Mark of the Thief (15 page)

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Awful.”

She frowned and folded her arms. “You look awful. But that’s an improvement from before.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days. The infection in your arm was so bad we almost had to cut it off, but we decided to scrub it and see if it could be saved. It was a good thing you were sleeping so deeply, because the cleaning would’ve made you faint again anyway.”

“I didn’t faint,” I muttered. Fainting was for weak rich women who had slaves to catch them when they fell.

“Sure. If you want to believe that.”

Well, I did. I wasn’t weak. Though I did have to lie back down again as dizziness swarmed my head.

“You need food.” She twisted behind her and then returned with a bowl in her hands. She thrust it at me and whatever was in there looked gray and mushy, but at least it was warm. “Eat this.”

“What is it?”

“Only people with money get to ask such a question. It will do you good. Now eat.”

I smelled it first, and happily realized it didn’t smell like the sewers, or wherever we were. Not that the stuff in the bowl smelled good — it was some sort of porridge that probably had gone sour. But I began eating anyway. She was right, about the poor not being choosey.

“Before you fainted, you said you were drowning.” Aurelia pursed her lips.

“No, I didn’t,” I said with a mouthful of food. “I wasn’t.”

“Well, you said it,” Amelia insisted. “What did you mean?”

Then I remembered the bulla. I felt for it at my hip, and tried to find the strap at my neck, but it was gone. My temper instantly rose. “Where is it?”

She folded her arms. “I hid it. How did you do the magic in the amphitheater?”

That was none of her business. I put the bowl aside and sat fully up in the bed. “Give me the bulla.”

“Not until you explain what happened. Magic belongs to the gods. Not to humans, and certainly not to a slave boy.”

“And the bulla doesn’t belong to you!” I said. “Give it to me and I’ll go.”

“Go where? You’re lost down here. Besides, I felt the bulla myself. There’s nothing different about it than any other trinket. You just want it for the jewels inside. I think the magic is in that mark on your shoulder. We would’ve cut that off too, if I’d known how.”

I’d had enough of her. I threw off the blanket and swung my feet to the floor, but the effort was too much and made me dizzy again, so I had to stop. My arm was wrapped in a tight bandage from my shoulder down to my elbow and was wet with a peculiar smell.

I touched it, then sniffed my fingers. “What’d you put on there?”

“Olive oil and oregano, for the infection.” She smiled. “It stings at first but it works. You were worse off than you might’ve realized.”

Seeing her smile softened my own anger. I reached for the bowl and finished the rest of the porridge, then she said, “Let that sit for a while. If you can handle more, then we’ll get you some bread.”

I would’ve liked the bread now, but I wanted the bulla even more. Once again, my hand slid to my side where it should have been, and wasn’t. I felt its absence as intensely as I would’ve felt a missing arm or leg, and wished I had enough energy to fight Aurelia for it. “Give me the bulla and directions to get out of here,” I said tiredly. “Then I’ll go.”

Aurelia cocked her head at a couple of young children in the room with us, ordering them to leave. When only she and I were left, she said, “While you were asleep, I went back to the surface and asked around about you. There’s nowhere to go, Nic. Nowhere. Everyone is looking for you. The emperor ordered his soldiers to kill you on sight, and they’ve blocked every gate to this city. The Senate wants you brought before them for questioning. Then yesterday, General Radulf gave a speech in the forum. He promised to drag you back to the amphitheater to answer for your crimes. He said he will overturn the city to find you. A million people live in Rome, and by now, every single one of them knows there’s a reward for turning you in.”

I looked down and kicked my foot against the ground. By now I should’ve been used to bad news, but this was even worse than expected.

Aurelia moved from her chair to sit beside me on the bed then placed a hand on my forearm. “In the forum, Radulf said you stole something from him — the bulla, obviously — and that you want to use it to overthrow the empire.”

“That’s not true!” I said, and then clicked my tongue. “Well, it’s not true about overthrowing the empire. And I didn’t plan to steal the bulla — it’s just that once I had it, I knew I couldn’t give it to him.”

“So you admit to being a thief,” Aurelia said. “Radulf was telling the truth about that?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I guess I am.”

I hated the sound of it spoken aloud. One of the last things my mother ever said to me was that no matter what else was lost, I must always keep my honor. That was gone now too.

Aurelia nodded, and then I felt the cold blade of her knife at the back of my neck. Her hand that had brushed across my forearm was now locked around it, and she called for the other children to come back in with a chain. I cursed under my breath. And then cursed a second time, louder, in case she hadn’t heard me before.

“This isn’t personal,” she said as two girls hurried in. They started by locking manacles around my wrists and next moved to my feet. “I’ve stolen things too — every one of us down here has done it when there’s no other choice to live. But you did have a choice with the bulla, and so the crime is different.”

“This isn’t about what I stole,” I said angrily. “You want that reward money.”

“I
need
it,” she said. “That money is my way back to my family.”

But I shook my head, trying to make her understand the stakes that were involved. “If you take me to Radulf, he’ll kill me.”

“Senator Horatio is offering the biggest reward right now. I’ll take you to him.”

“What? No!” He was the pompous senator who had wanted to see my teeth. Aside from my personal objections to having to breathe the same air as him, he was no better than Radulf.

“It’s for the best,” Aurelia said. “The Senate wants to question you.”

“And then execute me!”

“They might listen to your explanations.”

“What explanation?” I spat back at her. “It isn’t my bulla, Aurelia, or it isn’t supposed to be. How can I explain that?”

“I don’t know!” she said. “But that’s not my problem.”

No, she was
my
problem. For at least the twentieth time in the last week, I regretted ever having met this girl. Of all the curses in my life, she was proving to be the worst.

Once my legs were manacled, Aurelia removed her knife and replaced it in the sheath. I immediately tried to summon any feeling of strength inside me, but I was still weak from lack of food and my injury, and besides, without the bulla, I was nothing more than I’d ever been before. The mark on my shoulder prickled as if it was trying to respond to my call for help, but that too faded. I pulled against the chains, hoping to find a rusted link that might break or maybe the lock hadn’t been securely fastened, but they held fast. Then I kicked at one of the girls who had put them on, just because I could. Aurelia swatted my leg and told the two girls to return to the outer room with the others.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone,” she said.

“I missed. Anyway, you said you would help me,” I countered.

“That was before I knew you were a thief.”

“You’re a liar,” I argued. “That’s worse.”

Well, it wasn’t, but I needed something to say back to her, and she only clamped her mouth closed at that, which was all I wanted anyway.

She stood and pulled me up beside her, keeping a firm grip around my chain.

“You’re making a huge mistake,” I said. “Radulf cannot get that bulla.”

“Radulf is a great man. If Horatio turns you over to him, then it’ll be the right thing to do.”

“What world do you live in to believe all that?” I said.

Aurelia’s mouth moved like she was responding, but I didn’t hear the sound. Instead, my ears filled with echoes of footsteps splashing through water. Heavy, marching footsteps, and many of them. It was so clear, I looked around for the source of the noise, but saw nothing to explain it. Aurelia didn’t seem to notice the sounds and had simply continued talking. Why could I hear it, and not her?

Something was terribly wrong.

T
he sound of footsteps in my head was growing, and the splashing was so distinct I couldn’t understand why water didn’t leak from my ears. Was I going mad?

Aurelia jabbed my arm, drawing my attention to her while quieting the noises in my head. “Aren’t you listening? I asked if —”

“Where are we?” I shuffled forward, pulling on the chains as much as they’d allow. “Is this part of the sewers?”

“It’s an old cistern, but we cut the pipes connecting it to the sewers and use the flow for washing. We still come and go through the sewers, though. Why?”

“We’ve got to get out of here. Soldiers are coming.” I started to move, but Aurelia pulled me back.

“Impossible. They never come down here.” Her brows pressed together. “How would you know that anyway?”

“I just know!”

She made a face. “I’m not releasing you. If you think I’d fall for such an obvious trick —”

I didn’t hear the rest of what she said, because now a voice thundered in my head, so loud that I tried to raise my hands to cover my ears, except the chains were attached to my leg irons and wouldn’t reach that far.

“Nicolas Calva!” That was Radulf speaking directly into my head. I didn’t know how that was possible, but I couldn’t hear anything else, not even my own thoughts.

Aurelia didn’t seem to hear it. “What is the matter with you now?”

“Can’t you —” I started, but then Radulf’s voice continued.

“I found you, Nic. By joining those children, you have chosen them to die with you.”

“No!” I fell to my knees, and lowered my head enough to get my hands over my ears. But covering them only made the sound louder.

“If you give yourself up now, I promise to let them live. If you don’t, there is no escape for any of you.”

I looked up at Aurelia, who was staring back at me as if a horn had sprouted from my head. I pointed to the doorway. “How many exits out of here, into the main sewer line?”

“Only one,” she said. “But nobody else —”

The same girl who had manacled me rushed into the room. “Aurelia, I hear sounds in the tunnels. Men’s voices. Lots of them.”

Her eyes darted back to me, full of alarm. “How far away?”

The girl shrugged.

“They’re here for you, right?” Aurelia didn’t say it as a question, and didn’t need my nod for an answer. She pressed her lips together for only a moment before saying, “I’m sorry, Nic. I have to give you up to them.”

“They’ll kill me if you do!”

“They’ll kill all of us if I don’t. Including you!” She tugged on my chains.

But I wasn’t going to budge. “I can get us out of here.”

She turned around the room. “I told you, there’s only one exit, from the outer room. And that will take us directly into the sewers with those men!”

“What’s above us?”

She rolled her eyes. “Dirt.”

Well, obviously. “No, above that!”

Aurelia shrugged. “An olive orchard, I think.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Don’t even think about it!”

“Give me the bulla.”

“Is that how you did what you did in the amphitheater?”

“Yes. I think so.” Somehow.

She shook her head. “I tried using it and nothing happened.”

“And when I use it, big things happen, so do you want to debate why or let me have it?”

Then her eyes widened further. “I only
think
it’s an open field. What if I’m wrong?”

“What if we do nothing? Do you really believe Radulf will take me and leave the rest of you alone?”

Aurelia reached for a familiar strap that had been hidden beneath her tunic and lifted out the bulla, which she shoved into my hand. It was heavier than before, which meant either I was weaker, or the magic in it was growing. I immediately began to feel its strength flow into me, moving through my chest, down my legs and arms, up my back and into my mind. The magic dug deeper, burning its way through my blood with a power I had never noticed before.

The children who had been in the outer room came running in, far more of them than I had expected. I counted at least a dozen heads, some of them quite young, and all of them looking to Aurelia for answers. “They’re here!” one of the younger boys cried.

“Get behind me,” I said, only because it seemed safer there. Maybe it wasn’t.

I turned until I had a direct view of the doorway into the sewer. Radulf entered the outer room flanked by six large soldiers. I saw the amusement on his face grow as he scanned my shackled arms and legs.

“They got you ready for me,” he said, smiling. “How kind of them.”

“You saw what I did in the amphitheater,” I warned. “Stay back.”

“That was an accident.” Radulf stepped forward, daring me to act. “You have no idea how you did that.”

The bulla was becoming hot in my hands, but with the manacles, I couldn’t get it around my neck. “I do know. And I’ll do the same thing here if you don’t leave.”