B007IIXYQY EBOK (156 page)

“Is it grave?” Sunia asked, her voice low and eager.

“It’s a place that bleeds,” Meton responded. “It will weaken him. If enough, who knows? It’s a mistake, though. Now she’s really maddened him.”

Aristos’ followers could not understand why their hero was suffering this mettlesome menace to live so long. “Punish her for that!”
they shouted at him. “Skewer the bitch for roasting!”

Soon the news flew to the gates of the city—Aristos was hit.

Aristos then threw down his own great, rectangular Samnite shield and pulled off his gilded helmet, letting it fall to the sand. This brought applause sprinkled with laughter from those who loved him.
So much for her newly won advantage.

Aristos’ freshly exposed face was not pleasant to look upon. His cheeks, swollen from heat and rage, were plum-purple and blue; across his forehead was an angry helmet welt. Sweat caused the black dye to run from his hair; it hung in sodden ropes, and red-blond streaks showed through. He grinned at her, flaring his broad nose, exposing two fanged side teeth. His heavy chest heaved like the sea in a gale—it seemed it could burst chains. He opened and closed his naked hairy left fist, as if emphasizing its new freedom.

Aristos charged. Now their swords were both weapon and shield. He took the lead and manipulated an opening; his sword’s point lashed out like an adder’s tongue, piercing her thigh. Blood trickled freely into her laced boot. Aristos’ supporters shot to their feet, laughing and clapping heartily. Her own devotees responded in a more muted way, moaning, uttering prayers to Juno—for they were still in terror of the bowmen. No one realized their Emperor and God was no longer among them, for the curtains of the imperial box were often closed, but their fear of him would have lingered after, even had they known.

Aristos paused, legs planted firmly apart, taking stock of the damage he had done; he felt he had the situation firmly in hand. That vile wound she gave him pained him and was certainly an annoyance, but it was nothing a skilled physician could not put right. He grinned at the sight of her reddened leg.

“This is a more difficult than killing your father, is it not?” he taunted her. “But then, his arms were bound!”

To Aristos’ irritation her eyes remained tranquil; she was as unmoved as if he sung lines of a nonsense rhyme.

Within, she was wryly amused.
Odberht, you have not kept apace. That verbal strike requires two—one to execute it, and one to believe in it.
She felt her spirit was loose and serene as a hawk, ascending weightlessly over shame’s old battleground.

And then suddenly, Auriane
knew.
Why had she not guessed it before? Her shame had acted as a veil, preventing her from discerning acutely the hearts of others. Now she was free to observe Odberht with a
ganna’s
gently piercing sight.

What formed in her mind first as a shrewd guess illumined to hard, luminous certainty. The crime Odberht so eagerly accused her of, again and again, must be his own. The shame he tried to bury, so long ago, would not stay buried, and so its ghost spurred him to fling it at her again and again.

“Odberht…,” she said so quietly that he had to ease closer to hear her. A guarded look came into his eyes at the sound of his true name. “…
you
are the murderer of Wido.”

Turbulent memories welled up in her mind then:
The covered moon. The mysterious hunter’s net unfurled above the fray, that fatally entangled Wido’s horse, allowing Baldemar’s Companions to flow over him and strike him down
…
.

“You slew your own father,” she went on quietly. “You are the one who threw that net.”

She knew instantly her spear had struck its mark. The look in his eyes was hard, blank, final—inside him, stone doors slammed closed. The word “No,” issued from him, half groan, half amelodic animal cry.

“Oh, yes,
I see it as I see you,” Auriane continued. “What a clever murder. All close witnesses were killed soon after, then you got off free. If a father-killer can ever be said to be free.”

The words were hot pincers peeling back his skin, leaving him hideously naked before the people, before the ancestors.
Witness, the perpetrator of the greatest crime of all humanity
!
he heard a chorus of Wodan’s battle-sylphs singing as they pointed him out to the Fates for punishment.

But she could not have seen it,
he thought frantically.
No one saw.
Yet somehow this venomous sorceress, this sister of blue-faced Hel,
knew.

The chorus of protesting voices in his head confused him and he imagined the whole of the amphitheater had heard Auriane’s words. They too were dumbstruck by his evil. He trembled as if the ground quaked beneath him.

Fierce refusal-to-know converted to fury.

“I’ll cut out that lying throat!”
He bore down on her.

Auriane stood tensed and ready, exultant with success. At last he was maddened blindly, helpless as a rudderless craft tossed about on a tumultuous river.

Meton announced, mystified, “He’s off his step. Something’s sent him into one of his frenzies!”

Aristos’ followers cheered him, certain this was some amusing new game he played with her.

He lashed out at air before he reached her, putting more force than skill into every sweeping cut, slashing as if he believed he could cut out the truth with his blade. To many in the throng he did not seem much changed—more energetic, perhaps. But to Auriane he was a runaway cart bouncing downhill.

She leapt into range, missing his blade so narrowly that it ripped open the side of her tunic. Then she steadily drew him on while hardly spending herself at all, letting him drain himself in strokes that were too wide, overstrenuous footwork, and thrusts that were vigorous but poorly timed. With every stroke he rasped, “Die, die,
foul night-crawling sorceress!” until he became short of breath. Finally, as he completed one flailing cut, she hammered his blade down, striking it at right angles. Their hilts locked for an instant while he careened sideways. She then jerked him hard in the direction he was already moving. As he staggered for balance she pulled back with a return stroke that slashed vertically up into his ribs, lodging in the breast. Black blood sprang forth. A grave hit, she knew, close to the heart. She felt a measured exhilaration.

In his shock and pain he reacted with a spasmodic jerk too fast to block, and his sword’s point flashed out, inflicting a deep puncture in her shield-arm. The wound seared like fire; her eyes ran with tears.

In his rage he never slowed; he heaved after her, swaying slightly as he ran. Where the hair of his chest showed, it was matted with glistening blood. She judged his wound was taking a greater toll then hers, and knew with all her mind and body the end must come soon.

I must finish him now, or be finished. Fria, descend.

She flung herself at him in all her final, unbounded fury. The tempo of the dance flashed up to demonic speed. To the multitudes she might have been a maddened Maenad possessed by Dionysus, ready to rip out throats and rend beasts limb from limb. A massive silence descended over the flights of seats. Meton could no more follow her strokes than could a spectator at a race’s finish discern the individual hoof-strikes of the winning horse as it thunders to the rope. Her attacks seemed wholly random, but each made sense to him an eye-bat later. She seemed to keep him off balance by sheer force of mind. Though she was as unconscious of herself as a vaulting gazelle, Meton recognized the terrific power of concentration in every stroke. As they progressed closer to the barred window, he saw she used even her eyes as a weapon, dropping her gaze when her target was high, softening their focus just before she struck. Gradually Meton was able to discern how she turned his wrath to her advantage, crowding him when he overstepped, teasing him, sensing his careless openings almost before he left them.

No human agency taught her this, Meton thought. This came from gods. He remembered hearing Erato say once: “It may never be known, perhaps, the extent of what she can do.” He felt he was seeing it now.

Aristos was giving ground. A groan of disbelief came from the crowd, punctuated by shouts of outrage from Aristos’ more fanatic followers. Some in the throng laughed. There was something droll in the sight of the august Aristos being battered back—it recalled the always-awkward sight of masters waiting on their slaves during the Festival of Saturnalia.

But many felt they were witness to some dread prodigy. Their hush was touched by fear of bewitchment, as if they attended a monstrous birth. Curious glances turned to the imperial box to witness the reaction of the Emperor to this humiliation of his favorite, but strangely, even before this most astonishing of scenes, the curtains remained drawn.

Auriane felt this last jet of energy begin to lose its momentum. Every muscle was aflame. Now she felt death invading her limbs, pulling her slowly down. But she saw death in Odberht’s eyes as well. His nostrils were gaped in pain and fury like some gored bull. His eyes were bright not with hope of victory but with the frantic light of an animal caught in a snare. He was full of mad recklessness, though, and so was in some ways more dangerous now, not less.

They sank to a final exhausted pause, glaring at each other over the landscape of corpses. It seemed that for months nothing had existed but herself and this enemy standing before her, bloody and heaving.

I have struggled for too long. I am beginning to forget why all this began. I want only peace, and if possible somehow, life for the one within me.

She wondered if Marcus Julianus was among the spirits already, watching her, awaiting her.

Then suddenly Aristos lifted one of the corpses—a slightly built Numidian boy. With his sword-hand he gently pushed the bloody hair from the boy’s forehead, as if he just recognized him as one beloved, slain by accident. As Auriane moved around Aristos to find an opening—for the body made an excellent shield—he began to mutter soft words of love. Auriane began to worry that heat and fatigue had taken her mind. As she looked on, curious but sickened by the strange turn Aristos’ madness was taking, he found the boy’s lips with his own and kissed him.

Without realizing it, she was tricked from her intensely focused mind-state, distracted from sensing all of him.

Aristos erupted into motion; he flung the boy’s body at her with all the power at his command. She was taken wholly by surprise. The corpse struck hard against her midsection and propelled her backward onto the sand. Almost simultaneously, he lunged. As she fell, his blade came down on hers with a formidable hammer-strike.

He knocked the sword from her hand.

She scrambled quickly from beneath the boy’s body, narrowly evading a stroke that would have lopped off her left arm at the shoulder. Her right hand scurried about in the sand, seeking her sword. But it lay nearer to Aristos; triumphantly, he scooped it up.

Proudly he held her sword aloft for his devotees to admire.

“Behold the fate of a false-speaking, murdering kin-killer!”
he cried.

“Good show!” his followers shouted back. “Now nail her to the ground!”

He turned and tossed Auriane’s sword far behind him. It struck the sand beneath the imperial box. Half the width of the arena separated her from it.

Cries of dismay broke out sporadically up and down the steeply ascending seats.

Auriane quietly accepted that Fria deserted her. Of her own will she had entered the sacred enclosure for a judgment, and the Fates had ruled against her. It was the way of the heavens and earth. She stood on waste ground. And yet she could not stop fighting, though all struggle now seemed as futile as the final writhings of a freshly killed creature.

With slow, deliberate steps Aristos advanced upon her. She was too exhausted to feel much fear. Nimbly she backed away, traveling even farther from her sword. She knew she had no chance of reclaiming it; he could too easily block her. He had now only to herd her to the barrier and finish her. To the throng it seemed she faced one final choice: She could submit at once, or she could force him to pursue her, and gain a few extra moments of life.

Death hung about her like stagnant marsh mist. The air about her whistled as it was torn by his blade; a dozen times he missed her by less than a hand’s width.

She made a last attempt to draw the forces of earth into her body, reaching hard for the invincible peace of Ramis’ holy fire. This time she thought she felt a small, subterranean pulse, then a deep drag from far below, as though she were a dry tree and one long root touched water deep in the earth. Then she felt sustenance readily flowing in; gradually she was a well of warmth and light, generating soft, fiery strength.
Praise to the land, praise to sun and moon
, she thought as the luminous bewitchment buoyed her, held her, then let her go, flickering in and out like a distant torch carried through trees.
No
, she realized,
I have not been abandoned.