Raptor (23 page)

At one point during the meal, a servant brought word that the signifer Paccius stood without, and the legatus ordered him shown in. He brought with him the little charismatic, now fully dressed, and more finely dressed than any child I had ever seen even in the city of Vesontio. His costume was a miniature of that worn indoors by the legatus, but more brightly colored: a tight, pale blue linen tunic, of the fashion called an alicula, embroidered with flowers all around the hem, cotton stockings and soft leather buskins of a color more yellow than the child’s own new hair. Over the alicula was almost casually flung a cloak of rich red wool, pinned at one shoulder with a silver clasp.

The legatus lay where he was, and chewed while he silently inspected the child, rather like a ruminating bull. Then he only nodded approval and motioned for Paccius to take him away again. Not until they had gone did the legatus swallow loudly, heave a sigh and say with great emotion, “It could almost have
been
my lost grandson.”

“Then why not just keep this one?” Wyrd asked unfeelingly. “Instead of putting
me
at mortal hazard along with the genuine grandson.”

“What?!” cried the legatus, appalled. “Keep a eunuch for a—?” Then he perceived the jest. “Your mockery is not very funny, Uiridus. However, since the subject has obtruded itself upon our repast, tell me. How do you intend to substitute the one child for the other?”

“I already
have
told you,” growled Wyrd. “I do not know. I must give it thought. And I refuse to think while I eat. It interferes with both the immediate enjoyment and the subsequent digestion.”

“But we must prepare. Make plans. The Hun will be here within a matter of hours. Have you at least decided how many men you will take with you?”

“I know I shall need one helping pair of hands. But I would ask no one to volunteer for what may be suicide.”

Once more I presumed to speak. “You need not even ask, fráuja. I mean magister. I am your apprentice in this as in everything else.” Wyrd inclined his head toward me in acknowledgment, and said to the legatus, “I will require no one else.”

“Perhaps not. But there is one other I should like you to take also. My son Fabius.”

“Look, man,” said Wyrd. “I am attempting, and with only the faintest hope, to rescue one small remaining seed of your family tree. If I fail, everyone involved will die. That would include Fabius. And there will end all prospect of
ever
reseeding your line. This task demands cunning, patience, stealth. A rightfully outraged and distraught and desperate husband—”

“Fabius was a Roman soldier before he was a husband. He still is a Roman soldier above all else. If I put him under your command, he will obey. Think how you would feel, Uiridus, if you were he—or if you were I. As for risking his life and our family line, I have already told you that Fabius will not let himself live for long if this venture fails. He deserves the right to participate, and the opportunity of dying by some other sword than his own.”

Wyrd rolled his eyes. “I remember Fabius as a robust fellow. May I at least see if he still is that?”

The legatus turned to a servant and gave the order that his son be brought, but well manacled and guarded. We were finishing our sweet when we heard a noise of jingling and of many footsteps, and in a moment there appeared in the doorway a young man who unmistakably resembled the legatus. He was in full battle dress, carrying his helmet under one arm and its parade crest under the other, but both his wrists were iron-cuffed to chains held securely by two other soldiers walking warily on either side of him. I should have expected Fabius, if it took four men to hold him, to come raging and trying to get his hands on his captor father. But he only glared at Calidius with red eyes that seemed even redder for the cold pallor of his grim visage. I think I also heard him grind his teeth, but then he saw that his father was not alone in the triclinium, and shifted his glare to me, then to Wyrd.

“Salve, Optio Fabius,” Wyrd said, genially enough.

“Uiridus?” said the young man, peering in puzzlement, possibly because he had never seen Wyrd clean before. “Salve, Caius Uiridus. What do you here?”

“I and my apprentice Thorn are preparing to make a foray against those Huns who hold your wife and child. It is more than likely that we and they will all die of this foolhardiness. But your father suggests that you may wish to die with us.”

“Wish?” gasped Fabius, some color coming into his face. “I
forbid
you to go without me!”

“I shall be in command. You must obey my every—”

“Say no more, Decurio Uiridus!” barked Fabius. “I am an optio of the Eleventh Legion!” With a sudden movement that yanked his chains and nearly jerked his warders off their feet, he snatched out from under his arm the rakishly curved metal-and-horsehair crest, and clicked it into the slot atop his helmet, and clapped the helmet on his head. “I am ready to go this instant.”

“Iésus,” muttered Wyrd to himself. “A Roman soldier indeed.” With heavy sarcasm, he said to the young man, “What, you are bringing no trumpet to herald our parade? Go, you ninny, and discard those trappings. Tomorrow get dressed in rough woods garb. I will summon you when the time comes.”

The four other soldiers led Fabius away, though this time he struggled against them, and shouted back, “But what do you intend, Uiridus?… How do we attack?… How many men?” and so on, to which questions neither Wyrd nor the legatus replied, and the shouting faded off in the distance.

“Iésus,” Wyrd muttered again. “The Jews have a wise saying: that not even Adam would ever have taken a wife if Jehovah had not knocked him unconscious.”

Calidius said nothing to that, so I made bold to speak up again I asked permission to take some of our table scraps to feed my eagle that had been unattended all this time. The legatus only distractedly murmured, “An eagle?” but kindly gave me leave to go. So I heard no more of what he and Wyrd discussed, until somewhat later that night.

At the barrack, when I fed to my juika-bloth the scraps of ham left over from the dinner, all the remaining charismatic boys gathered to watch, themselves twittering like birds. They were dressed again in their rags and tatters, and again wearing their shackles, and they twittered in the Frankish version of the Old Language that I found very hard to comprehend—not that I supposed such creatures would have anything to say worth the hearing.

The swarthy Bar Nar Natquin, never far from his slave merchandise, also stood by and scowled at me and my bird. When the eagle had eaten all it wanted, and there was nothing more to watch, the boys scattered to play in the slush of the barrack yard—or to play as well as they could in leg chains. The Syrian remained, leaning against the doorpost of the room, regarding me blackly, and grumbling about the injustice of Calidius’s having confiscated his little Becga without payment.

“Why, that lovely boy would have fetched ten gold nomisma in Constantinople,” he said with a sniffle. “But what do I get for him? Ashtaret! Not a nummus. Meaning that I am the poorer by the five gold solidi he cost me. And then that prig Calidius has the audacity to inform me that my purloined charismatic will not even be put to the use for which he was created.”

I said, “I cannot imagine any of your pitiful whelps being of any use at all. Certainly none that would make them as valuable as you claim.”

“Ah, you must be a
Christian,”
said Natquin with a sneer, as if that was a despicable thing to be. “And you are still a young one, so you doubtless still believe in all the prudish Christian inhibitions. But you will mature, you will get wiser, you will learn what every man and woman and eunuch must eventually come to know.”

“And what is that?”

“You will endure the many, many aches and pains and annoyances and travails and embarrassments that the human body can inflict on its possessor. So you will come to realize that anyone would have to be an imbecile to stifle or repel the comparatively few
good
feelings that his or her or its body can provide.” And he walked away.

I busied myself with unrolling the packs of Wyrd and myself, and hanging up various articles to air or unwrinkle themselves on the wall pegs the room provided. I had put there one of my own possessions, and was eyeing it speculatively, when Wyrd returned from the praesidium, carrying a number of things in his arms. He also looked at the garment I had hung up, and raised his tufty eyebrows and asked:

“What are you doing with a townswoman’s gown?”

“I was thinking,” I said. “You have often implied that I could pass for a female. I wondered if, when we get to the Huns’ encampment, I might perhaps pass for that Lady Placidia. At least long enough for us to get her safely away.”

Wyrd said drily, “I doubt that you could convincingly make yourself appear nine months pregnant. And I doubt that you would wish to lop off some of your fingers for the lady’s sake.”

“I had forgotten that detail,” I muttered.

“Look you, urchin. We can thank half of all the gods there are if we get ourselves safely away from the Huns. Bear that in mind, and do not dream of trying any other heroics. If we also manage to rescue the boy Calidius, at the cost of only a lowly charismatic, we can thank all the rest of the gods. Now look here, what I have brought.”

He dropped onto one of the bed pallets a wash-leather bag that clinked musically.

“The quickest sale I have ever made of my fur harvest, and the best price I have ever been paid, and Calidius bought them sight unseen. He also paid a handsome premium for the ibex horns. I would rejoice at all this bounty were I not unsure whether we will survive to enjoy it.”

He dropped the other things he was holding.

“The legatus also made us some gifts that we may keep, if we live. A gladius short-sword for you and a securis battle-ax for me, each of them in a nicely wool-lined scabbard, so the fleece oils will prevent the blades’ ever rusting. And for each of us, because we may have to lie in wait for a thirsty long time, a tin flask for carrying water, leather-bound to keep the water cold, and resined on the inside to make even stale water taste sweet.”

I said, “I have never owned any things so fine.”

“You will also have, courtesy of the legatus, a horse of your own.”

“A horse? My own? To keep?”

“Ja. The Hun comes on horseback, so we will trail him the same way. We could actually do that better on foot, but we may need speed on the return trip, if there is a return trip. Have you ever ridden before, urchin?”

“Our old draft mare at the abbey.”

“Sufficient. This ride will require no perfect seat or artful handling. A slow pace out, and a frantic gallop back. The charismatic Becga will ride pillion with you—and later, let us hope, the boy Calidius will.”

“What exactly is your plan, fráuja?”

Wyrd scratched in his beard. “In ancient times, there was an architect named Dinocrates, who set about building a temple to Diana in which, by means of Magnes stones, a statue of that goddess would be suspended in midair. But Dinocrates died before he could finish it—or impart his plans to anyone else.”

“Does that mean you will not tell me?”

“Or that my plan is equally impossible of achievement. Or that I have none at all. Take your choice. Suffice it that we will hide in the stableyard of that ferrarius on the fringe of town until the Hun makes his departure. I have bidden the legatus to detain that messenger in conversation—if he can keep from strangling the creature—until well into twilight. Then we will follow him to wherever he goes in the Hrau Albos. Until we are all gone, Basilea will remain tight-shuttered and everyone indoors. Which means I cannot go this minute, as I should dearly like, to old Dylas’s taberna for some good, strong, unfancy wine. Just as well, no doubt. We shall want clear heads tomorrow.”

We spent almost all of the next day in that stableyard, for we and the horses had to be there before the Hun arrived, so that he would notice no suspicious activity while he was in town. As when Wyrd and I had first come, the whole of Basilea was as silent as if every one of its citizens was holding his breath, and its streets and alleys and approach roads were empty of people, horses, dogs, even the pigs and chickens that usually wander about, rooting and pecking, in a town of whatever size. Wyrd and Fabius and I talked only desultorily, and in low tones. The boy Becga said nothing; I had never yet heard him say anything.

Fabius spoke mainly to complain, mainly about the fact that we were so few and inadequate a force—and
why
had not Wyrd enlisted more and sturdier men?

“By Mithras,” grumbled the optio. “Not even letting me bring my shield-bearer. We are but two men, one boy, one eunuch and a tame eagle.”

“I repeat,” said Wyrd. “We are not attacking, we are infiltrating. The fewer of us, the better. And if you merely feel that your rank is being insufficiently respected, I give you leave to regard Thorn here as your shield-bearer.”

Then Fabius complained about the long wait: “I want this business to be over with, and my Placidia and Calidius and the unborn young one to be back where they belong. Eheu, I am already resigned to realizing that every Hun in that camp must have raped my dear wife by now. But I shall take her back, and cherish her, nevertheless.”

Wyrd shook his head. “That is one thing, Fabius, that need not trouble your mind. Your wife will still be chaste and undefiled. Not because the Huns are gallant, but because they are superstitious. They will readily rape anything from a sheep to a senator, but they will not molest a woman who is either pregnant or tainted with her monthly bleeding. They believe that would taint
them.”

“Well,” sighed the optio. “That is the best news I have heard since this ordeal began.”

But I took note that Wyrd said nothing about the wife’s amputated fingers, and from that I assumed that no one else had mentioned her mutilation to Fabius either. Nor did Wyrd tell Fabius that he planned not even to
attempt
to rescue his wife.

Meanwhile, I was mainly preoccupied with admiring the splendid horse that was now mine. It was a well-muscled young black stallion, with a white blaze, an alert eye and a comely stance. He even had a name—Velox—that promised speed of movement. As far as I could see, the horse had only a single physical flaw: an indentation like a large dimple on the lower left side of his neck. When I remarked on that, the optio Fabius forgot his grievances enough to say condescendingly: