David Drake: To Bring the Light

“You’ve seen this, lady?” Romulus said. He was frowning, though perhaps as much at Herosilla’s tone as at what she was saying. “Or your god whispered it in your ear?”

“I read it!” Herosilla said. “I—”

Her own mind put her suddenly more on the defensive than anything these yokels could say. She’d always believed the accounts of Rome’s founding were legends or worse, fictions invented by historians of later centuries to inflate the genealogies of rich patrons in their own day. There was obviously some truth in the legends; she had the evidence of her own eyes as proof.

That didn’t mean that every detail—the attack on the Luperci, for example—was accurate. Even if the story was basically true Herosilla couldn’t be sure the attack would occur this year rather than next year or ten years in the future.

Unless of course a god or gods was controlling events, using Flavia Herosilla as a pawn. That thought made her very uncomfortable.

“What’s reading, Romulus?” Roscio asked.

What an age, what a world ! “An activity for which you are wholly unsuited, Roscio,” Herosilla said aloud. “Like childbirth!”

“Well, we appreciate your concern, lady,” Remus said in obvious embarrassment. “We’ll come look over the drainage with you in the next few days. Right now we’ve got things to get ready for the morning.”

The brothers turned away, drawing the remaining shepherds with them. Celer said something that made several others laugh. Remus didn’t smile; nor, more surprisingly, did Romulus.

The moon lit the tops of reeds growing below Herosilla, where the Forum would be. The broad valley would be a swamp during the winter rains until the Cloaca Maxima, the Great Sewer, was built to drain it in a century or so.

Beyond the Forum Herosilla could see the comer of the Capitoline Hill from which the Tarpeian Rock jutted. During the Republic murderers were flung to their death from the outcrop. The emperors had substituted more refined methods of execution.

She didn’t turn when she heard footsteps behind her. The slope before her was steep enough that death for herself and her attacker would be the probable result if she launched herself outward. Either outcome would satisfy her in her present state of mind. Herosilla tensed, waiting for the hands to grip her shoulder.

“I brought you some supper,” Remus said.

“I’m not hungry,” Herosilla said. She relaxed. She realized that she was hungry, very hungry. Frustration always increased her appetite.

Remus seated himself and handed her an ashcake with a slab of cheese. “I’ve got beer in a skin here,” he said. “Mom’s keeping some broth warm back at the hut.”

Herosilla nibbled at the cheese. The cake was too hard to chew unsoftened. Perhaps if she held a sip of beer in her mouth…

“Even if you’re right about Numitor, lady…” Remus said. He laced his fingers together and stared across the valley so that he didn’t have to meet her eyes. “And I don’t say you’re not. But the strongest men in the village owe it to the gods to run the rite.”

Herosilla swallowed a bite of cheese. “There are no gods,” she said. “There is Numitor and chances are there’ll be an ambush. I’m not so confident about the details though—like the fact you survive!”

“There are gods here, lady,” Remus said quietly. “I don’t know about your countiy.”

He turned his troubled face toward her. “Lady, if there’s a bad lambing season Amulius won’t starve. He’ll just eat less meat with his bread. But we here in the hills depend for our very life on the half the increase that’s ours. We don’t have grain except what we trade lambs for to the farmers at Alba. What our women raise in their plots won’t keep the whole village alive over the winter. We have to honor the gods properly.”

Herosilla smiled bitterly. “Remus,” she said, “do you believe that events just happen or do you think men make them happen?”

Remus pursed his lips. He was a strikingly handsome man, a lean Mercury to his brother’s muscular Apollo.

“Well, lady,” he said. “I’ve always thought the gods set up the pattern and we mortals pretty much run or fall depending on how well we follow it. My brother, now, he thinks the gods have chosen him to make a pattern.”

He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “My brother has great dreams,” he said. “For a city bigger than anywhere else in the world. All built of stone, like traders say they do in Greece. Is that true, lady?”

“Most places in Greece, yes,” Herosilla said. Even in this day, she supposed. For a region as rocky as Greece, there was very little choice.

“For myself,” Remus continued, “I think even Alba’s bigger than a city ought to get. So many people cramped together like that, it brings out the wrong things in them.”

He grinned, cheerfully this time. “Though after the Lupercal, we’ll look into this drainage you want. I never found there was anything romantic about mud either.”

Herosilla laughed and rose to her feet. She’d come to a decision. She was still a little stiff from yesterday’s exercise, but with Acca’s help she’d be able to repeat the hike to Alba the next morning even if she had to crawl the last of the way.

“Walk me back to the village,” Herosilla said, offering the shepherd her arm.

“Lady?” he said, but he obediently took her arm.

“Remus,” she said, “I respect your attitude, but for myself I’m unwilling to imagine a world without the greatness of—of its greatest city.”

“Chalcis, lady?” Remus said.

“Not Chalcis,” she said crisply as they walked slowly along a path sheep had worn to the bedrock. “You will run the Lupercal because your gods direct you to do so. And I will do what I need to do according to the forces directing me.”

Herosilla pursed her lips and added, “Which I must admit are looking more and more like gods.”

She squeezed Remus’ arm. It was a good, strong arm. Remus was a lad who had possibilities that the right woman could bring out.

“Hoy, child,” Acca said. Walking to Alba at the best speed Herosilla could manage hadn’t winded the older woman, even though she was the one carrying the bundle of clothing along with food and drink for the trip. “Are you Tertia?”

The little girl rocking an infant in a wicker cradle in front of a house dipped her chin solemnly. “I’m Quartilla, Aunt Acca,” she said.

“Well, run tell your mother I’m here with a friend and we’re going to change clothes in your house,” Acca said. “I’ll watch the—”

She peeked into the cradle and lifted the covers.

“—boy while you’re gone.” She nodded to Herosilla. “Go on inside. Clodia’s probably with her sister-in-law and the new baby.”

The house was similar to those in Palatium, though the inner walls had been whitewashed. There was a hanging lamp in the form of a bronze griffin which Herosilla would have been proud to find a place for at her villa in Cumae. A shield, a spear, and a helmet of hardened leather stood against one wall.

Besides shutters, the two windows had grates of thick withies to maintain security while allowing air to circulate in hot weather. Herosilla remembered Remus’ comment about cities encouraging the worst in men.

She began to take off her borrowed village garb. Acca came in a moment later, carrying the cradle. The infant remained asleep or at least quiet.

“Oh, lady, your skin is as fine as the cloth you wear,” Acca said in amazement. She was seeing her guest undressed for the first time by daylight. She set the bundle of silk clothing on the bed frame and untied it with sure fingers.