David Drake - Out of the waters

She shrugged.

"I can only trust my guides, master," she said with a catch in her throat. Corylus realized that she was close to tears. "I would tear my own heart out if I thought it would help you, but it wouldn't. I can only tell you what I am told, or what I anyway believe. And I pray that I'm right, because I would so rather die than you be harmed!"

Corylus dropped the chain over his neck and tucked the pendant, the amulet, under his tunic. Then he folded his old nurse in his arms. She felt as light as a plucked chicken. He felt a rush of love.

"I love you, little mother," Corylus said. "You kept me safe as a boy, and you protect me still."

He squeezed Anna again and stepped back, smiling. "Now, I'm already late," he said. "I'll pick up a roll on my way to class. We'll deal with this business, whatever it is."

Corylus quickly laced on his sandals. He was still smiling, but that was for show. He wished he could be more confident of what he had just told Anna; and he wished he didn't feel that he had a vicious dog on the end of the chain around his neck.

Because despite Anna's words, he wasn't sure it was his dog.

Hedia's expression remained pleasant as the new doorman announced the arrival of Senator Marcus Atilius Priscus. In truth the fellow's South German accent was so broad that if she hadn't known who was invited for dinner, she wouldn't be any wiser now.

Keeping her professional smile, she murmured to Saxa at her side, "Dear heart, we cannot keep Flavus on the front door until his Latin has improved. Not if we're going to entertain Senators as learned as Lord Priscus, at least."

Flavus was a striking physical specimen, tall and blond and ripplingly muscular. Hedia could certainly appreciate the fellow's merit, but she had never allowed appearances to interfere with her duty.

Hedia had never let anything interfere with her duty.

She was standing beside her husband as a matter of respect while he greeted his dinner guests, though she would not be dining with the men tonight. She didn't have a party of her own to attend: she planned to dine in her own suite, either alone or possibly with Alphena. She hadn't decided whether to issue the invitation, and she thought it likely that the girl would decline it if she did.

Varus wasn't present, though he would be dining with Saxa and his guests. That wasn't a protest, as it might have been with his sister in similar circumstances. The boy said he would work until dinner.

"Work" in his case meant that he would be reading something and taking notes. Hedia had recently looked through one of the notebooks Varus was filling, thinking that she should display interest in her son's activities. She had found them either nonsensical or unintelligible, though no more so than the passage from Horace to which they apparently referred.

Hedia's smile became momentarily warmer. Her son-stepson by blood but, in law and in her mind, her son-would never be the sort of man she socialized with; but he was a clever boy, and brave. Hedia had seen that the night in the Temple of Jupiter when Varus saved the world from fiery destruction.

Marcus Priscus waddled into the entrance hall, accompanied by a score of servants. There were no freeborn clients in his entourage. Sometimes a host would give his guests the option of bringing the number of diners up to nine with their own friends and hangers-on, but Priscus had not asked for this right and Saxa hadn't volunteered it. Hedia knew her husband viewed the dinner as a chance to frame his magpie's hoard of erudition with the solid scholarship of his guests and son.

"Welcome, my honored colleague!" Saxa called. "Your wisdom lights my poor house."

"Welcome, Lord Priscus," Hedia said, her voice a smooth vibrancy following her husband's nervous squeak. "Our household gods smile at your presence."

"Lady Hedia," Priscus said, beaming at her. "I recall your father fondly. He would be delighted, I'm sure, to see how his daughter has blossomed."

Priscus was badly overweight and nearly seventy, but his undeniable scholarship had not kept him from getting quite a reputation for gallantry in his younger days. A pity Varus isn't more like him, Hedia thought. We might get along better if we had something in common.

Hedia murmured something appreciative to the guest, then turned to a deputy steward-it happened to be Manetho-and whispered, "Go to Lord Varus-he's probably in the library-and tell him that the guests are arriving for dinner." Manetho nodded and vanished toward the back stairs.

Candidus was marshaling the members of Priscus' escort and leading them toward the kitchen where they would be fed with the household staff. There were probably as many more out in front, including litter bearers. Hedia was sure that Priscus hadn't walked here himself from his home on the west slope of the Palatine Hill.

Her husband and Priscus were chatting, waiting for Pandareus and perhaps Varus as well before they went up to the outside dining area, overlooking the central courtyard. Instead of permanent masonry benches built into the walls, wicker furniture was brought up from storage and covered with goose down pillows covered with silk brocade whose ridged designs made the guests less likely to slip off than slick surfaces would.

"The learned Master Pandareus of Athens!" Flavus said, butchering the words even worse, if that was possible, than he had the Senator's.

The servant who whispered the names of those arriving was a wizened Greek from Massillia in Gaul. He was extremely sharp-Hedia had never known him to misidentify a visitor-and would have been a perfect doorman if he hadn't had the face and posture of an arthritic rat. By Venus! the trouble the gods caused for a woman who simply wanted to present her noble husband with the proper dignity.

Hedia smiled more broadly by just a hair. She wasn't fooling herself, of course; but the experience of behaving normally for a woman in her position had thrown a little more cover over the figures of her nightmare.

The scholar entered, looking faintly bemused. He didn't have an attendant, and Hedia could only assume that the tunic he wore was his best. One heard of rhetoric teachers becoming very wealthy, but Pandareus had clearly avoided that experience.

I must remember to check with Agrippinus to make sure that Varus' school fees are paid.

Priscus greeted the teacher with obvious warmth. Varus had said that the men were friends despite the difference in their social position; this confirmed the statement.

Saxa glanced at Hedia and whispered nervously, "My dear? Do you suppose V-V…, my son, that is, will be joining us?"

"Yes, he'll be-" Hedia said. She stopped gratefully as Varus entered from the office with an apologetic expression. Two servants were trying to adjust his toga on the move.

"The noble Senator Marcus Sempronius Tardus, Commissioner of the Sacred Rites!" Flavus boomed.

There was silence in the hall, at least from the principals. Servants continued to chatter like a flock of sparrows, of course.

"What's this, Saxa?" Priscus said. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be inviting Tardus, not after that consular visit yesterday."

He didn't sound angry, though he probably felt that he should have been informed of who the other guests were when he was invited. There were senators who certainly preferred never to set eyes on one another.

"I didn't…," Saxa said, looking stunned. He turned to Hedia. "Dear one, did you invite Tardus? That is, I'm not misremembering something, am I?"

"No, little heart," Hedia said coolly. "I'm sure Lord Tardus will inform us of why he is gracing us with his presence."

Tardus entered the hall with attendants, crowding it again. No toga-clad citizens accompanied him, but the three men closest to the senator were the foreigners whom Hedia had seen with him in the theater. Close up they seemed even more unusual, especially the man with the stuffed bird pinned opposite to the roll of his long black hair.