David Drake - Out of the waters

As it bloody well had better.

"Marcus Priscus explained that Tardus was threatening me," Saxa said. He allowed Hedia to sit him on the couch beside her, but he sat looking at his hands in his lap. "Threatening all of us, I suppose. I suppose you think I'm an awful fool not to have seen that. I, well, you saved us all, your ladyship."

"I think you are a very sweet, decent man, my husband," Hedia said, kissing his cheek. "The world we live in isn't nearly as nice as you are, but that's not a reason to reproach yourself."

She paused, then kissed him on the lips. "Don't ever be sorry that you're so decent!" she said fiercely.

She thought of sending out the servants, but she didn't want to frighten Saxa away. It was much like coaxing a sparrow to take a breadcrumb from her fingers; though he seemed to enjoy the exercise as much as any other man once he got properly started.

"I would be lost without you, my wife," Saxa muttered. "I don't know how I got along before I married you."

Instead of answering-even in the depths of her heart, Hedia wasn't sure whether the value she brought into Saxa's life was worth the stress which she undeniably also brought with it-Hedia kissed him again and leaned closer. She heard Syra chivying the other servants out with harsh whispers. Hedia would reward the maid for her initiative… but if Syra hadn't responded without direction, she would have been demoted to the scullery, or worse.

"Dear heart?" Saxa said. "Do you think…?"

"Hush, my dear lord," Hedia said as she lifted the skirt of his tunic and fondled his genitals. She would have preferred the bed because it was wider, but she knew from experience that it took very little to break her husband's mood. She knelt before him and took his penis into her mouth.

Saxa mumbled something, though Hedia wasn't sure that the sounds were words. Matters were proceeding as she had planned; well, as she had hoped.

She reached up with one hand to unclasp the brooch pinning the right shoulder of her tunic, a gold lion's head with polished garnet eyes. She heard the whisper of slippers; Syra expertly unlatched the brooch, then untied the bandeau holding Hedia's breasts as the tunic spilled to her knees on the floor.

Hedia rose, kicking off her slippers as she loosed her gee string. "Now lean back, my lord," she said, guiding Saxa around on the couch so that his whole torso would be supported. "Let me do the work tonight."

She lowered herself onto Saxa, pleased to find that he was rigid enough to enter her without additional coaxing. For a moment she gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment, wriggling her hips gently.

Syra gasped. The sound was little more than an intake of breath, but it would still get her a whipping shortly.

Saxa shouted and tried to sit up. His eyes were wild and he was looking at something in the room.

Hedia turned her head. The three glassy figures from her nightmare stood around her, closing in. She screamed.

The figures gripped her by the arms and waist. Hedia continued to scream as she and her captors fell out of the world.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC

Alphena stood in the courtyard as Saxa's frightened household scurried and chattered around her. With her forearms crossed before her, she scowled. She didn't know what to do. While she was too intelligent to do something pointless just to be acting, it made her furious to stand here in the midst of chaos.

People running to and fro would have stumbled into Alphena in the bad light and confusion, were it not for the squad of footmen which Florina had gathered about her mistress. They weren't Alphena's own servants-at least she didn't think they were; she didn't even recognize the faces of most-but they seemed pleased to stand and glare at anybody who came too near.

A few of them were even armed, more or less. Two had iron rods that were probably turnspits from the kitchen, and one fellow with drooping moustaches and a shaved scalp was holding a decorative marble post which he'd pulled from the bed of peonies beside them. The head of Hermes that topped the post made it an effective mace.

Alphena found herself smiling. The men around her were happy because she had given them purpose in the midst of confusion: they were guarding the young mistress. Well, Florina had given them purpose. It was time and past time that the young mistress found a purpose for herself.

"Florina," she said crisply, "who was with my mother when she disappeared? Really there, I mean. Ah, besides my father."

"Syra, your ladyship," the maid said. "She was the only one inside the bedroom, though there were plenty in the hall."

Florina added with a sneer, "To hear some of them talk, they were all standing around the bed, but everybody knows that isn't the way her ladyship behaved. Your mother, I mean."

"Very good," Alphena said, trying to keep her tone firm but detached. "Florina, bring Syra to me at once."

"Yes, your ladyship!" Florina said. She patted two footmen on the shoulder to move them out of the way, then scampered toward the stairs.

Alphena had thought she might need to coax or threaten the girl to make her obey; Hedia's chief maid might, after all, be with Saxa or Agrippinus, which would make the task of dragging her away potentially dangerous. Apparently the opportunity to give her recent superior orders in Lady Alphena's name was worth the risk of trouble with the master or his major domo.

Varus had gone upstairs. Alphena didn't know whether he was just looking over mother's room or if he was speaking to father. She didn't think either of those things would do any good; certainly she wouldn't help by tagging along in her brother's footsteps.

Corylus, Lenatus, and Pulto-who had arrived just before Hedia began to scream-were talking to the doorman and the servants who had been in the entranceway and office at the time. No one had broken into the house through the back gate, so they were checking to see what had happened in front.

Nothing, obviously; this hadn't been an attack by ordinary human enemies like the ones who had earlier spirited away the teacher. The former soldiers hadn't been able to accept that, but Alphena didn't see why Corylus was wasting his time with them.

Not that Alphena was doing anything useful, or anything at all for that matter.

Mother would know what to do! Which meant that she had to find Hedia.

Florina reappeared, tugging Syra along by the wrist. Hedia's maid wore a stunned look. She wasn't fighting Florina's guidance; she didn't even appear to be aware of it.

"Here she is, your ladyship!" Florina said triumphantly. "She was just standing in Lady Hedia's room as if she didn't have a thing to do!"

She didn't, Alphena thought. Aloud she said, "Syra, describe the men who took my mother away."

The maid's numb expression suddenly melted into misery and tears. Syra threw her hands to her face and began to blubber, "I didn't I didn't I d-didn't-"

"I'll make her talk!" said Florina. She jerked Syra's left hand down with her own and cocked her right arm back to slap the cheek she had just uncovered.

"No!" said Alphena, thrusting Florina aside to underscore the command. Though if the girl hadn't been so enthusiastic, I might have slapped Syra myself.

"Syra," Alphena said, "nobody thinks you did anything wrong. Tell me about the men who took my mother."

Syra swallowed. She turned slightly toward Alphena but didn't raise her eyes. "They weren't men," she mumbled. "They were all shiny like glass. They just…"

She stopped and swallowed. "I was standing by the alcove where I sleep like I, well, like usual when the mistress is, well, you know. I'd put out all the lamps out but the one beside me on the wall because the master is kinda skittish sometimes. Anyway."