David Drake - Out of the waters

"Yes, dear," Hedia said approvingly. "Manetho is in charge of things under normal circumstances, but Master Lenatus will take command if, well, if necessary."

Alphena didn't recognize every member of the entourage, though she didn't doubt that they were all part of Saxa's household. She'd seen at least one man working in the gardens. Several more had been litter bearers before Alphena bought the new, larger vehicle with the matched team of Cappadocians; simply by inertia the previous bearers remained members of the household, though they had no regular duties.

The escort wore clean tunics, most of which appeared to have been bought as a job lot: they had identical blue embroidery at the throat, cuffs, and hem. Further, the men's hair was freshly cropped and they'd been shaven, though that had been done quickly enough that several were nicked or gashed.

The razor wounds stood out sharply against chins which since puberty must have been shaded by tangled beards. Alphena supposed that was better than being attended by a band of shaggy bravos. Though they still looked like bravos.

She leaned sideways, bulging the side curtain, to get a better look at the trainer toward the front of the entourage. She said, "I don't think that's a club that Lenatus is hiding under his tunic, is it, Mother?"

Hedia shrugged. "I didn't ask, dear," she said. "I leave that sort of thing to men."

She leaned forward slightly, bringing her face closer to Alphena's. "I told Lenatus to choose the men," she said. She was as calm and beautiful as a portrait on ivory. "I told him I didn't care how handsome they were or whether they could communicate any way except by grunting in Thracian. I just wanted people who would stand beside him if there was real trouble."

She laughed briefly. "Beside him and in front me, of course," she said, "but I didn't need to tell Lenatus that. I think he felt rather honored. I've never quite understood that, but men of the right sort generally do."

Of course men feel honored to be given a chance to die for you, Alphena thought, suddenly angry. And don't tell me you don't understand why!

But that wasn't fair to Hedia, who was risking her life too. Or seemed to think she was.

"Mother?" Alphena said, shifting her thoughts into the new channel with enthusiasm. "What's going to happen? Are we going to attack this Abinnaeus?"

Hedia's mouth opened for what was obviously intended for full-throated laughter, but she caught herself with a stricken look before a sound came out. Leaning forward, she caught Alphena's wrist between her thumb and two fingers.

"I'm sorry, dear one," she said. "No, Abinnaeus is a silk merchant with a very fine stock. His shop is in the Portico of Agrippa. My husband Latus' house is just up Broad Street from the portico."

Alphena saw the older woman's expression cycle quickly through anger to disgust to stony blankness-and finally back to a semblance of amused neutrality. "My former husband's house, I should have said," she said. "And briefly my own, when the lawsuits against the will were allowed to lapse after your father took up my cause."

Hedia's lips squirmed in an expression too brief for Alphena to identify it with certainty. It might have been sadness or disgust, or very possibly a combination of those feelings.

"I got rid of the house as quickly as I could," Hedia said, falling back into a light, conversational tone. "There wasn't anything wrong with it. I didn't have bad memories of it, no more than of any other place, but I didn't want to keep it either. I told Saxa's agent to sell it and invest the money for me. I suppose I have quite a respectable competence now, dear one-by any standards but your father's."

"Father has never been close with money," Alphena said, thinking of her childhood. She had been angry for as far back as she could remember: angry about the things she couldn't do, either because she was a girl or because she was the particular girl she was.

She forced the start of a smile, but it then spread naturally and brightened her mood. She said, "I envied you so much, m-mother. Because you're so beautiful."

The smile slipped, though she fought to retain it. "And I'm not."

"You're striking," Hedia said, touching Alphena's wrist again to emphasize the intensity she projected. "In a good way, a way that shows up much better in daylight than I can."

She leaned back, suddenly regally cool. "If you want that," she said. "Not if you're going to wear clodhoppers-"

She gestured dismissively toward Alphena's feet.

"-and scowl at everyone as though you'd like to slit their throats, though. Do you want that? Do you want people to say you're beautiful?"

Hedia grinned like a cat. "That is," she said, "do you want it enough that you're willing to spend as much effort on it as you do now on hacking at a stake, or as your brother does on reading Lucilius and similarly dull people who didn't even write Latin that ordinary people can understand?"

"I shouldn't have to-" Alphena blazed. Part of her mind was listening to the words coming out off her tongue, so she stopped in embarrassment. She closed her mouth.

Hedia's smile had chilled into silent mockery, but that didn't, for a wonder, make Alphena flare up again. She's right. She's treating me like she'd treat an adult; and if I flame up like a four-year-old, then I'm the only one to blame for it.

"I have spent a great deal of time on the training ground," Alphena said with careful restraint. "And of course my brother almost lives for books. For them and with them. But he could put just as much effort hacking at the post as I have and he'd still be a clown rather than a swordsman; and if I struggled with Lucilius and the rest for my whole life, they'd be as useless to me as my trying to read prophecies in the clouds."

Hedia gave a throaty giggle at the thought..

"I don't think I'd be much better at being a beauty than at being a scholar, mother," Alphena said. "But I can stop resenting the things I won't take the effort to succeed at."

She felt her smile slipping again. "I don't know what that leaves me," she whispered. "I'm not really a good swordsman, even. Not good enough to be a gladiator, I mean, even if father would let me."

"Your father wouldn't have anything to do with it, dear," Hedia said. She was smiling, but Alphena had seen a similar expression on her face before. A man had died then. "I would not permit you to embarrass that sweet man so badly. I hope you believe me, daughter."

"I wouldn't do it," Alphena said. The interior of the litter seemed suddenly colder, shiveringly cold. "I used to think I wanted to, but I really wouldn't have."

She swallowed and added, "And I do believe you, mother."

Hedia held both her hands out, palms up, for Alphena to take. "I apologize for saying that just now," she said. "I-your father is very good and gentle. People of his sort deserve better than the world often sends them, and I want to protect him. I am neither good nor gentle."

Alphena squeezed the older woman's fingers, then leaned back. "Thank you for what you do for father," she said. "And what you've done for me."

"Well, dear," Hedia said with a tinge of amusement, "I quite clearly recall you chopping away at demons with what seemed at the time to be a great deal of skill. That needed to be done, and I certainly wasn't going to do it. And I strongly suspect that none of those gladiators whom you admire would have faced demons either."

What does she mean by that? Alphena thought; then she blushed at the way her mind had tried to turn Hedia's words into a slur. Aloud but in a low voice, she said, "I should just learn to accept compliments, shouldn't I?"

Hedia laughed merrily. "Well, dear," she said, "I don't think I would suggest that as a regular course of conduct for a young lady. But with me… yes, I generally mean what I say."