Текст книги "Mark of the Thief"

Автор книги: Jennifer A. Nielsen

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

It was the third bargain I had made today, and all of them had been necessary. By the end of this, Rome would be safe, my magic would be strong, and Livia and I would walk away as free persons. Or I would be dead. None of it would be easy, and maybe it wasn’t even possible. But I was committed now.

Valerius put a hand on my shoulder. Instinctively, I jumped away from it, and he raised both arms to show me he wasn’t posing a threat. “I can see how tired you are, how much the bulla is weighing you down,” he said. “Sleep tonight, and we’ll talk more in the morning.”

I let him lead me from his office, but stopped in the doorway and said, “Does Radulf know Horatio supports him?”

“There are only two kinds of Romans,” Valerius said. “Those who support Radulf, and those he intends to destroy. For that reason, Radulf assumes everyone supports him.” He nodded toward the bulla on my chest. “In you, we finally have an answer to Radulf’s powers. Trust me, Nic, if I could use the magic, I would grant your freedom myself. But that bulla is useless in my hands. At least in yours, the empire has a chance.”

The way he said it, my task seemed so big. No, it was so big. I had proposed a plan to move mountains, when I still lacked the ability to move a fistful of dirt.

“Things will look brighter tomorrow. You need sleep.”

I needed practice. Radulf had told me that magic was a muscle, and it was true that I was feeling it more every day. But learning to control it was an entirely different matter.

“What about Aurelia?” I asked. “The girl who came with me?”

“She’ll have her own room. She will be treated as a lady here. I promise you that.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him to a bedroom directly across from the atrium. Once he’d left, I examined the room more carefully. There was a table in one corner with a bowl of olives that I immediately ate, despite not being particularly hungry. An actual book lay on the table too, though the words were too difficult for me. More important, a real bed stretched along the far wall. Even before the mines, when my mother kept Livia and me in hiding from the slavers, we never had beds. For months, we traveled anywhere that seemed safe, away from Gaul, and certainly away from Rome. We slept in the woods, sheltered by trees, or in the corners of barns. If I’d ever had a real bed, I didn’t remember it. Now I walked closer and stroked the mattress. It was so thick with feathers that I wondered if it might swallow me up once I lay upon it. So I didn’t. I grabbed the light blanket from on top of the mattress, and then lay down on the hard floor, where I felt more comfortable. With my cheek on the cool concrete, I faced out the doorway, staring at the moonlight, which still poured into the atrium through the overhead window.

Radulf and I both had the Divine Star, which made me think we had the same magic. The difference was that he understood his better. Or, more accurately, understood it at all, and that gave him a huge advantage over me. On the other hand, I had the bulla, which contained magic Radulf did not have. If I learned to use its powers, Radulf would have no answer to them.

So it was up to me to figure out the magic I already had, and for that, I had to know if Valerius was right, if there was magic in me apart from the bulla.

After listening to be sure the home was quiet, I removed the bulla and set it on the mattress, then stood and concentrated on the mark of the Divine Star. As I made myself conscious of it, the tingling was so sharp that I could almost define its shape just from which parts of my shoulder had come alive.

I focused on what I felt there, letting the mark smolder like a tired fire. Then I willed it to travel down my right arm, which still bore the injury from the soldier’s arrow. I felt the magic gather around the wound, but rather than create heat, as the bulla did, it felt more like water passing over and under my skin, soothing the sting there.

But the magic wasn’t finished. It breezed down my forearm and finally collected in my fingers and palm, so much that when I tried squeezing my hand into a fist, I felt resistance from the magic. It was similar to the feeling from the bulla, but this magic was waiting for me to act, rather than trying to escape without my permission. I felt the desire to release it from my fingers, but when I did, all that came was a brief snap of air, like an exhaled breath, and then it was gone.

The disappointment tasted bitter in my mouth. A casual whistle produced more power than I had created with the whole of my concentration. There was magic in me, but it was completely useless. If the bulla gave me far too much power, then the Divine Star offered too little.

Except that Radulf’s voice slithered into my head again. “So you’re experimenting with Caesar’s mark. I felt the shift in the air, you know, such as it was. And I will use it to find you.”

“I hope you do.” My voice shook when I spoke, not from fear, but from the fierce ache his presence created. “But you’ll regret the day you find me.”

He laughed, which rattled into my bones. “I doubt that very much. You see, I won’t come to reconnect a few mossy pipes. I will come with real power that you cannot fight, even with that bulla.”

I snatched the bulla and quickly put it back around my neck. Maybe Radulf wasn’t here, and didn’t have any way of getting at the bulla right now, but maybe he was. I wouldn’t take the risk.

Radulf had only one thing more to say. “Or you could join me, Nic. Help me build a new empire, one in which your life matters. That’s what your sister wants you to do.”

“Do you have her?” I cried. I raised my hands, ready for a fight if that was what he wanted. But how was I to fight someone who wasn’t even here? And how could I pretend to have any chance of winning?

Aurelia appeared in the doorway. “Who are you talking to?” At first, I barely looked at her. Radulf’s words still thundered inside my head, confirming my worst fears about Livia, and every suspicion I had about his evil nature.

“I have her,” he said. “But for how long? Don’t fight me, Nic.”

“Nic!” Aurelia called my name, her voice now filled with more obvious concern. I turned to her and drew in a breath of surprise. Aurelia had been given a long tunic made of fine linen, and her hair was freshly washed and fell in loose waves over her shoulders. She cleaned up even better than I would’ve guessed. “You’ve gone pale,” she said. “Are you all right?”

I wasn’t. Though my breathing was beginning to slow, my heart still pounded against my chest. Radulf wasn’t there any longer, but he’d left an echo of himself behind, like the chill that lingers after a storm.

Aurelia stepped even closer and put her hands on my face. “You’re in a cold sweat. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“No,” I said, backing away. “Tell me if I can trust you. Please, make me believe that I can, because every time I try, I think of our bargain, and I remember that all you care about is the reward you’ll get from Horatio.”

“That bargain is over.” The disappointment in her tone was obvious. “While you were talking with Valerius, he had Crispus pay me six hundred denarii, as his reward for bringing you here. He said they’d help you find your sister too, so I could leave if I wanted.”

I hardly dared asked the question. “And is that what you want?”

She shrugged and even smiled a little. “I should leave. If Rome were invaded tomorrow by barbarians carrying the plague, they’d still be less of a catastrophe than you are. Anyone who comes within a mile of you must be insane.”

I grinned. “If it helps to know, I’ve always thought you were insane.”

Despite her teasing, Aurelia’s tone turned serious. “To succeed, you’ll need a lot more insane friends than just me. Until you find them, how can I help?”

“I need to learn how to use the magic. And I need to know how to fight Radulf, because it’s going to come to that.” That thought sent shudders through me.

“Then I’ll stay. I’ll teach you everything I know, at least about fighting.”

“He could bring the entire forum down upon me. Can your knife stop that?” The corner of my mouth turned up a little.

She met my challenge with a spark in her eyes. “Until you control your magic as well as I control my knife, you shouldn’t complain. Now get some rest. It’ll be a big day tomorrow.” She glanced at the blanket I had used, still in a heap on the floor, and the undisturbed bed beside me. Her brows pressed together. “I hope you’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“Of course not.” Then I shrugged. “Maybe I was.”

She picked up the blanket and handed it to me. “That isn’t your life anymore. The world will judge you based on what you think of yourself. If you want to fight Radulf as an equal, then you had better think of yourself that way.”

“Do you think of us as equals?” I asked her.

“You and Radulf? He’s a general —”

“No. You and me.”

“Oh.” Aurelia’s eyes darted to the side, and her left hand was clenching her dress too tightly. “I, um —”

That was more than enough of an answer. I lay down on the bed, turning away from her. “Good night, Aurelia.”

She said my name, but I didn’t answer. Nearly a minute of silence passed before her footsteps padded out.

The following morning, Valerius had plans for me before I began any training. He sent a servant to scrub me, trim my hair, and, in his words, try to make me look like a “presentable Roman.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the haircut was definitely necessary, and the bath was a luxury beyond any I’d ever imagined possible. I had never had a bath before, but I was given the entire area of the senator’s tepidarium to use. It filled almost one whole room, with inlaid patterns of tile on the floor and walls, and marble seats built into the sides for people who wished to visit while they bathed. I stayed in it until my skin wrinkled, and even then I might never have left, except the servant told me the women of the household may be using the baths soon. That hurried me out.

Afterward, I was given a tunic almost as fine as Crispus’s toga. I ran my fingers along the smooth creases of neatly woven fabric, tracing the blue edging, and noting how odd it was to wear something that didn’t scratch my skin.

Crispus came in afterward, with a pair of sandals in his hands. Even after he held them out, it still took a moment to realize they were for me.

At first, I only stared, unsure of what to say or do. “I won’t know how to walk in them,” I finally said.

Crispus handed them to his servant who fit them on my feet and began lacing them up my calves. “You’ll learn,” Crispus said. “If you want to be free, then you must walk in the shoes of a free man.”

When the first sandal was finished, I wiggled my foot and smiled. “It feels so different.”

Crispus shrugged. “The leather will relax after a while.”

“No,” I quickly added. “Different is a good thing. Different is an amazing thing.” I stood and tested both sandals on the floor. It was odd to feel something beneath my bare foot other than rocks or sand. I looked over at Crispus. “Thank you.” The words weren’t nearly enough, but they were all I had.

After that, the servant set me in front of a polished brass mirror so I could see my reflection. I’d seen pieces of myself at times, my face in the waters of a mud pond following a rainstorm, or the corner of my eye reflected on a metal jar, but never so much of me all at once. I stared at my own image. With the way they had cleaned me up, I didn’t look like a slave, nor did I feel like one. For the first time in my life, I felt that I deserved my name. I was Nicolas Calva.

Which inevitably brought my thoughts back to the way last night had ended with Aurelia. I wondered how she would respond to seeing me this way. Probably it wouldn’t matter at all. Her opinion of me had nothing to do with outer appearances. Whatever I wore, she would always see me as less than her.

Once I did see her, Aurelia was back to her normal self. A little subdued perhaps, but then, so was I. She was at breakfast with Crispus, who excused his father, saying he had early business in the forum. The table was full of fruit and fresh bread and a white fish to be dipped with honey. While they reclined to eat, I sat as close to the table as possible, unable to eat fast enough. At one point, I caught Crispus staring at me, probably horrified at how much I was consuming, but I didn’t care. My time here wouldn’t last much longer – it couldn’t – so I wanted to eat everything while I had the chance.

When I reached for some cheese, Aurelia caught my arm and unwrapped the bandage from it. She gasped loud enough to get everyone’s attention and said, “This wound is so much worse! Why didn’t you say something?”

I rotated it to see it better. I knew it was getting bad, but so many other issues had pressed harder on my mind that I’d nearly forgotten it. I couldn’t see the entire wound, but what I could see wasn’t good. No wonder it hurt the way it did.

Crispus sat forward, obviously concerned. “I’ll inform my father,” he said. “We need to get that examined right away.”

While Aurelia rewrapped it, she said, “No, I’ve taken care of things like this before, and I can do it again.”

But I pulled my arm away. “If your treatment stings as bad as you said before, I’ll lose a whole day of practice just recovering.”

“You could lose that arm!”

“And I’ll lose my life if I don’t learn this magic!” It sounded brave, but the truth was far more cowardly. Aurelia’s treatments sounded like the kind of thing I wanted to avoid for as long as possible. Even the thought of her scrubbing that deep wound made me cringe. “We’ll do it tonight, before bed.”

Aurelia objected, but my mind was made up. Crispus quickly agreed with me, not because he cared about the pain her treatment would cause, but because he wanted the practice time as much as I did.

So he reclined again to eat, and slowly his eye wandered from me to Aurelia. “We could probably find out who your father was,” he said to her. “Surely there are records kept of exposed children. Then it would be a matter of narrowing down the possibilities.”

“Please don’t,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked. “If he can help —”

“It wouldn’t help.” Aurelia looked from me to Crispus, then her eyelashes fluttered and she returned to her food.

Not for the first time, I wondered who her family was. Were they poor, like my mother, and so exposure had offered her some hope of a better life? Or wealthy, like Crispus? If so, then my friendship with her was forbidden. Maybe that’s why she had paused last night, when I’d asked if we were equals. Because she already knew the answer.

Crispus had gone back to eating. He’d probably only offered as a matter of good manners anyway. Unless Aurelia suddenly announced she was his sister, I doubted he’d give the matter a second thought.

“And what about you, Nic?” he said. “You told me your mother was Roman, but had fallen into slavery. Did she have skills to become a household slave?”

“Maybe.” I had been so young when Sal sold her away from us, I really didn’t know. “Five years ago, she brought my sister and me to the mines and told me it’d be safer if she lived elsewhere. I think she came to Rome, but I could be wrong about that.”

“Wait,” Aurelia said. “What did your mother mean that it was safer?”

I shrugged. “It was long ago. I was too young to ask such questions.”

Crispus seemed to consider that settled. He got to his feet and said his father had suggested I begin practicing magic as soon as possible.

“Deep within the vineyards is a tract of land cleared for replanting,” he said. “That would be a good place to practice, when you’re ready.”

I stood as well. “I’m ready now.” Despite the worries that lingered inside me, I had to admit I was excited to finally learn how to control the magic. Every day it flowed with more strength, moving deeper inside me. At last I would have the chance to learn everything I could do with it.

The three of us walked side by side to the vineyards. Aurelia had somehow acquired a new bow and a quiver of arrows, and had already threatened me twice if I broke them. I told her I wouldn’t break them if she agreed not to shoot me.

As we walked, Crispus explained that the origins of his family’s vines could be traced back hundreds of years, much like his family’s history.

“For a patrician in Rome, your family name is everything,” he explained. “With a good name, you cannot fail here. With no name, you cannot succeed.”

I glanced at Aurelia, who was making a serious effort to pretend she hadn’t heard the talk of families, and wondered then about mine. From what I understood of my father, claiming his name wouldn’t have helped me in life anyway. Maybe when Livia and I left Rome, I would offer to bring Aurelia with us. Then she wouldn’t have to care so much about her name either.

“Is Valerius a good name, then?” Aurelia asked.

“It’s a very fine name,” Crispus said. “My family boasts of military leaders, senators, and other high officials. My father has hoped that I might one day become emperor myself.”

Walking between Aurelia and Crispus, I couldn’t help but notice the way she smiled when he said that. Aurelia got her reward money last night, so maybe she considered Crispus her equal now. And why shouldn’t she? In comparison to Crispus, I had nothing to offer her. Then I snorted quietly. In comparison to anyone at all, I had nothing. The unfortunate man who plucked the emperor’s armpit hair could give her a better life than I could.

“But my becoming emperor is only a fantasy for my father, it could never become a reality,” Crispus said sadly. “Much as I want to please him, I don’t enjoy politics, so he rarely discusses it with me. I know I disappoint him.”

“It doesn’t seem that way,” I said.

Crispus shrugged. “Things are rarely what they seem.”

I didn’t reply, mostly because I knew he was right.

We reached the open field, which was larger than I had expected, but also as private as Crispus had described. He said all the workers had been dismissed from this part of the vineyard for the day, so if anything happened, as long as the damage wasn’t too massive, it was probably acceptable.

I understood what that meant. If I accidentally set a fire or created an earthquake that destroyed centuries-old vineyards and forever ruined his family name, that would be bad. Anything short of that should be fine.

I rubbed my hands together and smiled with satisfaction, then asked, “How about it? Shall we learn some magic?”

The vineyards were different from anything I’d known at the mines. There, the world was gray and dusty, and the people weren’t much better. But though I always knew I’d find a more beautiful world one day, I had never expected anything like this vineyard. The rolling hills carried row after row of green vines. Here, where I stood with Crispus and Aurelia, we were surrounded by tall trees that must have been there since the first breath of man. At the far end of the field was a pile of ruins that looked as if they had been decaying for hundreds of years. It seemed odd to find rubbish in an otherwise fine field, and I asked Crispus about it.

He shrugged. “I don’t know much. My father said it’s the ruins of an old temple that used to be on this land. The temple once held the body of a vestalis who was punished for violating her oath, probably buried alive. A few years ago, I tried to get closer and see it, but a large wolf appeared so I ran away. There wasn’t anything to see anyway, just broken rocks.” Then he clasped his hands. “Shall we begin?”

Aurelia and I stood in the shade of one of the tallest trees with blank expressions. Neither of us knew where to start. Such as it was, I was the only one here who’d actually used magic, and since most of those experiences had been disasters, I suddenly felt nervous about practicing.

“My father believes the magic responds to your emotions,” Crispus said. “It comes on strongest when your emotions are most intense. You were terrified in that arena.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I forced out a laugh and eyed Aurelia to see if she would think worse of me. “Terrified isn’t the right word at all.” Which was a perfectly true thing to say, though admittedly, this was only because what I had felt then was far beyond terror.

Aurelia didn’t seem to care. She only said, “Crispus is right. When you bent the metal in the caravan, you were angry with Felix. And what about when Radulf attacked us underground?”

Crispus’s jaw dropped. Obviously he didn’t know that story. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’ve already fought Radulf once?”

I shook my head. “No. And if it was a fight, then I lost. But you are right about my emotions being connected to the magic.”

“Which is what makes this magic so dangerous,” Aurelia said. “Emotions can be unpredictable and hard to control. I don’t decide to get angry or sad or even happy. I just feel the way I do.”

Inwardly, I smiled. Maybe she didn’t decide to become sad or happy, but I’d certainly seen her get angry.

“Then that’s what I have to learn,” I said. “I have to let myself feel enough to generate the magic, but then control the emotion.”

Crispus seemed ready for that. “My father had servants working down here throughout the night.” By then, he had grabbed a rope with a wooden handle at the end. The rest of it was strung up high into the tree, though the rising sun made it impossible to see where it was tied. “Here, Nic. Take this.”

I grinned. “Why?” My hands were already on the handle, so I hoped it wasn’t anything too risky.

“Just hold on.” He started to walk away, then turned back to me. “Seriously, hold on.”

I redoubled my grip and by the time I looked back at him, he was already midway through releasing another knot around the tree. Before he was entirely finished, the rope pulled violently from his hands and flew into the air. At the same time, I noticed a stack of bricks almost above my head plummeting to the earth, mortared together and attached by the same rope. I was at the other end, and as they came down, the rope flew through a pulley above us and yanked me high into the air.

“Nic!” Aurelia yelled. It had happened so fast, I wasn’t sure that she had seen what happened. Beside her, Crispus was laughing harder than someone ought to, given that I was now dangling nearly thirty feet above the earth. With the pulley above me, I was too low to reach the nearest branch and too high to jump. Another branch was below me, but a ways behind me as well, and I didn’t trust that I could reach it from here.

“I bet that bulla is warming now!” Crispus said, regaining some seriousness.

“Are you joking?” I scowled down at him. “Get me down!”

“Is the bulla warming?”

I closed my eyes and felt for it at my chest. At first there was nothing, but then the bricks settled and the rope punched me even higher. I gasped as I almost lost my hold. The bulla definitely reacted to that.

“It’s warm,” I said. And with that acknowledgment, magic flooded in through my chest, so fast that it nearly suffocated me. “I’m going to fall!” I yelled. The heat alone was making my hands sweat. “This is too much!”

“Not if you control it!” Crispus pointed to the bricks, now in a pile on the ground. “Lift them and you’ll come down. But not too fast. Control it.”

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to breathe, and feeling the flow of magic. Last night’s experiment with the Divine Star had been like cool water through my veins, but the bulla was warmth, closer to the way sunlight feels after a cold night. It might respond to my strongest emotions, but magic was so much bigger than a simple emotion. It was strength, and power, and raw energy. And with each use, I was becoming those things too.

Using that strength now, holding on to the rope became easy, so I focused on the stack of bricks. A quick test from my fingers rustled them.

“You’re doing it!” Aurelia said.

With some effort, I allowed more magic into my hand. When I first sent it to the bricks, they rose in the air by a few inches. Then as I started to descend back to the ground, more magic emptied than I had intended. It shot from my hand with far too much force and hit the bricks like an explosion. The bricks flew into the air and I worried they’d come back down on Crispus and Aurelia, so I used another nudge of magic to push them farther away. That sent the bricks spiraling around one of the branches where they quickly became tangled in the thicket of leaves. I lost my grip on the rope, and would’ve fallen except the force of pushing the bricks had also blown me backward. Suddenly I found myself clutching the tree branch that had been behind me.

“This is a terrific plan you came up with!” I yelled to Crispus. “I’m having a great time!”

Now it was Aurelia who was laughing, so hard that tears were streaming down her cheeks. “You should’ve seen your face!”

“If it’s so funny, then come up here and describe it to me!” I swung my body to the top of the branch but it was already groaning beneath my weight.

Below me, Aurelia removed the bow from over her shoulder and nocked it with an arrow. “I can help you,” she said. “I’ll shoot the arrow into the tree. Tie your rope to it and then you can slide down.”

It was a terrible plan. But better than what I had now, which was no plan at all, so I scooted aside to make room for her arrow. She shot it, but instead of hitting the tree, it arced to the right, heading straight for me.

I ducked as it flew past me, grazing my hair. “I forgot how not helpful you can be!”

She glared at Crispus. “He shoved me!”

Crispus only shrugged. “You’re up there to learn magic, not to be rescued by a girl.”

“You’re right.” Then I leaned down as far as I dared. “Aurelia, do that again.”

“Are you insane? No!”

“A day ago, I wouldn’t have had to ask you to shoot me.”

“A day ago, you deserved it.”

I shook my head. “Listen, I felt something when the arrow went by. If you want to help, then shoot me.”

Aurelia began muttering under her breath. I couldn’t hear the words, but Crispus was chuckling, so I was pretty sure it was a string of insults about me. She drew another arrow, aimed directly at me, and let it fly. The arrow whooshed past me. I heard it move through the air and even watched its spin. Every feather on the shaft was as clear as if I were studying it up close. The arrow wasn’t moving any slower than usual, but I saw it that way as it flew past me. As soon as that one passed, she sent another one. This time when the arrow approached, I reached out for it. I felt it brush through my fingers, but then it was gone.

In the attempt, I lost my balance and my hold on the rope and began falling. Air rushed through my hair and I was pretty sure Aurelia and Crispus were yelling at each other to help me, though there would be nothing they could do. I crashed through some lower branches as the ground came ever closer, ripping away the remnants of the bandage on my arm. I sent out all the magic in me, with no thought in my mind except to slow my fall. But when the magic hit the tree above me, all I heard was a terrible cracking sound.

I landed hard on my back, and directly on my wounded arm, which exploded with pain. But there wasn’t a moment to waste, for the tree was already beginning to tip.

“Run!” Aurelia yelled.

“Nic!” Crispus sounded panicked, but kept running. I got to my feet just in time to see the trunk of the tree and its load of tangled bricks coming directly at me.