David Drake - Out of the waters

The entire household, as well as Tardus' considerable entourage and very probably servants from nearby buildings, crowded around. They filled the courtyard, pressed against the second story railing, and-younger males in particular-sat on the roof looking in with their bare legs dangling.

"I, ah…," said Tardus. He glanced toward Varus, then looked down again quickly when the younger man tried to meet his eyes. "I must apologize for the way I behaved when I visited the other day. I wasn't in control of my actions, of course, but even so I'm embarrassed at what I remember. The very little that I remember."

Varus lifted his chin in solemn agreement. He hadn't been sure how Tardus was going to react to the invasion of his house by a gang of slaves. The wrath of a senior senator would be no slight thing, even if the senator was regarded as a superstitious fool by most of his colleagues. It appeared that Tardus primarily wanted to distance himself from the business, which Varus-and Saxa-were more than willing to help him do.

"It must have been awful to be under the spell of foreign magicians that way," he said sympathetically. "I'm glad father was able to devise a way of freeing you-"

Would Pandareus approve of me lying in that fashion? Still, an orator should phrase an argument in the fashion which his audience was best able to appreciate. That's all Varus was doing when he attributed the plan to another senator instead of to a youth from the frontier whose father was merely a knight.

"-from their domination."

"All present attend the tribunal of Gaius Alphenus Saxa, Consul of the Republic!" boomed the chief lictor. He had trained his voice to silence the crowd when court was being held in the forum, so the relative constraint of this courtyard was no challenge whatever. "Let the first petitioner state his business!"

The first-the only, of course-petitioner was Agrippinus. The major domo stepped through the line of lictors arrayed in front of the consul and said, "I come to the magistrate to proclaim the formal manumission of seven slaves who are the property of myself alone."

"I had understood that Saxa would be freeing his own slaves today," Tardus said in a puzzled tone.

"That's correct," Varus explained, "but father first sold them to our major domo for a copper each. That way he can act as magistrate in the manumission without questions being raised about the owner and magistrate being the same person."

Agrippinus took the first of the slaves by the hand and brought him in front of Saxa. He said, "I declare this man to be my slave Himilco."

The lictor touched Himilco-a North African; short, swarthy, and muscled like a statue of Hercules-on the head with his rod and said in his resonant voice, "I declare Himilco to be free from this day onward!"

"Surely no one would have objected?" Tardus said doubtfully.

"I assent," said Agrippinus, releasing Himilco's hand.

"My father is a stickler for the correct forms," Varus said. He started to smile, but that would have projected the wrong image. Tardus was if anything more focused on foolish detail than Saxa was… though apparently not the same details. "He deemed this to be the safest route."

"It is hereby noted that the former Himilco, now Gaius Alphenus Himilco, is a free man," Saxa said. The secretary duly jotted the information down on a wax tablet.

Himilco stood with his mouth open. Instead of showing enthusiasm, he looked as though he had been thrown bound into the arena with half a dozen lions.

He'd probably be more comfortable with the lions. They would be more in keeping with his past experience than being stood before a pair of senators, one of whom was also consul.

Agrippinus leaned over to whisper in Himilco's ear. A smile of understanding spread across the new freedman's face. He threw himself onto hands and knees, lifted the consul's foot and placed it on his neck, and then shambled back to where he had been before Agrippinus brought him forward. He hadn't overbalanced Saxa in his enthusiasm, as Varus had rather feared he might.

"I would say…," Varus murmured to Tardus. "That the willingness to grasp a sword and charge armed enemies does not require a high intellect."

Before he met Corylus, he would have said that it couldn't be paired with high intellect. Still, he suspected that his friend was the exception.

"You freed me, Gaius Varus," Tardus said. He made a small gesture with his left hand as the second slave was brought forward. "From a worse servitude than that. Me, a Senator of the Republic and a Commissioner for the Sacred Rites!"

Varus considered the unexpected confidence. He said, "I'm glad we were able to offer you a service, Lord Tardus. That is, to a man of your stature, and to the Republic through you."

That certainly didn't sound like the admission of a man who had invaded the house of a senator with a band of armed slaves. Pandareus would be proud to see the effects of his teaching.

When we find Pandareus.

Agrippinus was bringing the third slave forward now. After the ceremony was complete, Saxa would be providing each of the new freedmen with a gift of a thousand coppers, the amount the Emperor had given each legionary upon his accession at the death of Augustus. Lenatus and Pulto would be given property worth 400,000 coppers: the requirement for becoming a Knight of Carce.

Corylus-when he returned-would be offered nothing, at Varus' insistence despite his father's protests. That saved his friend from embarrassment and saved Saxa from worse embarrassment when Corylus refused the gift.

There wasn't enough money to have induced Corylus to plan and execute the raid on Tardus' home. By the same token, Varus knew Corylus wouldn't accept money for doing what friendship and the needs of the Republic had made necessary. Saxa, to whom money meant nothing, couldn't understand the logic of a principled man to whom money was important-but not overwhelmingly important.

"The Sages brought me the murrhine tube," Tardus said, lowering his eyelids as he looked back in memory. "They said that it was an artifact of great power. They burned herbs in it, drawing the smoke out through a reed tube at one end."

Varus lifted his chin. "That's what they were doing when we broke in on them and Pandareus," he said, frowning. "The one with the censer blew smoke onto Corylus-he was the first one of us through the doorway. There was a flash and I couldn't see anything-none of us could. When we could, Corylus was gone as well as the Sages and Pandareus."

"One of them blew smoke at me too," said Tardus. He was turned toward the manumission ceremony-the fifth slave was being freed-but his mind was clearly in another place. "I couldn't move except by their choice after that-until you freed me."

He shook his head as though trying to cast out the memory. "They said the murrhine pipe was half the representation of an amphisbaena. It had great power."

"The snake with a head on each end of its body," Varus said, speaking to solidify the reference in his mind. "Yes, I understand now. And father has the other half."

"They knew that Lord Saxa has it," Tardus said. "They took me to your house to gain it. I was a slipper and they were the foot that wore me, whether I would or no. I was less than a slave to them."

"Father and I sympathize with you, Lord Tardus," Varus said in a suitably solemn tone. It was a relief to learn that the senator was more concerned with forgiveness for his own behavior than redress for what Varus and his friends had done. "Were you present when the Sages discussed their plans, perchance? Though-"

He frowned at his error.

"I suppose they would have been talking in their own language, even if you could hear them."

Tardus looked at him, frowning in concentration. "Yes, I suppose they were…," he said, "but I could understand them perfectly well. I hadn't thought of that."