Linda Evans - Far Edge of Darkness

Lucania played on the soft grass at her mother's feet, making cooing noises and occasionally smiling up at Sibyl. Sunlight turned her hair red-gold, her eyes the same sunny amber-green as Charlie's when he smiled. Tears prickled behind Sibyl's eyelids. Lucania was a beautiful little girl. She had her mother's face, her father's eyes and smile and hair. Terrible images of the skulls she'd dug out of volcanic mud tortured her, superimposed over Lucania's face. A few of the skeletons they'd found had been children younger than Lucania. Much younger...

We'll get her out. We have to.

The women preparing her finally finished. When Livia held up a polished bronze mirror, Sibyl hardly recognized herself. The women had pulled her hair back with gold combs. Benigna had woven a strand of tiny pearls into it. The makeup was garish by modern standards. Heavy black kohl outlined her eyes, Egyptian style, making her eyes appear twice as dark—more nearly pine than emerald. Rouge reddened her cheeks and lips. She looked—and felt—like a cheap whore. Sibyl endured in silence when Alcesta rouged her nipples and genitalia.

She couldn't bring herself to see if Quintus still watched.

The linen gown they wrapped her in could have been made only in Egypt. She'd studied tomb paintings of these pleated, transparent sheathes. She'd wondered even then how many hours a slave woman had labored to sew down and press all those tiny pleats into the cloth. The material was even more transparent than the paintings had indicated. When sunlight fell across her, Sibyl felt she might as well have been dressed in sunbeams.

She wondered if Bericus enjoyed Egyptian fantasies in general or if this were just one of many passing whims. She closed her eyes and tried to think about Charlie, about her battered old VW, about classical Latin verb conjugations, about solving complex integral equations... .

If only she'd said yes to that kid in her calculus class, the one whose interest had scared her spitless. Sibyl stiffened her spine and stared at the far portico wall. She would endure anything in order to survive long enough to escape.

Livia made a clucking noise and fussed with her earlobes. Sibyl winced as the woman struggled to unfasten the little silver posts she'd picked up in the Naples airport. Pierced earring posts and backs were a modern development in the history of pierced-earring wear.

Livia finally mastered the secret and removed the earrings, then replaced them with massive gold hoops. The wires were almost too thick for the holes in her ears. The earrings were extremely heavy. Within minutes her earlobes ached from the weight. Benigna slipped gold armbands onto her upper arms, added bangles to her wrists and ankles, and produced soft house sandals of kid leather for her feet. As a finishing touch, they hung a heavy, Egyptian-style collar of gold and lapis over her neck and shoulders.

Sibyl thought wildly that when they found her skeleton, they'd think she was an upper-class Egyptian lady visiting Herculaneum at just the wrong time. She couldn't restrain a semihysterical hiccough of laughter.

"What is it, sibyl ?" Benigna asked fearfully.

"Nothing," she choked.

The woman murmured something intended to be soothing, but Sibyl paid little attention. The sun had moved ominously closer to the zenith. Underfoot the floor vibrated to a never-ending rumble.

God, how can they be so blind?

"She is ready for the master's pleasure, Quintus," Livia said. Sibyl's flesh crawled like cold lizard skin. She clenched her fingers tightly to keep her hands from trembling. Benigna bent near and whispered, "Be brave. Do whatever he bids you at once, no matter what, and he may not beat you. I will try to help you afterwards, sibyl ."

She drew a shuddering gulp of air. God...

Bericus arrived at the far end of the garden. She followed Quintus on trembling legs. She had very little attention to spare for the fountains which splashed quietly all through the sunlit space. The flowers were a blur of color, too confused even to notice types. Golden sunlight fell in a blaze of summer heat across her skin. The hot light turned the linen dress to a wisp of nothing.

Bericus' eyes ravished her well before he laid so much as a finger on her body.

"Master," Quintus bowed, "your new slave, Aelia."

"You may go," Bericus said curtly.

She noted the tell-tale bulge his excitement made in the front of his tunic. She had to gulp back panic. The balding, sallow-faced Roman stalked in a complete circle around her, smelling of sex and cruelty. She thrust back memory of his mere "examination" and steeled herself.

"They tell me," he said softly, his gaze fastened hungrily between her thighs, "that you have no memory of yourself, Aelia."

She willed her voice not to waver. Now or never... "They lied."

He halted and lifted his gaze to hers. His brow rose slowly. "Is that so?" Bericus pursed his lips, then resumed his pacing. Without warning, he seized her arm from behind. Bericus twisted it savagely, nearly to breaking. Sibyl cried out, panting against the agony.

"They lied, Master ," he hissed.

"They—lied—Master," she whimpered.

He twisted her arm an inch further, then released her. A sob escaped her as she cradled her throbbing arm.

"Very good," he purred. Bericus caressed her jawline with one fingertip. "Very good." He strolled to a small table and poured himself a goblet of wine. Sibyl noticed he did not water it, as custom dictated.

"You have fire inside you, Aelia," he said. "It burns in your eyes. It makes you even more desirable than when I first saw you in Bericus' shop, still dazed from the long sea journey." A chuckle escaped him, sending a chill down Sibyl's back. "I shall enjoy every moment I spend extinguishing that fire."

God, oh, God...

"You should not have fought me, little Aelia," he purred, glancing over the rim of his goblet. "Tell me, why would Antonius Caelerus lie to me about such a thing as your memory?" He sipped his wine.

Sibyl risked a look at the sun. Past noon. She was running out of time, whichever disaster she chose to consider. Sibyl took a deep, steadying breath and sent a tiny prayer skyward.

"Because Antonius knows he has committed great sacrilege in stealing me. Master," she added, putting as much disdain as she could muster into the title.

He paused with the winecup halfway to his lips. "Sacrilege?" he echoed, clearly surprised.

She plunged ahead, forcing her voice to remain steady. She strove for a tone of angry warning. "When Ulysses ransacked the great temple of Troy and stole the Palladium from it, he insulted the great goddess as Minerva. She allowed Neptune to hound his steps like a dog trails a bitch in heat. Ten years of rage were vented on his head. All because he dared desecrate the temple and insult the gods."

"You speak nonsense! Old women's tales to amuse the young!" There was, however, a detectable shadow of puzzlement in his eyes. "What has Ulysses to do with you?"

"With me?" she asked softly. "Why, nothing at all, Publius Bericus. It is you I speak of when I mention Ulysses. You, and a slave trader who seeks to hide his villainy, to stain you with a guilt as great as his own."

Bericus slammed his goblet onto the table. Wine splashed unheeded onto his expensively embroidered tunic. "You speak in riddles, woman! Out with it!"

Sibyl forced a predatory smile. "Riddles, indeed, Publius Bericus!" She stooped slightly, feigning a nonchalance she was far from feeling, and plucked a blood-red flower from the bed beside the marbled path. "Beautiful, isn't it?" She held it up. Then deliberately crushed it and hurled the mangled petals at his feet. "Yet my hand crushes it without effort, as the Magna Mater crushes those who despoil her holy places!"