Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories (5 page)

“Eight.”

“So for each legion, there’s five hundred sestertii to be had. More like a thousand, actually, sine any tribune worth his salt will bring at least a second pair. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But caligae sell for fifteen sestertii, and there’s five thousand men whose feet need to be shod. Add in the price of the armor, shields, and swords, to say nothing of the food required every day for that quantity of men, and a single campaign can give a man clever enough to obtain a procurement contract the means to purchase a knighthood or a villa in the country.

“And for the great, the temptations are even more sweet. There are commands to be sold, territories to be governed, slaves to be gathered—and above all, glory to be gained. Tanusius Titianus may declaim as he likes, but Amorran blood is not so thin that men have forgotten that there is more honor to be won by the iron sword on the battlefield than by the silver tongue in the Forum.”

Marcus adroitly stepped over a large canine deposit soiling the bricked street. “The history of Amorr is the history of war, uncle, I know. But even so, how does that place me in danger?”

“Think, lad! Half of Amorr is already salivating at the thought of sacking Elebrion if the Sanctiff is moved to declare holy war against the elves. Think how much wealth a city inhabited by near-immortals must have collected over the centuries! And now that the possibility has presented itself, the other half is dreaming up mad schemes to provoke a war if he doesn’t. The minds of men are fertile ground, and you should be able to imagine what harvest would be reaped should the wicked elves slay a young Amorran nobleman they were guesting.”

“That’s why you insisted on a dwarf,” Marcus said thoughtfully. “You were afraid that a man might be suborned by someone wanting to start a war between Amorr and Elebrion.”

“Just so. I’d forbid you to take that slave of yours, except that he knows very well that your skin is worth more alive to him than dead.”

“Marcipor would never betray me!”

“Every man has his price, lad.” An uncharacteristically broad smile broke suddenly across Magnus’s heavy-jowled face. “If I could only be certain the Senate would give me the legions, I daresay I might be tempted to arrange your death myself!”

When they turned the final corner and the high dwellings of the narrow street gave way to the expanse of the Quadratus, Marcus nearly flinched, half-expecting to come face-to-face with a waiting gang of murderous would-be generals, governors, and war profiteers. The noise of the assembly was overwhelming. It struck him with an almost physical force, and the flames from the torches that lit the predawn gathering gave it an eerie and frightening air.

But the crowd filling the square was no threat. They had their backs to him, being interested solely in the gathering of luminaries upon the raised stone rostra.

The Sanctiff was there, of course, enrobed in white and seated on a massive silver throne, as were seven of the Azuli, along with Cassius Claudo, Father Aestus, and four or five other priests Marcus didn’t recognize. But few eyes were on any of them or even the twenty gold-cloaked Michaeline warrior-priests that flanked the princes of the Church on either side.

Elves!

There were two of them, standing behind a large brazier on the Sanctiff’s left at the west edge of the platform. They towered over the crowd, both being nearly a head taller than the soldier-priests despite the blue-dyed horsehair plumes that adorned the Michaelines’ bronze-plated helms.

The elves were fair and attractive, although the flames that lit their faces cast weird shadowy tattoos that made them look more sinister and less human than normal. Perhaps it was those shadows or the strange glow from the fire, but they seemed less supernaturally beautiful than Marcus remembered from his childhood sightings ten years before. While the occasional elven merchant or adventuresome bard had passed through the Valerian summer estate to the northwest of the city, they had never been permitted to enter the gates of Amorr itself.

Even more astonishing than their mere presence was the fact that the taller of the two was wearing a silver circlet that indicated he was of noble blood. A noble and therefore a sorcerer, most likely, but one presumably wise enough to refrain from showing any other sign that he was a servant of evil. If he did, it would be a contest to see if the Michaelines would strike him down before the crowd tore him to pieces.

Marcus glanced at his uncle and saw that Magnus too had a look of surprised concern on his face. But the great man only shrugged and barked out an order to the two torch-bearing slaves standing on either side of them.

As before, they cleared the way, the mighty parting nearly as readily as their lessers had before. Any indignation they might have felt faded immediately once they recognized that it was Lucius Valerius’s men who had moved them aside.

As they approached to within a few ranks of the rostra, Marcus suddenly realized that Magnus intended him to mount the stage and join the others in front of what appeared to be the entire population of the city gathered in one place.

He felt as if he had stepped outside his body, as if he were watching some other young man being lifted onto the well-worn marble of the elevated platform by the muscular arms of Magnus’s bodyguards. It seemed unreal to him. The familiar expanse of the city stretching out before him might have been an alien place for all that he recognized it now. He could hear nothing, although he saw many of the mouths on a thousand faces before him moving and knew that the silence he was hearing was all but impossible.

And then it was as if something broke inside him, and the noise of ten thousand men speaking, shouting, whispering, gossiping, and conspiring rushed over him. The overwhelming sense of it nearly staggered him. There was cheering too, although it took him a moment to understand that what they were shouting was “Valerian, Valerian!” He raised a hand to acknowledge this honor to his house. As he scanned the crowd his eyes fell upon Magnus, who nodded approvingly as the cheers grew louder in response to his gesture.

Then a hand fell on his shoulder, and he found himself looking into the round and uncharacteristically somber face of Father Aestus.

“This is no time to announce your candidacy for the tribunal, Marcus Valerius.”

Marcus, taken aback, had started to protest his innocence of any such ambitions, until the priest smiled at him and Marcus realized that his nose was being pulled.

He allowed himself to be guided over to the Michaelines standing on the left side and nodded respectfully as he met the hard, brown eyes of one warrior-priest with a scar that twisted his mouth into a seeming sneer. There was no time for introductions, though, and no sooner had Marcus turned around when the great gathering fell silent faster than Marcus would have believed possible.

The Sanctiff, Marcus saw now, had risen from his throne. He raised a hand to bless the Amorrans assembled before him, then announced his intention to make supplication to the Most High for the well-being of the embassy. Marcus felt astutely self-conscious as he clasped his hands and bowed his head.

“
Sancte Michael Archangele
,” the Sanctiff prayed, “d
efende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
”

Yes, defend us, St. Michael, Marcus prayed with a will, for he suddenly felt a terrible sense of foreboding fill his soul. He seemed to sense a darkening cloud that appeared from nowhere to loom ominously over the buildings of the city. Indeed, there was still no light on the horizon. The distant dawn had not yet risen high enough to surmount the high walls that guarded Amorr.

Defend us, preserve your humble servants, O most pure and perfect Lord, even as we walk into the shadows of evil.

But he felt as if he was already there, trapped in the valley of the shadow of death. Though his head remained bowed, he could not help staring out over the masses assembled before him in the lifeless grey light of the false dawn.

How many of them were already enmeshed in conspiracies to amass wealth at the expense of human and elven blood? How many were plotting to use the Almighty’s very viceroy to serve their own selfish and sinful purposes? How many of them wished to see Marcus himself murdered to justify their war?

The Sanctiff’s voice interrupted his thoughts. His prayers rang out clear and strong even to the furthest reaches of the throng, amplified by the clever design of the marble and stone from which the rostra and much of the Quadratus was constructed.

Marcus glanced to his left and saw that the two elves were standing motionless on the other side of the platform, their eyes open and their heads unbowed. One of them noticed him staring at them and raised a slender eyebrow. Marcus flushed and quickly ducked his head as the Sanctiff brought his prayer to a close.

“
Imperat illi Deus; supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae coelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude.
”

Yes, Marcus prayed, grant us wisdom, almighty God. Grant us knowledge to separate the wheat from the chaff, to cleave the sheep from the goats. Give us Your eyes, Lord God, that we may see the soulless spirits of evil that seek nothing but ruin and distinguish them from the souls that may be saved for Your glory.

“Amen,” said the Sanctiff, and the amen was echoed by a thousand voices just as the sun rose above the walls to spill the golden rays of dawn over the white dome of the palace behind the square.

Marcus cried out in wonder as the brilliant light reflected down into the crowd, banishing his fears with the darkness. And he was not the only one to marvel at the beauty of the morning and exalt in the sudden warmth that banished the cold along with the darkness.

His exhilarating feeling of spiritual release lasted but a moment. When he looked over again at the elves, he saw them staring at the Sanctiff with expressions that mingled contempt with amusement.

Their pride and arrogance showed in their alien eyes—but was it truly the pride of demons? He found himself wondering if despite the most holy blessings of God’s own viceroy, it was possible that he was about to embark upon an embassy that had more to do with man’s fallen evil than truth and divine justice.

Praeterea, ille Psalmographus Deum rogat, “quid est homo quoniam recordaris eius vel filius hominis quoniam visitas eum?” Responso huic quaestioni inquit, “minues eum paulo minus a Deo gloria et decore coronabis eum dabis ei potestatem super opera manuum tuarum cuncta posuisti sub pedibus eius;” Quo discernamus homines apud summam rerum corporearum subsistentium praestare. Ergo aelvi habent animae naturaliter sibi unita.

IT TOOK NEARLY an hour for Hezekius, the Michaeline commander, to extricate the party from the horde of well-wishing senators, cavalars, priests, and archbishops. In the end he’d managed it with the help of Cassius Claudo’s famously sharp-edged tongue.

Marcus was relieved to see both Marcipor and Lodi waiting for him with the baggage train. It was bad enough to worry about holy wars and murderous merchants without having to contemplate months on the road without a friend or even a single change of clothing. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see that Marcipor had talked the stablemaster into providing him with a rather better mount than human slaves were generally permitted.

Lodi wasn’t actually tied to the mule upon which he sat like a bag of potatoes, but Marcus thought it wiser to leave dwarven pride unchallenged rather than bring up his wounded state again. The heavy chainmail worn by the dwarf would probably suffice to alert the entire party should he fall, at which point the matter could be addressed.

As he had promised, Lodi bore his suffering in stoic silence, only emitting the occasional grunt of pain when the mule to which he was securely fastened made a false step on the cart-rutted road. As poorly stitched as the wound was, it had not broken open, and, thanks to the healing ministrations of one of the Michaelines, a healer of some skill, the dwarf looked to make a full recovery. Fortunately, this first day’s ride was expected to be an easy one.

Marcus was fascinated by Lodi. The dwarf was a short but powerful creature, so similar to a man. For all his reading, Marcus knew very little of Lodi’s race, which had not endowed Selenoth with a written history or even a literature worthy of note.

There was, of course, the song of the great siege of Iron Mountain, an epic saga that had taken all Amorr by storm five or six years ago and had inspired the battle re-creation in which Lodi had been injured. But even that had been penned by a Savonder, and though it was supposed to be derived from the dwarven oral tradition, the scholarly consensus was that it was of questionable verisimilitude.

The embassy traveling party was rather larger than Marcus had imagined it would be. The acerbic bishop was attended by no fewer than two priests, six slaves, and six guards wearing the green-and-black livery of his diocese. Appropriately more humble, the Jamite priest Father Aestus was accompanied by only two slaves—one rotund and jolly like him, the other tall, gaunt, and taciturn.

The nineteen Michaelines, led by Sir Hezekius, were unattended by slaves or squires. It seemed the warrior-priests were accustomed to serving themselves, which was, Marcus thought, admirable and in keeping with the custom of the less militant orders. Indeed, no sooner had they reached the baggage train at the northern gate of the city than they doffed their gorgeous panoply in favor of stained and weathered riding gear. Only the rich blue leather of their scabbards and the bright bronze hilts of their swords gave the casual observer any indication of their unique vocation.

Marcus had little fear that those swords would need to be drawn anytime before reaching Elebrion. The soldier-priests weren’t Redeemers, but the Michaelines’ uniformly close-cropped hair and military bearing would give sufficient pause to any bandit gangs tempted by the party’s excellent horses and well-loaded wagons.