Out of the Waters (18 page)

Varus thought about being insulated from the world. Pandareus was talking about physical protection here, but that was really a minor aspect of the way Varus was walled off. His father's wealth wasn't really a factor.

Varus had come to realize that though he lived in the world, he was not and never would be part of it. If footpads knocked him down and slit his throat, a part of him—the part that was most Gaius Alphenus Varus—would be watching them through a sheet of clear glass, interested to see how far his blood spurted when the knife went in.

Corylus could probably tell me from having watched it happen to somebody else. That would be a better way to learn.

Pandareus was watching him intently. Varus let his smile fade. He said, “Master, what do you think we'll find in this chapel? What should we be looking for?”

“Your lordship…,” Pandareus said, being particularly careful in his address because they were in public. “We are intruding on Senator Tardus because of inferences which we deduced from your vision, coupled with additional knowledge which I brought to the discussion. All I can do is to say that I think we are acting in the most logical fashion that we could, given our limited information.”

He grinned, becoming a different person. He said, “I will not lapse into superstition by saying that whoever or whatever sent you the vision was wise enough to give us as much information as we would need. I will particularly not say—”

The grin became even wider.

“—that he, or she, or it, is all-wise. But the less rational part of me believes those things.”

“A textbook example of
praeteritio
,” Varus said. “And I accept the principle underlying your statement, which I deduce to be that the wise man, when faced with an uncertain result which he cannot affect, should assume it will be beneficial. The price is the same as it would be for a gloomy prediction.”

“I've taught you well, my boy,” Pandareus said. They were no longer joking. It was one of the few times Varus had heard what he would describe as real warmth in the older man's voice.

At the head of the procession the lictors stopped in front of a house and faced outward. Its walls were of fine-grained limestone, rather than marble over a core of brick or volcanic tuff as was the more recent style.

The chief lictor banged the butt of his axe helve on the door and boomed, “Open to Senator Gaius Alphenus Saxa, consul of Carce!”

Varus drew a deep breath. He wondered what it would be like to wait for howling barbarians to charge, shaking their spears and their long, round-tipped swords.

At the moment, he would rather be out on the frontier, learning the answer to that question.

 

CHAPTER
VI

Alphena would have been happier walking, but Hedia had insisted that they take the litter to the Field of Mars. This shopping expedition was part of the business—business or trouble or mystery, Alphena didn't know what to call it—so she'd agreed, but it still made her unhappy.

Her face must have been squeezed into a petulant frown. Hedia raised her slippered foot and wriggled the big toe at her. Because they were seated facing one another in the litter, it was like somebody pointing an accusatory, short, but nonetheless very shapely, finger at her.

“Cheer up, dear,” Hedia said. “We really have to do it this way, you see. No one would imagine me going shopping on foot. And though they'd let us into the shops I want to visit even with your original footgear—you'd be with me, after all—the last thing we want is to appear eccentric. We'll learn much more if Abinnaeus is thinking only about the amount of money he'll get from their gracious ladyships of Saxa's household. Besides—”

She touched the tip of Alphena's slipper with her finger. The upper was silk brocade instead of a filigree of gilt leather cutwork, and the toe was closed. Sword exercises wearing army footgear had left Alphena's feet beyond transformation into ladylike appearance in the time available, despite the skill of Hedia's own pedicure specialists.

“—these shoes wouldn't be at all comfortable to walk across the city in, dear. And we really do have to dress for the occasion. Think of it the way men put their togas on to go into court, even though there's
never
been a more awkward, ugly garment than a toga.”

Alphena giggled. Even a young, gracefully slender man like Publius Corylus looked rather like a blanket hung to dry on a pole when he wore his toga. Father, who was plump and clumsy, was more like the same blanket tumbled into a wash basket.

The Cappadocian bearers paced along as smoothly as the Tiber floating a barge. They were singing, but either the words were nonsense or they were in a language of their own.

Only the thin outer curtains of the litter were drawn, so Alphena could see what was going on about them. They were making their way through the Forum built by Julius Caesar; the courtyard wasn't less congested than the streets to north and south, but there was more room for the crowd which was being pushed aside. The brick and stone walls bounding the street wouldn't give no matter how forcefully Hedia's escorts shoved people who were blocking the litter.

Alphena nodded in silent approval: someone had chosen the route with care and intelligence. This heavy vehicle required that sort of forethought.

The particular servants in attendance must have been chosen with equal care, because they were
not
Hedia's usual escort. “Ah, Mother?” Alphena said. “That's Lenatus walking beside Manetho, isn't it?”

“Yes, dear,” Hedia said approvingly. “Manetho is in charge of things under normal circumstances, but Master Lenatus will take command if, well, if necessary.”

Alphena didn't recognize every member of the entourage, though she didn't doubt that they were all part of Saxa's household. She'd seen at least one man working in the gardens. Several more had been litter bearers before Alphena bought the new, larger vehicle with the matched team of Cappadocians; simply by inertia the previous bearers remained members of the household, though they had no regular duties.

The escorts wore clean tunics, most of which appeared to have been bought as a job lot: they had identical blue embroidery at the throat, cuffs, and hem. Further, the men's hair was freshly cropped and they'd been shaven, though that had been done quickly enough that several were nicked or gashed.

The razor wounds stood out sharply against chins which since puberty must have been shaded by tangled beards. Alphena supposed that was better than being attended by a band of shaggy bravos. Though they
still
looked like bravos.

She leaned sideways, bulging the side curtain, to get a better look at the trainer toward the front of the entourage. She said, “I don't think that's a club that Lenatus is hiding under his tunic, is it, Mother?”

Hedia shrugged. “I didn't ask, dear,” she said. “I leave that sort of thing to men.”

She leaned forward slightly, bringing her face closer to Alphena's. “I told Lenatus to choose the men,” she said. She was as calm and beautiful as a portrait on ivory. “I told him I didn't care how handsome they were or whether they could communicate any way except by grunting in Thracian. I just wanted people who would stand beside him if there was real trouble.”

She laughed briefly. “Beside him and in front me, of course,” she said, “but I didn't need to tell Lenatus that. I think he felt rather honored. I've never quite understood that, but men of the right sort generally do.”

Of course men feel honored to be given a chance to die for you,
Alphena thought, suddenly angry.
And
don't
tell me you don't understand why!

But that wasn't fair to Hedia, who was risking her life too. Or seemed to think she was.

“Mother?” Alphena said, shifting her thoughts into the new channel with enthusiasm. “What's going to happen? Are we going to attack this Abinnaeus?”

Hedia's mouth opened for what was obviously intended for full-throated laughter, but she caught herself with a stricken look before a sound came out. Leaning forward, she caught Alphena's wrist between her thumb and two fingers.

“I'm sorry, dear one,” she said. “No, Abinnaeus is a silk merchant with a very fine stock. His shop is in the portico of Agrippa. My husband Latus' house is just up Broad Street from the portico.”

Alphena saw the older woman's expression cycle quickly through anger to disgust to stony blankness—and finally back to a semblance of amused neutrality. “My former husband's house, I should have said,” she said. “And briefly my own, when the lawsuits against the will were allowed to lapse after your father took up my cause.”

Hedia's lips squirmed in an expression too brief for Alphena to identify it with certainty. It might have been sadness or disgust, or very possibly a combination of those feelings.

“I got rid of the house as quickly as I could,” Hedia said, falling back into a light, conversational tone. “There wasn't anything wrong with it. I didn't have bad memories of it, no more than of any other place, but I didn't want to keep it either. I told Saxa's agent to sell it and invest the money for me. I suppose I have quite a respectable competence now, dear one—by any standards but your father's.”

“Father has never been close with money,” Alphena said, thinking of her childhood. She had been angry for as far back as she could remember: angry about the things she couldn't do, either because she was a girl or because she was the particular girl she was.

She forced the start of a smile, but it then spread naturally and brightened her mood. She said, “I envied you so much, M-Mother. Because you're so beautiful.”

The smile slipped, though she fought to retain it. “And I'm not.”

“You're striking,” Hedia said, touching Alphena's wrist again to emphasize the intensity she projected. “In a good way, a way that shows up much better in daylight than I can.”

She leaned back, suddenly regally cool. “If you want that,” she said. “Not if you're going to wear clodhoppers—”

She gestured dismissively toward Alphena's feet.

“—and scowl at everyone as though you'd like to slit their throats, though.
Do
you want that?
Do
you want people to say you're beautiful?”

Hedia grinned like a cat. “That is,” she said, “do you want it enough that you're willing to spend as much effort on it as you do now on hacking at a stake, or as your brother does on reading Lucilius and similarly dull people who didn't even write Latin that ordinary people can understand?”

“I shouldn't have to—” Alphena blazed. Part of her mind was listening to the words coming out off her tongue, so she stopped in embarrassment. She closed her mouth.

Hedia's smile had chilled into silent mockery, but that didn't, for a wonder, make Alphena flare up again.
She's right. She's treating me like she'd treat an adult; and if I flame up like a four-year-old, then I'm the only one to blame for it.

“I
have
spent a great deal of time on the training ground,” Alphena said with careful restraint. “And of course my brother almost lives for books. For them and with them. But he could put just as much effort hacking at the post as I have and he'd still be a clown rather than a swordsman; and if I struggled with Lucilius and the rest for my whole life, they'd be as useless to me as my trying to read prophecies in the clouds.”

Hedia gave a throaty giggle at the thought.

“I don't think I'd be much better at being a beauty than at being a scholar, Mother,” Alphena said. “But I can stop resenting the things I won't take the effort to succeed at.”

She felt her smile slipping again. “I don't know what that leaves me,” she whispered. “I'm not really a good swordsman, even. Not good enough to be a gladiator, I mean, even if Father would let me.”

“Your father wouldn't have anything to do with it, dear,” Hedia said. She was smiling, but Alphena had seen a similar expression on her face before. A man had died then. “I would not permit you to embarrass that sweet man so badly. I hope you believe me, daughter.”

“I wouldn't do it,” Alphena said. The interior of the litter seemed suddenly colder, shiveringly cold. “I used to think I wanted to, but I really wouldn't have.”

She swallowed and added, “And I do believe you, Mother.”

Hedia held both her hands out, palms up, for Alphena to take. “I apologize for saying that just now,” she said. “I—your father is very good and gentle. People of his sort deserve better than the world often sends them, and I want to protect him. I am neither good nor gentle.”

Alphena squeezed the older woman's fingers, then leaned back. “Thank you for what you do for Father,” she said. “And what you've done for me.”

“Well, dear,” Hedia said with a tinge of amusement, “I quite clearly recall you chopping away at demons with what seemed at the time to be a great deal of skill. That needed to be done, and
I
certainly wasn't going to do it. And I strongly suspect that none of those gladiators whom you admire would have faced demons either.”

What does she mean by that?
Alphena thought; then she blushed at the way her mind had tried to turn Hedia's words into a slur. Aloud but in a low voice, she said, “I should just learn to accept compliments, shouldn't I?”

Hedia laughed merrily. “Well, dear,” she said, “I don't think I would suggest that as a regular course of conduct for a young lady. But with me … yes, I generally mean what I say.”

The litter slowed. There was even more shouting than usual ahead of them. Alphena touched the curtain, intending to pull it aside and lean out for a better look.

Hedia stopped her with a lazy gesture. She said, “Ours isn't the only senatorial family going by litter to shop in the Field of Mars today. I'm confident that our present escort could fight their way through anything but a company of the Praetorian Guard, but I warned Manetho before we started that if he allowed any unnecessary trouble to occur, he'd spend the rest of his life hoeing turnips on a farm in Bruttium.”