B007IIXYQY EBOK (106 page)

When the line of captives turned from the Via Lata, moving on to the Flaminian Circus, Auriane sensed a shift in the mood of the crowd—it became more derisive and hostile. Once she heard a voice exclaim: “What is this? What does he take us for?” And farther on she heard a man bellow— “Look
there,
in
the last rank. Is this some jest?” Auriane was perplexed, but certain that the captives were somehow being mocked.

Among the prostitutes on the tavern keeper’s rooftop, beyond Auriane’s hearing, Matidia cried out: “Well, I should know a blond wig when I see one. That man in the middle ranks…
Bona Dea,
if that’s not a wig I’m the chief Vestal.” Rivulets of laughter and comment moved swiftly through the throng.

Below her in the tavern’s shadow, one of the undercooks of the Palace kitchens called out, “That captive there, second from the end, in the fifth rank…by Venus, I
know
him! He’s apprenticed to one of the Palace bakers. That’s no Chattian savage. We’re being taken for fools!”

These words flew like grassfire through the crowds. Within the hour the whole of the throng was convinced that Domitian had filled out a hefty portion of the captives’ number with Palace slaves disguised as Chattian warriors.

But then the angry mutterings were momentarily stilled, for the Emperor approached. Domitian’s lictors, the footmen who traditionally cleared the way for a great man, moved beneath the gate with solemn step. The number of lictors allowed a magistrate had always served as an indication of the extent of his civil power; so august a personage as the City Praetor was preceded by six. But Domitian, to no one’s surprise, awarded himself twenty-four. Each bore on his shoulder the
fasces,
the
bundles of birch rods and axes secured with a leather thong that symbolized the absolute power held by the man who came after them. Their march was accompanied by the stern, inexorable pounding of a drum, an exacting rhythm that reprimanded the soul and warned all to walk in time.

Then four milky horses harnessed abreast emerged from the shadows of the gate; they capered sideways, out of step with the drum, fighting their jewel-bedecked reins. From high on the Gate of Triumph, saffron was tossed into the air. The triumphal chariot bearing Domitian moved into yellow mist.

A prodigious roar swelled up at the sight of him. Those massed about the Triumphal Gate were mostly veterans, soldiers on leave, and merchants from outlying towns—people who had either benefited from Domitian’s rule or not been adversely affected by his acts. They were easily drawn into the heady delusion that the figure standing motionless as an idol in that fantastic chariot of ebony, ivory and gold was an earth-bound divinity, the deliverer of them all.

Domitian stared stiffly ahead, rigid and cold as his ever-more-numerous golden statues. The red paint daubed on his face made him appear to wear a bloody mask—a macabre visage somehow fitting since he had commanded the letting of so much blood. A garland of Delphic laurel crowned his head. In his upraised hand was an ivory scepter surmounted by a golden eagle—spirit-bird of this tribe that had overswept the world. His tunic was of Tyrian purple stitched with silver palms, the sign of victory. Over it was a majestic purple toga embroidered with stars. Public slaves walking alongside the chariot bore swinging pots of incense; the dense black smoke drifting from them veiled the chariot, obscuring then revealing the Emperor, suggesting the clouds shrouding Olympus. He was mythic, remote, a terrible yet merciful colossus deigning to let the common people look upon him.

Standing behind Domitian in the chariot was another public slave; to him fell the duty of holding over Domitian’s head a gem-studded Etruscan crown. This slave repeated the ritual words,
“Look behind you—remember you are mortal,”
a charm intended to protect the triumphant general from the jealous wrath of the gods.

But Domitian heard the words of the charm no more than he heard the buzzing of the pesky fly that seemed determined to follow him from the moment he ascended the chariot in the Field of Mars. He was absorbed in studying every nuance of the populace’s cheers as critically as a musician listens to a rival’s music.

Yes
, he thought,
those cheers sound well and sincere. But, by the bones of Aeneas, they were louder and more laden with love for my cursed brother after Jerusalem
.

All the years I fought for this! And it is naught but empty noise. As always, the prize disappears like smoke in the grasping of it. Those masons there by the way, with their bent backs and callused hands, are more content than I
.

Next he thought of Marcus Julianus, who had first refused to take his place among the Senators leading the procession, then at the last even hatched an excuse not to join the dignitaries awaiting him at the Temple of Jupiter. Domitian suspected his First Advisor harbored some obscure and unaccountable contempt for all of this—the war, and the people’s need of war.
How
can the soured view of one man foul what I have lusted for all my life
?

But it does.
Domitian realized then, his eyes watering from the smoke, how vital it was to him that Marcus Julianus witness the procession; that he was not here made it almost as if it had not been.

Madness. Do I love the man that much? I more nearly loathe him. It is impious, of course, to hate a man who saved your life
…
but it’s difficult to love a man who lays ever more skillful traps for you, determined to show you unworthy
.

Behind the Emperor’s ceremonial chariot marched the men of the legions that had fought in the war, in rank upon endless rank, excepting the detachments left behind to guard Domitian’s new frontier. Their upraised javelins were green with laurel. The next titanic wave of cheers were for them. The people threw roses, which caught on their weapons or were crushed on the paving stones by booted feet.

The procession passed round the Flaminian Circus’s course, then on into the city’s heart, its carts of glittering treasure like some sumptuous barge drifting through a human sea.

Auriane for long had let herself be aware of nothing but the hot cobbles beneath her feet, her searing thirst, the press of more humanity than she knew existed in all the Nine Worlds, the strangely disturbing smells of competing perfumes with their oil bases growing rancid in the heat, the odor of burnt fat from the vendors’ stalls, the smell of death and sickness coming from her own people, the mercifully blinding sun that blotted from view the hard, curious faces of the multitudes. But as the procession made its way through the Circus Maximus and around the Palatine Hill, and the sun climbed high enough that it did not blind, curiosity overcame her and she began to look.

All about her she saw amazements to stop the heart, edifices Decius’ paltry descriptions fell miserably short of capturing. She was long used to wondrous displays of nature; it was new to her to be humbled by the works of men. Climbing the hills, almost seeming to rest atop each other were blindingly white dwellings for giants, at once massive and delicate as they soared up, pushing back the sky, many so covered in bronze or gold they glowed with liquid fire as if freshly pulled from some colossal forge. She did not know the temples of their gods from the dwelling places of men. She could no more comprehend the complexity of it all than she could have known every leaf upon entering a grove. The columned temples and government buildings were, to her eyes, groves of stone, with columns in place of trees, brimming with the labyrinthine mysteries of this strange race. Here nature was brought to her knees, and men made themselves magnificent in her place. Everywhere along the way images of goddesses and gods loomed, their serene faces frozen in gold; everywhere water rushed with forceful purpose or leapt playfully as salmon in a stream, to land noisily in stone beds. And the bestial roaring echoing through these stone canyons never ceased punishing the ear. She feared the sights and sounds crashing in upon her would drive her mad.

The Sky Hall itself could not be so dizzying or mysterious. These people need go nowhere after death, she thought; they lived like gods already. If the Three Fates themselves had issued forth from the high doors of one of the temples, her astonishment could not have been greater. This was the most fantastic weaving of Fria’s magic, the ultimate source of the marvels of which she had glimpsed but scraps in her own country. The villas, the far-shooting missiles, were wonders enough. But now she came upon the nest; here marvels swarmed.

How simple these people must think us, she thought as she felt acutely the throng’s probing looks. Why does this enemy bother with us?

She forced herself then to remember the man in the Emperor’s garden.
Marcus Arrius Julianus.
The memory of him was a stable place in the midst of brilliant, pulsing chaos. And already that memory had begun to animate the dead part of her, to rouse what she thought would never sense again, and tantalize her with the possibility of dissolving old, calcified shame.

Great spirit and friend, Auriane invoked him silently, you who bear the name of my father’s enemy…spirit that always was—between us is a graceful understanding bound to take me to the end of my days.

Ramis would say there’s no mystery in all this; it is only that he mirrors me as I truly am. Somehow that disappoints. Can that be all of it? Normally Ramis makes things too obscure; in matters of love it always seemed she made them too simple.

How unaccountable that he possessed the sacred mold—there are, after all, only nine in existence. No matter how he
says
he acquired it, it was given by Ramis. And stranger still is that he gave it to me. Perhaps it is the very one I lost on the battlefield?

Baldemar, witness—I understand none of this. Why was I brought here if not to free you? But I cannot, without spilling more blood. But the return of this amulet can only be a stern warning to shun battlefields forever, a reminder that all who stand on this Middle-world are of one blood.

She knew then that the current that had tugged at her all her life, always dragging her outward, meant to pull her
here.
Here the pull slackened, the deep waters pooled. The city seemed a sentient thing, watching her with subtle, glittering eyes. It had waited long.

She heard a sound like a puppy’s cry and gradually realized Sunia was speaking in an ululating voice: “…now they kill us…now it comes…”

Auriane turned slightly to look at Sunia, all the while carefully concealing her own feelings of alarm, for she was determined to give her tormentors no satisfaction. Sunia’s eyes were glazed and her head lolled forward; she looked like a beast under the yoke.

“Sunia,”
she said, shouting to be heard over the din, “I swear by my mother and father, the oxen
die today, not us.”

“Every tribe of the earth gives its prisoners to the gods.”

“Not this one. We’re to be saved for another purpose—but know that for now at least, we will live.”

Sunia seemed to listen intently, but Auriane saw little comprehension in her face.

“I have…” Auriane hesitated. “I have the word of a man greater than their Emperor, a man too noble to say an untruth.”

It was no use. Sunia’s wild, sightless look remained.

As the procession moved past the House of the Vestals, closing in upon its destination, they came to the district where the poorest and bitterest people were massed, those who had felt most keenly the punishing hand of Domitian, in the form of brutally enforced regulations for small shopkeepers, harsh restrictions on the freedoms of freedmen, and most recently the savage suppression of the street play. Here the throng was like turbid, dangerous water—the jeers directed at the captives were more bold. Some made obscene gestures at her tribesmen or chanted mocking words in unison.

“A
poor show!”
several voices cried from the upper story of a tenement block. She felt her limbs weighted with dismay. Now the eyes of the mob had the empty glint of beasts of prey.

For the first time Auriane began to feel broken inside.

Have they not humiliated us enough by parading us as criminals? Fria, give me the strength to keep my head lifted and walk on….

Auriane struggled to do the ritual of fire. She was aware that Sunia’s steps had slowed; she feared the younger woman would collapse to the ground and be dragged by her chains. She found Sunia’s hand and grasped it firmly, while a knot of terror began to form in her stomach.

What possesses this monstrous people?
She felt flayed alive. Her shame embraced even her people.

We drag thatch to cover ourselves while they build stone mountains. Is it any wonder they find us laughable? Loathsome people of Rome. How can they take such pleasure in a foot placed upon a helpless neck?

If Auriane did not understand what had roused the throng’s malice, Domitian knew all too well. The hand that held the ivory scepter began to tremble with wrath. His eyes were no longer empty and remote; they flickered with murderous light.

“Go back and fight a real war!”
came a shout from so near it was an act of defiance shocking in its audacity, but Domitian dared not risk his dignity by turning to look for the offender in the crowd. The taunts were spreading like fire in a wooden tenement. And he could do nothing—he was as closely bound as the prisoner readied for torture. He prayed to his patron goddess Minerva that the City Cohorts would quell this rebellion with a minimum of disturbance to the august occasion.