Lost Republic (14 page)

Now Jenny understood. The
Carleton
survivors were to be absorbed into the Republic. If they resisted, they would be cast out to suffer whatever fate awaited them—starvation, murder, rape, or all three.

Jenny stepped into the triangle of priestesses. She was taller than any of them by a full head.

“Forward, child of the goddess,” Scipina said. “Do not speak until we are once again in the sacred precinct of the temple.”

On and on the process went. Those that remained learned this platform was called the Locus Vindicatum, the Place of Claims, where newcomers to the Republic were turned over to any citizen willing to take them in. Linh Prudhomme was taken by a large family in need of a governess for their children. A bearded physician named Zosimus chose Emile Becquerel. Eleanor Quarrel, still strangely subdued, was taken in by a druggist living in the far northern district of the city. The younger children were parceled out to adoptive parents, though strangely, no care was taken to keep siblings together. Even odder, none of the children separated from their brother or sister made any fuss about it.

Leigh and Julie Morrison were held back to the end. At last, Leigh was called to the platform. Given his age and size, Leigh was promptly inducted into the army of the Republic. And who should be waiting for him at the foot of the steps but the same red-haired centurion who had so brutally forced Julie to undress. Leigh loudly protested he didn't want to go into the legions and was solidly whacked with the centurion's baton.

Seeing this, Julie didn't wait to be called but stalked up on stage. Arms folded, she scowled at the crowd below. Some of them laughed at her belligerence.

Publius Marcus eyed her. “Just sixteen, citizens, but with the proud heart of Juno. Who will claim this one?”

Men in the audience made some crude suggestions. Julie was too slight for manual labor, too spoiled for housework, and not intellectual enough for brain work. At last, a woman called out, “She may have Juno's heart, but the rest of her can serve Venus.”

Marcus shaded his eyes to see who spoke. “Do you claim her, Luxuria?”

The jeers faded. Most eyes turned to the woman Marcus called Luxuria. She was a fleshy, pale woman in her forties who wore an obvious wig of curly golden hair piled high on her head.

“I'll take her.”

Men in the crowd cheered. Leigh, still smarting from the centurion's blow, asked the soldier by his side why they did.

“Don't you know? Luxuria runs one of the best brothels in the city,” he said.

Leigh jolted as if hit with a taser. “Julia!” he cried, “don't go with her!”

Young men in the crowd between Leigh and his sister heard her name and repeated it, chanting, “Julia! Julia! Julia!” Julie couldn't hear Leigh over the uproar. She flounced down the steps to Luxuria, who waited for her.

“What do you do?” Julie said bluntly.

Luxuria took the girl's chin in her hand. “I sell dreams,” she said. “So will you.”

Julie thought about smacking the woman's hand away, but something in Luxuria's expression stopped her. Far off in the crowd, Leigh's anguished cries were drowned out by the noise of the forum.

The house of Falco proved to be an airy, sunlit place, with high ceilings, wide open windows, smelling pleasantly of freshly cut wood. Half a dozen men and one woman were at work when Falco and France arrived. The woman was Mrs. Falco, called “Bacca,” though that seemed to be her nickname, not her real name. She was a plump woman with her graying hair drawn back in a tight bun. Her face was friendly, and she smiled when France was brought in.

“Who's this?” said Bacca.

“New boy,” Falco replied. “What's your name, by the way?”

France knew his name, but when it came time to say it, it came out “Gallus.”

Falco grunted approval. With Bacca following, he led France through the front room of the house outdoors to a courtyard. There, workmen were sharpening tools, sweeping up wood shavings, or hammering away on what looked like a pile of window shutters. Falco greeted his men with single syllables while Bacca introduced them. They were all older than France by a good many years—most were in their thirties—and one, Quercus, was at least sixty. France was sort of amused that one man's name was Nero. He didn't resemble the dissipated emperor of history, being lean and hard muscled from years of carpentry.

Lunch at the house of Falco was intimate. The workmen set up a trestle table on the shady side of the courtyard and brought a couple of benches out of the house. Bacca set out wicker platters of fruit, olives, and fat, flat loaves of bread. A tall clay pitcher held some amber liquid the men drank with great relish. France sipped some. It was apple cider, well fermented. He looked around for water. Not seeing any, he asked.

“Of course, a lad like you should drink water, not fiery stuff like these old men. They need it to keep their hearts going all afternoon!” said Bacca.

“Drink enough and it puts me to sleep,” Quercus said.

“Breathing puts you to sleep,” Nero declared. The men laughed, all except Falco. He grunted twice.

When the master was finished, the meal ended. The men drifted back to work. Bacca cleared the table. France got up, but Falco asked him to sit down again.

“You know reading?” France said he did. “Writing?” Of course, though France had no experience with Latium methods. He remembered something from school about Romans writing on wooden tablets covered in wax.

“Numbers?”

“I am good with numbers,” France said.

“Good.”

Falco went into the house and returned with a couple of tightly wound scrolls. He put these before France, who unrolled the top one carefully. It was a carefully drawn plan of a large house. Falco asked France to read the measurements written inside the room plans.

“‘Fourteen feet, eight digits,” he read. Something about that bothered France. Prompted to go on, he read other lines and numbers. As Falco rolled up the first plan, satisfied, it struck France what was wrong with what he had just seen.

The plans used Arabic numbers! Roman numerals were letters, of course: I, V, X, C, and so on. Falco's plans were plainly labeled with familiar Arabic numbers: 14, 8, 76. It was a small discrepancy, but it had a big meaning.

Ever since the
Carleton
had lost communication and then gone aground, no one had any idea what was happening to them. All the crazy theories France's fellow travelers advanced about time travel or the Bermuda Triangle were rubbish. They weren't back in time. There was no Republic of Latium in ancient times to start with, and no one in the Roman Empire used Arabic numerals. France didn't know as much history as Hans, but he knew Hindu-Arabic numbers didn't reach Europe until the Middle Ages, centuries after the Roman Empire fell. They had not gone back in time. It was still 2055, and the
Carleton
people were being held against their will in some kind of weird, all-pervasive theme park. But where were they, and how could they get home?

Falco smacked him lightly on the side of the head. “Wake up,” he said. France had gotten lost in his speculations. His new master—but not his owner, he realized—wanted him to copy a set of house plans but increase the dimensions by a factor of four. Equipped with ancient drafting tools—a reed pen, a pot of oily black ink, an unmarked hardwood ruler, and a piece of old felt to blot excess ink, France set to work.

A couple miles away, Jenny sat nervously on a cold marble bench. The priestesses of Ceres had left her there, in the courtyard of the temple without any instruction. It was beautiful there, with well-tended plants and shrubs, and a high wall of honey-colored sandstone encircling the sacred precinct of the temple.

The temple itself, set back from the street on a path paved with chips of white quartz, was not as imposing as Jenny had imagined. She thought she was going to a severe, Parthenon-like place, as imposing as the facade of the British Museum, but she was wrong. The temple of Ceres was small but elegant, round instead of rectangular. There were columns all around of the simplest kind (Doric? Ionic? Jenny tried to remember her junior- year art history class), entwined with vines. A low white dome topped the temple. Along the top of the colonnade were fancy stone pots filled with lush, growing plants. Jenny wondered how the priestesses watered them way up there.

Suddenly she felt a curious tug, as if someone invisible had given her gown a gentle pull. She looked around, but no one was in sight. Then she heard a low, female voice call out, “Genera,” and Jenny knew that was her Latin name. She got up, unsure where to go. Something tugged at her again, only this time it felt more like her insides were being pulled, not just her clothes. Alarmed, Jenny waved her hands to ward off the unseen summons.

“Genera, come.”

The voice called her again. It seemed to come from within the temple. Jenny followed the path, ascended the few steps, and crossed the shaded patio to the open doors of the temple. She passed through an antechamber crowded with offerings—bundles of lilies and iris, baskets of fruit, even sheaves of cattails tied together like miniature sheaves of wheat. The antechamber was cool and dim, but beyond the sun shone down through an atrium in the temple dome. Someone was waiting for her there. Jenny entered into the presence of the goddess.

Under the dome was a fine, slightly larger than life-sized statue of a woman. A shaft of sunlight fell directly on the image of Ceres, who leaned lightly on a long staff topped by a garland of leaves. Her hair was done up in a long braid, which was then wrapped around her forehead like a crown. The statue was carved from some kind of smooth, pinkish stone, polished to a soft sheen. She was dressed in real clothing like a peasant woman, though the garments were made of fine, shimmering cloth.

It was a beautiful work of art, but it was only a statue, and whatever awe Jenny felt quickly gave way to annoyance. She didn't believe in goddesses, especially stone ones that pretended to speak.

“I did speak,” said a warm, mature woman's voice.

“It's a nice trick,” Jenny replied loudly, looking around for the concealed priestess who was doing the talking. “But this is wasted on me.”

“You do not believe?”

“In gods and goddesses? Not bloody likely.”

Instantly a piercing pain lanced through her chest. Jenny's heart felt as if she was impaled on a steel stake. She gasped and fell to her knees, hands clasped to her heart.

“It always takes force to convince unbelievers. Beauty and mystery are not enough. It takes pain, does it not?”

The pain was real enough. Jenny trembled from head to toe. Sweat ran in streams from her nose and chin.

“Stop . . . !” she wheezed.

“A little longer, and you will believe,” said the voice.

Jenny fell on her side, hands clutching at her ravaged heart. Her vision shrank to a narrow tunnel. All she could see were the feet at the base of Ceres's statue.

“Enough.”

The pain ended so suddenly, Jenny was unable to draw a breath.

“Stand, believer.”

From crushing pain, Jenny was filled with absolute well-being. Her vision cleared, and the terrible cramps in her chest were replaced with healing warmth. She practically leaped to her feet. The rush to her head was like winning a dozen gold medals and setting a dozen new world records.

“You are strong,” said the voice. “Go forth and use that strength in my service.”

Jenny gazed up at the benevolent face of the statue. “I-I will.”

Priestesses appeared behind her. They tried to take her by the arms, but Jenny would not let them. She backed away from the image of Ceres, never taking her eyes off it.

“You are accepted by the goddess,” said Scipina. “Come. I will instruct you in your duties.”

They passed outside. The formerly empty courtyard around the temple was now well populated with drably dressed workers, all women, busily pruning, watering, or cultivating the garden surrounding the temple. Scipina directed one of the gardeners to surrender her tool to Jenny. A lean, dark-haired woman of about forty handed over a pair of iron shears. Jenny stared. It wasn't the tool that startled her. She quickly smothered her surprise. Taking the shears, she went where Scipina directed and began clipping off dried-up blossoms from an enormous bed of iris.

Jenny knew the woman who gave her the shears. She was the ship's signals officer, Ms. Señales. She was supposed to be dead—Jenny saw her go down with the other officers when the
Carleton
sank, but there she was, alive and serving the great nature goddess. Though she and Jenny were only a handshake apart when the tool was passed, there was no recognition in Ms. Señales's eyes. It was clear she had no idea who Jenny Hopkins was.

“I know you,” she said. “From the ship?”

“You are mistaken, dear sister. We have not met before,” said Ms. Señales.

Jenny seized her hand. “Are you sure?”

Scipina broke her grip. “It is forbidden to touch an elder of the temple.” To Ms. Señales she said, “Go and make yourself pure again.”

Jenny watched the
Carleton
's signals officer go. She had a thousand questions bubbling in her head, but to the stern Scipina she simply said, “I'm sorry. I don't know all the rules yet.”

“We will forbear,” said the priestess. “Because you are new. Next time you transgress, there will be correction.” Jenny put a hand to her heart, remembering the pain.

She clipped dead flowers for a long time. The pain Jenny had endured was considerable, but it took more than punishment to change her mind. None of these weirdoes knew how hard she trained—the muscle aches, the pinched nerves, running on bad knees, or how she placed second at the 2052 Champions Club Cup with an untreated broken wrist.

Something else: the “goddess” left a clue behind about the source of her power. When Jenny got up, freed from the terrible pain, she distinctly smelled the sharp tang of ozone. Ozone, she knew, was made when high voltage electricity passed through ordinary air. Ceres, however dangerous, was plugged into a wall socket somewhere.

As the sun set on the day, the
Carleton'
s people were scattered across Eternus Urbs. Hans Bachmann was face to face with an enigma of his own. His master, the scrivener Piso, had all the equipment Hans expected a Roman scribe would have: racks of drying parchment, pots of ink made from soot and olive oil, and long tables where patient workers hunched, copying one long manuscript onto fresh scrolls. What Hans did not expect to find was a hand-powered printing press with cast lead type.

“Magister, what is this?” Hans asked, stunned by the sight.

“You are a bumpkin,” Piso replied. “I thought you were educated! Do you not know the stilus apparatus, the writing machine?”

“I know what it is, magister! I never thought to see one here! It is . . .” He started to say “It is an anachronism!” but he didn't know how to say it. Nor could he find a way to say the printing press was invented a thousand years after the Roman Empire fell, so how could there be one in the Latin Republic?

“We're very modern in Eternus Urbs,” Piso said. “The barbarians of Ys or Ardennus may not have writing machines, but we certainly do.”

Hans examined the press closely. It resembled the ones he had seen in Mainz, in the Museum of Printing. It had a heavy frame of wood and a big hand-cut wooden screw held together with wooden pegs. The bed on which pages were printed was a slab of marble. Lying in a frame on the bed were lines of backward letters cast in lead. Hans tried to read the backward text.

“Here, dolt,” said Piso, handing him a printed broadsheet. It was a big sheet of paper, thirty inches square. In bold Latin font it proclaimed:

BARBARIANS ON THE FRONTIER!

THE WOLVES OF YS AMBUSH REPUBLIC TRAVELERS!

CONSUL SEPTIMUS GLORIORUS VOWS REPRISALS

XVIII LEGION RECALLED FROM THE NORTH TO FACE THE BARBARIAN THREAT

THE FIRST CITIZEN'S WATCHWORD IS VIGILANCE!

In smaller type, the broadsheet described debate in the Senate about how best to punish Ys for its insults to the Republic. Hans soon grew bored reading it. Even in this weird retro republic, government proclamations were unbearably dull.

Piso had an order to print two thousand of these sheets. All over the city there were simple kiosks where government information sheets were posted. Apparently, Piso had been busy printing these sheets lately. Ys was being very troublesome, which was good for Piso's business.

“We met some Ys soldiers,” Hans began, but Piso walked away to bawl out one of his employees for dropping a small jar of ink.

Hans thought he might get to operate the press, but no such luck. Piso set him to scanning finished sheets hanging on clotheslines in the sunny courtyard in the center of his house. It was bright there, and hot while the sun was out. Not a breath of wind stirred inside the four walls. Hans inspected sheet after sheet for errors or misprints. When he finished a batch of fifty or so broadsheets, a pair of skinny boys came in, took them down, and hung up fresh ones. Only 1,950 to go, Hans thought wearily.