Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth (2 page)

An animal screamed in the near distance, meaning they were nearing the compound where Veturius stored the beasts he imported. From here he shipped them to amphitheaters—largely in Carce, but all over Italy.

Varus felt his lips tighten. His first thought had been that the cry had come from a human in pain, but it was too loud.

“An elephant, perhaps?” said Corylus, who must have been thinking the same thing.

“Loud even for that,” Varus said. “Well, we’ll know soon enough.”

The spectators lining both sides of the street shouted, “Hail, Lord Saxa!” and similar things. Balbinus, the steward who ran Saxa’s home here on the Bay of Puteoli, must have planned extremely well.

This district housed sellers of used clothing and cookware whose booths would normally fill the street. A detachment of husky servants had cleared them back before Saxa and his entourage had tried to pass through, but the squad leading the procession itself was flinging little baskets to the crowd.

The gifts—sweet rolls, candied fruit, or a few copper coins—changed the residents’ mood from riotous to a party and led them to cheer instead of finding things of their own to hurl. Buildings in Puteoli didn’t reach four or five stories as they did in Carce, but even so bricks thrown from a rooftop would be dangerous.

“Varus…,” Corylus said, his voice suddenly husky. “I, ah … That is, my father feels greatly honored that former consul Saxa has accepted his invitation to visit the compound. I don’t think Father cares greatly for himself, but it raises him in the eyes of his old friend Veturius. I, ah … I thank you on behalf of my father, and on my own behalf, because you’ve so pleased a man whom I love.”

“I accept your thanks,” Varus said mildly. “I believe that’s your father waiting in the gateway, isn’t it? And I suppose that’s Veturius in the toga beside him.”

Corylus already knew that Varus hadn’t encouraged Saxa to come with him to the animal compound, so there was no need to repeat the statement. Indeed, the whole expedition had grown of itself, the way a rolling pebble might trigger a landslide.

The importer Marcus Veturius had told his friend Publius Cispius that he had brought back a group of unfamiliar animals from deep into Africa. Cispius had suggested he send for his son, Corylus, a student in Carce, who was learned and might be able to identify the creatures.

Corylus had asked to bring along his friend and fellow student Gaius Varus, whom he said was even more learned. After a grimace of modesty, Varus could have agreed. Corylus was himself a real scholar as well as being a great deal more; but dispassionately, Varus knew that his own knowledge was exceptional.

All that would have been a matter of academic interest, literally: a pair of students visiting an importer’s compound to view exotic animals. Everything changed because Saxa, Hedia, and Alphena were spending the month nearby at the family house on the Bay.

Saxa was not only a former consul—which was merely a post of honor since all real power was in the hands of the Emperor and of the bureaucrats who had the Emperor’s ear—but also one of the richest men in the Senate. Anything Saxa did was done—
had
to be done—on a grand scale.

Saxa had no political ambition, which was the only reason he had survived under a notably suspicious emperor, but he did desperately want to be seen as wise. Unfortunately, although he loved knowledge and knew many things, Saxa’s mind was as disorderly as a jackdaw’s nest.

Varus, however,
was
a scholar. Despite his youth, he had gained the respect of some of the most learned men in Carce—including Pandareus of Athens, who taught him and Corylus. Instead of being envious, Saxa basked in his son’s successes.

Saxa hadn’t been a harsh father, but he had scarcely seemed to notice his children until recently. Now he was making an effort to be part of his son’s life and so had asked to accompany Varus to view the strange animals.

Varus hadn’t even considered asking his father to stay out of the way, but his presence had turned a scholarly visit into a major social undertaking. A younger senator named Quintus Macsturnas had bought the whole shipment of animals to be killed at a public spectacle in Carce to celebrate his election as aedile. When Macsturnas heard that Saxa planned to visit the compound, he had asked to accompany his senior and even wealthier colleague.

Varus smiled, though his lips scarcely moved. Courtesy aside, how could he—or his father—have denied Macsturnas permission to view the animals he himself had purchased?

Besides which, the even greater pomp was certain to please Cispius and his old friend. The aedile’s attendants were added to those of Saxa and the separate establishments of Hedia, Alphena, and—because this was now a formal occasion—the ten servants accompanying Varus himself.

“I wonder…,” said Corylus, looking at the following procession and returning Varus’ attention there also. “If there’ll be sufficient room in the compound, what with Veturius just getting in a big shipment?”

He shrugged, then added, “I don’t suppose it matters if the servants wait in the street, though.”

Varus consciously smoothed away his slight frown, but he continued to look back.
Corylus will stop me if I’m about to run into something.

A dozen servants walked directly behind the two youths. They were sturdy fellows who carried batons that would instantly become cudgels if there was a problem with local residents. Next were the two senators and their immediate family—in Saxa’s case—and aides.

Varus faced front again. “The old man behind Macsturnas?” he said. “The barefoot old fellow. Do you recognize him, Publius?”

Corylus looked back and shrugged. “Can’t say that I do,” he said. “Is there something wrong with him?” He coughed and glanced sidelong at Varus. “That is, he seems pretty harmless to me.”

“There’s nothing wrong that I can see,” Varus said, feeling embarrassed. Because he was speaking to Corylus, however, a friend with whom Varus had gone through things that neither of them could explain, he added, “I caught his eyes for a moment when I looked back. He either hates me, or he’s a very angry man generally. And I don’t recall ever having seen him before in my life.”

“He may be the aedile’s pet philosopher,” Corylus said equably. “Though Macsturnas strikes me as too plump to worry much about ascetic philosophy. And the fellow doesn’t have a beard.”

“If he were the usual charlatan who blathers a Stoic mishmash to a wealthy meal ticket,” Varus said, “he
would
have a beard as part of the costume. Which implies that whatever he is, he’s real. And I agree that Macsturnas doesn’t appear to be philosophically inclined, though we may be doing him an injustice.”

Varus found comfort in his friend’s comfortable acceptance of present reality. Corylus didn’t worry about every danger that could occur, but he was clearly willing to deal with anything that did happen.

Corylus’ father, Publius Cispius, had started as a common legionary and been promoted to the rank of knight when he retired after twenty-five years in service. Corylus also intended an army career, but his would begin as an officer: a tribune, an aide to the legate who commanded a legion as the Emperor’s representative.

That was the formal situation. Informally, Corylus had been born and raised on the frontiers and he’d spent more time on the eastern bank of the Danube—with the scout section of his father’s Batavian squadron—than most line soldiers did. Corylus didn’t talk about that to Varus or to other students, but sometimes Varus listened while Pulto talked to Saxa’s trainer, Lenatus, another old soldier.

There was a great deal Varus didn’t understand about his friend’s background, but he understood this: Corylus might be frightened, but fear would never stop him from doing his duty to the best of his ability.

He was, after all, a citizen of Carce.
As am I
.

“Eh?” said Corylus.

I must have spoken aloud.
“I was thinking that we have duties as citizens of Carce,” Varus said. “As well as our rights.”

Corylus said, “That had occurred to me, yes.”

Part of Varus’ mind considered that a mild response for a soldier to make to a civilian who was talking about duty. His consciousness was slipping into another state, however, in which the Waking World flattened to shadow pictures like those on the walls of Plato’s Cave of Ideal Forms.

Corylus had joked about them being a royal procession visiting the seeress whose temple was nearby at Cumae. Varus in his mind was climbing a rocky path to an old woman who stood on an outcrop above all things and all times.

She was the Sibyl, and during the past year she had spoken to him in these waking dreams.

*   *   *

H
EDIA SAW
V
ARUS GLANCE
in her direction from beyond the squad of attendants. She smiled back, but almost in the instant she saw him stiffen as his eyes glazed.

Varus faced front again. He was walking on, his legs moving with the regularity of drops falling from a water clock. Hedia had seen the boy in this state before. Seeing him now drove a blade of ice through her heart.

Smiling with gracious interest, Hedia looked past Saxa and said to the aedile, “If I may ask, Lord Macsturnas—why did you decide to give a beast show in thanks for your election instead of a chariot race?”

In a matter touching her family, Hedia would do whatever was proper. Not that poor, dear Saxa was capable of thinking in such terms, but it was possible that one day he would need a favor from Macsturnas. If on that day the aedile remembered how charming Saxa’s lovely wife had been—well, courtesy cost Hedia nothing.

Aedile was the lowest elective office, open to men of twenty-five; Macsturnas was no older than that and seemed younger. An aedile’s main duties—even before the Emperor began to guide the deliberations of the Senate and therefore the lives of every man, woman, and child in the Republic—were to give entertainments to the populace.

“I thought it was more in keeping with my family’s literary interests to offer the populace a mime when I was chosen consul,” Saxa volunteered. “My son is quite a poet, did you know?”

Hedia had no more feeling for poetry than she did about the defense of the eastern frontier: both subjects bored her to tears. Varus had assured her, however, that his one public reading had proved to him that he had no poetic talent and that he should never attempt verse again.

Saxa, in trying to become part of the life of the son whom he had ignored for so long, was resurrecting an embarrassment. Well, that was easy to cover.

“Though of course we’re great fans of chariot racing also,” Hedia lied with bubbly innocence. “After all, some of the most illustrious men in the Republic are. We follow the White Stables in particular.”

Hundreds of thousands of spectators filled the Great Circus for even an average card of chariot racing; it was by far the most popular sport in the Republic. Hedia didn’t care about that, though charioteers tended to be more lithely muscular than most gladiators and thus of some interest.

The Emperor was a racing enthusiast. Hedia cared about
that.
And because the Emperor backed the Whites, Hedia would swear on any altar in Carce that her husband did also. She didn’t have any particular belief in gods, but she felt that any deity worth worshiping would understand that the survival of the Alphenus family was more important than any number of false oaths.

“Well, you see…,” said Macsturnas, his tone becoming more oily and inflated with every syllable. “My family were nobles of Velitrum. Our house was ancient before the very founding of Carce.”

He gestured with both hands, as though flicking rose water off his fingers as he washed between courses of a meal. A more prideful man than Saxa might have taken offense at the implied slight; and though Saxa’s wife, also a noble of Carce, didn’t let her smile slip, this bumptious fellow might one day regret his arrogance.

“To Etruscans of
our
rank,” Macsturnas continued, “gladiatorial games are not a sport but a religious rite. I therefore expected to hire pairs of gladiators for my gift to the people. But then the agent I sent to Puteoli learned that Master Veturius was back from Africa with a number of unique animals. I ordered him to purchase the whole shipment and came down to look at them myself.
My
gift will be unprecedented!”

Varus’ sister, Alphena, was out of sight. She and Hedia had been getting along well since recent events had forced them to see each other’s merits, but the relationship of a sixteen-year-old with her stepmother was bound to have tense moments.

Today Alphena had planned to walk with her brother and Corylus at the head of the procession; Hedia had forbidden her to do so. Instead of joining Hedia and the two senators, Alphena had flounced back to the very end.

Hedia hadn’t objected; the girl wouldn’t get into any trouble surrounded by her personal suite of servants and the roughs of the senators’ households who formed the rear guard. Alphena probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble in the company of Varus and Corylus, either, but Hedia knew too much about taking risks to allow her daughter to take a completely unnecessary one.

Varus, of course, wasn’t a problem; nor was even Corylus, not really. Varus’ friend was a very sensible young man. The attitude of a sixteen-year-old girl toward a youth as brave and handsome as Corylus
might
become a problem, though, if they spent too much time together.

For all his virtues, Corylus was a knight and therefore an unsuitable husband for a senator’s daughter. After Alphena was safely married, of course, her behavior was a concern for her husband, not her mother.

Hedia smiled faintly. She had been sixteen herself not so very long ago. Alphena didn’t have the personality required to make a success of her stepmother’s lifestyle.

Macsturnas laid his hand on Saxa’s shoulder and leaned across the former consul to bring himself nearer to Hedia. In a conspiratorial tone—though a rather loud one in order to be heard over the cheerful banter of spectators—he said, “The man accompanying me, Master Paris—he’s a priest of great learning. He honors you by asking to join us, Lord Saxa. Paris is the recipient of the wisdom passed down from the great founders of the Etruscan race.”