The Storm of Heaven (24 page)

Alexandros nodded, for he had sustained much the same relationship with his
hoplites
.

"A grievance aired," he mused, "is a grievance halved."

"Just so," grinned Gaius Julius. "You will see, my friend, that the weariness of this Emperor Galen, his distaste for these frivolities, will deliver the heart of Rome to me."

He paused, running a hand over his bald pate.

"I have some talent for swaying the allegiance and favor of the people, I must say."

Long drapes, rich with gold thread, luffed slightly in the faint night breeze. The room was dim, lit only by a pair of beeswax candles. A man was lying on the quilts, still in his tunic and toga from the day. One sandal was on the floor, the other still on his foot. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to dispel a throbbing headache. A door opened in one of the painted walls, casting flickering shadows on naiads and swimming dolphins. For the moment that it was open, the piercing wail of a crying child stabbed into the room. The man on the bed twitched as if struck by a spear, then sat up, his thin face tense.

The woman that had entered made a sharp motion with her hand. "Galen, lie down, there's nothing to be done by
you
."

The Emperor of the Western Empire,
Augustus
and god of the Romans, master of Italy and Gaul and Germania, lay back down, relieved. He turned his head, watching his wife sit at her side table, carefully brushing her neat, short hair. Even with a screaming child in the next room and all the despair and unease in the city, she remained well kept and elegant.

"What makes him cry like that?"

Helena cast him a look over her shoulder, eyebrows hard over her dark brown eyes. "Do you care? If you knew, would you order the matter resolved? Issue an edict to quiet him?"

Galen sighed. Helena was as tired and worn as anyone. Her pregnancy had been hard, though she had delivered a strong boy, if the volume of his wailing was any indication. In the decade since they had married, he a young tribune from the provinces, she the daughter of an ancient patrician house, she had struggled with numerous ailments. Once he had feared that bearing a child would kill her outright, but her stubborn will seemed to have overcome that obstacle.

"Is he all right?"

"Yes," she said, putting down the brush and letting her face soften a little. "The nurse says that he is colicky. She says that it will pass as he grows older. She's giving him some smelly infusion, catnip, I think."

Galen let his eyes close. The soft sound of the comb continued for a moment, then stopped. Turning his head, he let one eye open. Helena leaned close to the small silver mirror set on a three-legged stand on her table. She was wiping powder from around her eyes with a soft rag dipped in oil. The Emperor smiled and rolled over, his hands under his head so that he could watch her. Before they had come to Rome, she had never bothered with makeup. Now removing it was a nightly ritual, a colophon to the weary day.

"The boy could be raised by the servants, in Catania, perhaps."

Helena stopped and put down the rag. She turned, her eyes narrow and her lips compressed into a thin line. Galen frowned at her reaction.

"I will raise my son. If you wish us to leave so that you might sleep easy at night, we can certainly do so." The Empress' voice was very cold. Galen sat up and swung his legs off the bed.

"A suggestion only, my love. I do not want you to go, or him either. As you say, the colic will pass."

"Then don't talk like a fool," she snapped, turning back to her mirror. Sitting up, he could see part of her face in the silver. The lines of anger faded and she dipped her hands in a porcelain ewer filled with rose-scented water. After laving her face, she took a towel from the table and patted herself dry.

"How went things today?"

Galen smiled to himself as he removed his remaining sandal. Somewhere in the palace, there were slaves specially trained to remove his shoes, and his tunic, and the toga. There were probably slaves who were supposed to brush the Empress' hair and remove her makeup, too. Galen had spent too many years in the field lugging his own kit and tending to his own business to allow them into the tiny, besieged sanctuary of the Imperial apartments. The palaces on the hill were enormous, but they also held a vast army of servants, clerks, ministers and other hangers-on. Nearly everyone in the city shared a room with someone. The addition of the refugees from the south only made things worse. The thought of a private space was almost unheard of, but—by the gods!—he
was
the Emperor. If he could have a room to himself and his wife, then he would.

"It is very difficult. Everyone is still recovering from the shock of the disaster, I think. It's almost impossible to get things done. The provision of food to Campania is a particular problem."

"I heard," said Helena, sniffing with distaste. "I have received an inordinate number of letters from various and sundry distant relations, all begging for corn tokens." She slid under the covers of the bed, wriggling her toes down into the quilts.

Galen turned his body, making a space for her to fit against him under the covers. She was warm and soft and smelled of roses and coriander. He buried his face in her neck.

"It's the harbors at Misenum and Baiae," he said, his voice muffled. "Moving so much grain and salt pork and bread and wine and oil is impossible over the roads between here and there. Most of the bridges are damaged and the highways themselves are crowded with refugees or looters or troops sent in to restore order. It will be months before you could travel overland in safety."

Helena sighed and curled her husband's forearms to her chest, kissing his fingers. The candles had gone out, leaving them alone in the nest of the bed, in the dimness. "The harbors are still closed?"

He nodded, holding her tightly against him. "The work of dredging them clear of wrecks and sunken ships will take weeks, too. The work crews are moving at a snail's pace... it's the same malaise which afflicts everyone here."

She turned her head, shifting so that she could see his face. Even in the darkness, there was still a little light from the windows. The height of the Palatine was studded with towers and temples, all illuminated by great torches and lanterns. Here, at least, it was never fully dark.

"How do you feel?"

"Tired. Exhausted. There is this weight, which is so enormous... Aurelian is a dutiful brother, and he is putting in the same long hours, but he does not have the breadth of vision, the understanding of the problems, to resolve things on his own."

Helena nodded and put the tip of her finger on his nose. "You need help," she said. "Like you had before the disaster."

Galen raised an eyebrow, looking down at the serious, small face of his wife. The smell of her hair tickled his nose, but he was not too distracted to notice the tone in her voice. He felt his weariness increase—must he politic and bargain in his own bed, too?

"Are you lobbying again? I have made up my mind. The Duchess is a broken woman; the loss of those men and her daughters was too much for her. The loss of my trust worse. I will not place her in charge of the Office of Barbarians again. She has proved far too dangerous to myself and our family."

Helena frowned, watching his face. The curious events of the days immediately before the eruption of Vesuvius and the annihilation of the Atreus estate at Ottaviano had only been discussed obliquely in passing between them. The Empress knew Anastasia had sent men into the south, to deal with some trouble. She had not heard "some daughters" were involved. Helena ransacked her memory—there was nothing to indicate the old Duke had gotten her with child. Though, doubtless, the ancient goat had tried!

"Daughters?" Helena tried to keep feral curiosity out of her voice. "I didn't know she had any daughters."

Galen hissed and tried to hide his head in the pillows. "Let us talk of it another time."

"I think not," she said with a sharp tone in her voice. "You're killing yourself with work and worry. You've not even been out of the palace to ride, or hunt, or walk among the people in the Forum in weeks. Now, the Duchess, who has been our dear friend, is near dead herself of grief. Both of you drive me to tears! Do you say daughters of hers,
adopted
daughters, I assume, were killed in the eruption?"

"Yes," Galen growled from under a pillow. "Let us sleep!"

"No," she said, snatching the pillow away and flinging it across the room. "I would like to hear about this business
now
." She sat up, shift falling from one white shoulder. Though she constantly reminded Galen to go outside, to see the sun, to walk in the wind and rain, to find some exercise and play, she rarely did any such thing herself. Indeed, among her peers in the nobility of the city, her naturally pale skin and lustrous hair were a source of envy.

Galen scowled and rummaged around in the sheets for another pillow. She clouted him across the side of the head with hers. It was heavy with goose down and made a satisfying
thump
.

"Ow! You are in a mood. I thought you wanted me to get more sleep."

"You can sleep later," she said, "when I'm satisfied."

"Oh," he said, grabbing for her leg and catching her by the ankle. "I thought you wanted to talk!" Grinning, he began dragging her towards him. Helena squealed in fury and hit him with the pillow again, hard. Galen rolled over, laughing.

"You're impossible," she spit at him, brushing hair out of her eyes. "Tell me what happened."

"All right." Galen sat up, his brief laughter gone. Helena, who had been about to ask a pointed question, stopped, for her husband's face was suddenly very old. For the first time in weeks, she saw the full, crushing burden he carried reflected in his eyes. She had a momentary feeling that a door, long held closed, was suddenly open.

"Oh, my love..." She crawled to him and took his head in her hands. "You've the same look in your eyes as she does." Helena kissed his forehead, then their lips met and he was holding her very tight. Salt stung her eyes and she blinked his tears away. Her Emperor was on the verge of crying and she cradled his head in her arms.

"Tell me," she said softly, her lips brushing his ear.

Some time later, when he had finished, Helena held him close, rocking back and forth. He still refused to cry, but her own face was wet with salt.

"Our dear friend sent men to kill your little brother?" It seemed impossible, even insane.

"Yes." Galen's voice was a faint shadow of its usual commanding baritone.

"And, they all died when the mountain exploded?"

"Yes."

Helena sat quietly for a time after that, thinking. Galen drowsed in her arms. The moon rose, cutting a pale, white shadow on the floor of the room. In the flavorless light the patterns of mosaics and tiles turned strange and unrecognizable. Then the moon passed the angle where it could shine in the window and everything became dark again.

"Little Maxian," she said at last. "He truly had these powers, he could raise the dead, heal all hurts?"

"Yes," Galen said, voice filled with sleep. Much of the brittle tension which had marked him of late has gone. "He commanded powerful servants and forbidden powers. Or so the Duchess said."

Helena's forehead furrowed in thought. Her lips pursed for a moment, then she smoothed back her husband's lank, dark hair. "Love, your brother had a machine that
flew
?" The thought of it filled her with terrible envy.

"Yes, so the Duchess' servants reported. Something surely carried him to my camp on the shores of the
Mare Caspium
with unmatched speed, then back again."

"Ah-huh. Do you think he still lives?"

"No." Galen's voice was filled with heavy grief. He was not the kind of man to part easily from his brothers, for their bond had been very strong. Other emperors, as Helena well knew from the histories, had been quick to hate and fear their siblings, to murder them with the noose, with poison, with a suffocating pillow. Galen enjoyed the most precious gift any emperor had ever held in his hand—the love and trust of his family. "He is dead. There... there was a moment, as Aurelian, the Duchess and I stood in Phillip the Arab's dining chamber. I saw him, the piglet, he was covered with blood, a blade in his chest. I saw fire and flame and he was dying, dark blood bubbling from his mouth. His eyes were filled with fury. Then I saw the life go out of them, and the vision was gone. He is surely dead."

Helena sighed and kissed his forehead, feeling the heat of his body on hers. He seemed very old and tired, exhausted by the long struggle. To know this; then to hear, day after day, the count of the dead from the south. Messengers came each morning, bearing reports from the tribunes and consuls who had charge of the relief effort. Mass graves lined the roads into Baiae and Misenum. Thousands of slaves worked, bent over shovels and hoes, burying the dead. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum had become tombs of their own, buried by the smoking black rock that flowed down from Hades-cursed Vesuvius. Galen must feel the grief of every family that had lost a son, a daughter, a father, as his own loss.

"There is no body, my love. Perhaps it is impossible to think of, but I know
you
would have contrived escape from this thing—with these powers, with a machine that flies, you would have escaped. Could your brother do less?"

"Don't say such things... our little piglet is dead, by my hand. I will not think of it."

"By your hand?" Helena's voice rose, her fingernails digging into his shoulder. "You did not put the knife into his breast—that was Anastasia's doing. That was business of the state, not you."

Galen turned to her, his eyes fierce. "I
am
the state. Must needs he die, then I am the one with the sword in my hand. I accept my responsibility—do not try to sway me with your words."

Helena flinched away, feeling the coldness of his rebuke. It was painful and it reminded her she had once sworn to never meddle in these affairs, to keep to her books, her poetry, her letters. It was sin enough in the eyes of many patricians she was accounted an able playwright.
There are two rooms in our house, the state and the family,
she thought.
Now I have stepped into his room, uninvited.