David Drake: To Bring the Light

Herosilla hadn’t had a bath or a bed free of vermin in the past three days of exercise and exposure. She thought of how a woman of her time and class would rate her now and shook her head sadly.

Acca wasn’t a trained maid, but she had good hands and there was light to work by. Besides, the audience wasn’t going to be as fastidious as a gathering of upper-class Roman women.

Herosilla dressed quickly, then put on her jewelry. Her earlobes were still tender; lightning had heated the wires hot enough to blister. She hung the earrings anyway. Garnets and faceted gold beads dangled from the lowest of the three tiers. The effect was spectacular enough to be worth minor pain.

Acca stepped back to view the completed result. “Oh, lady,” she whispered.

“Let’s go,” Herosilla said curtly. She smiled with satisfaction nevertheless. She’d have liked to view herself in a mirror, but Acca’s reaction was really a better way to judge how she looked to the folk with whom she’d have to deal.

Acca led; Herosilla couldn’t have hoped to find her way through this warren. The streets were crowded. Because it wasn’t market day Alba had fewer visitors from the outlying villages, but the local women generally worked in the street before their houses rather than going to the forum. Acca didn’t have her sons’ brute strength, but she cleared a path for her guest without overmuch delicacy.

Citizens gasped and stared when they saw the shimmering silk and jewelry. Herosilla smiled again.

The guards outside Numitor’s compound were the same pair who’d attended him at the royal audience. As before, they weren’t fully armed like the guards across the forum. Amulius, though a spineless fool, wasn’t so great a fool that he didn’t preserve some marks of his superior status to his brother.

“You there!” Herosilla said to the taller guard. She needed to pick one, and they didn’t wear indications of rank. “I’m here to see your master Numitor.”

“Nobody can go in today,” the guard said nervously. He’d never supposed an apparent goddess would appear before him. He looked to his partner for support.

The other guard edged a little farther away. He acknowledged Herosilla’s presence only by sidelong glances. Folk in the Forum drifted closer to watch in awe. The guards at the royal compound were interested also, but they didn’t leave their posts when citizens blocked their view.

“You will not keep me out, you rural simpletons,” Herosilla said in a venomous tone. “Your only choice is whether you willingly admit me to give your master the information about the ambush he’s waiting for; or I enter over the lightning-blasted ashes of your bodies. Do you understand?”

“She’s the messenger?” the shorter guard asked, trying to look at his partner without letting his eyes fall on Herosilla. His question answered Herosilla’s doubt about whether this was the correct year.

“Sorry, lady,” the taller guard muttered. He pushed the gate fully open as he stepped aside. “We were expecting Talpus.”

Herosilla strode into the compound. It held four two-room huts. Female servants prepared food in front of one. The women glancing up from their weaving beside the next were better dressed; the fat one wearing bronze armlets was most likely Numitor’s wife. Across the compound, a third hut had a litter of tools and spearshafts leaned against it, though none of the male servants or other guards were present.

That left the other as Numitor’s dwelling. Herosilla walked through the open door and surprised Numitor talking to an attendant with white hair and a sour expression. Both men jumped up.

The hut’s front room contained an ornate bronze tripod supporting a brazier. The charcoal was laid but not lighted; apparently the locals didn’t consider the day chilly enough to require heat.

A pair of large jugs with geometric designs stood to either side of the door into the bedroom beyond; shelves displayed half a dozen drinking bowls on edge so that the figures in black glaze could be seen. One of the bowls had the characters’ names written in Greek above the figures: Herakles and the centaur Cheiron.

The names were written backwards. The illiterate artist had copied them out as he would have any other design element, but he hadn’t realized that the order of the letters was significant. It didn’t matter to the owner either: he was just proud to own an item with writing on it.

“Guards!” Numitor shouted.

“Stop blustering, you fool,” Herosilla said. “I’m your only chance of getting the kingship that you want more than you do your right arm. Shut up and listen or I’ll walk across the street to your brother.”

“I’ll get—” the attendant muttered as he stepped toward the door.

Numitor caught his arm. “Wait a moment,” he said. His eyes didn’t leave Herosilla.

She smiled coldly. “Now,” she said. “You’ve set an ambush for the men from Palatium as they run the Lupercal. I suspect you’ll capture Remus and some of the others but not Romulus. None of that matters. What matters is what we do next.”

The attendant blinked at ‘we’.

Numitor said, “Who told you that?” His voice was deadly.

“Would you be happier if I said the lightning told me?” Herosilla snapped. “I told you to shut up and listen. If you try to bring enough of your own men into Alba to unseat your brother they’ll be noticed. The citizens may not have much affection for Amulius, but they know you’re a vicious little snake. They’ll resist and you’ll lose.”

“You’re a very interesting woman,” Numitor said softly.

“Instead, I’ll use the herdsmen from Palatium and the nearby communities to deal with your problem,” Herosilla said. “After that, I’ll—”

“They’re Amulius’ men,” the attendant protested.

Herosilla’s earrings clinked as she turned her head quickly. “They’re my men, so far as you’re concerned,” she said.

“I don’t see how you can achieve that,” Numitor said thoughtfully. “But then, I don’t suppose I need to understand. Since I’ll have no involvement in the entertainment if it fails. That is correct, is it not?”

“Quite correct,” Herosilla said. Numitor was one of the most unpleasant men she’d ever met, but he was clearly not stupid.

“And I suppose you’ll want some position for yourself if you succeed?” Numitor said. He glanced through the doorway toward the women’s quarters across the compound. “Well, I suppose that can be arranged also.”

“That is not what I want in return,” Herosilla said in an icy voice. She didn’t bother to state her loathing for Numitor: he was observant enough to read it in her expression.

“What you will do, as much for your own safety as because I require it,” she continued, “is send a colony from Alba to where Palatium now stands. The sons of Faustulus will head the new community. Alba’s bursting at the seams, besides which at least some hundreds of the citizens are going to be direct threats to your rule if you don’t get rid of them. You’ll solve both difficulties this way.”

“A very interesting woman,” Numitor repeated, this time in a musing tone. “When would you expect this… change in government, we’ll call it… to be achieved?”

Herosilla sniffed. “In ten days or so. I’ll send my men into Alba over a few days to stay with friends and kin here. Too much haste could arouse suspicion. In two market days, let’s say.”

She turned and looked through the doorway. Numitor’s fat wife was staring into her husband’s dwelling, nervously twisting one of her armlets.

“Of course,” Herosilla added with her back to the men, “you’ll have to release the Luperci you’ve captured this morning. I’ll need them to lead the assault.” There was commotion at the gate of the compound. A man in a tom tunic entered and ran to Numitor’s dwelling. Leaning on the doorpost he gasped, “We caught three of them, but one of those damned brothers got away!”