Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories (3 page)

Lucipor, a grey-bearded slave old enough to be Magnus’s father, lay on the couch to his left. Dompor and Lazapor, the household’s resident scholars, shared the couch on the right.

Marcus stood at the entrance while a young girl washed his feet. He could hear Lazapor raising his voice as he took issue with something his uncle had said.

“You underestimate them, Magnus,” Lazapor said. “The villagemen seek no justice. They only slaver after power in the city! What you consider to be an open hand extended in a spirit of generosity, they see only as weakness. Make the mistake of allowing one snake into the Senate, and I assure you a thousand will soon squirm in behind him!”

Marcus entered barefoot. At the sound of his entrance, his uncle turned to him with what appeared to be relief. There was a rancorous tone to Lazapor’s voice that indicated this evening’s debate was not an entirely civil one. Marcus wondered at his uncle’s habit of engaging in disputation while dining, and yet the custom had clearly not affected the great man’s appetite. Lucius Valerius Magnus, ex-consul and senator, was great in many particulars. Not least among them was the impressive size of his paunch.

“I shall, as always, take your words under advisement,” his uncle said to Lazapor. Marcus noted that he had gracefully evaded disclosing his own position on the matter. “Marcus, my dear lad, do come in and rescue me from these disagreeable scholars. Now, is it true that you were summoned to the Sanctorum, or has my son reverted to his childhood custom of telling fanciful tales?”

“Yes,” Dompor said, “we have long expected miracles from you, Marcus, but you seem to have outdone yourself this time. Our darling Sextus is fond of saying that your piety is surpassed only by the Mater Dei. Are we correct in assuming that His Holiness has asked you to serve as his father confessor?”

Marcus usually enjoyed the humor to be found in Dompor’s acerbic tongue, even when he was its target, but this was no time for such indulgences. He smiled faintly at the slave, then met his uncle’s eyes. “I need to speak with you, uncle. Alone.”

Magnus’s greying eyebrows rose with surprise, and he raised his hand. Without a word, his three companions rose from the couches and departed. Lazapor seemed a little annoyed at the interruption, but Lucipor’s face was marked with concern. Dompor, never one given to worry, appeared amused as he surreptitiously slipped a small bell from his tunic and placed it on the table. For it was not only unusual for the great man to banish all three of them from his domestic conclaves, it was almost unprecedented.

But Marcus’s strange request did not seem to concern Magnus. He rose with an audible grunt of effort. “I don’t recall any recent vacancies,” he mused, stroking his chin. “Did Quintus Fulvius die already? I’d heard his see was likely to open soon.”

“It’s not a see, uncle. I haven’t even decided to take the cloth yet.”

“You haven’t?”

“No, I haven’t, truly,” Marcus insisted, vaguely irritated that everyone else seemed so sure of his future when he himself had not come to a decision yet.

The heat of his denial seemed to amuse his uncle, but his amusement vanished as Marcus told him of the Sanctiff’s intentions.

“You’re going to Elebrion? Sphincterus! That blasted Ahenobarbus bids fair to open up a vat of worms with this notion. I can’t imagine what possesses him to meddle with something that could threaten our northern border while we’re already engaged to the east. Soak my foot, but he always did have a tendency to stick that wretched red beard of his wherever it’s not wanted!”

Marcus blinked. He was unaccustomed to hearing His Holiness, the Sanctified Charity IV, forty-fourth Sanctiff of Amorr, described in such familiar and unflattering terms. Furthermore, the Sanctiff was not only clean-shaven, but his hair had been white as long as Marcus could remember. Red beard?

Marcus reached over and took a pair of figs from the bowl on the low table and popped one into his mouth, then took a deep breath and attempted to contradict his uncle. “I shouldn’t think he’s intending to do anything but learn more—”

“You’re a scholar, Marcus, not a fool. Stop for a moment and think the matter through. Do you think the High King of the elves is so easily hoodwinked? I’ve fought with elves and I’ve fought against them, and I can tell you that if there’s one thing they’re not, it’s fools, my boy. They’re pretty enough, but there’s steel underneath, lad—never forget it! And their blasted wizards have lived ten times longer than our oldest greybeard. Take it from me, Marcus. No one survives that long without learning something, no matter how stupid he might be to start.

“So, they’ll know very well why you’re there, and they’ll know what’s going to happen if those tonsured imbeciles in the Sanctorum completely lose what little remains of their common sense and decide that elves are nothing more than talking beasts.”

The great man shook his head in dismay. “Considering what I always heard of King Caerwyn’s court, I imagine he would’ve considered an infestation of monks preaching celibacy and the Church to be an act of war. Tarquin’s tarnation! I suppose we can hope this new High King is cut from a different cloth.”

Marcus waited patiently as his uncle glared at him as if he were a proxy for God’s own viceroy. Despite this unexpected outburst, he still did not believe Magnus would bar him from the journey. There were too many potential advantages to be gained by his participation.

If Marcus took the cloth and was ordained, he would be permanently banned from holding a seat in the Senate. But political power was not the only one in Amorr worth wielding. Marcus’s older brother was the politician of the family, having won election as one of the city’s fifteen tribunes earlier this year. And his two older sisters had already provided his father with four members of the following generation, including three potential heirs.

Sexto, Marcus’s mischievous cousin and Magnus’s son, had two older brothers who were junior officers in the field serving under Marcus’s father. A third brother had already successfully stood for tribune. So it was not as if the family were in dire need of another soldier or politician.

When Magnus finally spoke, he laid an avuncular hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’re a good lad, Marcus. Even if Ahenobarbus is sticking his head in a hornet’s nest, the opportunities that will likely present themselves to our house are promising. But be careful! There’s more going on here than you can possibly imagine. Keep your eyes open, keep your wits about you, and don’t let yourself get overly caught up in all that priestly disputation. Try to think about the world you’re in before worrying too much about the one to come.”

“Yes, Magnus.”

“Now, go say good-bye to your mother, but don’t tell her where you are going. Leave that to me. It will be hard on her, with Corvus gone.”

“Yes, Magnus. Although I doubt she’ll even notice I’m not here, not with Tertia’s twins.”

“There is that. I’ll write to your father, lad. He must be apprised of these developments too. I don’t know if he’ll be terribly pleased, unfortunately, but I’ll knock some sense into him. He expects you to follow in his footsteps, you know. But you were born to think, not brawl or bawl out legionnaires. Oh, and Marcus, you will tell Sextus that he is not to even think of tagging along after you. If he does so much as ride to the Pontus Rossus I’ll have him lashed and halve his allowance for the next three moons.”

Marcus grinned as he bowed respectfully, then reached for the bowl of fruit before departing. Sexto would brave a lashing if need be, but he’d never risk the coin.

“I’ll tell him, Magnus. And thank you, sir. I shall not forget your advice.”

• • •

Magnus pursed his lips as he watched his young nephew exit the triclinium, an apple in either hand. This news of Elebrion was an unforeseen and unwelcome development.

Should he have braved Ahenobarbus’s displeasure and forbidden the old charlatan his nephew? He’d made much harder decisions than this before, given orders that had cost thousands of men their lives without hesitation or regret, and yet something about this one bothered him. Marcus was his brother’s youngest son. In Corvus’s absence, was there not something he could do to safeguard the lad?

The boy was trained, but he was no warrior. His bodyslave was no better: a lover, not a fighter. Perhaps Magnus could send a soldier along to safeguard Marcus. Able soldiers were easy to find, but with them it was discipline that counted most, not skill, and besides, they were taught to fight as a unit. One alone would be no help.

Perhaps a gladiator?

But gladiators were but men, and Magnus knew all too well the price of a man. What can be bought can always be bought once more by a more generous purse. And it wouldn’t be only elves that would be interested in the buying.

Once word of the prospect of a Church-sanctioned holy war against the elves got out, every petty merchant with a load of tin or cattle skins to sell the legions would be pressing hard to get his fingers into the unending flow of coin that would erupt from the Senate. Worse, he knew very well that some of the more enterprising tradesmen were perfectly capable of taking it upon themselves to help the Sanctiff reach the decision that would be of the most benefit to them.

What sort of fighting man could not be bought by man or elf?

Magnus reached over, took the bell from the table, and shook it. The bronze clang had barely stopped when a servant came rushing into the room and nearly collided with him, taken by surprise at his presence out of his recliner.

“Find Lucipor,” he commanded. “I want him now. And bring that fool of a son of mine too. He may be useful for once, as hard as that is to imagine.”

The slave bowed and ran off.

He did not, Magnus noted with mild irritation, seem to feel any need to inquire as to which of his sons the senator required.

• • •

Marcus awoke with a start. He sat up on his sweat-damped pallet. The sun was already risen, and a few rays of morning lightened the shadows cast by the thick walls of the domus. Looking around, he discovered that he was alone in the cubiculum, though he did not know if Marcipor had risen before him or, as seemed more likely, had not returned to the Valerian compound last night.

One of the house slaves brought him a bowl of water upon request. After he washed his face and hands, he determined to go to the baths as soon as he’d broken his fast. It might well be his last opportunity to do so in quite some time.

He found Sextus already in the triclinium, sprawled in front of a low table laden with fruit, bread, and meat left over from the night before. He was idly feeding his dog, a curly-tailed mongrel he’d acquired off the streets the year before. “You’re up late,” Sextus commented as he popped a piece of orange into his mouth.

“Yes.” Marcus wasn’t hungry, he realized. He’d eaten rather a lot after speaking with his uncle and his mother.

“How did Aunt Julia take the news of your departure?”

“Placidly.” Marcus ignored the accusatory tone, somewhat surprised that Magnus had seen fit to inform Sextus of his upcoming travels. “Her eyes were dry.”

“Another Aelia, she is,” Sextus said wryly, then laughed. “You don’t understand the benefit of a father gone campaigning and a mother uninterested in your affairs, Marcus. I wish Magnus would leave me alone like that. He’s even forbidden me to ride out with you, although I suppose you’ll have that sorry excuse of a slave to keep you company.”

Marcus flicked a grape at his cousin. “You can’t honestly tell me that you’d abandon Amorr for a long ride through the wilds of Merithaim, Sextus. You do realize that I’m part of an official Church embassy. There won’t be any gambling or girl-chasing, and I don’t recall ecclesiastical debate being one of your favorite pastimes.”

“Chance is everywhere, my dear boy. And wherever there are guards, there you will find men who roll the bones. As for girls, I daresay that Elebrion is full of them!” Sextus’s eyes gleamed wickedly. “Elven girls. I’ve only seen one or two, but they were lovely. Gorgeous! Tall, slender, skin like milk. If you look past the pointy ears and the haughty attitude, why, they might be Vargeyar maidens, and there’s no harm in that!”

“No harm? You wouldn’t survive your first day there. You’d make love to the first sorceress you saw and find yourself turned into a toad before nightfall.”

Sextus paid him no heed. “Perhaps I shall marry two of them, no, three, actually, and found a new Pannonia. It’s a pity there aren’t more half-elves around these days. Why did we kill them all, do you happen to remember?”

“To spare their women your unseemly lusts,” Marcus said dryly. He removed a piece of meat from the table, examined it, and tossed it to Sextus’s dog. The ugly beast snapped the morsel down with noisy relish. “I have in mind to go to the baths today, since I don’t think I’ll find one along the Malkanway. Care to join me?”

“Gladly.” Sextus raised a small pouch from under his couch. “We can do that after we take care of this. I have orders to drag you off to the Arena. Believe it or not, that’s what got me out of aiding with the sportulae today. No fights, unfortunately, but since Magnus has correctly ascertained that you and Marce are able to defend yourselves about as well as a pair of declawed kittens, I’ve orders to take you to the stables and buy you a bodyguard capable of protecting your virtue from those hot-blooded elven slatterns.”

“The Arena? A bodyguard … Do you mean a gladiator?”

“Uh, yes. I know you’ve never been, but you do know what they are, right? Big, bloody-minded brutes, usually knock about trying to kill each other?”

“Why would I need a bodyguard? If the Sanctiff sent six Redeemed to bring me home last night, I’m sure he will ensure that his ambassadors are well guarded in our travels.”

“That’s the problem. I think Magnus wants to make sure there’s someone who couldn’t care less about the perfumed princes of the Church and will remember to keep an eye on the embassy’s most junior member.”

Marcus shrugged. That made sense, he supposed, although he found it hard to believe that he could possibly be in any real danger. Except, of course, from the elven king. But if High King Mael decided to attack the embassy, one more bodyguard would hardly make a difference.