Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

Krista shook her head, feeling both relief at their escape and disgust that certain other things had managed to claw their way free of the rubble of the burning building and live-in their own fashion-as well.

"Abdmachus did not make it out," she said softly. "He must have died when the roof of the cellar collapsed. All of the servants he had gathered-the Persian singers and those funny-smelling Nabatean monks-are dead as well. We four came away in the Engine, with those Walach who were hiding in it from the storm."

"And the homunculus?" the Prince whispered, his eyes sliding away from hers. "Did Khiron escape?"

Krista shrugged in resignation. "I was unconscious, too, my Lord Prince. I do not know if he reached the Engine or not. But he is here now, in the basement of this house. Sleeping, perhaps, or whatever he does when he closes his eyes."

"Where is the Engine?" Maxian's face was filled with worry. "Was it damaged?"

"No," Krista said with an edge of irritation in her voice. Did men think of nothing but their toys? Did it not matter at all that the old Persian-his friend-was dead? "By Gaius' account, the Engine carried us to safety-far out to sea, where no one would see. But we needed a refuge with food and news, so he ordered it back to the coast. Now it lies hidden in the marshes south of Ostia, well away from the coastal road."

"Good," the Prince said, turning his face away. His mind was beginning to wake again, and his thought turned once more to the struggle before him. "Bring Gaius to me, and the Macedonian. We must take steps to ensure that we may work apart from one another in safety."

Krista sighed, seeing that even this brush with dissolution had not turned him away from this impossible task. Anger warred with sullen resignation in her heart, but she damped both, though fear stirred in her. She listened quietly, and made the notes he requested on one of her waxed tablets, but he seemed already distant from her, a stranger.

She went downstairs, looking for the two dead men, resolve hardening in her heart and, with it-as she made her decision-a curious lightness as her worries eased.

– |Galen, Emperor of the West, made a face like a small boy confronted with steamed asparagus. "This is disgusting," he said, pushing a silver platter away from him. "What have you done to the cooks, my brother, killed them all and replaced them with trained monkeys?" The platter was swimming with thin fillets of fish in a creamy orange sauce.

Aurelian looked up from his platter, which had once held the same kind of fish. A trace of the orange sauce streaked his beard. His eyebrows, bushy and red, rose in puzzlement. "You don' like it?" Aurelian was still chewing. "It's good and peppery!"

"That," Galen said with a freezing glare, "is the problem. This fish-if it ever had a pleasing taste-is so drowned in pepper and thyme and basil that I cannot discern a flavor… other than pepper and thyme and basil. Please tell me, brother, that you have only instructed the cooks of the palace, not replaced them?"

Aurelian shook his head in negation and waved to one of the servants lurking about at the edges of the dining chamber. The man, a coal black Nubian in a plain white tunic, padded forward and took the plates from the table. The Emperor and his brother were sitting in a half-circle room that had been added to the original Severan wing of the Palatine complex by one of the "short" Emperors-perhaps Decius or Phillip the Arab. It looked out from the height of the palace down upon the eastern end of the Forum and the line of temples that led up that shallow valley to the great edifice of the Coliseum. Tonight Galen had chosen to sup here, enjoying the breeze that fluttered the long drapes hanging by the windows and it's relative isolation. It was far from the kitchens and the hurly-burly of the lower palace.

"Do you want that?" Aurelian looked hopefully at the plate of fish.

The Emperor shuddered slightly, handing over his dinner. Galen sighed, watching in sick fascination as Aurelian emptied his plate and looked about for more. With weary resignation, he pushed a shallow glazed bowl of honeyed rolls in his brother's direction. It was odd, returning to this place, this palace that he viewed more as an extended office than a home. Home was the old villa at Narbo, or even the Summer House at Cumae. When he had left for the campaign in Persia he had not given any thought to the arrangement of it, or to the practices of its inhabitants. Now that he had returned, he found that the busy nature of his brother had rearranged everything to suit himself. The servants, used to the parade of emperors and caesars, had complied, and now Galen would have to restore everything to a state suiting him.

Worse, glaring at Aurelian was useless because the big horse was too busy stuffing his face with honeyed nut rolls to notice.

One of the guardsmen who were sitting just out of sight, around the bend of the hall by the doors, stood and gave a low whistle. Galen looked up, checking the slow passage of sand in the hourglass set by the table. As expected, the Duchess was almost exactly on time. Neither a grain too slow, nor too fast. Galen had tried to push his native distrust of the woman aside, but it was hard. Very hard.

The door opened, and Anastasia entered. Tonight, attending upon the Emperor and his brother, she wore simple white-a traditional Hellenic chiton of matte silk, dyed with powdered abalone shell. Her sandals were small and gold, with tiny straps that only left a trace of glittering color around her ankles. A dozen paces from the Emperor's table, she paused and knelt, bowing to them. "Augustus Galen. Caesar Aurelian. I bid thee well."

Her hair, carefully coifed and arranged to fall behind her, seemingly loose, struck Galen as familiar. She rose and smiled and glided in her catlike way to a chair set at the end of the table. She sat, folding her legs under her, and put down a pair of wax tablets.

The Emperor's eyes narrowed, seeing the gleam of blue and aqua at her throat and wrists. "Ah," he said, smiling. He remembered where he had seen the arrangement of her hair and jewels before. "Apelle's Aphrodite Anadyomene. Subtle, my Lady de'Orelio, and very well executed."

The Duchess smiled brilliantly back at him, her eyes meeting his for just a moment, and then, demure, she dropped them. She clapped her hands together, pale and white, like a schoolgirl showing her appreciation. "You have a discerning eye, Augustus. You honor me with your praise."

Galen looked over at Aurelian and was well pleased, seeing that his brother had missed the reference and was trying not to show it. For a moment he thought of tweaking the lummox with it, but then put the small pleasure aside. There was much business to be done, and it was already late. "What troubles do you bring us tonight, my lady? Is there new word out of the East?"

Anastasia moved the tablets onto her lap, opening them. She took a stylus from her girdle and flipped open the first book. "Augustus, shall I begin with the figures from the corn harvest, or with the intrigues of the Eastern court?"

Galen sighed, settling back himself. This was the meat of the day, here in the late hour, by lantern and candlelight.

– |"And finally," Anastasia said in a tired voice, "the Princess Shirin, late of the House of Chrosoes Aparvez, granddaughter of the lately departed Khazar Khagan Ziebil, remains at large with-one presumes-her children in tow. I have heard nothing to indicate, my lord, that she has returned to her native home, in the grasslands above the Mare Caspium, or that she has fallen afoul of the agents of the Eastern Office of Barbarians."

The Duchess closed her books and arranged them carefully on the tabletop. She met Galen's eye with equanimity, for they were both quite tired and thinking more of their beds than protocol or matters of state.