Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth Read online

  Sometimes Hedia thought she saw flames leaping in Melino’s eyes. She was probably seeing the reflection of the lamps on stands around the alcove … but he was certainly interesting.

  Melino had given Hedia all his attention during the meal, which was common enough when she was in mixed company. Under normal circumstances it would have been impolitic for a junior guest who had the host’s wife on his other side (though it might well have happened), but tonight it didn’t matter.

  Olivia could have been replaced by a wooden statue without making a difference in the meal. She said little and ate less, though she drained two cups of wine for every one that her husband drank.

  Bersinus had originally placed Melino at the bottom of the left-hand couch. When Macer decided not to come to dinner after all—Hedia smiled—Melino had asked to take the empty place at the cross couch next to Hedia. Neither she nor Bersinus had seen any reason not to grant the request.

  She sipped her wine. It would have meant nothing to say that she drank less at dinner than Olivia did. Hedia always kept a clear head during the early stages of a dinner party. After the lamps had been allowed to dim and the guests who remained were drinking unmixed wine, well, whim and circumstance would determine her actions.

  Tonight, however, she was present as Alphena’s mother rather than as Lady Hedia. Alphena’s mother would remain sober and watchful, whereas Lady Hedia knew how to have a good time.

  Servants were bringing in the dessert trays. The fruits were in fanciful shapes—a dog’s head carved from an apple with pomegranate eyes and a gullet lined with individual blackberry cells was particularly striking—and the nutshells would probably turn out to be sweet pastry or the like, but it was a relatively restrained offering. Hedia would content herself with a walnut or two.

  “I’ve been noticing the stone in your tiara,” Melino said. “It’s quite unusual.”

  His conversation during the evening had been false, but no more false than banter between two strangers at dinner always was, two interesting, interested strangers. His tone had changed now, however.

  “Is it?” Hedia said idly. I counterfeit disinterest much better than he does. She took a pistachio from the pannier of a camel formed from date flour. “Yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it.”

  “I was wondering where you got the piece, if you don’t mind my asking?” Melino said. The strain in his voice was even more obvious to an ear as well attuned to such things as Hedia’s was.

  She tinkled a laugh. What looked like a pistachio was actually made half from crushed hazelnuts and half from crushed walnuts, held together by a thin coating of crystallized honey.

  “Really, dear boy,” Hedia said. “Does anyone remember those things? I suppose it was a gift from someone, but I wouldn’t choose to name names even if I could.”

  She swallowed the nut, then cocked her head to meet Melino’s eyes. “Have you seen these stones before, then? Where do they come from?”

  Melino tapped his tongue to his dry lips. The fingers of his right hand were twisting the striking ruby ring on his left.

  “I haven’t exactly seen pieces of this sort, no,” he said carefully. “But I’ve heard of such stones. That’s why I was wondering where you got it?”

  “Oh, don’t be boring,” Hedia said, taking another sip of wine. Melino probably thought she was looking into her cup, but she could still watch him from the corner of her eye.

  Though the young Briton had a delightful little accent, her interest in him had gone far beyond personal. He knows something, which means he may know something we need to learn.

  There would usually be entertainment at this point in the evening. Hedia had heard of learned gatherings at which each guest would read a sample of his own verse … which was probably pretty deadly, since being learned and being a poet were very different things. Not that it mattered, since nobody was going to invite Hedia to such a party anyway.

  At the other end of the spectrum of propriety were parties in which the guests provided their own entertainment in non-literary sorts of ways. Bersinus sometimes hosted that sort of party while his wife was at one of their country estates. Macer had been present at those; apparently he hadn’t believed that his brother-in-law really meant that decorum would reign this time.

  “I wonder, Lady Hedia…,” Melino said, his voice dropping again. “Hedia. I wonder if you would visit me tomorrow? At my home. I have some important matters to discuss with you, and I think that it’s better that we keep them between ourselves.”

  Hedia laughed again. He sounds so earnest. Aloud she said, “You’re a very cheeky boy, you know.”

  Melino looked away with an agonized expression. My goodness, I think he’s blushing!

  The servants had cleared the dessert trays and were bringing finger bowls and napkins around. Hedia dabbled her fingertips and wiped them. She and Alphena would each have a cup of unmixed wine before they left if nothing formal was planned, but from their host’s air of anticipation …

  “My honored guests!” Bersinus said. He had chosen his moment when Lantinus was taking a drink of wine. That seemed to be the only time the young man stopped talking.

  “Time for me to pay for my dinner, it seems,” Melino murmured. He got up from his couch, still holding his wine cup.

  “Tonight I have something rather special to show you,” Bersinus said. “At least if Master Melino is the wonder he claims to be.”

  Servants snuffed two of the three wicks in each of the lamps. It didn’t really reduce the light significantly, but it changed the tone of the gathering. Hedia felt a thrill of anticipation.

  Melino walked around the right-hand couch and stood in front of the little serving table in the center. He still held his wine cup.

  “I do not claim to be a wonder,” he said, surveying the other guests. He had become a different person: confident, even powerful. “But it may be that I will show you wonders tonight.”

  Melino smiled. Hedia imagined another hint of flames in his eyes, and his ring caught the lamplight oddly, vividly.

  Melino poured the dregs of his wine onto the table. It was a terrazzo of agate chips, so highly polished that the liquid was barely a ripple against the stone.

  A servant had followed him, holding a staff of black wood ready. Melino was mumbling under his breath. He dropped the cup to the pavement, not so much carelessly as because he was unaware of its presence in his hand. He took the staff.

  Using his right forearm to support the heavy staff, Melino tapped the tip deliberately on the tabletop: once, twice, and a third time. He spoke at increasing volume, but Hedia still could not hear the words because of the rushing noise that filled the night.

  Vaguely she saw that some of the guests were restive, looking at the sky for signs of an oncoming storm. The stars were bright and the lamp flames rose still and clear into the air. Melino’s ring was a rosy lantern.

  The dribble of wine swelled into a sphere of bright sunlight. On a barren landscape danced three women. They were short but not dwarfs, dark but not so dark as the purple-black Nubians whom the beast hunters sometimes brought from deep in Africa along with the animals. The women chanted as they shuffled their circular dance, but no words could be heard through the window Melino had opened.

  The dancers were nude except for loose belts of jewels like the one in Hedia’s diadem. The stones were strung on coarse twine. As they jiggled with the dancers’ movements, iridescent light shimmered within them.

  “Bravo!” Bersinus shouted, the word dimly audible over the unfelt wind. Castor, below him on the couch, wore a guarded—almost fearful—expression. Either the Egyptian knew something or he was more cautious about what he didn’t know than his host was.

  Something glowed in the midst of the dancers. It was so bright that the edges were foggy but so distant that it couldn’t possibly be in the same plane as the dancers … but where were the dancers? Were they even real?

  Slowly the scene dimmed to transparency. As Hed
ia started to let out her breath—she hadn’t been aware that she was holding it—there was a final iridescent flash from the empty air. She gasped.

  Melino wobbled and leaned against his staff. Bersinus got up from his couch and hugged the younger man close.

  “Bravo!” Bersinus repeated. “Master Melino, forgive me for doubting you! I can’t imagine how you accomplished that trick!”

  Because it wasn’t a trick, Hedia thought. Because it was real magic.

  Melino made his way back to the couch, using his staff like an old man. He more slumped than reclined beside Hedia again. He looked as though he had been dragged behind horses.

  The other guests cheered and babbled. The only exception was Kurnos, who glowered at the magician: a youth of his own age who had become the center of all attention—particularly the attention of Alphena. Melino nodded with a fixed smile, acknowledging the praise as best his exhaustion allowed.

  Hedia leaned toward him. “Master Melino,” she said. “I’ll take you up on the invitation to visit you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER V

  “Open for the noble Gaius Alphenus Varus and his sister!” bellowed the leading member of their escort.

  The staff based in Carce would probably have announced Alphena’s name first, let alone passing her over as an adjunct to her brother. Varus winced, but Alphena didn’t react with the violence he expected. She seemed … well, in another person he would have described her mood as one of nervousness.

  Alphena noticed him looking at her and said, “I’ve never been to Corylus’ house here in Puteoli. To his father’s house, I mean.”

  Varus shrugged. “Neither have I,” he said. He consciously smoothed the frown from his forehead, but he couldn’t imagine what his sister was concerned about.

  Instead of a small window, the upper third of the street door was already hinged back. The doorman was grizzled and missing half his right hand.

  Not a very prepossessing fellow to have greeting your guests, Varus thought. Then he noticed the many other scars wherever the doorman’s skin was exposed and realized the truth: The doorman wasn’t an impressive slave in the normal fashion. He was a freeman, an army veteran, and almost certainly a man who had served under Publius Cispius in past years.

  It was a matter of who you were trying to impress. It said a great deal about Cispius, but nothing that Varus couldn’t have deduced from knowing Cispius’ son.

  The doorman swung the bottom portion of the door open and braced to attention. “Bathylla!” he roared down the passage. “The young master’s guests are here!”

  A maid stuck her head out of a room. Before she could act, Corylus himself appeared at the end of the fifty-foot corridor and waved.

  “Come on through, Gaius, Alphena,” he called. “Pandareus and I are in the garden. Bathylla, take their escort to the outside dining room and give them something to eat. Ah—that is, how many servants do you have along?”

  Varus grimaced. “Ten, I think.”

  “Twelve,” Alphena said. “Mother said that if we came by ourselves we’d insult your house as well as our house.”

  “Twelve we can handle,” Corylus said, grinning. “And trust Lady Hedia to know what propriety requires. I wouldn’t want to lower our standing in the neighborhood.”

  “Nobody around here is going to make a crack about the Old Man,” said the doorman as Varus started down the corridor. “Isn’t that right, Pulto?”

  Corylus’ servant was standing behind him. He nodded and said, “Not unless they want to try digesting their teeth.”

  “Pulto, go have a drink with them and keep Dad’s people from playing who’s got the biggest dick,” Corylus said. “Make sure everybody accepts that they’re all mighty heroes, but anybody who tries to prove it will find himself wearing leg irons while he hoes a field, all right? Ah—”

  He looked at Varus and Alphena with sudden concern. “That is,” he said, “with your permission?”

  “Yes, of course,” Alphena said. Apparently realizing that Varus had been lost by the discussion, she said, “Our escorts think they’re tough. Most of the servants here are veterans, I suppose?”

  “Right,” said Corylus, lifting his chin in agreement. “And they think they’re tough too. Which of course they are.”

  He gestured his guests into a larger garden than Varus had expected. Marble benches were arranged in a U in the shade of the apple tree in a corner, but most of the space was given over to flowers. It was a working garden for a perfumer, not just a place to relax.

  Pandareus had risen from the bench where he had been seated. He nodded to Varus, his student, with a smile, and made a slight bow to Alphena.

  “You could have come to our house, Master Pandareus,” Varus said. “In fact, I expected that you would. Though of course I don’t doubt that Master Cispius has provided you with excellent accommodations.”

  He sounded sharper than he had meant to be. Corylus looked surprised, then contrite; even Alphena gave her brother a frown of concern.

  “I chose to come to Master Cispius’ house though the summons came from you, Lady Alphena…,” Pandareus said with another bow. “Because I was sure that I would be admitted to the smaller establishment and that it would be possible to send a messenger from here to Lord Saxa’s dwelling. If I did wrong, I apologize, Lord Varus.”

  I’ve acted like a fool, Varus thought. The staff here in Puteoli might well have turned away a poor scholar—a beggar, they would have thought—who showed up at the door.

  “I’ve acted like a fool,” Varus said. He bowed deeply to Pandareus, then bowed again to Corylus. “I apologize.”

  He looked at his sister. “Alphena,” he said, “if I’ve stupidly insulted you also, I apologize. I—”

  Varus looked around the group and forced himself to smile. “Like the rest of us,” he said, “I’ve been concerned about recent events. Apparently I’ve been looking for things of human scale to direct my anger and frustration toward. Fortunately, I’ve had an excellent education—”

  He grinned at Pandareus.

  “—and therefore realize that the time to correct a mistake is as quickly as possible.”

  “Let’s sit down,” said Corylus with a lopsided smile. “Gaius, I won’t tell you that nobody felt insulted, because that’s already obvious.”

  A gnarled servant had placed cushions on the stone benches. A pair of maids—of similar age and murmuring to each other in German—were waiting with wicker tables on which wine, water, and cups already rested. As soon as the young master and his guests had settled themselves, the women began mixing and pouring the wine.

  Varus grinned at his teacher. “Master,” he said, “I began to relax as soon as I saw you. As Publius will have told you—”

  Corylus bobbed in agreement.

  “—I had another vision. I don’t know what to do.”

  Pandareus chuckled. He took a sip of wine before he said, “Since this business appears to be magical, then I must admit that I’m puzzled at the logic of a scholar who is a magician looking to a scholar who most certainly is not a magician for a solution.”

  “Gaius is right,” Corylus said quietly. “Master, you bring stability to the situation. To any situation.”

  The servants had retreated to the portico along the back of the house proper. They might be able to overhear the discussion if they wanted to, but there was no indication that they did.

  That was particularly true of Pulto. If demons attacked the garden, Pulto would fight demons as enthusiastically as he would Sarmatians, Germans, or the drunken next-door neighbor. Pulto preferred to know as little as possible about magic, however.

  “I think that’s a way of saying,” Pandareus said with the hint of a smile, “that I’m an old man and have little fear of death.”

  He glanced around the gathering and smiled more broadly. “In fact, life wasn’t particularly dear to me when I was younger, either. It isn’t life but the opportunity to learn new things that delights me, a
nd—”

  The old man was beaming like a child offered an unexpected treat.

  “—recent events have certainly brought me that. Including magic, which a few months ago I would have said was as fanciful as the existence of gryphons.”

  He cocked his head slightly and looked at Varus. “Eh, Lord Varus?”

  Varus lowered his eyes in embarrassment. “It wasn’t my gryphon,” he muttered. “It was Alphena’s.”

  Corylus began to laugh. After a moment, Varus did also.

  Alphena put on a stern expression. As though she were Hedia, she said, “The gryphon was a he, not an it; and he was not my property or anybody’s. I hope he’s all right.”

  In a different, wistful voice she added, “He was a good friend. To both of us.”

  She glanced at Varus. He lifted his chin in agreement, remembering a place and a thing that were both out of nightmare. If he wanted to, he could almost fool himself into believing that many recent events were fragments of remembered dreams. Bad dreams.

  “It appears to me…,” Pandareus said, setting his cup back on the serving table. “That we don’t have enough information to determine a course of action. I will certainly search libraries in Carce for references to the lizardmen.”

  “The Singiri,” Varus said. “The Sibyl called them that. In my vision.”

  Pandareus bobbed agreement. “The Singiri, then,” he said. “But a better source of information is the magician Lucinus, who called himself to your attention, my scholars. It seems to me that you must discuss matters further with him, since he at least knows more about the situation than any of us do.”

  “I met a magician last night,” Alphena said in a small voice. “Or anyway, Mother did. I think…”

  She was wrestling with a phrase or perhaps even a thought.

  “He seemed to like her,” she said, bringing out the words at last. “Melino did.”

  “Melino is a magician?” Corylus asked calmly. Varus’ mind was turning over the warning Lucinus had given them, that a magician named Melino was trying to loose the Worms of the Earth and thereby to destroy all life.