The Legions of Fire by David Drake Page A

if she’d seen the need to. Oh, yes, she most certainly could.
    But their abject fear was all Hedia needed to know. Whatever happened, it hadn’t been Varus’s unaided doing: the boy didn’t have it in him to frighten a mouse from the pantry!
    Knowing that Nemastes was in the house, she hadn’t had to search far for a villain. She was confident that the blame was deserved in this case, butshe didn’t particularly care. A threat to Varus was the best tool she’d been offered for prying her husband away from this dangerous magician, so she would have used it even if she’d thought she was being unfair.
    â€œNemastes had nothing to do with whatever you’re talking about,” Saxa said uncertainly. “He and I were together while the reading was going on.”
    â€œTogether doing what?” Hedia snapped. “Tell me, Husband, what was your so-called magician doing? Besides tricking you out of money, I mean, because I know he’s robbing you!”
    That was a lie. She’d originally believed Nemastes was a charlatan—anybody would have believed that. She became really worried—really frightened—only when she realized that the Hyperborean’s magic wasn’t just tricks and suggestion.
    â€œNo, you’re quite wrong, dear one,” Saxa said, sounding relieved. “Master Nemastes hasn’t taken a single coin from me. He’s a king in his own land, you see.”
    Hedia wanted to slap him.
How do you know he’s a king, you puling child? Because he told you so?
    And yet Saxa wasn’t a fool or even unsophisticated in most respects. This was just something that he desperately wanted to believe.
    â€œHe pays for his needs with gold that he brought with him,” Saxa continued earnestly. “All I did, dear heart, was introduce him to my own bankers, the brothers Oppius. Because Hyperborean gold isn’t coined; it grows in blocks of quartz. But it’s pure, the brothers assure me it is. They wouldn’t lie to their own cost.”
    No, unless they are part of the swindle themselves,
Hedia thought. But she didn’t believe that, much as she wished it were true. The Oppii and their ancestors had served the Alphenus family for three generations.
    â€œThe money I withdrew isn’t for Nemastes,” Saxa said, the first time Hedia had heard about a withdrawal. “I’m renovating the Temple of Tellus at the entrance to the Carinae District. As a public service, you see.”
    He tried a smile. “That’s why I suggested you and Alphena hold the marriage divination there, you see,” he said. “The chief priest is a freedman named Barritus who owns the laundry on the same block. I knew he’d jump at a chance to do anything for me, since I haven’t decided the scale of the renovation yet.”
    â€œWhy are you …?” Hedia said, as startled as if Saxa had just announced he was going to retire to his villa in the Campania and spend the rest of hislife as a gentleman farmer. “That is, it’s commendable that you’re fixing up an ancient temple, Husband. But I hadn’t previously noticed signs of your religious inclination.”
    â€œWell, it was Nemastes who made the suggestion,” Saxa said diffidently, watching his wife to see how she took mention of the Hyperborean’s name. Hedia didn’t react. Even in the silence of her mind, she filed the fact and waited till she had more information.
    Saxa cleared his throat and continued. “He believes it’s important to the coming struggle that Carce’s most ancient temple of Tellus, Mother Earth, be renovated. Because he’s a foreigner, he would have to ask permission of the Senate to carry out the repairs in his own name.”
    â€œAh,” said Hedia. “I see.”
    Applying to the Senate—which meant to the Emperor—would call attention to the Hyperborean and to his patron, Gaius