Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

The taut skin of the girls' stomach crawled back together, covering the wound. Blood soaked into flesh, making it smooth again, and he collapsed at last, utterly exhausted.

Gaius Julius stirred himself, getting up from the moth-eaten couch that he had appropriated. With gentle hands he lifted the Prince's arms and took him on his shoulders. Turning sideways to get around the wobbly table where Krista lay half covered with a dirty woolen sheet, he ducked under the low door to enter the other room. There was something that passed for a bed, though the previous owner seemed to have spent little time in it. The apartment itself was on the sixth floor of a ramshackle insula high on the Aventine hill. Its only redeeming value was the view from the balcony, if one could risk negotiating the termite-eaten wood and the fraying ropes that held it together. Too, it was high enough above the noxious reek that emanated from the laundry on the first floor for a man to breathe comfortably.

Gaius turned the sheet over his nominal master and laid the back of his hand on the boy's forehead. The Prince was sick with fever, almost burning hot. The old Roman frowned-this was a puzzle indeed. If the boy could rouse himself, he could bring his own power to bear, repairing the burn damage and restoring his own health. But now? Unconscious and wracked by fever-dreams? This required a delicate touch.

"Will he live?" Alexandros stood at the door, a jug of wine in his hand and a loop of smoked sausages slung over his shoulder. The golden youth was smiling, and Gaius Julius hated him for a moment. The climb up all those flights of stairs taxed him, even with this body that felt so little pain.

"I pray so, for our sake. No cheese? No olives? No dormouse, fat with figs and candied nuts? Not so much as a sweet onion?"

Alexandros grinned and shook his head. He put the wine on the floor by the door and hung the sausage from a hook twisted into a very precarious-looking timber that held up part of the roof.

"I did not go far-there is a butcher's on the corner, but I did not see another place to get food."

The Macedonian looked around, a wry smile on his face.

"This is your bolt-hole?" Alexandros was grinning, waving a hand at the holes in the roof and the warble of pigeons under the eaves.

"I sublet it," snapped Gaius Julius, "at a low rate. The man is an informer, so I doubt we will draw any Imperial attention while we are here." The Roman produced a knife and cut a hunk of sausage from the loop. "In any case, we will not be here long. The girl will soon be well; she sleeps now, I think. As soon as our master is awake, we will move him as well."

Alexandros sat, shrugging his muscular shoulders. He leaned back, watching the old Roman while he ate. After a time he rubbed his nose and looked at Gaius. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Gaius washed down the last of the sausage with a draft of wine. It was a poor vintage; he could tell by the taste that it was not from a Latin vineyard. Sicilian, perhaps. It had that rustic and disreputable edge to it.

"Eat. Drink. Sleep. All these things that I see you do, see you waste your time upon."

Gaius Julius frowned at the Macedonian youth. Sometimes the mind that lurked behind those pretty blue eyes baffled him. "They are necessary," Gaius said in a gruff voice. "You eat, you drink, you even sleep, upon occasion."

Alexandros smiled, showing his perfect even white teeth. "Not on some days," he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. "I found that sleep is not required by those of us in our current condition months ago. All that sausage gained you was the necessity to expel it later."

Gaius Julius made a face, saying, "I do not believe you. The shock of our recent reversal has unhinged your already addled mind."

Alexandros leaned forward, his hands upon his knees. "Try. Tonight, when the Walach bed down, or the slave girl falls into slumber, do not yield to Morpheus. Simply stay awake-it is so simple! You will find, as I have, that you need never sleep again. It is only the memory of hunger, or thirst, or exhaustion that afflicts you. None of these things are real anymore. Not for us."

On the table, Krista made a small moaning sound, and Gaius Julius stood and stepped to her side. The girl's eyes fluttered open, and she stared up in confusion. "There was fire…" she said in a faint voice. "Something struck me."

"Yes," the old Roman said, gently holding her head up, his arm behind her back to help her rise. "The old villa was destroyed-we only escaped by a hair. Fortuna smiled on us, my dear. The Prince carried you out."

"Where are we?" Krista looked around, rubbing her eyes. She made a face at the smell in the little apartment. "Another fine hiding place, I see."

Gaius Julius shrugged and tossed her a vile orange tunic he had found in the bedroom.

She raised an eyebrow, but pulled it on regardless. "Thank you," she said, and swung her tan legs off of the table. "We are in the city?"

"Yes," Alexandros said with an edge in his voice. "Despite our flight in the Engine, our dear Roman friend decided that we should walk right back into the den of the enemy instead of resting at ease someplace far away-like Novo Carthago on the sunny coast of Hispania, or perhaps Tyre in Phoenicia."

Krista turned her head, wincing at the pain that came with the movement. "Why?"

Gaius Julius rolled his eyes. No one seemed to see the logic in it. "Praetorians attacked the house during the ceremony," growled the old Roman. "I saw their bodies as we escaped. By the grace of the gods, Khiron was a match for them. That means the Imperial Offices are hunting for us-doubtless our descriptions have been circulated far and wide."

He raised an eyebrow at the girl. "In particular," he continued, "by your former mistress, the Duchess of Parma. So, there is only one place-if we are to continue with this harebrained plan of the Prince's-to operate from. Here, inside the city, hidden amid a population of a million people. This rat's nest gives us more cover, and opportunities, than we would ever have in the countryside."

Krista nodded, feeling queasy and sick. Her stomach hurt dreadfully, but when she felt it, it seemed whole and unscratched. She shook her head, but then realized that she knew the feeling. The aftereffects of his power, she thought to herself. I must have been near death. "Where is the Prince?" she said aloud, glaring first at Alexandros, and then at the old Roman.

"Here!" Gaius said quickly, brushing aside the curtain that closed off the bedroom. "He sleeps, but there is a fever on him."

Krista got down off of the table, feeling a jellylike shudder in her legs. She stopped, breathing hard, and then managed to make it to the doorway. Her face turned grim, seeing the pale, feverish face in the bed.

"We need help," she said, casting about in the room for some sandals. "I will go to the Temple of Asklepius on the Isla Tiberis and get a priest. You two, find us better food and drink than this slop you've been living on. Go to the market by the circus and get meat broth and oranges or lemons and fresh garlic if you can."

Gaius Julius and Alexandros exchanged a look, but then shrugged. They had plans of their own. Being out and about would not displease them.

– |"Well," Lady Anastasia de'Orelio said, entering the room. "You live, at least."

Jusuf stood and bowed deeply, motioning for the Duchess to take his seat. She smiled, her violet eyes meeting his for a moment, then sat, arranging her dark green gown so that it did not bunch or wrinkle. Her little blond shadow moved to stand discreetly behind the high curved back of the wooden chair. Jusuf leaned against one of the walls of the room, choosing a wooden stanchion that separated two sections of fresco work. He had already learned the hard way that the paintings, old as they were, crumbled if too much pressure was applied.