David Drake: To Bring the Light

The men thrust a thick bundle of brushwood into the opening, closing it more effectively than a door. Flavia Herosilla, scholar and gentlewoman of Rome, was alone with her thoughts.

The horn blew a second summons across the camp. Herosilla had pulled her wrist peg from the ground instants before the initial warning at dawn. There was light enough to read by now, and she was well on the way to getting her hands free.

“Citizens of a new city!” Romulus shouted in the meadow below. “Citizens chosen by the gods to rule a new future!”

Attaching Herosilla’s wrists to a peg had been a mistake. The bindings were strips of half-tanned goat hide, too tough and flexible for her to have worn through against the interior walls if she’d been left to thrash around the hut. She’d gained a minuscule purchase on the main knot when she got the peg out by working it in a circle, though her wrists bled and her hands were numb.

Romulus let the rustle of excitement die down. Either he was a natural orator or he’d learned from Herosilla’s performances. “This new community is the seed of the greatest city in the world,” he continued. “Greater than Troy, greater than Knossos when Minos was king!”

Herosilla’s fingertips gently teased the outer coil of leather. It was a job for care and delicacy, not desperate tugging that would only draw the loops tighter.

“We will be a new kind of city,” Romulus said. He certainly had the lungs to address a large crowd. Now that Herosilla thought about it, she supposed that was true of most shepherds, accustomed to bellowing information across valleys to their fellows. “Open to anyone who can contribute to our benefit, whatever they may have been or done somewhere else.”

A coil came loose. Herosilla picked the ends of the strap free, then twisted her wrists slightly to relax the inner loop.

She could hear low voices outside the hut. Celer was talking to someone. She hadn’t yet determined a plan for the next stage of her escape, but this would complicate it.

“The man who may have been a slave or an outlaw in another community,” Romulus boomed, “can be a valued fellow-citizen to us! My brother and I were threatened with outlawry by the court of the usurper Amulius!”

“No!” Remus said. “No, that’s not what we’ll do!”

“Wait your turn, brother!” Romulus said.

“This is my turn,” Remus said. His voice was a carrying tenor in contrast to his brother’s thunderous baritone. “No decent man wants to live in the company of robbers and runaways!”

Herosilla’s hands were free. She ignored the pains lancing along her fingers as she scrabbled to remove the gag. She’d controlled her reaction to the gag for as long as there was no choice, but the chance to remove it now drove her frantic.

“It’s my destiny to found a great city!” Romulus said. “You all heard Lady Herosilla, the messenger of the gods, say so. I am the son of Mars!”

Herosilla pulled the bandage from her face and spat out the wad of wool. She almost fainted with relief from the choking sensation.

Someone spoke again outside. The faggot in the door opening rustled as if kicked.

“Alba’s already too large!” Remus said. “We’re six hundred now, the right size for a community where everybody knows and trusts his neighbors.”

“The lady said both of you were sons of Mars, Romulus,” called a voice from the crowd.

“I don’t know that I want a gang of cutthroats in the next house either!” somebody else shouted. “Say, where is the lady, anyway?”

Somebody outside pulled on the brush. The faggot was stuffed tightly against the stone; sticks crackled against the stones.

Herosilla’s fingernails nibbled at the strap binding her ankles. Even with her hands free, the tight knot wouldn’t loosen easily.

“Lady Herosilla probably went back to the gods now that she’s delivered her message!” Romulus said.

The assembly was dissolving into uproar. The colonists weren’t a single community yet, and the rules of precedence in council hadn’t been set.

The faggot slid all the way out. Ganea knelt and crawled through the opening.

“You thought your fine clothes and jewels would take him from me, didn’t you?” she said in a voice that rasped like sand on stone. “But you were wrong, lady. And he was wrong, thinking he could hide you away safe!”

She had a bloody knife in her right hand.

“I’ll let you have him!” Herosilla said, letting her voice rise into a shrill falsetto to project false terror. She backed away. The hut was too low to stand in.

“Bitch!” Ganea said and slashed at Herosilla’s face. Herosilla caught the knife wrist in both hands and pivoted on her left buttock. Ganea flew past Herosilla’s shoulder, straightening from her kneeling posture until her forehead hit the wall with a hollow clunk.

Ganea’s body shuddered and went limp. Her breath drew in with a loud snore. Herosilla leaned over the body to get the fallen knife.

The assembly’s shouted arguments merged into a shout from hundreds of throats. “Let them fight!” a man screamed in a brief silence. “Let the gods decide!”

Herosilla sawed methodically at the strap holding her ankles. Her hands tingled. When the blood wiped off, the edge of the blade gleamed white from recent sharpening.

The crowd bellowed again. Words of joy or concern wove a delicate counterpoint around the bloodlust of the main audience.

The strap parted. Herosilla crawled out of the hut, holding the knife by her side so that it couldn’t be snatched by anyone waiting outside.

Celer lay on his back. His eyes and mouth were open, and his throat had been slashed to the backbone. Blood was a gummy pool beneath his shoulders; it no longer drained from the wound.

Herosilla stood, using her left hand on the hut to steady herself. Her feet felt as if they were resting on hot coals. She walked around shelter to look down on the assembly.

Romulus knelt over Remus and was choking him. Beside them was a small altar made of turf squares laid dirt-side up. They’d been preparing to bum an offering to consecrate the new settlement. Nearby were a mattock and the small, straight-bladed shovel that cut the turfs.

“Sons!” Faustulus called from the front row of spectators. He was crying. Two men, neither of them from Palatium, held the old man back. “My sons!”

Remus bowed his back. His long legs came up together and scissored around his brother’s waist. Romulus gave an inarticulate cry as he went over backward to slam his head and neck on the ground. The crowd howled, sensing the kill.

“Remus!” Herosilla said. “Don’t kill him!”

Remus rolled onto all fours and scrambled to his brother. Romulus tried to rise. The impact had left him groggy.

Remus seized him by the throat and banged his head down again. Remus’ back and shoulder muscles bulged as he began to strangle his brother. The spectators inhaled instinctively. Romulus’ arms and legs thrashed without direction.

“Remus!” Herosilla cried in the hush. “We need him! The future needs him!”

Remus looked up, over his shoulder. “Remus, we need him!” she repeated.

Romulus’ hand touched the mattock’s haft. He swung it up and caught his brother’s skull a ringing blow with the side of the iron tool.

Remus sprawled sideways, blood streaming from the cut in his scalp. Herosilla started down the slope. She was still too stiff to run, even in daylight.

Romulus stood, swaying. His head was bowed. He rotated his grip on the mattock so that the cutting edge was aligned for the next stroke. Remus lay face down. His arms moved slightly as though he was trying to gather strength to rise.

“Romulus, stop!” Herosilla said. “You’ve won, but you’ll die if you kill your brother.”