Air and Darkness (55 page)

“That changed for the better,” said Alphena. She looked at him and said, “You saved my life, Publius Corylus.”

“Yeah, I did,” Corylus said, continuing to walk. He tried to imagine having this conversation with a Batavian Scout—and chuckled. “About fifty times, I'd guess.”

He met her eyes and said, “About as many times as you saved mine, Alphena.”

Alphena looked down, but she moved closer and put her arm around his waist. “I'm not going to give you up, Corylus,” she said. “No matter what Mother says.”

“I'm not worried about what Lady Hedia says,” Corylus said. You had to have served on the frontier to understand how black a joke that was: the problem wasn't what Hedia said but rather what she would choose to
do
. That was worth worrying about.

He put his arm around Alphena's waist also. The muscles of her hip rippled smoothly as they continued to walk.

“I'm not going to give you up, either,” Corylus said.
Until I die
.

*   *   *

W
HEN
H
EDIA APPROACHED WITH
V
ARUS,
Alphena felt Corylus start to remove the hand that lay on her buttock. Before Alphena could react, he put his hand back.

They both stiffened when they saw Hedia walking toward them, though. There was no way to avoid that.

“Now that we've had a little time to recover,” Hedia said as calmly as if she were choosing a dress for dinner, “I think we should return to Govinda's palace. Do we all agree?”

“Ah,” said Corylus. “Yes, Your Ladyship. I think I could lead us in the direction of where we entered Anti-Thule, if that would be helpful?”

The question in his voice showed that he was just as doubtful as Alphena was. Even if what he said was true—and she accepted that it might be, though
she
had no idea of the path she'd taken on the shoulders of the capering satyr—there hadn't been a portal on this side when Bacchus and his train had carried them to Anti-Thule.

Hedia cocked her head. “Yes,” she said, “your army training, I suppose. But I think I'd prefer that my son take us there. Varus?”

Varus looked startled. Corylus took the opportunity to drop his hand and ease slightly away from Alphena. Doing that while Hedia's eyes were on them would just have called attention to what was already obvious.

Alphena let out a sigh of relief. At the moment she was both exhausted and giddy. She didn't assume that Hedia would ignore the situation forever, but not having a scene
now
was a much better result than Alphena had expected.

“Mother,” Varus said, “I may have power, but I do
not
have knowledge. I don't know how to do that.”

“Brother,” Alphena said, speaking as the words formed in her mind. “You've never known how to do any of the things I've watched you do, but you did them anyway. Do it again: take us to Govinda's courtyard.”

Varus suddenly laughed. “Not Govinda's anymore,” he said. “
That
I'm sure of.”

His face hardened, and he looked much older than the brother she had grown up with. “
We shall be as we were before!
” he said.

There was no feeling of motion, but the four of them stood beside the ancient grapevine. The dust from the shattered palace had settled, but the fires burning in the ruins had taken firm hold. Hedia sneezed and Alphena felt her eyes begin to water.

“By Mercury,” Varus said in reverent wonder. “I could as easily have brought us home, couldn't I?”

“No,” said Hedia. “We needed to stop here.”

When Alphena had first come to the palace from Dreaming Hill, she had noticed—and had promptly forgotten—a little old man seated in the gazebo under the ancient grapevine. He was still there, but he bounced to his feet when he saw Varus.

“Bhiku!” said Varus, taking two long steps and embracing the old man. “How did you get here?”

“I walked, Lord Varus,” Bhiku said in Greek. “By the time I arrived, the surviving residents were fleeing, so I had no difficulty in coming inside. It seemed as good a place as any, as I told your lady mother.”

He bowed to Hedia, looking like a polite monkey.

Hedia lifted an eyebrow in minuscule agreement. She said, “Ah, there it is,” and walked to the gazebo.

Alphena glanced to see what her mother was talking about. The cape that she had taken from Lenatus lay on a stone box in the gazebo. Then she recognized the box itself.

Hedia slid the lid aside. The jewels that the demon had used to lure victims were even more dazzling in full sunlight than they had been in the jungle-shaded ruins.

Corylus had looked in the same direction, but he ignored the jewels. “This vine is dying,” he said. “It's a thousand years old, but now it's dying!”

“My lord Bacchus has decided to leave India,” Hedia said. “He decided that Anti-Thule was a suitable place for him to shape a home for his followers. The mundane world can get on about its business without his divine presence.”

“Mother?” Varus said. “You convinced him?”

“Ampelos, the god's special friend, helped me convince him,” Hedia said calmly. “I had a discussion with Ampelos, and he saw the benefit of Bacchus ruling in a place where no one, myself included, would intrude on his majesty.”

Corylus touched the vine with his left fingertips. The broad leaves were withering, and even Alphena could see that a gray glaze had started to spread over the bark.

It meant nothing to her—plants die, and there were many more grapevines—but she understood that Corylus felt otherwise about it. She moved to his side, but at the last moment she didn't touch his arm as she had intended. This distress was a private thing in which she had no right to intrude.

“Very well,” Hedia said. “I came for these jewels, which my lord Bacchus left here on his way to conquer Anti-Thule. Publius Corylus, can you carry them back with us? Not the chest, of course, just the contents. I thought that my daughter's cape would make a satisfactory bag for the purpose.”

Corylus touched the stone box with his right foot and judged the weight by pushing until it slid slightly. He gave Hedia a slow smile.

“I guess I could manage the chest if I had to,” Corylus said with the quiet pride of a strong man: a
man, her
man. “But there's no lack of stone in Carce, so sure, I'll bring the jewels.”

“Mother?” Alphena said. “Why? Why did you have us come here to get jewels? Father would buy you anything you wanted, and he's not interested in jewels himself.”

She paused and thought of Saxa's collection of curiosities, a hodgepodge of fakes mixed with real wonders. “Unless they're ancient carved gems, I mean.”

“Quite true, Daughter,” Hedia said. She smiled like a queen, like an empress. “But the Emperor's tastes are more catholic. These will make a fine gift for your father to give the Emperor—after dear Saxa has bought them from the finder, Corylus here, for a sum of … several millions, I think.”

“Oh,” said Alphena. “Oh!”

“Furthermore,” Hedia said, “the Emperor should be happy to grant Saxa the small favor of nominating Corylus to a questorship to make him eligible for the Senate. The young man will have the necessary property qualification from the sale of the jewels.”

She turned to Corylus. “I believe that will affect your matrimonial prospects, Publius Corylus,” she said. “And my daughter's, I daresay.”

“Lady Hedia,” said Corylus. He was standing very straight, but his voice was choked. “Lady Hedia, thank you.”

“It's nothing to do with me, dear boy,” she said archly. “They're your jewels, after all.”

Corylus turned abruptly. He spread out the cape with a snap and began scooping handfuls of gems into the center of the cloth. Alphena thought she saw a tear on his cheek.

She threw herself into Hedia's arms and began sobbing for joy.

*   *   *

H
EDIA FELT QUITE PLEASED WITH HERSELF.
She had solved a problem that had concerned her ever since she met Corylus and realized that Alphena already knew him from the exercise ground at the rear of Saxa's town house.

It was as clear as daylight that Alphena would want a physical relationship with the youth. Alphena's stepmother certainly had!

The problem was now solved, and solved in a much more satisfactory fashion than having Corylus murdered. But the problem
was
going to be solved.

Hedia kept her expression one of pleasant blandness. She often showed emotion, but it was always the emotion that she had decided was the proper one under the circumstances.

Turning to her son's little Indian friend, she said, “Master Bhiku, would you care to accompany us to Carce? My husband would be happy to show you a different side of the Republic from that which you saw previously.”

“Thank you, Your Ladyship, but I will decline your offer,” Bhiku said. His broad smile made him look even more like a monkey than he had already. “I like to travel to new places, but I'm happy to walk. My own world here—”

He gestured. Presumably he meant something more general than the burning ruins about them at present.

“—
is
new, now that both Govinda and Lord Bacchus are gone.”

“Very well,” Hedia said; it was nothing to her. “In that case—”

“Your Ladyship?” Bhiku said, interrupting her thought. “I believe Lord Varus is…”

Bhiku let his voice trail off, probably because he didn't know how to describe Varus' state any better than Hedia herself did. The boy stood motionless with a slack expression. By now she realized that meant that his mind—spirit? soul?—was somewhere else.

Alphena noticed her brother also. She drew the iron Janus from her sash as she had when she led Hedia and Corylus from Dreaming Hill to the palace.

“I can … well, we can, I think,” she said.

“Of course I can!” chirped the little figure. “Can you fall off a log, girl? You should be able to open the portal even without me. Your brother could!”

“That will be enough, Master Janus!” Hedia snapped. “My children are both remarkable people, but they have different skills. At the moment Lord Varus is otherwise occupied, so you will please confine yourself to carrying out Lady Alphena's instructions with the deference properly owed to her birth.”

That was taking a rather strong line with what was a god of sorts, or anyway a godlet. Nevertheless, Hedia had found that an air of haughty superiority was as useful in some circumstances as tears were in others. Men had a near monopoly on physical force in her world, but a successful woman learned to use the tools at her disposal.

Sex—Hedia's usual first choice—wasn't useful here, but there were other things available.

Janus muttered like a distant cricket, but that was all right. As Corylus lifted the makeshift bag, Hedia turned to him and said, “Master Corylus, I will take your jewels for the time being. Can you carry my son as far as the portal?”

She nodded toward the sheet of alabaster that remained undamaged in Govinda's former sanctum. The panel through which had come the monsters of Anti-Thule had vanished completely. It hadn't left even a dusting of powdered stone like those that lay beneath the frames of the portals that had shattered during Varus' battle with King Govinda.

“Ah, I can, Lady Hedia,” Corylus said with a frown, “but Varus can generally walk along if one of us is there to guide him. Whichever you please.”

He's treating me like an irritable bitch with a dangerous temper,
Hedia thought. She grinned.
Well, I can hardly blame him for that.

Aloud she said, “I've never noticed that Gaius was particularly mindful of a mother's guidance, but we'll see if this time is different.”

She stepped to Varus' side and gently turned him to face the panel. As Corylus said, Varus was easily biddable. He demonstrated no consciousness in the process, though, just a physical response to mild physical pressure.

Hedia started forward with her hand on her son's arm. Varus walked with her.

Alphena strode ahead, holding the iron baton in her right hand. Corylus was close beside, though he didn't have his hand around her waist.

Hedia noted that with silent approval: Corylus wasn't the sort of youth who pushed matters to see how far he could go. That said, he had gotten what he wanted and he hadn't backed off while the outcome was in doubt, as it must have been in doubt until they saw Hedia smile.

Alphena and Corylus waited at the portal for Hedia and Varus to complete their more stately progress. Hedia smiled coolly at them.

She had watched while they battled the demon to rescue her. They were a natural team. After marriage they could each have a thousand other lovers if they wished, though she rather doubted that they would.

Having seen them moving as a single entity against the demon, Lady Hedia had decided that she would not accept a reality that decreed they had to be separated.

*   *   *

V
ARUS STOOD BESIDE THE
S
IBYL.
He looked down on not only his physical body but also the succession of events that had taken place during the past year, beginning when he first climbed this ridge in his imagination and met the old woman. There was far more than he could see at one time, but he did see it in all details at the time it was happening.

Varus bit his lower lip as he watched the Blight engulf him. “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “I fought, but it was like being drowned in a cesspool. Eventually I would have tired, and I would have become part of the filth that was spreading over the world.”

“You fought when you knew you could not win,” the Sibyl said. “If you had known from the beginning that you could not defeat the Blight, would you have run instead?”