Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013 (18 page)

Crassus took a roll of paper from among his scrolls. It bore the words ROME WILL SUFFER DID SPOILING MY CHILDREN. The clumsy text was in sinuous, flowing letters.

Rome would suffer for spoiling her children. That was absurd. Rome was the mightiest empire that had ever existed. Rome was invincible, and ever expanding. In a thousand years, Rome would rule the world, all the way to India and Cathay. I shrugged and handed the scroll back.

"One slave cannot destroy Rome," I said.

"No? Might she not teach some barbarian nation the art of shaping navitars? Imagine a navitar as big as the one outside, with great iron blades strapped to its back. Imagine it slicing through the hulls of Roman war galleys. Just one could sink an entire fleet. Get her back, Marcus Foldor. Get her back, or the consequences may be truly dire."

"She's just a slave—"

"She's not human!" said Crassus sharply. "I have a very bad feeling about her. We should return her children to her and pack them all back to Muziris."

"Impossible. The children are owned and prized by a tribune, a senator, and a consul."

"If the emperor commands it, the tribune, senator, and consul will return her children without charge, on silver platters, clothed in Cathay silks and dripping with rubies. Father thinks only of Vishesti's value, but I know better. She's unspeakably dangerous, but if we are nice to her, she may not harm us."

Crassus was afraid, I could tell that from the high, fearful tone of his voice and the way he cowered whenever he spoke of Vishesti. By now I was eager to begin the chase and match wits with her.

I returned to Rome the next day and visited all my informers. I learned nothing of Vishesti, so that left her children. Ravindra was the favorite of a tribune, while Takshar had killed another slave in a fight and had been sent to die in the arena. Here he had survived to become a gladiator of some note and was now owned by a consul. Marhavi was owned by a senator and was kept at his villa on the Capitoline Hill.

I contacted Senator Vintus through a quaestor that I knew and was granted an audience. I dressed as a merchant and was received in the atrium of his house. He was a small, sprightly man with bulging blue eyes.

"Marhavi's beauty and skills in dancing have brought me both delight and advantage," said Vintus as he conducted me around the frescoes of his dancers on the walls. "I have had astonishingly good offers for her but have refused them all."

"That's why certain traders have commissioned me to seek out more like her," I lied. "Agents will be sent to the very distant east to find them."

"More of her kind!" Vintus exclaimed, seizing my arm. "Could you put me down for a dancer of about her age—no, a little older. Say five years?"

"I shall add your name to the list."

"Marhavi's dancing is superlative, and by means of her I have persuaded many associates to favor my interests. Would you be inclined to mark me at the top of your list if I were to…favor any of your own interests?"

"My dear senator, I shall put you at the top of the list for merely letting me speak with her," I said, turning to face him and spreading my hands wide. "She may be the key to this entire venture."

"Ah, if only more Romans were so intent upon their duties." He sighed, then clapped his hands.

A slave who had been standing as motionless as a painted bronze statue now came to life and bowed.

"Have the dancer Marhavi and the musicians made ready," said Vintus, then he turned to me. "Soon you shall see why I value this slave so highly."

The villa had a small theater built inside it, with one side set up as a triclinium so that guests could feast while watching Vintus's dancers perform. The musicians were settling themselves in a corner as we entered. They were from somewhere east of Syria and played a wild, sinuous type of music. A girl swirled into view, one with black hair and dusky, golden skin. She was able to hold the top half of her body absolutely still while swaying her bottom in the most enticing, sensuous manner. She seemed to float across the marble floor, her arms undulating like waves on the sea. Her black hair reached all the way down her back swaying in opposition to her body. Something about the way she pouted, simpered, and glanced slyly at me with her green eyes almost averted had me giddy and perspiring. All too soon the music ended, and Vintus beckoned her over.

"Marhavi, this is a famous slave merchant, Marcus Foldor," he said, inclining his head in my direction. "He has questions for you. Answer them."

"Tell me of your homeland," I said.

"I remember little, sir. I was very young when slave catchers brought me here. Our city was called Muziris. It was always hot. My father traded ivory and cloth from Aegypt in return for teak wood, precious stones, and black pepper. He was killed by the slavers who caught me."

Her Latin was good, but she put unusual inflections on words.

"Where is Muziris?" I asked.

"Beside the Erythraean Ocean."

"How far away is it?"

"I saw two full moons and a new moon while the trader ship carried me to Aegypt."

Two months, perhaps a little more. That was about the distance from India to Aegypt, depending on the winds.

"Where did you learn to dance as you do?"

"My mother taught me most of what I know. Then a Roman master showed me how girls dance here."

"You were only nine when you were caught. How could you learn to dance so well while so young?"

"I do not dance well. The ladies of my homeland dance much better."

"You can see why I want an older girl, better tutored in their dancing," said Senator Vintus. "Imagine what a delight to the eyes she would be."

"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 with 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."