The Legions of Fire (59 page)

“Lenatus, you trained me,” Alphena gasped. Her head was spinning. The air was clear now, but the stench of sulfur had flayed her nostrils while
she faced the demons. “May Juno the Mother bless you for training me so well!”

Her tunic was charred just above the knee, and there was a long blister on the flesh beneath that mark. One of the creatures had almost gotten its grip when it snatched at her. She didn't remember that happening, but the injury was inarguable. Reaction to the burn might explain why she was remembering events that now seemed to be delirium.

“Is this a real sword?” Lenatus said, surprise replacing concern in his voice. “By hell, what
is
this? Pulto, come here. What kind of metal—”

His face blanked as he remembered whom he was talking to. “Your ladyship, I apologize,” he said; he was contrite but he was still a free citizen of Carce. “I spoke without thinking. But please, may I take a closer look at this blade?”

Pulto waved away Lenatus's summons. He stood with Corylus, watching over the youth much as the trainer did with Alphena.

She smiled wearily, wondering what Corylus was telling his servant. Alphena didn't know how she could explain what had happened—if in fact it had happened outside of her dreams.

Hedia was talking earnestly with Saxa. Alphena came to a sudden ordering of priorities. The blade was clean and her hand didn't tremble anymore, so she sheathed the weapon smoothly.

“Yes, you can look at the sword, Master Lenatus,” she said. “At leisure, when we're back at the house. But for now, do you have something to put on this burn? I'm not sure how it happened.”

The trainer turned and bellowed to a servant keeping out of the way at the front of the hall. The fellow trotted over, opening his case of medical supplies.
Trust an old soldier like Lenatus to prepare for the aftermath of a fight as well as the fight itself
….

But first—

“Mother Hedia?” Alphena called in a clear voice that everybody in the hall could hear. Her father and stepmother broke off their conversation to look inquiringly toward her.

“Thank you!” Alphena said. “I wouldn't have survived without you, Mother.”

She seated herself on the floor, stretching out her leg so that Lenatus could get to it with a jar of ointment. His blunt fingers were gentle, though
in the past she'd seen how much strength there was in his hands if he chose to exert it.

Alphena didn't know what Hedia would tell Saxa or what Saxa would choose to do; she couldn't control that. But she wanted both of them, particularly her father, to know that Lady Alphena stood shoulder to shoulder with her stepmother.

H
EDIA MET HER HUSBAND
'
S
eyes again when it was clear that Alphena had said all that she intended to. Too often when people were tested, they learned—and those depending on them learned—regrettable things about themselves. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case with Hedia's daughter.

“Has she been hurt?” Saxa said. “What's Lenatus doing?”

“I don't think it's serious,” Hedia said calmly. It
couldn't
have been serious, not the way Alphena had been dancing around until Corylus and his flute controlled the demons. “She may have been bumped, my lord, but our daughter is a very sturdy young lady.”

And
still a virgin, but she wasn't going to discuss that directly with her husband.

“And you, my dear?” Saxa said. “Are you all right? You look …”

Hedia grimaced. “Yes, I do,” she admitted. “Well, after a bath and a change of clothes, and burning these”—she flicked her tattered tunic—“since they're not even worth saving as rags”—
and I don't want to be reminded of them
—“then I'll be fine. It's not my blood, you see.”

She swallowed. She had to be very careful how she phrased the next part.

“I may have been dabbed when I bandaged Pandareus,” Hedia said. “He'd been knocked down by the ring of a lantern that was, well, thrown at him. But most of it”—she met her husband's eyes with her straight, cool gaze—“came from Nemastes. He attacked Alphena, and I fought him off. And killed him.”

“That was what happened just now, before Pandareus summoned us?” Saxa said. “But dear—you were gone for days. And Alphena too.”

“My lord and master,” Hedia said. She took a deep breath. “There were difficult times, but we came through them—and the man responsible is dead. I would rather not revisit the things that happened.”

Especially with my husband
. For his sake more than her own, but for hers as well.

Saxa sighed and rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of both hands. “I apologize, my dear heart,” he said softly. “I brought Nemastes into your lives. I didn't think he could be a swindler, since he had as much gold of his own as anyone could want.”

He paused, peering at Hedia again. “But he was merely trying to abduct my daughter?”

“Yes, dear,” Hedia lied calmly. “I'm sorry, but that appears to be the case.”

She glanced at the wizard's body and rather regretted it. She had no qualms about having killed him, but the corpse was so
messy
. She had been grappling with Nemastes while she stabbed him, as she couldn't help remembering.

“My lord?” she said. “Will there be problems? For me? Because I killed Nemastes?”

“There will not be an inquiry into a noblewoman's protecting her daughter against a barbarian rapist,” said Saxa with a rasping intensity Hedia had never before heard in his voice. “If you like, I can request that you receive the thanks of the Senate for safeguarding the chastity of Carcean womanhood.”

Hedia blinked. “No!” she said. “No, please, my lord. The less talk there is about this—”

She looked around the hall. The temple servants were all awake, though they seemed to cluster about Sempronius, the commissioner of the sacred rites. She'd used his wine to clean the teacher's scalp and her own gory arms. Pandareus wore the dinner napkin as a bandage too. Nobody seemed willing to object to what Hedia had done—or even to refer to it.

“Well,” she concluded lamely, “I'd like to forget it. If … if you permit me to, my Husband?”

Saxa didn't speak for a moment. He must have rushed out of the house, because he wasn't wearing a toga.
He never appears in public without a toga
.

“My Wife,” he said formally, “I asked you before: are you all right?”

Hedia took his hands in her own. His fingers felt hot and pudgy.

“My lord and master,” she said, holding his eyes with her own. “I may be a little worse for wear, but as you know I was never a hothouse flower. I'm
still the woman you married, Saxa. Is that”—she couldn't help it: she turned her face away as she forced out the last of what she had to say—“still good enough for you?”

“Yes, my Wife,” Saxa said. “My little sparrow.”

He embraced Hedia awkwardly, because he was an awkward little man. Her heart swelled with love and pride.

“I'
M GLAD TO SEE YOU
,” Corylus said, clasping hands with his servant, “but how did you happen to be here, Pulto? And Saxa too.
I
didn't know I was coming here an hour ago.”

“Well, it was Pandareus,” Pulto said, nodding toward the teacher, who was talking to Varus. The youth was in good shape, but Pandareus wore a serviceable bandage on his head. “He sent messengers saying that you and their ladyships”—Pulto dipped his head twice this time, indicating Alphena and then her stepmother—“were coming here. I guess he must've told your pal Varus too, though he didn't say so. Anna wanted to come, but you know—she doesn't get around quick anymore. And besides, I thought it might be more a job for me.”

His hand patted the sword under his cloak. The blade sang softly. “I don't mind telling you,” he went on, “I was glad to see Lenatus come along with old Saxa. The Senator, I should say. But you seem to have had things in hand without us.”

Pulto frowned. “Only—is that a flute you've got there, master?” he said doubtfully.

Corylus looked at the pierced bone in his left hand, then met his servant's eyes. With a hint of challenge, he said, “Yeah, this is a flute, Pulto. I haven't forgotten I'm a soldier of Carce, but you know—sometimes that takes a flute instead of a sword. Or even a hornbeam staff.”

“Ah!” said Pulto, looking away in embarrassment. “Well, I didn't mean anything, master. There's a lot of gentlemen who play the flute, I'm told; only they're mostly Greek, but that's all right too. I don't doubt that whatever you been doing this past couple days, it would make your father proud.”

Corylus suddenly remembered that all Pulto knew was that his young charge had vanished and had suddenly reappeared—with a flute but without explanation—in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. He hugged the old soldier. That wasn't proper behavior for a master and servant, let
alone a youth and a middle-aged man, but it was the best way to express his feelings toward Pulto.

“Thanks, old friend,” he said. “My father felt better knowing you were backing him, and so do I.”

“Well, old One-Eye was wrong, wasn't he?” said a harsh voice from above. “A fine place we'd all be if Corylus here had taken his advice.”

Corylus looked up. A pair of ravens perched on a crossbeam above them.

“You know One-Eye,” said the other raven. “Go straight ahead with a sword and kill everything in front of you. That's
his
notion of wisdom.”

“How did they get here?” Pulto said, looking at the ravens with a scowl of wonder.

“You can hear them?” Corylus said in surprise.

“Hear them?” said his servant. “Hell yes, how could I
not
hear that croak, as oftentimes as I've heard it before? But on the borders, not right here in the center of Carce.”

“Choosing this young warrior for his agent,” said the first raven. “
That
was wise, I'll grant.”

“As it turned out,” replied the other with a hint of disagreement. “It's only in memory that you can be sure what is true wisdom.”

“You say!” said the first with a harsh laugh. “But yes, wisdom must be built on memory.”

Pulto glanced about the floor.
Looking for something to throw at them,
Corylus realized.

He put his hand on his servant's shoulder and said, “I think they're good luck, given the way things worked out tonight. Let's let them be, shall we?”

“Huh?” said Pulto. “Oh. Well, sure. If they want dinner on that bastard's eyes”—when he glanced toward the corpse of Nemastes, his hand went un-bidden to the hilt of his now-concealed sword—“
I'm
not the man who's going to stop 'em.”

Pulto looked at Corylus. “Can we get back to the apartment now?” he said. “Anna is going to be wondering how things worked out. You know how women are, boy.”

Corylus thought of Alphena facing the demons which boiled from the pit and Hedia stepping back from the dying wizard, her arms bloody to the elbow. “Women are just fine, old friend,” he said. “But yes, I'd like to get a proper meal in me and to sleep in my own bed.”

He paused for a moment. “Pulto?” he said.

“Master?”

“Pulto, you said my father would be proud of me,” Corylus said, “and I think he would. But I think my mother would too.”

V
ARUS LOOKED AT THE IVORY TALISMAN
. He had to force the fingers of his left hand to open, because they'd been gripping it so tightly. The crude carving of Botrug looked back at him; but when the lantern light fell just the right way, he saw an old woman smiling through her wrinkles.

Or perhaps he was looking at a reflection of his own face. If he squinted, that was what he seemed to see. Shaking his head in wonder, Varus dropped the talisman down the neck of his tunic again.

A gaggle of servants stood close to Varus but were afraid to approach him. Pandareus stepped through them and said, “I'm glad you got free, Lord Varus. It must have happened after I knocked myself silly.”

“Sir?” said Varus, noticing his teacher's bandage for the first time. Blood had seeped through it on the left side of his forehead. “Did you slip and hit the floor?”

“No,” said Pandareus, smiling wryly. “I threw a lantern at a demon. When the lantern exploded, a piece hit me in the head. I seem to be even less suited for physical heroics than I realized when you and I were trying to escape the dragon that chased us.”

He cleared his throat and added, “I'm glad to see you back, my student. I was concerned about you and about Master Corylus as well. I knew nothing about the women until I was told that you both and they would be in this temple tonight, facing great danger.”

“Master?” said Varus. His left hand traced the dimples of Botrug's eyes beneath the fabric of his tunic. “You were told? By the stars, do you mean?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Pandareus said deliberately. “It was in a star chart, yes. The meaning seemed quite clear to me as I looked at it. But I saw the chart in a dream, and the sage Menre brought it to me.”

“And you came to help us, master?” Varus said. He spoke before he thought and regretted the words as they came out of his mouth.

“Yes,” said the little old man in a worn tunic. “I sent messengers to your father and Corylus's servant—”

We need to reimburse him for the cost of public couriers!
Varus thought.

“—but I was closer, so I arrived ahead of them. I didn't see that I would be able to accomplish anything useful, but I had put you both in danger.”

He grinned wryly. “I was correct that I couldn't help,” he added. “But since I survived, at least I don't have to remember that I didn't try.”