B007IIXYQY EBOK (152 page)

As Cleopatra passed by, Sunia saw the real eye within the hard black outline, shifting, liquid, struggling with grief. There at last was Auriane.

As Cleopatra wore a voluminous robe of white linen over her armor, the crowd failed at first to guess that a woman, and not a man of slight stature, was within.

Then Sunia heard the marbleworker pressed next to her mutter, “That’s the scrawniest Cleopatra I’ve ever seen. Did they train the poor fellow on bread and water?”

“He’s fair as Ganymede, whoever he is,” responded a crone behind her who reeked of the fish markets.

“That’s a woman, I would swear on Juno’s girdle,” came an irascible voice.

“Ridiculous,” the marbleworker retorted, wagging a finger in the direction of the avenue down which Cleopatra had come. “They’d never match a woman with
that
behemoth.”

Sunia saw that Marcus Antonius came close behind.

Aristos.
Nausea churned up in her throat.

Marcus Antonius’ chariot was drawn by four Mesopotamian lionesses—this brought murmurings of admiration for the skill of the animal trainers, for here was a beast nearly impossible to break to cart. The lionesses’ backs were draped in gold netting that shimmered in their tawny fur. Their collars were inset with false rubies. They padded along with great composure, their expressions bored. Marcus Antonius’ chariot seemed solid as a marble cart beside Cleopatra’s flimsy car; its bronze plating was embossed with scenes of Bacchic revels.

If little of Auriane was visible, Sunia saw nothing of Aristos. He wore a garishly painted wooden mask so stylized it might have been the countenance of Jupiter; the eyes of the man were lost in the mask’s large, vacant almond-shaped eyes. His long red-blond hair was dyed black. A scarlet robe embroidered with palms flowed from the brutish shoulders. Two rocklike fists clad in leather gloves clutched the reins aggressively, as if he squeezed the life out of some creature.

“Embrace her! Embrace her!”
the crowd called gaily to him.

The sight of this unlikely pairing was beginning to draw comment. Why had the givers of the games pitted a bull against a gazelle? Some decided Cleopatra must have some secret advantage and laid their bets on her. But most did the reasonable thing, and the wagers heavily favored Marcus Antonius.

When the two cars had moved many paces on and Sunia could see only Cleopatra’s white robe brushing the cobbles, she heard a jarringly familiar voice like a horse’s whinny: “Aurinia! Aurinia!”

Sunia caught her breath. Thirty paces ahead along the rope, she saw Phoebe from the herb market. It was certainly she; Sunia would never forget those eyes that sparked with playful malice, eager to worm their way into a soul and steal secrets.
Somehow, through good guessing or witchcraft, the miserable toad recognized Auriane.

Auriane’s face was not so completely concealed as Aristos’ was, and once one person saw her through the paint, discerning the familiar curve of a cheek, the well-known line of a chin, others began to recognize her as well. After all it made a certain sort of sense—it explained why a burly giant had been set against one so small. The larger man was, no doubt, some clumsy novice whose size would do him little good against the near-magical skill of their
carissima Aurinia
.

Now the cries “Aurinia! Aurinia!” rose jubilantly all around, like the taunt of unruly children who have uncovered something they should not have. Sunia imagined Auriane must be gripped with panic. If the people guessed Aristos’ identity, all was lost—for in their unaccountable way the mob loved her and would never send her off to what they believed certain death.

The cry “Aurinia!”
spread like a field fire in a brisk wind, and within moments the throng in the Colosseum knew she approached. As the two chariots came closer to the barricaded passage connecting the
Ludus Magnus
with the amphitheater, Sunia saw the dulled eyes of the Chattian prisoners catch fire. Many uttered charms, whose purpose, Sunia guessed, was to prevent the people from unmasking Aristos. As Auriane approached them, they stretched out their hands to her, crying in the native tongue—
Wodan give strength to the hallowed sword of vengeance
!

When the shout “Aurinia!”
reached Erato’s ears, he was in his accounts rooms, sparring cautiously with Plancius’ procurator, striving to explain diplomatically to the man that both he and his master were thieves and extortionists. Erato pushed roughly past the procurator, strode to the end of the second-story colonnade, and looked down. In the distance he saw Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius creeping stiffly along like figures of gods carried in an Olympian procession. If Cleopatra was Auriane, he did not need to be told who was behind the mask of Marcus Antonius.

“Spawn of a black goat!” he swore, and threw his stylus noisily to the floor.

You impossible fool. I should have known you were too mule-minded to listen to sound, sober warnings. You too-clever whelp, it’s not me you’ve outsmarted this time—it’s yourself. Hades take this place.

He realized then that Auriane could not have deceived him without aid from the givers of the games. He turned slowly round and advanced on Plancius’ procurator, whose name was Tiro.

“You knew of this thing and did not tell me.” Decorum fled; Erato might have drawn a dagger. His thick fingers dug into Tiro’s shoulder.

“Unhand me, slave and son of a slave.” Tiro was a soft, pale man who had never engaged in rougher physical work than hoisting an inkpot, and he was terrified of Erato. He scuttled backward to get away, but Erato held his grip firm.

“You slimy little cheat. That’s Aristos! You skulked about behind my back and got him for the price of a novice. And what does a worm like you care if the woman Aurinia is slaughtered like a dog?” With one powerful shove he slammed Tiro against the concrete wall.

“Fiend! Murderer! Help me!” Tiro yelped. He gave Erato an ineffectual kick in the shins. Erato landed a brutal blow to his ear; Tiro collapsed to his knees. Then four Vigiles sprang forth from their discreet stations behind the columns of the upper walk—Plancius had taken the precaution of having his accountant accompanied by city policemen. They seized Erato from behind and dragged him back several steps.

Tiro, seeing himself rescued, took his time getting up. With prim composure he addressed the Vigiles, “I order you to arrest this man for attempted murder—or you will answer to Plancius.”

Before Julianus’ fall the city policemen would have hesitated. But today the school’s Prefect had no more protection than a common plebeian. One delivered a blow to Erato’s stomach to render him easier to manage; another briskly shackled him.

Meton saw this disturbance and sprinted to Erato’s aid. But he stopped before he reached them, assessing the situation with a stricken look; it was obvious at once that he could do nothing.

Black curses on Fortuna, Meton thought, full of a sense that he looked upon a doomed man.

As Erato struggled, he managed to call out, “Meton! Stop that bout. I care not how you do it. That is Auriane—and Aristos!”

“Auriane and—” Meton paused, looked blankly at Cleopatra and Antonius, then back at Erato with a despairing look. Then he bolted off.

Meton could scarcely believe the swiftness with which all about him had fallen into chaos. The school, unknown to its hundreds of employees and slaves, was without a Prefect; he felt he bolted down the deck of a rudderless ship pitching toward the reefs. And as if this were not catastrophe enough, one of the school’s prized possessions, the woman Aurinia, was being delivered to certain destruction. The day was evil; he had felt a doomed wildness about this place ever since the arrest of Marcus Julianus.

When Meton came abreast of Cleopatra’s chariot, he shouted to the guards posted along that section of the roped-off avenue—“Erato’s order, stop the bout!” After much repetition and frantic waving of arms, at last he convinced them to take action.

Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius were by now abreast of the chained Chattian prisoners. The guards stationed along that section of rope moved from position and fanned across the open way to block the two chariots’ path. As they snatched at the reins of the beasts drawing the cars, Auriane’s ibexes skittered sideways, reared, and tried to twist their way out of harness, while Aristos’ lionesses stood with regal calm, as if knowing the guards were frightened of handling them.

But then the Chattian prisoners gave the trilling native war cry. They surged away from the rope in a single disordered mass and ploughed into the guards, striking them with the loose ends of their chains. The guards were taken unaware by this fierce opposition from a group of doomed, unarmed men and were readily distracted.

Swords were drawn. A furious, bloody struggle ensued, resembling a battle between naked men and sharks.

Auriane looked on in piteous horror, then averted her eyes. Her tribesmen’s mad maneuver broke up the guards’ human barricade, opening the way for the two chariots.

Her people were dying so that she and Aristos could get through.

For a moment she stood transfixed by their shrieks, her hands paralyzed on the reins. Shame scalded her heart.
I dared doubt the necessity of the holy rite of vengeance!

They do not doubt. And I am their only instrument. My faltering resolve may well be what brought them to this horrible end.

Go on, Daughter of the Bogs. Move forward, unholy woman. There is only one route left open—into the pit of sacrifice.

With furious sadness she snapped the reins hard against the ibexes’ backs. They responded with several jerking leaps, each animal moving independently of the other, and Auriane was nearly pitched out of the back of the chariot. But she managed to get well past the guards before the massacre was finished. Her people’s blood speckled Cleopatra’s white robe.

Fria, be gentle to them in death as you were not in life.

The ibexes settled into a brisk, anxious trot, all four moving at slightly different speeds; she held desperately to the Horns of Horus as the car jerked crazily from side to side like a ball on a string. Aristos’ lionesses were less responsive to the reins, but they glided smoothly behind her at a good pace.

The two chariots passed unopposed out the entranceway of the
Ludus Magnus
and into the barricaded passage leading to the Colosseum. Well behind them, Meton shouted at random to anyone who would listen, “Halt them! That is Aristos!”
Many
in the crowd smiled at him and shook their heads, thinking it some clever ploy to manipulate the betting. “And I’m Hercules!” one shouted back.

When the guards finally disentangled themselves from the slaughtered Chattian captives, two dozen started down the roped passage in pursuit.

But Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius were passing into the shadow of the Colosseum. When the two chariots disappeared into the gladiators’ entrance, the guards flanking it closed the door in the faces of those giving chase, meeting them bluntly with the objection: “Erato’s order to stop the bout? Let us hear it from Erato, then.”

Auriane and Aristos waited in the dim, vaulted passage terminating at the iron-bound door that opened onto the arena. Two officials dragged it open. Before them was misty emptiness, and sand.

The ibexes were half maddened by the slaughterhouse scents; they bolted forward in a lurching canter. Auriane’s car sank into sand. The mob laughed heartily at the sight of Cleopatra scrambling for balance as she was nearly tossed from her chariot. Soon Aristos was driving alongside, his lionesses slinking along with a sleepy air; to carnivores that had just been fed, the dense, humid stench of blood was welcome and pleasant.

“Aurinia! Aurinia!”
came the cries from the plebeian tiers, a reckless sound spiced with the scent of anarchy. Auriane felt keenly their readiness to bolt; they were like a loosely penned band of aurochs ready to make a collective rush at the fence. She allowed herself one cautious look at the face of Rome—to look longer might scatter her silence. The lower tiers of the amphitheater had been converted into a banquet hall; everywhere was a look of ease and opulent disarray. The people did not sit; they lounged on great, gaudy cushions. The crowns of rose garlands on every head made it appear a priestly hand from above had sprinkled the crowd with blood. Multitudes of silver wine cups glinted in the sun. Legions of youths and maids—imperial servants dressed as forest sprites—capered along the aisles in scanty deerskin tunics with ivy twined in their hair; they poured the wine, handed out baskets of glazed fruit and offered gilded bowls for washing hands. Others fanned the guests with great feather fans. Citharists walked the aisles playing and singing, their small voices scarcely audible in the din.

But this thin overlay of festiveness did little to disguise the coiled tension beneath. The people’s gaiety seemed raised to a shrill pitch, as if to cover the screams from the Palace and the wails of private lamentations at home. Many were half drunk, and so more willing than usual to cry out dangerous opinions. “Free Marcus Arrius Julianus!”
one shout vaulted above the others; guards were efficiently dispatched to remove the rebel. The sound of his name made Auriane feel her bones would collapse. Her concentration flickered and died, and fear for him flooded over her.