”

He saw either the nymph or the courtyard of the estate where his body sat; the images flickered back and forth as his interest changed. For a moment he watched Candidus directing a crew with hatchets and pry bars as they cleared the brush growing on the pile of rubble. Pulto and Lenatus watched with professional interest, but the two veterans didn't intervene in a job that was being competently handled.

“Not so very long ago, dear boy,” the nymph said. “But perhaps for you, yes.”

The courtyard appeared behind her as though carved in full color on the green ambiance. Unfamiliar servants were bringing objects from the house and dropping them into the well. The facade was in its original glory. The reclining figures were indeed Mars and Venus, each reaching out to touch the other's fingers.

The bench around the oak was stone and the well had a stone curb, but Corylus couldn't see a difference between the trunk of the tree in this image and the one he sat beside. As Dryas had implied, time was relative to the life span of the person making the determination.

“Are you a magician?” the nymph said. Her eyes narrowed. “You're not,” she said. “I can see that. I know the amulet you mean. I thought perhaps the soldiers had meant to leave it. If you're not a magician, you're better off without it. And even if you were, I think.”

She pursed her lips and said, “It came from the Blight. No magic would protect you against the Blight. Let it be.”

The imagery of servants hiding valuables blurred into imagery of the courtyard not long after that. The fat steward who had been giving orders was spread-eagled to the ground. The dirt around his head and shoulders was wet. His torso was bloated, and the leather funnel and bucket that had been used to fill him lay nearby.

Another servant with his arms tied behind his back hung by his wrists from a strappado; the rope lifting him to an oak limb had been slacked. If the fellow hadn't fainted, he would have been able to stand upright.

The ground was wet beneath the woman lying beside the steward also, but in her case it was blood dripping from her groin. Her injuries might not have been torture but simply rape by men who saw an opportunity in the present chaos.

It probably didn't matter to the victim. From the way the blood continued to spread, it might be that nothing would matter to her in a few hours.

Soldiers wearing their sword belts but not armor were clearing the well of the rubble that had been dumped into it. The well curb itself had been levered into the shaft, and the stone bench beside the tree had followed it in broken fragments.

“The amulet is still here?” Corylus said. “I don't want it for myself, but another man does. He may hold friends of ours. He'd release them if we gave him the amulet. The Ear of the Satyr.”

The nymph shrugged. “You're a short-lived race,” she said. “But if you bring the Blight, you will die with all peoples and all things. But all things will die sometime, so that doesn't matter, either.”

The image of the Proscriptions blurred again. The soldiers and some of the servants who hadn't been tortured had finished clearing the well.

An outbuilding—it was probably the estate's kitchen—had been demolished for the timbers that provided a frame over the hole. A roped basket was beginning to bring up items placed in it by a man within the shaft. Corylus saw an enameled gold casket that must be the one Atilius said contained the magical papyrus, now illegible.

“The well was such an obvious place,” Corylus whispered. He was speaking to himself rather than to Dryas, though she probably heard him. “I don't know why they bothered.”