David Drake: To Bring the Light

Herosilla stiffened. Weakness was the worst of vices; worse even than ignorance. “King Amulius,” she said in a firm voice. “Provide me with a house and servants. There are many things I can teach you.”

The laughter was louder this time. Amulius grinned; his staffbearer said something to him in a normal voice, but the crowd’s merriment hid the words.

“Are you a goddess after all, then?” the king said when the noise had died down. “Only, I thought goddesses would be able to speak proper Latin.”

Everybody laughed again.

“Of course I’m not a goddess, you witless clods!” Herosilla shouted. That she could speak their barbarous dialect even with an accent made her a marvel of her own time—but this wasn’t her time. “I’m Flavia Herosilla, one of the most learned persons of any age, let alone this swamp of mud and boorishness! You should provide me with the basic amenities because I’m the closest thing to civilization that you’ll ever see!”

The laughter finally ended. Romulus and Remus edged close to either side of her, disconcerted by the turn of events.

Herosilla doubted anyone in the crowd had heard her outburst. It wouldn’t have made any difference if they did. Amulius was a worm, not a man who might have had her executed for telling him the blunt truth.

“Well, Flavia Herosilla,” Amulius said with false geniality. “I suspect you can get something for that shawl you’re wearing. As for the rest of your needs…”

He gestured toward Romulus. “You men. You’re the sons of Faustulus, my herdsman at Palatium, aren’t you?”

“You know we are,” Romulus growled, too angry to claim heavenly parentage.

“Since you found her,” the king said, “I give you full responsibility for her. She’ll no doubt teach you many things. Now, is there other business to come before me?”

Herosilla turned and walked away. She was blind with rage. Citizens moved out of her way, but Remus put a hand on her arm to stop her before she collided with a house at the far end of the forum. The brothers were beside her, wearing troubled expressions.

“The ignorant fools,” Herosilla said.

“They didn’t see you come from the lightning,” Remus said. “If I hadn’t been there myself…” He shrugged.

“I would have believed!” Romulus said.

“You’d believe the sun rises in the west if you thought it would prove you were king!” Herosilla snapped. Open anger immediately made her feel better. She tossed her head, shaking the cobwebs loose from her brain.

Amulius and his advisers were ignorant fools, but that had been true of most people in Herosilla’s own day. She was a fool herself to have thought the situation would be better during the barbarous past. The question before her was what to do now?

Her clothing and jewelry was unique and doubtless valuable in this age. Unfortunately, no one in Alba—and perhaps no one in Italy—had sufficient long-term capital to pay the amount Herosilla would need to live the remainder of her life in reasonable comfort. Any ruler who did have that wealth probably had also the will and ability to take the items by force from a friendless stranger.

She supposed she could live in Palatium on the villagers’ charity. She visualized the prospect: she couldn’t imagine any existence that would be more dreary and miserable. There didn’t seem—

“So you two own her, huh?” said an unfamiliar voice. Herosilla looked around. A local man had walked over to the brothers. He wore an iron ring on his right index finger and a russet cloak over a tunic with a patterned border. The garb and his fat belly marked him as one of Alba’s leading citizens.

“Go away,” Romulus said.

“Now, don’t be hasty,” the fat man said. He was clean-shaven, but his bushy mustache flowed into his sideburns. “I was hoping we could do business. I think she might clean up into something interesting.”

He gripped Herosilla’s jaw with a thumb and forefinger to turn her face in profile. She slapped his hand away in amazement.

The man chuckled. “Now, she’d have to stay in Palatium,” he continued. “My wife would—”

“You moronic pig!” Herosilla shouted. She kicked at the man’s crotch. The purse hanging from his belt got in the way. Nearby citizens turned to watch the commotion. “You fat cretin! I’d fling myself off the Tarpeian Rock before I’d let you touch me!”

The local backed away, then turned. A heavily-built woman wearing a mantilla of imported lace trotted out of the crowd. She made a beeline for him. The man began mouthing excuses, but they obviously weren’t going to do him any good.

“We’d better get out of here,” Remus said somberly. “I want to get home before dark. I don’t trust Numitor if we give him time to prepare something.” “I’d like to see him try,” Romulus said. His voice rasped like a file cutting iron.

The three of them strode through Alba in silence. When they reached the path down to the lake and home, Remus said, “Lady?”

“Yes,” Herosilla said.

“I was wondering…” Remus said. “What is the Tarpeian Rock?”

“Why,” Herosilla said in amazement, “it’s the outcrop on the Capitolium where—”

She stopped. The story of Tarpeia betraying Rome to the invading Sabines hadn’t occurred yet. There wasn’t a city to betray.

“I’ll show you some day,” Herosilla said. After a moment she went on, “I can see that if I’m to live in civilized surroundings, I’m going to have to create them myself. Which I will!”

The vermin in the bed she shared with Acca didn’t keep Herosilla from getting to sleep, nor did the bustle of the shepherds taking out their flocks awaken her in the morning. Only when the sun found a gap in the clouds and streamed past the hut’s half-closed door did she rouse from dreams as sharp-edged as the walls of a Greek temple.

Herosilla straightened her legs and groaned. She ached in every muscle, even those she wouldn’t have thought had anything to do with walking.

Acca opened the door fully. “Are you up, dearie?” she said. “I have some breakfast for you here.”

Herosilla thrust her feet into her own sandals. They wouldn’t have lasted a mile of the journey to Alba, but the loose-fitting local products she’d worn instead—hide wrappers, really—rubbed blisters in several places. She stumbled out to join her hostess.

Acca handed her a wooden mug of beer and an ashcake made from left-over porridge cooked all night on a flat rock beside the fire. Herosilla thought she could get used to the beer in time. There was nothing in Palatium to drink except beer or water, and she didn’t trust water from the shallow well near the sheep pen.

There was probably wine in Alba; certainly there would be in Cumae. It wasn’t Herosilla’s first priority, but she’d see to it in time.

“It didn’t go as you’d hoped, the boys told me,” Acca said as Herosilla began to eat. None of the other women joined them, though most watched Herosilla as they continued with their own tasks. Ganea, Romulus’ doxy, glared briefly before she went back to chopping vegetables against a treetrunk split to form a flat surface.

Herosilla dipped the ashcake into the beer to soften it. “Not yet,” she said. “It will eventually.”

She looked around the straggling village. She hadn’t paid it much attention before; hadn’t been here in daylight except a snatch the previous morning before she set out to Alba with the brothers.

Drainage ditches would be fairly easy. Paving or at least stepping stones shouldn’t be difficult either. Improvements to the water supply were trickier, but hollowed logs could bring adequate clean water from a distance. She wasn’t an engineer, but her studies in natural philosophy provided a basic awareness of slope and flow.