The Legions of Fire by David Drake Page B

Alphenus Saxa. Hedia certainly didn’t want that to happen, but the fact that Nemastes was trying to avoid it also was very disquieting.
    â€œWe’re going to store the objects that have been given to the goddess over the years here,” Saxa said. “In the back garden. There’ll be some wagons coming by shortly. Bringing things for safekeeping, you see; there are some quite valuable dedications, though mostly from a number of years ago.”
    Hedia felt an aching fear.
If I could name what I was afraid of, it wouldn’t be so bad
.
But now
—
    Saxa swallowed. His face had briefly been animated as he talked about the antiquities which he so loved. It went waxen again and he turned away.
    Seeming to gather strength from an image of Neptune blowing on a conch with a pair of Nereids, fish-tailed and bare-breasted, supporting him, he said, “My dear, you don’t know what I have seen.
Seen
. Yes, in a vision, but it was
real
. It was—”
    His hands lifted as though he were trying to squeeze an image into life.
    â€œI saw fire,” he whispered. The words sounded like dry leaves rustling. “I saw fire rushing across the whole world. Everything burning, everything dying in fire, and the fire god was laughing as he watched.”
    Hedia licked her lips, then embraced him. She hugged herself close, but Saxa didn’t respond except to wriggle like a hooked fish.
    â€œHusband,” she pleaded.
    â€œPlease, dear,” Saxa muttered to the wall. “Things will come out right. You have to trust me.”
    She stepped away and wrapped her arms around herself instead. She was cold with fear—not for the mythical fire, but from the certainty that Nemastes had caught her husband in a net she could not break him free of.
    â€œYou will do as you please, Husband,” Hedia said. “I only hope that you come to your senses in time to, to …”
    To escape the Emperor’s torturers,
but even in this awful moment she couldn’t bring herself to say that.
    â€œFor my part,” she went on instead, “I’ll hold the marriage divination tomorrow as planned. I only hope that I can save Alphena from the wreck of her father’s life.”
    Despair was crushing her down. She turned and strode from the room, leaving the door open behind her.
    A waist-high plinth supported a small marble faun in the corridor. It stuck out slightly from its alcove. Hedia deliberately stubbed her toe on the base, then bent over shouting curses.
    It was an acceptable excuse for the tears that were about to burst out regardless.
    P ANDAREUS HAD PAUSED to write a message on a sealed tablet for one of Saxa’s servants to carry to Priscus, and the children of the house were staying home; Pulto and Corylus left the town house alone. On the doorstep Pulto paused. “Kid,” he said, “I need a mug of wine before we go home. Or maybe a whole jar of wine. You up for that?”
    â€œSure,” said Corylus. He grinned. “I don’t know that I’ll be downing much of the jar, but I don’t mind trying to carry you home.”
    Pulto chuckled, a pleasant change from the bleak glare he’d worn since they’d left the gymnasium. He turned right toward the bar two doors down, the Blue Venus, instead of left to go home.
    â€œThe Old Man’s done it more than once for me,” he said, “and me for him. Never both of us falling-down drunk at the same time, until he got enough rank that we stayed home instead of crawling the strip.”
    A masonry counter faced the street and ran down the right side of the central aisle. Three men stood at it. On its corner was the little statue of painted terra-cotta which gave the bar its name; Pulto patted her for luck. Thousands of other clients must have done so over the years, because thepaint was worn from her bosom. Most of the times Corylus heard the bar spoken of, it’d had been as the Blue Tit.
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