Night of the Wolf (23 page)

But now Mellisa was blind. Vella managed to clear her vision.

Lucius gave a sigh of relief.

Caesar was laughing, Cleopatra was pale with disgust, and Fulvia looked annoyed.

Vella gave a screech, charged the blinded and backing Mellisa, and grabbed a handful of her hair.

Mellisa shrieked and tried to fend off her attacker . . . with the sword. The weapon entered Vella’s body easily, the way a knife cuts soft butter, up to within about three inches of the hilt.

Vella looked down blankly at the sword in her body. She raised both hands as if to clutch the hilt, but it seemed as if she didn’t quite dare. Then she said, “My legs.” And indeed, they were without strength, because she slowly folded to her knees. Her eyes were empty by then. Lucius saw because, for some reason, she turned her head toward him. From her knees, she fell to the side, and a thin trickle of blood flowed from the corner of her mouth to the sand. She tried to breathe once, twice, then a third time. Her legs stretched out straight, quivered, and then relaxed, her knees in a slightly bent position. She was dead. The color drained from her face, leaving a waxen, yellowish pallor behind.

Lucius was sick with horror. Mellisa screamed and screamed and screamed. Philo was down the steps into the arena. He knelt for a second near Vella. No more time was required to confirm what he knew already. Then he and Gordus each seized one of Mellisa’s arms and marched her out of the amphitheater. For a few moments, Lucius could hear the screams continue, then they faded into sobs and, at last, stopped.

The gardener who’d raked the sand clean came out and stared at the corpse. Blood was still flowing from it, from the terrible torso wound. The man looked at a loss, but Gordus joined him, and he knew what to do with the dead.

They picked up what remained of Vella by the legs and under the arms. Gordus propped her head against his stomach and together they carried her out of the ring. The gardener returned with his rake.

Only then did Lucius look over at his sister, Caesar, and Cleopatra. Fulvia seemed a little pale, but Caesar smiled at Cleopatra and they bantered in low tones, like lovers.

The two royal vipers were completely unperturbed.

XIV

Dryas dressed in fresh clothing—a white tunic without embroidery and the loose leggings of a rider—but she left horse and baggage at Mir’s home. Before she departed, she spoke quietly to the girl Mir called his wife. This time she couldn’t draw any speech from the girl, though there were some tears. Dryas was glad to see the tears and she hoped the child might find peace and, if possible, healing.

Before she started up the mountain, she spoke with Mir. He nodded when she told him about the tears. “She will die now,” he said.

Dryas was taken aback. “Die?”

“Die,” Mir repeated.

Dryas looked over at the girl. She had crowned herself with blue wild asters and was dancing among the fading autumn sunflowers, humming a tuneless tune to herself. “You’re sure?” Dryas asked. The wisdom of a man like Mir wasn’t to be taken lightly.

“Yes, I’ve seen the look before. She only waited for you to come. Now, she can to go to join the rest. She has lived, suffered enough. Catch the wolf and take him to hunt Caesar. Now there’s a quarry worthy of such a beast.”

Dryas nodded and started up the mountain alone.

It was near sunset when she reached the mountain meadow.

The shadow awaited her. The voice spoke in her mind.
He is a powerful creature and you will not conquer him without help. What you plan is not enough. Bind him. You have the power. You have the will. Bind him. Or certainly one of you will die!

Dryas disdained to ask which one, but then, possibly even the spirit couldn’t be sure. On the Isle of Women, among her fellow students, they had debated the ability of her and her kind to seek the trance and sometimes know the final results of a course of action. Were the results of these rites more accurate than those allowed by the vagaries of chance? Had beings from beyond the world a greater ability to acquire foreknowledge of the workings of destiny?

Her teacher, Lyssa, believed they did. “Knowledge is one,” she told Dryas. “The ability to predict the future is rooted in our knowledge of the past and present. Assuming they are attentive . . . an assumption others have quarreled with . . . they of the worlds beyond death are in a better position to assess the virtues and failings of humanity as a whole and the strengths and weaknesses of individual men and women. Thus, their knowledge of past and present may be broader and deeper than ours could ever be. So we feel it wise to consult them in moments of doubt, and their advice should be weighed and considered. Such wisdom as they offer us, even if it is not perfect, is still not lightly cast aside.”

Dryas smiled. How dispassionate, how logical, how objective Lyssa had been. But one could be all of the above and still be very, very wrong.

The shadow remained. She could see the darkness where it stood was not made by anything visible to her eyes.

It warned, but it didn’t command, and she would not ask its permission for anything. The burden of choice was on her. She, and she alone, must set her course and abide the consequences, for good or ill. In a sense, her whole life was a preparation for this moment.

The shadow was silent. It did not speak again.

Dryas turned and walked over to her bedding. The thing was in a small, soft leather pouch. She emptied it out into her hand. When she felt the cold links against her skin, it was as if she had inadvertently placed her hand on something wickedly hot. A pot that looked cold, but had been heated in the fire almost to the point of melting, a heat great enough to sear the flesh down to the bone.

She felt the jolt of pain flash through mind and body as if her loss had only been a few days, a week, a month ago. The sense of loss drenched her mind with an agony of grief. An almost mortal sorrow washed over her like a breaking sea.

But then this grief had been long ago, and also like some monstrous wave, it failed to drag her into the depths. She kept her footing in the refuge of now until the suffering ebbed, tamed by time and distance.

Odd that something so beautiful could be the source of such sorrow.

It glimmered in the deepening twilight with a metallic sheen, a chain formed of gold in the pattern of rowan leaves, flowers, and berries. Or rather, the rowan leaves were gold, the flower corymbs ivory, and the berry clusters garnet.

The tree was in leaf, flower, and fruit, and Dryas thought, as she always had, that it was wrought with more than human skill. She lifted it up, high up, so that it caught the last sunset rays and it seemed she held fire, snow, and sun dazzle in her hand.

It is forbidden to make such a thing because it might capture the rowan spirit in it or at least a splinter of the tree’s life. It could capture part of the life of any being, and this was what she wished to do.

I have been tested,
she thought.
I have been tested and not found wanting.

She bowed her head as one bending it to accept a yoke, and slipped the chain over her head.

It was never intended to be worn by mortal woman.
She could just barely see the shadow. It was part of the trees looking down at her from the slope behind.

She felt desire rise as it had last night. She understood it was the fire of creation, a cascade of light illuminating the world like another sun and sweeping all before it as does the wind when it pulls the waves to higher peaks and deeper troughs until they crash at last, falling through the spectrum of gray, blue, jade, emerald, and then, at last, white—white as the clustered flowers of the elder and rowan in the springtime.

Lucius was awakened by his two personal slaves a little after dawn. He debated cursing both of them, but knew they wouldn’t have ventured to call him without strict orders from Fulvia and, if he gave vent to his displeasure and crawled back under the covers, she would probably undertake some really poisonous course of action. No, he had better find out what was on her mind.

He raised his first finger and thumb, leaving a small space between them, and said, “You’re both about this far from the auction block.” They accepted this threat with equanimity. Well, he hadn’t expected them to cower and cringe.

One of them handed him a folded piece of paper. He squinted at it, but for the life of him, he couldn’t make out what it said.

He rubbed his eyes and finally realized he was holding a fragment of one of Cicero’s nastier speeches about Catiline.

He gazed at it, mystified. “Una?” he asked.

“On the inside,” one of them said.

Lucius decided he’d name them Castor and Pollux, but he hadn’t decided which one to name Castor so the other would be Pollux. He wasn’t even sure if it was Pollux or Castor who spoke.

He unfolded the paper. Scrawled on the inside was an invitation. He could make out enough words to be clear on that, but otherwise the message was unintelligible.

“Unan,” he said.

“It’s from the Lord Marc Antony. He would like to invite you to breakfast.”

Lucius said, “Brrette,” blowing through his lips. “Brrreakfast.” Breakfast or a reasonable approximation of the word. Then he decided he’d best halt these proceedings before he descended into complete and utter, irrevocable idiocy. “Get Philo,” he snarled.

They did.

Philo strolled in looking fresh as an April morning. Lucius handed the note to him. “Get my lord fresh clothing, his toga, and some warm water,” Philo told Castor, or was it Pollux? Lucius didn’t know, but they both disappeared and that was comforting.

“Hmmm,” Philo said, and stroked his chin. “I imagine your sister’s request to Caesar has already borne fruit.”

“How did you know about that?” Lucius asked.

“Because I, like every other member of the household—slave and free—was standing in the kitchen, listening avidly to every word said.”

“Nonsense. The kitchen is a tiny room. They couldn’t all fit.”

“You’d be amazed how many people can get into a very small space if they all cooperate and besides, there’s always the roof and the garden.”

Castor and Pollux returned just then, carrying the indicated articles of clothing and the warm water, ending the argument. “Will you want a bath, sir?” one of them asked.

“Why, in the name of Charon’s ass, should I bathe at this hour of the morning? Antony wouldn’t notice if I was dripping perfume or stank like an unflushed latrine.”

Antony didn’t.

When they reached his house, the porter admitted them without difficulty. One of Antony’s freedmen was in the garden, setting a table for breakfast.

Lucius asked for Antony. The man rolled his eyes at both of them. “My lord is in the tepiderium,” he said.

Antony was. He sat in a cloud of steam, sipping something that smelled disgusting from a silver cup. He moaned loudly when they opened the door and daylight struck his eyes. He was a big man and, though running a bit to fat, was still handsome. He was dark with thick curly hair on his head, chest, arms, groin, and thighs.

He looked at Philo the way a drowning man looks when someone throws him a plank. “I’m reluctant to thank any god for anything this morning,” he murmured, “but I’m glad to see you, Philo.”

Then he transferred his bloodshot gaze to Lucius and looked at him as if he were limbless and had just crawled out from the damp area under a boulder. “Do I know you? And, if I don’t, what could you possibly want? It had better be important or your next stop will be a tour of the Tullianum.”

“Oh, you know me,” Lucius said. “I just don’t know if you remember me. How many of the people you meet do you remember?”

Antony began to laugh, then choked, gagged, and vomited over the raised edge of the marble pool he lay in. “Oh, oooh, ooooh. Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much. My skull is going to split and my brains will run out of my eyes and into the hot water and I’ll be out of my misery. Please, please, please.” He extended one arm to heaven. “Immortal gods, let this happen,” and then added, “That bastard Caesar will be sorry. No. Correction. Caesar’s never sorry about anything. The answer to your question is probably one in ten.”

Just then Philo re-entered the room. Lucius hadn’t noticed he was gone. He carried a glass of rather murky crystal, decorated with spirals of drawn gold wire, and a rolled towel. He placed the towel on Antony’s head where it resembled a rather thick crown and handed the glass to him, cautioning, “Take it slowly.”

Philo removed the silver cup Antony had been sipping from. It stank of the sour wine, more vinegar than wine, called posca. It was made for slaves on rural estates. The vile beverage was considered a sovereign remedy for hangovers.

Antony cautiously tasted the contents of Philo’s glass. “Ahhh,” he sighed, and allowed himself to sink deeper and deeper into the water. “Philo, I never know what’s in your concoctions, but I don’t care. You can poison me anytime.”

Lucius looked around the room, found two stools, and brought them to the edge of the pool where he and Philo sat down.

“Spearmint, white wine, valerian, and a touch of opium for the headache,” Philo said. “It’s no secret. Spearmint settles the stomach, white wine is a hair of the dog, in your case Cerberus, valerian calms the nerves, and I’ve already explained the opium.”

“Cerberus, eh!” Antony rumbled.

“You are reputed to engage in some ferocious drinking bouts. In your case, I believe Cerberus is appropriate. No lesser dog would dare bite you.”

“True,” Antony said, his nose in the cup again.

“It’s nice to be admired, isn’t it?” Lucius contributed.

“Snow in the towel, I suppose?” Antony asked.

Philo nodded. “There was some left over from last night’s party.”

“You’ve come up in the world, haven’t you?” Lucius said cheerfully. “Last time we met, I believe you’d fallen out with your noble friend. You and Caesar weren’t speaking. What happened?”

“What happened to cause the rift or what healed it?”

“Both.”

“I don’t think I’ll answer that,” Antony said. “Sometime when I know you better, maybe.”

Lucius said, “Ummm.”

Antony yelled and pounded on the floor. “The water’s getting cold and I want more steam. Gesses, tell those lazy sons of stray mongrels to stop feeling up the kitchen maids and throw some more fuel in the furnace or I’ll have their hides off in strips before noon.” Then he clutched his head again. “Oh, oh, oh.” He snatched the wet towel from his forehead and handed it to Philo. “More snow!” he roared.

Philo wrung out the towel. It diluted not one, but several puddles of an unpleasant substance, all near the tub.

At this point, Antony contributed another offering of the same material, then drained the cup and yelled at the departing Philo, “More hangover cure, too.”

Lucius, almost compulsively neat, found the condition of Antony’s baths appalling. Yes, they were luxurious—white, black, and yellow marble. The floor showed serpentine waves in yellow, black, and white mosaic, all surrounding the black marble tub—big enough to have submerged a horse—where Antony floated.

But the place was a mess. Linen towels, sponges large and small, perfume flasks, oil jugs, combs, brushes, tweezers, and other nameless miscellany were scattered everywhere. Not to mention sticky puddles of vomit, wine, and hunks of discarded food lying scattered around the central tub.

“I said,” Antony yelled at the top of his lungs, “this water is getting cold. Don’t make me come out in the chill morning air to—”

This was as far as he got. Flower-shaped black marble fixtures on the wall hissed loudly and steam began to pour out of openings in the center, filling the room with warm fog. At the same moment, a black marble statue of a Nubian beauty clad in ivory and bronze began to pour water from a pitcher in her hand into the tub.

“Aaah.” Antony settled back and relaxed. He had a bowl of walnuts near his hand, so he picked some up and began cracking them with his thumb.

“Caesar woke me at the crack of dawn with a list of things he wanted me to do today. I can’t see how he stands it. I can’t and never could do half the work he does. If I tried, I’d die of exhaustion before the calends of next month. He goes home with that Ptolemy bit . . . ah, Egyptian queen—and porks her. Then he goes home and has to prove to Calpurnia that they’re still married, and here he is at first light, with a list of all he wants me to do and tells me—me!—to get up! Don’t sleep till noon! And do it! Or risk his grave displeasure. Smiles at me with the grin that shows all his sharpest teeth and leaves for the Senate.