The Game of God: Day 158 - part 1
Our fearless leader, going where no one wants to go first.
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Warnings at the end.
— Day 158 —
“Eddie, right,” Manuel says abruptly, rolling the beer bottle between his palms. “He was an asshole.”
Sitting in the armchair caddy corner to the couch, Dean takes a sip from his own bottle. “Cathy’s husband?”
“Asshole,” Manuel says darkly. “Talk about a goddamn cliché; might as well have had ‘good ole boy’ tattooed on his forehead.”
Dean nods: one of those, yeah.
“Didn’t like to work, didn’t like patrol, didn’t like the neighbors, didn’t like the community, didn’t like our leadership,” Manuel continues. “But he liked eating and living—and drinking, that he could do—and not like you can throw someone out for being an asshole.”
“I would,” he protests, and Manuel rolls his eyes. “Cathy?”
“Cathy.” Manuel sighs. “She worked enough for both of them; gotta give her that. He went home early; she finished up for him. He spent the night drinking; she always had an excuse and was ready to help. He went over ration limits; she cut her own. She thought the sun shined out of his ass, and nothing he did or said changed that.”
“I’m guessing that finding out he was gonna be a father didn’t reform him.”
“Nope.” Manuel finishes the bottle. “He was pretty happy about it, but luckily we didn’t take that as an encouraging sign. Proved right only a couple of weeks later, when he found out he was still required to take a patrol shift every month.”
“Pretty pissed?” Manuel’s expression is eloquent on that score, and there’s something else there as well. “When he was killed…”
“Routine watch,” Manuel says flatly. “No idea what he was doing—though a couple of broken bottles gives me a good guess—and we lost eight people before we even knew anything was attacking us. Cathy fell apart.”
Christ.
“When Del was born—that seemed to help.” Manuel opens his third bottle and drinks down half. “We should have—”
“It’s not your fault,” Dean says quietly, grabbing Manuel’s wrist before he can lift the bottle again. He thinks he knows another reason why Cas wanted him to stay with Manuel for a few hours. “You couldn’t have stopped her once she knew about the Crossroads.”
“I could have stopped her from going for Del,” Manuel whispers, eyes going to the clock on the wall as he finishes off the bottle. “You want another one?”
“In the mess?” Manuel says incredulously. “Like—during dinner?”
“They were like that,” Dean says, taking a drink. “Cas said it was like a public sex bucket list or something; they hit everywhere in Chitaqua.”
“But the mess…” Manuel trails off. “How far did they get? Not drunk enough yet minds want to know, no idea why.”
“Between all the condiments, no one knows for sure.” Manuel makes a horrified sound. “When we got here for the party, they christened our first headquarters for about four hours and change.”
Manuel laughs. “Laura was looking forward to his arrival. Like a lot.”
“He was asking ‘are we there yet’ the entire way,” he replies. “Or so I was told.” He shakes his head as he raises his bottle for a drink. “He’s never gonna forgive me for stationing him at the daycare…”
“Dean.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he sees Manuel looking at him in understanding and realizes the bottle is frozen halfway to his mouth. He doesn’t understand, though; he doesn’t know that Dean doesn’t know why Gary came to Chitaqua, how old he was, when his birthday was. Hell, he might not even know his real name; he never asked. “Another one?”
He nods, realizing belatedly his bottle is empty. “Yeah.” He glances at the clock and away. “I’d like that.”
Dean nurses his latest bottle carefully; he’s lost his head for alcohol and for that matter, he can’t remember if he ate anything since breakfast and that was forever ago. He tries not to look at the clock; while they’re technically done with the three hour quarantine, he’s not leaving Manuel alone here to drink the last hours of Cathy’s and Del’s lives away. So he makes Manuel talk, about anything and everything, their first year in Ichabod, when survival was more a hope than a guarantee. He and Teresa were speed-training civilians on the basics between Antonio, Mercedes, and Dinah teaching everyone how crops worked, and one and all learned how to make cows and pigs into meat, run a power plant, and live a life of much less in the way of gas and not a single goddamn grocery store.
(“I learned to ride a horse,” Manuel says in the same voice people talk about time spent in warzones (or a vampire nest). “I need another beer.”
Dean looked at his grip on the empty bottle and nodded. “I’ll get it.”)
It blows his mind; a thousand things he never even thought about, lessons the other Dean probably learned the hard way when he was working on those first camps, that other Chitaquans had to learn by living it. Ichabod and the other towns didn’t have Dean Winchester and those years in Georgia to give them a baseline, army surplus to supply them, or an ex-angel who could compensate for their learning curve; they had Manuel and Teresa and a lot of hope to drive them through how you grow corn, butcher cows, and hold your ground and keep shooting until the monster’s dead.
He’s not drunk enough to have any excuse when he bursts out with, “How the hell did you survive?”
“Preacher,” Manuel says, shaking his head as he finishes his beer, “see choir.”
I didn’t, Dean silently tells the mouth of his bottle, swallowing the words with a mouthful of beer. He just waltzed in and is taking credit for it.
Having collected the bottles for the fourth (fifth? Sixth? How the fuck long has it been? It feels like weeks) time, he’s trying to decide if Manuel needs more drowning (he’d like to do some of that, come to think) when the front door opens and Mercedes comes in a flurry of cold wind and snow, cheeks burned red from cold and what he suspects was a dead run from the slaughterhouse.
Startled, Manuel puts down his beer and stands up, not quite steady. “I thought you were working until dawn.”
“Dina came in and took over,” she answers distractedly, shedding her hat and gloves on her way to Manuel, and Dean realizes it’s time to go. “She said—why didn’t you call me? Are you okay?”
Manuel’s expression crumples as Mercedes reaches him, and yeah, time to go. “Manuel,” he mouths, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair and gesturing to the door, hoping that’s enough. Going outside, he shuts the door firmly behind him, feeling the hit of cold to his toes, and suddenly wants to see Cas more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life.
He gets Joe at the foot of the steps, grinning up at him from beneath the heavy beard and thinks, not bad for second choice. “Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“Just came by to say Mercedes is on her way,” Joe says. “How the hell did she get here before me? I just talked to Dina on her way to take Mercedes’ shift.”
Dean snorts as he shrugs on his coat and comes down the steps, glancing up at the sky; the faint rainbow streaks seem faded, somehow, and while it’s not snowing now, there’s definitely a feeling more is coming. They’re almost out of time.
“You’re off-duty as of now, by the way; Cas’s order,” Joe says, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking smug. “Report to Headquarters, no stalking around the mortuary scaring the civilians.”
“You can tell Cas—”
“Did I mention Cas is also at Headquarters and probably in bed by now?” Dean blinks at him. “I ordered it and so it was done.”
“That worked?”
“No,” he admits. “But there’s nothing else for him to do and you’ve both been up since almost dawn. Anyi brought in two fresh teams to help with watching, so Mel’s team can split up and get some rest.” Joe shrugs. “Not that Kat’s done more than cry herself to sleep.”
So much for really, really belated infection or accidental shooting. What they need here is less well-trained trigger fingers, but that’s what he gets for assigning professionals. “Lucky her. Callisto out yet?”
“Cas cleared her and escorted her home,” Joe says with a fond smile, and all Dean can think is that once upon a time, Cas didn’t think he could be anything but Dean Winchester’s pet killer. Like Alicia thought she’d be beaten to death in her cabin or tortured to death by Dean if she didn’t say yes, and was probably right. Why would she think anything else; how many people died in Chitaqua before that attack on Vera and Cas? He doesn’t know their names either; some of them didn’t even get that much in Dean’s goddamn journal.
“Dean?”
“Human skills,” Dean says vaguely. “What about Cathy?”
“Only thing that exists for her is Del. Anyi already got what they’ll need from the infirmary, so it’s up to Cathy on when. Or when Del… you know.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets; yeah, he knows. “Alicia?”
“Anyi said she’s fine,” Joe answers slowly, and actually, Dean kind of does think he knows why Alicia stayed. “Dean, what’s she doing in there?’’
It could be anyone; that’s how this works. “They’re friends,” he says. “Were, anyway. Probably saying good-bye.” He feels Joe’s sharp look. “Anything on Mark?”
“Cas said he was out of surgery, didn’t know much else,” Joe says quietly, and Dean almost tells him to stop there. “I went over, see if Vera could tell me when he’d wake up. She was helping Dolores with one of the people from the North Gate, but I cornered Chess, and he said—all he knows is that things got dicey, but he’s stable now.”
“What does that mean?”
“He lost a lot of blood,” Joe says bluntly. “And he’s not the only one. Usha’s been taking donations at the YMCA, and she’s got all the volunteers she could want, but that took time. He couldn’t tell me anything else, so I guess we’ll find out more in the morning.”
Dean makes himself keep walking. “Drew?”
From the corner of his eye, he sees Joe’s shoulders relax. “Whoever did the original bandaging remembered their hunter first aid and it doesn’t look like blood flow was cut off to the limb or at least, not enough to be dangerous. Two hours and change isn’t great when we’re talking about a stab wound, but it’s not cataclysmic. Worst case scenario is some rehab—Dean, stop looking at your arm.”
Dean jerks his gaze up to glare up at Joe. “I was checking out the ground.”
“Amanda will work with him,” Joe says. “You taught her and Vera a lot about rehab after injuries, so thanks for that.”
Despite himself, he laughs. “Glad to be of help.”
“Our fearless leader,” Joe says fondly. “Going where no one wants to go first.”
“Phil?”
The pause is just long enough for Dean to know to brace himself. “He woke up. Just a couple of minutes. Reflexes working, responded to pressure on his big toe and fingers, responded to visual stimulus and sound, so—”
“Responded to sound?” Dean stops short, powdery snow puffing up around his boots. “What does that mean?”
Joe blows out a breath as he slowly turns around. “Valli said he responded to her voice when she said his name. But she wasn’t sure he understood her, or recognized his name. It’s too early to even guess, Valli was very clear about that,” he adds quickly, which tells Dean that he probably isn’t keeping the impassive leader expression he’s never bothered working on before; he should get on that. “What we got so far is really encouraging, which they also told me three times, in case you’re curious. Yes, it would have been great if he woke up asking what the hell just happened and saying his head hurt, but Kyle cracked his fucking skull; this is good news.”
Dean doesn’t trust his voice, so he nods.
“They moved him to Drew’s room; they need the space, and Sarah… was really into the idea. Valli says familiarity is good, and above all else, when he wakes up, he needs to be calm, and Sarah—well, she can do that.”
Sarah beat a Hellhound almost to death until it broke her rifle with the same emotional intensity she gives to breakfast; calm, she can do. Almost immediately, though, he remembers when she came to talk to him about Kat, her expression in the mortuary. At this moment, two of her team members are injured and the other one is waiting out quarantine before being taken into custody for murder and that’s just to start the list. “Should she be alone?”
“Yes,” Joe says firmly. “Sarah’s not a brooder, she’s a… processor.” Dean just avoids a really inappropriate robot joke; it’s so not the time (though from Joe’s expression, he’s thinking the same thing.) “She sorts out her own head first, and having Drew and Phil will help with that. Trust me, she will not welcome company right now.”
On a guess, that also means him. “Have Mel check on her when Kat-watch is done,” Dean says finally, and Joe nods approval, falling into step beside him as Dean starts walking again. “Speaking of—anything else I need to know about the prisoners?”
“I checked in with Rohan one last time before I came to get you. They’re going to continue questioning tomorrow when Naresh can handle it, and by that I mean, not likely to just push them out a window and be done with it. Solve a lot of problems that way.”
Christ, that’s tempting. “The volunteers at the North Gate weren’t Alliance, yeah.”
“Wouldn’t be better if they were, but at least there’d be procedure to deal with it, not that it’s ever been tested.” Joe shakes his head. “Rohan said they’ll collect Kat when the twelve hours are up.”
Dean nods, wondering if she’ll still be crying. Maybe cutting off her water would help with that; can’t be good for you to cry that much.
“By the way, Naresh gave permission for Chitaqua’s command—as in, me, you, Cas, or Vera—to see the prisoners. I talked to Kyle before Rohan put everyone to bed for the night. Alone, I mean.”
Dean concentrates on the snowy road. “What did he say?”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Pretty much exactly the answer he expected. “To hear him talk, Micah did it all when it wasn’t Carol, and not saying Carol’s not a competent fucking sociopath, but it’d be a trick to do some of it from a wheelchair.”
Dean thinks of Bobby, then of Cas’s missions with Bobby here. “You’d be surprised what a person can do from a wheelchair.”
“Not her first time in one,” Joe concedes. “Anyway, they did everything except the parts everyone knows he did, and even then—”
“Let me guess: Phil went for his gun and he didn’t mean to hit him that hard but… he didn’t try ‘self-defense,’ did he?”
“Close enough,” Joe says shortly, and way too late, he realizes how much Joe wanted extenuating circumstances here. Sure, Kyle’s a dick—and since he wasn’t at that confrontation with Erica, he doesn’t even know the entire scope—but two years and change fighting together does mean something, the way Dean’s few months just doesn’t. Christ, compared to Kyle, Joe barely knows him.
“It could have been any of them,” he offers to Joe’s tight-lipped silence; from what he heard, Joelle and Jeremy weren’t sure in the confusion what went wrong in the hall or who shot Mark or Gary. Mark might know, but they can’t count on that; between the confusion, blood loss, and anesthesia, his memory might not be reliable. There’s Alison, of course, but that will have to wait a few days (if they have them, Christ), and how much she can find out depends a lot on how everyone involved defines ‘truth.’ “What else did he say?”
“One thing I do believe,” Joe says. “He was in this to get rid of Micah. To save us, he said; to get Alicia back and save us in the bargain, he meant.”
“He say anything about Alicia?”
“Other than asking about her and wanting me to take her a message?” Joe rolls his eyes. “I said fuck no to both, Dean; I’m not an idiot. She doesn’t deserve that bullshit.”
An image from outside Ichabod flashes through his mind: Erica on one side, Micah on the other, Kyle in waiting, like a trifecta of Alicia’s own personal hell. Bargaining for her, talking at her, fighting over her like dogs with a bone, but even looking straight at her, he doesn’t think, even once, that any of them actually saw her. No fucking wonder Cas said Alicia would never sell her soul; he’d be fucking surprised she even thought of it as her own to sell.
“Dean?”
“Keep going,” he says, trying not to think of Alicia in that room with Cathy. “I gotta hear what Kyle thought was going on.”
“I read Naresh’s notes before I talked to him, and it’s pretty consistent. Kyle’s claiming that last night, he and Kat and Carol came up with a plan to trade Micah to Erica to save us. Which is interesting that he found out last night—”
“Since Erica didn’t threaten us until this morning, yeah.”
“And we didn’t get Micah until after that. To be fair, it wasn’t a secret that Micah said Erica was here looking for him, and Carol could confirm,” Joe says. “He admitted he was pretty drunk.”
“And he didn’t wonder why Cathy was involved?”
Joe makes a sound not unlike Yiddish when growled (or maybe just a growl). “He says he thought she was just doing it for community spirit—yeah, seriously—but he knew about her kid. I think he knew she and Kat were planning to deal with Erica, but he might have assumed they were going to trade Micah or something.”
“Or just didn’t care.” Joe nods grimly. “Think he would have gotten a clue when Kat gave Micah a weapon.”
“Yeah, that part apparently surprised him.”
“You don’t say?”
“He said they threatened him,” Joe continues, suddenly sounding tired, and right: for all he knows, maybe they used to be friends. Bonds of comradeship and defying death together over years, all that. “The other thing we’re still hazy on is what happened at the North Gate. Jeremy and Joelle were in the second jeep with Carol holding a gun on them and Cathy driving, and Kyle was in the other one with Micah and Kat. Cathy got out to help, but they couldn’t see what was going on, and not like she reported when she got back.”
“And Carol’s not talking.”
“She’s not stupid,” Joe says bitterly. “Going to warn you now; it’s gonna get out—if it hasn’t already—that Carol and Micah were former members of Chitaqua. My money’s on the Idiots Two; someone had to be helping those rumors along for them to spread that fast.”
“They do take orders well. I wonder if they’re still here?”
Joe frowns. “What?”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but Carol managed to get a lot of shit done in between surgery, mourning Andy, recruiting Kat, Kyle, and Cathy, and almost dying of gangrene. Gotta give her credit; she didn’t fuck around.” Joe looks struck. “And assuming Erica was telling the truth—and surprise, I believe her—someone had to kill those people who didn’t take the deal. You got other suspects, tell me now; at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised by anyone.”
“The Idiots Two,” Joe says in a voice that makes Dean look at him worriedly. “Here’s a thought: I can see some of the refugees going with a Crossroads deal, but why the hell would you just take the word of two guys you never met before and merrily follow them up to a blindspot on the wall to crawl down to do the deed? There’s desperate and stupid and then there’s a Darwin waiting to happen.”
Dean hasn’t met the Idiots Two—Christ, what are their names again?—but he just doesn’t think they had that kind of… “When did Carol get a chance to even talk to Erica? She was attacked by a Hellhound on the way here, and I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have happened if she’d already made a deal.”
“Micah said he changed his mind about trading Alicia when he saw her outside the walls,” Joe says. “What do you want to bet that Micah went straight to Carol when he bravely escaped the Croats and told her just that?”
“That would explain her mood.” And her anger at Alicia, Jesus. “That’s why he did it; easy way to get Carol to do his dirty work. Micah took Erica’s offer to Carol that night or vice-versus; thirty people to deal. Betting the Idiots Two were one and two, and Christ, I’d love to know what they got from her if it wasn’t getting the fuck out of town.”
“Invisibility?” Joe’s expression darkens. “So she needed twenty-seven more if we count them and her; she didn’t know about Cathy and Kat yet and she only had two nights, and that includes the night Micah talked to Erica for her. She’s in the infirmary, can’t get out and recruit souls, and that’s a chancy business at the best of times, so…”
“They came to her. Visitors,” Dean says, stopping short. “I thought—Vera said she refused to see them.”
“Refused to see them when anyone was watching,” Joe says slowly. “Dean, no one’s come forward from her town.”
“How many—”
“They came in two groups, but it couldn’t have been more than a hundred, tops.” Joe’s mouth works silently. “There were kids.”
Which would be a very good reason to make a deal. “Joe, hold up. We don’t know—”
“You think of another way she could get that many people that fast?” Joe interrupts hotly. “She was protecting that town! They carried her here on their own goddamn backs after the Hellhound…” Joe’s voice trails off. “Meet the Idiots Two by the Wall at midnight and all your problems will go away. No, she probably split them up; someone would have noticed a hundred people suddenly going for a late night walk—”
“Not all of them would have gone.”
“Sure they would have,” Joe answers flatly. “She didn’t tell them what it would cost and no one came back to warn those coming.”
Dean looks for a flaw and can’t find one. The town has upwards of twenty thousand people; even if a group was noticed, they’ve been moving people around to new quarters every time another building is cleared for use, and the refugees are working with Ichabod’s crews night and day making that happen. Twenty, thirty people with kids and whatever bags they brought with them wouldn’t get anyone’s attention, maybe especially with kids; they’d assume they were moving to another building.
“She was protecting that town!” Joe snaps, turning on him, and he sees the faint glitter of tears. “They trusted her, and she sold them to Erica. For Micah! Who the fuck does that?”
Dean starts to laugh before he realizes he’s even going to do it. “She’s from Chitaqua,” he chokes out. “That’s what we do.”
“What—”
“What, you didn’t notice?” he continues, swallowing back more laughter; seriously, what the fuck, Joe? “Going gets tough, we sell souls, doesn’t even have to be our own. Friends, enemies, teammates, whoever’s closest, I guess, we’re not picky. Christ, we do it better than Crossroads; I should have asked Crowley about that.”
Joe’s expression dissolves into worry. “Dean, come on—”
“Look at our track record; Erica, Stanley, Terry, and Luke did round one, and everyone thought it was such a good idea that we got round two with Micah, Carol, Kat, Kyle, Barney, Stephen… Doesn’t that make you wonder? Like, who isn’t making a deal with the devil?”
“No,” Joe says quietly. “I don’t.”
“Sure you do, every day. Détente, it works, right?” Joe takes a step toward him. “How many people were at Cas’s cabin that night, Joe? You lived in the camp for almost three years and never thought about the odds you were friends with one of ‘em? Spoiler: you are.”
“Dean—”
“Can’t judge ‘em too hard, though,” Dean adds, hand aching, clenched to cramping around nothing. “They were just following tradition, after all, started by your fearless leader!”
The words are out of his mouth and hovering in the air between them before he realizes what he just said. And he doesn’t care.
“Said it yourself,” Dean says breathlessly. “Going where no one else wants to go first.”
“You…” Joe stops. “You didn’t—you wouldn’t…”
“Why?” he asks bitterly. “You think me and Erica are all that different? Sweetheart, you have no fucking idea. Taught her how to torture demons for fun and profit when she was still human; where do you think I learned that?” Joe’s eyes widen. “Or didn’t you know that part? Surprise.”
“No,” Joe says, shaking his head. “I know you—”
“What, a couple of months hanging out and suddenly you think we’re friends or something? You don’t know me!” Dean shouts. “You’ve never even met me!”
Even this late at night, Ichabod’s noise level is only subdued, but right now, there’s not a sound; despite the white puffs in front of his face, he can’t even hear himself breathe.
“One question,” Joe says in a deceptively even voice. “How much longer on your contract?”
He licks numb lips, feeling lightheaded. “I don’t have one. Not anymore, anyway. It’s been a while.”
Joe nods sharply and turns toward headquarters. “We should get back.”
“Joe—”
“Unless there’s something else, sir.”
That would be what a punch feels like in five words. “No.”
When they reach Headquarters, Joe takes off for the mess. Through the open door, Dean makes out Laura with Kamal and Leah on one of the broken down sofas that came from God knows where during Andy’s wake. Like the pro he is, Joe crouches to talk to her, taking her hands in his, and over her head, Kamal’s eyes meet his. Turning away, he makes it up the stairs and down the hall, mind blank as he takes the back stairs to the third floor. Reaching the door, he jerks it open and walks out into—
“Fuck no,” Dean says into the echoing silence, checking behind him; no surprise the goddamn door’s gone. “Really not the time, whoever the fuck you are.” Or were, he guesses.
Annoyed, he watches the nearest walls, but no frescos appear, and looking around, he realizes the couch and blankets are gone, too. The white walls stay blank, the endless field of marble columns is still endless, but he can’t shake the feeling something’s off. Even the silence feels different—there’s a weight to it, pushing at him, like it’s trying to shove him out.
Then he looks up and stills; those thousands and thousands of stars are fading. He’s pretty sure half of them are gone entirely.
“Okay, where are you?” he asks finally, unnerved, and starts to walk, unable to stop himself from checking behind every column he passes (like she’s hiding there or something), looking at every bare, featureless plaster wall (for crazy paintings of sad women from mythology), but nothing changes. Eventually, he loses sight of the walls entirely, lost in a forest of columns set with mathematical precision beneath a ceiling (sky?) devoid of half its light
It’s not like he needs more paintings to tell him how those stories end, though; only Demeter wasn’t fucked entirely, just mostly, and she was a goddess. Mortals don’t make out so well when it comes to games the gods play; even when you win, you still lose. Clytemnestra got seven years and three more kids before her son showed up to avenge his asshole father’s death (his sister’s murder didn’t seem to bother him much, though); Hecuba went crazy after seeing the bodies of her kids; and Medea was turned into a hag, but hey, she got a chariot and a dragon from her granddad, so there’s that. What’s the life lesson here, folks? Revenge is bad, gods are worse, don’t combine the two; I bet that helped Cassandra a fucking lot. Justice: you’re kidding, right? Where was the justice in what happened to them; where were the fucking gods when their lives were destroyed? Demeter should have let the fucking world burn; hey, how about letting Medea help?
He’s not sure how long he’s walking, marking his progress by columns: twenty, thirty, fifty, five hundred with no end in sight. The massive ceiling remains half-dark, its vastness like the stretch of a dying universe; he hears Cas say, like he’s right beside him: they’ve been known to eat galaxies.
“What am I doing here?” he says finally (to the air, the columns, the weight of death; that’s what it is, that’s what this feels like. It feels like death, like the one he shouldn’t have escaped).
“It’s not my doing,” a voice snaps, and turning around, he sees her standing a few feet away, looking as unnerved as he feels, and tries not to feel relieved she’s okay. The dark hair is pulled back into a coronet around her head, and though her dress and jewels reflect that of a Roman noblewoman, the color’s all wrong, a dusty grey just edging into dull charcoal before his eyes. Opals at her throat and wrists flicker in faint, sickly green and dull blue, veins of angry red more prominent. “I—”
“I wish you good journey, Germanica,” Cornelia says, and they’re standing on a grassy rise only a few feet away from a loaded litter, travel wagons already winding down the road. Looking around, he recognizes Cornelia’s villa in Misenum, then his entire attention is on the woman Cornelia’s speaking to, because wow.
“I appreciate your hospitality,” she answers in a rich, carrying voice that matches the nearly six feet in height. That’s not all that makes her striking, though; the thick mass of black hair is styled into thin locks barely the thickness of a needle and swept up in a thick chignon wound with strands of gold above a face that could be a model for a statue of Venus, the clear, flawless skin a few shades darker than Mira’s. It takes him a minute to wonder if he’s imagining the glow, but a glance down reveals the discrete mound of her belly beneath the fawn traveling robes: okay, then.
“And yet, I cannot entreat you to take more,” Cornelia complains. “Whatever is lacking? I will remedy it.”
Germanica laughs, shaking her head. “Nothing is wanting but my husband’s house and my own bed for my confinement,” she answers, patting her belly. “A second son, I’m sure of it; that gives us two of each, and Titus Annius and I have agreed that will fulfill our duty.”
“Four children in seven years, I’d say so,” Cornelia answers, tipping her head thoughtfully, and following her gaze, Dean sees three kids chasing each other around the yard.
A ten year old boy and nine year old girl—both the image of Germanica right down to the large, liquid brown eyes that are gonna break the hearts of a lot of Roman teenagers in a few years—and a brown haired, brown eyed, olive skinned girl with the look of Cornelia that he realizes must be baby Sempronia. Not so much a baby anymore: about nine or ten, he thinks, measuring her against the kids at the daycare. She’d been about one when they’d left Rome, Germanica was still a widow, so eight or nine years, got it. Near another litter, he sees two women handing up a pair of sleepy three year olds, and through the open curtains, another woman is visible holding an infant. Dean does the math twice (that’s more than four, not counting the one not here yet) then remembers that Germanica had two kids with her first husband. On a guess, that meeting between Annius and Germanica went pretty well.
“I bear easily,” Germanica says with a shrug as another woman joins them; not a servant from her elegant dress and cork-heeled sandals to neatly dressed light brown hair and the way she carries herself. Maybe a friend or cousin, he thinks hazily as she addresses both women with the ease of a noblewoman talking to her equals.
“We’re almost ready,” she says, then turns a jaundiced eye to Germanica. “And you should not be on your feet so much.”
“Exercise is healthful, Cassia,” Germanica answers, and he sees Cornelia bring out her straight face with an effort. A nurse crosses behind Germanica with two of the kids looking cranky and he sees another woman leading a disconsolate little Sempronia away.
“Standing about in all the dust,” she answers severely, and Dean’s not surprised that no one points out there’s no dust or even a breeze to make some happen.
“So Titus Annius will join you before your confinement?” Cornelia asks.
“He insists on being present, yes,” Germanica agrees with a fond sigh. “I sent him word of my arrival; he’ll doubtless precede me and already have annoyed the midwife with a thousand questions she’s answered twice already and at each other birthing. I’ve suggested he write down her answers, but he cares not for practicality. Do offer my apologies to Publius Rutilius when you see him; I suspect he was chief confidante.”
“I shall miss your company excessively,” Cornelia says. “Send me word of your safe delivery; I will make offerings until I hear you are well.”
“Thank you.” The two women embrace, then Germanica turns to Cassia with a smile that Dean needs absolutely no time to interpret: that kind of friend. As one of the men lifts Germanica into the litter and Cassia after her, Cornelia keeps her smile, watching the litters start down the road until they vanish in the near distance.
The smile falls away, and Dean takes a second to blink at the realization that Cornelia is old: near eighty at least. As she goes back inside, the erect carriage remains, but something else—something more fundamental—is gone.
Then he realizes he’s staring at a closed door and this isn’t a picture; to his relief, his companion seems stumped by this, too.
“I guess we—go inside?” she says, and looking around the quiet countryside, he’s got to agree. He’s not entirely surprised they don’t need to open the door to get inside, but he tries not to think about it too hard or he might wonder how they can still walk on the ground and not—yeah, don’t think about it. It’s not like this made sense before.
Luckily, villas are pretty much basic as far as layout, and after a few seconds of wondering where Cornelia went, voices lead them to a light, airy sitting room, where he sees Sempronia, looking about a hundred times better than she did in Rome, reading at a small table. In the privacy of the villa, the braided hair, brown shot with silver grey streaks starting at the temples and winding through the whole, is wound in a thick knot at the back of her head. The simple country dress suits her better than the more elaborate dresses they wore in Rome, and he notices there’s ink on it (and on her nose).
She’s not a Licinia or a Germanica (or Sappho), no, but the sharp intelligence and faintly sardonic humor in her face make him think she would have been fun to hang out with. The kind of girl you meet in a bar, knows your job on a glance, mocks your pick-up lines, then drinks you under the table while telling you all the best gossip about the other patrons and exactly the information you needed to know. If you’re lucky—and interesting enough—she takes you home for one hell of a night and tells you at dawn to either get out or make breakfast already.
(You make her breakfast, obviously. Those were his favorite kind of jobs.)
Beside a low sofa, a servant sits, reading from a scroll, and coming closer, Dean sees someone lying on it, wrapped in woolen blankets despite the warm day. It takes him a second too long to recognize the shrunken figure; it’s Claudia.
He’s seen enough death to know the signs, even the non-violent kind; the dark eyes seem to swallow her face, sunken and red-rimmed in a face so pale her skin seems almost transparent, like life is barely clinging beneath. As the maid finishes, rolling up the scroll, Claudia opens her eyes. “Bithy?”
“It’s time, dominilla,” she says softly, and Dean winces at the flash of fear on Claudia’s face.
“Surely not yet,” Claudia whispers, a faint, sickly color staining her thin cheeks. “Another hour, perhaps…” Her eyes fly to Sempronia, whose frown vanishes into carefully manufactured attention. “Sempronia, please. Another hour?”
“Surely another hour can’t do any harm,” Sempronia says, eyes flickering to Bithy.
“Domina ordered it at this hour,” Bithy says apologetically. “We must prepare for the—her treatment.”
Sempronia looks conflicted but finally nods. “Let me call Felix to help you, Claudia,” she says, turning away from the tears streaming silently down Claudia’s face. When a man appears—Felix?—Claudia shuts her eyes, turning her head away as he bows to Sempronia.
“Take my sister to her cubicle,” she says, watching as he goes to the couch, bowing to Claudia before lifting her from her servant’s arms with infinite gentleness. “Please tell Messina to see to Claudia’s comfort. Bithy, a moment, please.”
He nods, cradling Claudia like she’s made of glass, and Sempronia waits until they’re gone before turning back to the maid. “I have seen her little over the last few weeks. Has she eaten today?”
“She refused the morning meal and took only bread and water at midday, domina.”
Sempronia frowns. “She does not grow better despite Emet’s treatment.” Bithy shakes her head, eyes dropping at Sempronia’s frown. “When will Emet see her?”
“In an hour, domina.”
“I see. Go to my sister now.” She nods dismissal, and Bithy makes a quick, relieved obeisance before withdrawing. Taking a deep breath, she returns to the small desk and picks up the pen, passing it between her fingers with a frown.
Then Sappho comes in, carrying several sheets of unrolled paper, and Dean can’t help thinking country life really agrees with her, too. A couple of inches taller—probably about Sempronia’s height or so—she’s out of her teens and it shows; Dean feels a lot less creepy staring at her.
“I know,” his companion murmurs huskily, and Dean throws her a curious look.
“Are you into women?” he asks. “Or were, I guess.”
“Dean, look at her,” she answers incredulously, and yeah. “I really don’t think it matters.”
“Your mother is with the steward,” Sappho says as she places the papers before Sempronia, and Dean doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Sempronia looks at her when she bends over, just a little too long (and if she’s not, she should). “I could only read half, so I copied as best I could a sentence from each so you could identify it.” She pulls up a stool as Sempronia picks up the first paper. “Where is Claudia?”
“Her treatment with Emet begins soon,” Sempronia answers distractedly, looking down at the papers. “Etrurian, looks like one of those endless mystic ramblings of a very high ascetic, we’ve no shortage of those. Hebrew, that I expected: my grandfather was popular with the Jewish population of Rome, studied with several of their rabbis, I’ll have that added that to your studies—Aramaic, Avestan, Persian, Nubian, Bantu—remind me to thank Germanica, her great-grandmother was of their most powerful tribe—and I’ll need to check my references for this one. And this…” She scans the page quickly, murmuring to herself. “I wish I didn’t know your penmanship flawless so I might ask if these are words or simply ink blots in random order.”
“It was on the scroll on the third frame,” Sappho says, and he sees Sempronia’s eyes sharpen as Sappho shifts uncomfortably in place.
“Third frame?” Sempronia sits back. “I’ve only ever seen two.”
“She added a third.” Sappho hesitates. “I saw that scroll in her trunk. It came a few months ago, I think.”
“How can you tell it is the same one?”
Sappho hesitates again. “Its case was made of iron with many locks, and the—material of the scroll is distinctive. I know not what it is, but I liked it not even rolled in her chest. Like fine leather, but not. Where it came from, I don’t know.”
“The answer to that is ‘anywhere’; my mother’s acquaintance is vast,” Sempronia answers in exasperation, sitting back. “Alexandria isn’t the only library in the world, only the largest. We’ll need to check again; at least for those from Alexandria, the Librarian surely sent a reference we can use. Even my mother cannot learn a language from staring at it until it reveals its secrets to her will.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Sappho murmurs, which earns her a snort from Sempronia that he takes as agreement. “We have had no recent correspondence from Rome.”
“I’m aware,” Sempronia says with an acidic edge. “Not since their last very regretful refusal.”
“On a guess,” Dean says to his companion, “that’s the Senate refusing to fix the nefas thing.”
“Yes,” she agrees bleakly. “It won’t be fixed, Dean. I tried, too, but even half a century after their deaths, the Senate held a grudge against the Gracchi. Caesar Pontifex Maximus meant to do it once he became Dictator, but he was assassinated before he could complete his work. I sometimes wonder…”
He waits, but she frowns into the distance. “What?”
“Caesar came from a long-lived patrician family, and his mind only sharpened with age. As to be expected: he was descended from the gods and they do love their own.”
Now that’s interesting. “What gods?”
“Venus, for one.”
“You’re telling me the greatest general in history was descended from the goddess of love?” Dean asks incredulously.
She grins at him. “One of your modern scribblers, I forget the name—did he not say all is fair in love and war?” He gives her a doubtful look (yeah, he knows the quote, fine). “Well, we certainly don’t go to war for vague liking, Dean. Love of money, power, position, property, self—”
“Hating the other people?”
“Hatred is what you kill for,” she answers, smile fading. “Love is what you die for. The first can get you on the field, but the second is the only thing that can keep you there.”
“What are all of these?” Sappho asks, and reluctantly, Dean turns his attention back to the room. “I wrote what I saw, but understanding it…”
“It’s not you,” Sempronia answers wryly. “There are treatises on mysticism, mythology, philosophy, theology, natural law, the enlightenments of those taking questionable psychedelics…” She frowns. “The last time she was so obsessed…”
“Before your brother Gaius was murdered,” Sappho says very softly, and Sempronia nods. “What did she do then?”
“Much as she does now; locked herself within her tabilium with all of her books. Even Cardixa could not coax her to leave for more than the necessary,” Sempronia answers. “She refused entrance to any for two nights and two days; I was on the brink of ordering the door broken open when she emerged, and she looked…” Sempronia meets Sappho’s eyes. “She said only that Gaius was dead before retiring to her room with Cardixa.”
“Before the messengers came?” Sempronia nods. “Has she the Sight?”
“No more than a touch, if that,” Sempronia answers ruefully. “My mother is a true Cornelia; even a true Seeing of the end of the world could not distract them from their studies. No, it was something else, and to this day I know not what.”
Sappho’s eyes flicker over the scrolls on the table. “Did the servants mention anything unusual when they cleaned the tabilium after she left? Do you remember?”
“The altar had a burnt offering,” she answers with a shrug. “That means little: it was consecrated to no god and therefore to them all. I assumed it was for Gaius’s safe return, but when they came to me for permission to dispose of it, I remember being surprised at how sparse the ashes.”
“Were there markings on the altar?”
Sempronia frowns, nodding slowly. “There were, yes. It needed a thorough cleansing: wax and streaks of soot,” she answers, eyes narrowing. “Which was odd in itself. The soot—”
“Wasn’t on the altar, but around it, like the wax,” Sappho says unexpectedly, and Dean takes a step toward her, knowing exactly what she’s thinking. “I know your memory excellent; can you remember what the markings looked like?”
“Of course.” Taking a pen, Sempronia dips it in the ink, neatly scraping the excess on the side before turning over a scroll and making a quick sketch. “Something like this.”
Sappho’s mouth tightens before drawing a quick finger across the still-wet ink, smearing the lines, but Dean saw enough to recognize it. “Not a burnt offering: a summoning.”
Sempronia stiffens. “Why would you think of that?”
At the sound of footsteps, Sappho jumps to her feet, and Sempronia quickly bundles up the papers into neat scrolls while Sappho seats herself among the book buckets at Sempronia’s feet.
“I see you are industrious,” Cornelia says in amusement from the door, and Dean watches as Sempronia casually hands over the newly made scrolls for Sappho to place in a half-empty bucket. “Dare I ask?”
“I was reviewing Sappho in her demotic Egyptian,” Sempronia says as the last of the papers vanish into the bucket. Reaching for another scroll, she rolls it open. “Sappho, if you will: we found this one educational.”
Sappho stands up gracefully and takes it as Cornelia seats herself on a low couch and looks at them attentively. “’Lo, he wept bitter tears at their parting, but his duty and desire were clear; the Swamp beckoned him like the most jealous of mistresses. Her rounded curves, vanishing into the slick depths, commanded his attention; her wide eyes demanded his presence; her wide mouth his obedience; her smooth, moon-ripe—’”
“Ripe?” Sempronia asks while Dean experiences something like existential horror. “Are you certain?”
“So it says,” Sappho confirms, glancing down. “To continue: ‘her smooth, moon-ripe flesh begged for the application of a gentle hand or perhaps—he dreamed—an inquisitive tongue to offer worship—’” She stops, widening her eyes innocently at Cornelia’s expression. “My command is still faulty, but I do not think he’s describing the true form of either god, godling, or Messenger, and I doubt they would take as vessel a—”
“Don’t say it,” Cornelia breathes, and Dean wonders glumly if they worked out what the fuck happened with him and Anael. God help him, he wishes he could ask. They could really use a second opinion. “Where did you find that?”
“Passing strange: in a hidden corner of the cubicle in which you store your clothing, domina,” Sappho answers. “In a box surrounded by herbs to ward off evil.” Cornelia’s still lost in horror when Sappho turns her attention back to the scroll. “’He wades into the swamp, the water skimming up his well-formed thighs to his hips as if she drew him closer with her own…” Sappho frowns. “Trotters? Is that the word?”
“Close that, burn it, and bury it beneath the next new moon,” Cornelia orders hoarsely. “And we shall never speak of this again.”
“Domina, I do not mean to criticize such elevated text, but what—exactly—does he think he can do with a—”
Sempronia wheezes, head dropping into her arms on the table.
“Give me that,” Cornelia orders, and hiding a smile, Sappho demurely crosses to her chair and hands it over. Cornelia glances at the text for a moment and shudders before rolling it shut. “It’s a metaphor.”
Sappho nods agreement. “Then I would like to ask, domina: a metaphor for what?”
Dean spares a glance at Sempronia and grins; she has her head buried in her arms on the table and her shoulders are shaking. Much better than she was in Rome: he kind of thinks, from the way Cornelia looks at her, amused and annoyed and surprised pleasure all three, that she might be better than she’s been in a while. Maybe years.
“I don’t know and care not to imagine,” Cornelia says firmly. “On a different subject: we should expect Publius by midsummer. Inform the steward so that his suite is prepared and the cook sends to market so we may have the means to make his favorite dishes. Also, a suite for a guest.”
Sempronia lifts her head, face still red, but Sappho gets in first with a wrinkled nose, saying, “Not another husband?”
“Ye gods,” Cornelia mutters, motioning Sappho to a stool as Sempronia rises to join her mother on the low couch. “No, we shall not be charmed to misery by another one who counts Nia’s dowry and the years I have left to live. Which are admittedly few.”
“Such nonsense,” Sappho states, frowning. “You are of excellent health and sound of limb: he may wait a score of years in vain.”
Cornelia bites her lip and exchanges a look with Sempronia. “Be that as it may—”
“I have liked none of them,” Sappho continues with a sense of injury. “Encroaching, forward, I would even call them crass in their unwelcome attentions. Certainly not worthy of Nia, whose great-grandfather conquered Carthage and should have done the same to Africa if but given a chance.”
“Those native to the continent were content with their own rulers,” Cornelia answers, straight faced. “We have contracted alliances with many of them, and it is rude indeed to declare war on friends and allies.”
“They offer excellent trade and have armies that rival our own,” Sempronia interprets sweetly. “A friend is but an enemy too strong to conquer, Sappho: remember it.”
Cornelia sighs but doesn’t correct her, and Sappho asks, “Would that be why these noblemen want to call you friend so very much they won’t leave until your assurances are given?”
“Well done,” Sempronia praises. “That would be it.”
“You’re both incorrigible,” Cornelia says, then straightens, eyes flickering to the door, and it’s not hard to guess where she wants to be. “I should return to my work.”
Sempronia doesn’t lose her smile. “Your scholarly pursuits do consume you. Have you discovered anything of interest?”
“So far, little,” she answers casually. Almost absently, her hand goes to her chest, rubbing lightly. “I think—”
“What did Emet say?” Sempronia asks abruptly.
Cornelia frowns. “About what?”
“When you told him of the tightness you are experiencing in your chest when you breathe.”
Cornelia stiffens, meeting her daughter’s eyes.
“You haven’t told him.” Drained of animation, Cornelia’s face shows her age again. “Let me accompany you to do so.”
“It’s age, Sempronia,” Cornelia says dismissively, reaching to cover Sempronia’s hands with one of her own: the skin is parchment thin over the fine bones, bare of jewelry. “Even he cannot stop time, and I have very little left.”
“Mater—”
“If I have two years, it will be more than I expect,” Cornelia interrupts. “That should be time enough, I hope.”
“For what?” Sempronia asks, and Cornelia looks away. “Mater?”
A light rapping interrupts them, and with a suppressed look of relief, Cornelia pulls away. “Come.”
A tall woman appears, expression forbidding, and Dean recognizes her as the one that was carrying little Sempronia outside. “Nia refuses her dinner and insists on debating the matter.”
“I will—” Sempronia starts.
“I will see to her,” Cornelia says with a fond smile, rising to her feet.
“You mean, spoil her,” Sempronia says wryly, but the dark gaze is sharp.
“What else is a grandmother for?” She nods to Sappho when she starts to rise. “Continue your studies with Sempronia, child; I have no need of you. I’ll be in my tabilium after I see to Nia. Germanica’s visit was very welcome, but I missed several days of study and I have much to do.”
Sempronia waits until Cornelia leaves before turning her attention to the scrolls. As Sappho starts to gather them, Sempronia says abruptly, “Have you the Sight?” Sappho freezes, a scroll falling from abruptly limp fingers to roll against Sempronia’s feet. “Why did you not tell me?”
“I do not understand—”
“Your Latin is impeccable,” Sempronia interrupts, crouching to retrieve it. “You have nothing to fear; the Sight is given to many. It’s epidemic in the old patrician families; the Fabia and Julia alone produce—Sappho?” Sappho’s face is almost grey, eyes wide with the hunted look of a terrified animal. Sempronia’s expression changes. “I never asked; your mother, had she your beauty? Do you remember?”
Sappho looks up, white lips trembling. “What?” Then, voice thready, “Far more so. She—she was called a siren by some.”
“She must have fetched a very high price,” Sempronia continues. “Surprising that you were separated when you were sold. A beautiful woman with a beautiful child would be an irresistible combination: easily triple the price. By now, she would have bought her freedom and become a famous courtesan; I wonder now that I never heard of her.”
“She was not sold at auction,” Sappho says roughly. “She was crucified with the men when the Romans came.”
“Witchcraft, of course,” Sempronia mutters in disgust. “That would be the only reason any Roman general would forego such a fortune as she would make for him. Superstitious idiot: doubtless a provincial. They’re all old women before they discard the bulla of childhood, raised on stories of capricious crones spoiling milk and stealing manhood.”
Color returns to Sappho’s face. “How did you—”
“How you spoke of that scroll, for one. For another, you mentioned summoning and recognized the signs; that is impossible in Rome proper and nearly so in most of the provinces under our rule. Few if any who practice would even think of trying and so wouldn’t know what to look for. You were your mother’s apprentice, I assume? If you had the Sight, she would have started you early. She must have taught you of that.”
Hands knotted in her lap, Sappho nods jerkily, eyes fixed on Sempronia in morbid fascination. “Yes, she—she did.”
“A mother’s duty, she did well there.” Sempronia studies Sappho intently. “If I’d known, I would have reassured you before: no fault in you, Sappho, it’s our duty to see to our dependents, and Mater hasn’t the time. After that, you had good reason to remain silent on the subject, but know this; there’s no reason to be afraid. It’s rare to prosecute a witch, even in Rome proper, and there’s certainly no evil in magic itself, only what it is purposed to do. You’ve lived here long enough to know that; we trade with the local practitioners regularly, and Emet is an Egyptian priest and practices as well in honor of his gods. What happened to your mother was unusual—and ridiculous—but—”
“You do not know it all,” Sappho whispers, visibly bracing herself. “She sank the ships they would take.”
“So superstitious sailors may have said—and a Roman general believed them? I feel unwell—but that doesn’t make it true.”
Sappho shakes her head. “What you described is a form of summoning, yes, but my mother’s teaching was not the only reason I recognized it. My mother used something like it to call a—a being that wore a living human body as one does their own clothes and trapped its animus within.” Sempronia’s eyes widen. “She traded her Self to it for the power to manipulate the realm of Father Neptune and cause ships to flounder so their men could take them.”
“You saw this with your own eyes?” Sempronia asks, coming closer. “How many summers had you?”
Sappho licks her lips, looking at Sempronia pleadingly. “Three. I lied to your mother when she asked my age; I had seen seven summers when the Romans came.” Sempronia nods, expression unchanged. “The Sight—it came to me early. She had me confirm what she summoned was what she sought. I know not what it was—”
“Describe what you saw.”
“It spoke as men and walked as men, but it was—it was unclean,” Sappho whispers in revulsion. “It’s face blackened and burned to char—and the brightness of the animus was trapped within it, unable to escape.”
“A demon,” Sempronia spits. “In Greece, no less: have the fools learned nothing? I would not have thought—but the coasts are not well mapped, and poverty leads to desperation. Demons are a match for any Roman lawyer when it comes to bending natural law; if a single crossroad was neglected…” She shakes her head, turning her attention back to Sappho. “You could see it, within the body? And the animus held captive?”
Sappho nods, horror stark on her face. Sempronia abruptly drops to her knees, careless of crumpling her skirts, and takes Sappho’s hands in hers.
“I do not hold you responsible for your mother’s actions, child.” Sappho’s expression changes briefly, a flicker of—something—at ‘child’ that vanishes as Sempronia continues. “What your mother did was an abomination, not what she was, and you bear no responsibility for her actions at all. As for what you are—only you can decide that. Not your ancestry.”
Sappho tries to smile “How—how un-Roman of you, Sempronia; you know ancestry is everything to a Roman.”
“Germanica’s great-grandfather was leader of his tribe and he allied with Rome against Carthage due to their aggression against his people; we called them barbarians, but that didn’t make it true. He was a fearsome warrior, yes, but that was the least of what he was; he was a skilled general, a gifted statesman and orator, and a famous scholar, who did his duty bravely and with mercy and justice, a worthy son, father, protector, and leader. He and my grandfather were great friends and companions to their deaths; he and his children were granted the citizenship and climbed the cursus honorum to the very consulship on the strength of their character and merits—”
“And a great deal of Cornelian money and influence,” Sappho says, looking startled at herself. “Or so they say.”
Sempronia grins. “What’s more Roman than that? You met Germanica; she is everything a Roman noblewoman should be, no less than my mother. My husband was a Roman born of the most august lineage, patrician on both sides, a respected scholar and a great general, but he spent the lives of Roman men like water and betrayed his family and friends as suited his ambitions. He was not fit for the Cornelii Germanicii to wipe their feet upon. Ancestry is to be respected, but only in those who prove worthy of it; otherwise, it is less than nothing.”
Sappho searches Sempronia’s face. “You’re—you’re not afraid?”
“Of what?”
Sappho takes a deep breath. “Me.”
“No, not at all.” Sempronia wets her lips. “Of what my mother may be doing? Yes, especially if you’re correct about what was on the altar. However, we can dismiss a successful summoning, at least; the Lares would never permit it here, especially this close to Rome.”
“Demons are not the only thing one can summon,” Sappho argues, her hands curling into Sempronia’s. “The Lares have no power over beings greater than they.”
Sempronia makes a face. “I don’t say my mother would not attempt to summon a god—I can’t think of a single reason she wouldn’t if she could but find a way—but as she still lives and is not mad, I think we can safely say that it didn’t work.”
“What if it was something else?”
She stills, eyes fixed on Sappho.
“She knew of your brother’s death almost as soon as it occurred, days before the messengers arrived from Rome, correct?” Sempronia nods. “You say she has not the Sight; how else would she have known? If your description of what was found in her room is accurate, there was a summoning, though of what, there’s no way to know. Though as you say, she is alive and not mad, so we can console ourselves it was—probably—not a being of ill-intent.”
Sempronia licks her lips. “You think she might be trying again?”
“If she was successful in summoning something—and survived it—that will always be a possibility,” Sappho answers. “Who would not if they had some purpose they could fulfill? However, that is not what concerns me. When I told you my mother wrecked ships, you did not believe it; you did not think it was possible. When I told you of the demon, however—”
“Then I believed it; you told me how it could be done. The impossible is only what has not yet been accomplished. If there was a way around the Lares, she could find it… no.” Sempronia shakes her head. “No, Sappho, she would not. My mother is not an ignorant Greek peasant who turned to monsters for succor. She is a Roman noblewoman, educated, enlightened; she knows there are things you do not do.”
“I doubt my mother decided as a child she would turn to monsters to fulfill her purpose, much less become one herself. I don’t think she knew she was a monster at all,” Sappho answers, holding Sempronia’s surprised eyes. “The land was salt-poisoned. Our fisherman could not compete with the Roman fishing industry with their hundreds of ships that would troll our waters and leave us little if anything to catch and no market not already saturated in which to sell it.” Sempronia’s cheeks flush with hot color. “She would wreck ships and drown the survivors—sailors and passengers: men, women, children, and babes in arms—so none could tell what they had seen. But she also went house to house in our village and those nearby to cure children of sickness without asking payment, she blessed the barren fields so we might have some crops, poor as they were, and she wept at the graves of the dead.
“When the Romans came, she hid me among the village children and told me that I was to say I had only four summers and that my mother was dead. When the Romans searched for me—for it was known she had a daughter with the Sight old enough to assist her, and I was to share her fate—none revealed me even under torture. They offered freedom, wealth, even citizenship to anyone who would speak; none would. A monster, yes, I do not deny it, but there was reason for it. Are Romans so different that they qualify as another kind of being entirely than man? Are their reasons better when they do evil?” She lowers her eyes with ostentatious submission. “Though how would I know the ways of the Roman great; I am but an ignorant Greek peasant—”
“I shan’t live that down very soon,” Sempronia murmurs ruefully, and Sappho looks up, eyebrows raised. “I beg your pardon, Sappho; what I said was cruel and spoken in ignorance. I was taught better than that. I know better than that.”
“Pardoned,” Sappho says after a pregnant moment, mouth twitching, and Dean can’t help but wonder if either of them have noticed they’re still holding hands. “I do understand, Sempronia; I love her, too.”
“I know.” Sempronia takes a deep breath. “With the Senate so intractable, she certainly has reason enough to turn to other means of achieving her purpose. Educated, enlightened, and wealthy: she has the world to search to find what she seeks, buy whatever she finds of interest, and she can read and understand far too much of it. And who on earth will deny the great Cornelia Africana anything, book or work or scholar, she may want or even ask why she wants it?”
There’s a brief silence that Dean assumes is both of them contemplating how the fuck to narrow down the options on what Cornelia’s doing when it can literally be ‘anything.’
“If I only knew what she was trying to accomplish,” Sempronia says in frustration. “If it is to find a way to pay Charon for my brothers and Licinia—she can’t think that would work.”
“Why not?”
“All Romans are bound by our contracts with the gods from the moment of our birth or upon grant of citizenship until our deaths,” Sempronia explains. “The terms are negotiable in some ways—we are Romans and we do love the law—but not in others. In our agreement with Charon, one who does not have a coin to pay cannot cross; the negotiation is the Pontifex Maximus can draw up the necessary contracts with the gods to pay for those who did not have a coin. No one else is authorized to do so, so it cannot be done.”
“And gods won’t break contract?”
“With men? Yes, of course, if they can. With those that worship them, they can’t; our offering is our worship and they took it, thus they are bound. They agreed to the contract we made with them, for we are Romans and think the best of our gods, but—”
“We think the best of them but want a signed contract into perpetuity.”
“Exactly,” Sempronia says. “Thus they are double bound. To break the contract with Rome is to break faith with their worshippers as well; it’s both or neither. The penalty for that—I am not a god so cannot know, but that one exists, I do.”
Sappho nods slowly.
“She could appeal to the other gods and beg for redress, of course—as Gaius did to Diana—for the relationship between gods is not something we can know. Perhaps one might speak to Charon on her behalf and gain their sympathy…”
“I am attempting to imagine your mother begging anyone for anything,” Sappho says doubtfully. “I seem to lack imagination, for I cannot.”
“I share your lack,” Sempronia admits. “Nor can I imagine Charon comprehending such an esoteric concept as ‘sympathy’.” She frowns. “For that matter, to whom would she appeal? Those we share with the Greek are bound by that contract, and our old Roman gods as well—and I, for one, would avoid gaining their attention; they are strange. Magna Mater, perhaps… we contracted with her less than a hundred years ago, but she tends to prefer more dramatic events to show her power. Nor has she ever shown much interest in anyone other than the patrician Claudii when it comes to petitioners.”
“What of Bona Dea?” Sappho asks. “We make offerings to her and work in her gardens every turn of the season. Would she not help?”
“The Good Goddess?” Sappho’s eyebrows rise at Sempronia’s shock. “No.”
“Why?”
Sempronia shifts uncomfortably, and glancing at his companion, Dean sees a similar expression.
“There are gods of men, and gods of women, and those that are for both,” Sempronia begins carefully. “Bona Dea is none of those. She is of and for women alone; she will have no truck with men, their gods, or their works. That’s why her temple resides outside Rome’s pomerium even though it is tended by the Vestals; Rome is of men, its gods are of men, and no man can step foot within her demesne, nor participate or even be present during her rites. Bona Dea would never act for any man in any of her aspects, no matter how august or beloved of women; she can’t even see them. Men are not her purpose.” She makes an impatient sound. “This brings us no closer to discovering what it is she is doing.”
“Have you any idea of what exactly it is we buy from the local practitioners other than remedies for bugs, arthritis, and childhood illnesses?” Sappho asks suddenly. “Ritual magic requires supplies, and some are not the kind you can acquire with ease or without question. That might narrow the possibilities.”
“Spices and herbs we cannot grow easily here. Emet goes to them for some of his needs,” Sempronia answers, troubled. “The household would have noticed something unusual; they dote upon my mother and watch her health as closely as we do. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t find another way to contact them and get what she wants by other means.”
“Then it might be time to resume my education in my mother’s less-questionable craft,” Sappho says, meeting Sempronia’s approving eyes. “With my mistress’s permission, of course; she would like me to…” She trails off, looking pained. “Why would a patrician Cornelia want her servant to learn from local witches?”
“She’d want someone skilled with herbs and simples,” Sempronia says immediately. “She is elderly and her joints do poorly. For that matter, my joints could use such assistance.”
“Oh yes, you’re decrepit indeed,” Sappho snorts. “Or so your endless running after the children during Germanica’s visit has contradicted utterly.”
Sempronia smiles faintly before her expression melts into seriousness. “That scroll—you think it is more than the simply unpleasant ravings of those who are overly fond of questionable fungus?”
“I know not what that scroll is or its purpose,” Sappho answers, “but it is unclean; to touch it makes my skin crawl and to even copy that much for you felt… wrong. Whatever it is, it is not fit to be read; the only thing it is fit for is consumption in Greek fire. The fact she hid it worries me, and I doubt it’s simply embarrassment, like that hideous story of the boy and his obsession with hippo flesh as metaphor—” She stops at Sempronia’s expression. “It’s—not a metaphor?”
“I plan to find out,” Sempronia says grimly, and at Sappho’s horrified stare, adds defensively, “The text can’t be worse than what I’m imagining.”
“I would not gamble on that,” Sappho says with a shudder. “I’ll acquire it for you. Where will you keep it?”
“In my sleeping cubicle, in the locked copper chest. The key lies beneath it.” Sempronia squeezes Sappho’s hands one last time before getting to her feet. “I’ll continue my research with what you gave me. Tomorrow, go to the village and apprentice yourself to the most likely of those we trade with. We have several books on herb lore that may be of help; if they require an apprentice fee, tell me and I’ll help you copy one to give them.”
Sappho hesitates. “Your mother—you think she is ill?”
“I spoke to Emet of it already; he told me the same.” Sempronia sighs. “Also not to worry; her health is otherwise excellent. The Cornelii and Julii have a propensity to totter off to the Senate well into their tenth decade.”
“There is something else that worries you, however.”
Sempronia slowly lowers herself onto a stool. “Her illness after Cardixa’s death two year ago… Emet said exhaustion from nursing her was perhaps part of it, but now he thinks that she may have suffered a brainstorm. A small one,” she adds quickly when Sappho pales. “Such things are not uncommon at my mother’s age, and obviously she recovered well, but their effects are not always physical or obvious. It might explain why her studies began to consume her after she recovered; it could have induced a monomania. They tend to strengthen with time, not diminish, but the progress can be so slow there’s no way to be certain. My mother has always been focused.”
Sappho nods. “I have heard of such things. Those so affected must be watched to assure they continue to care for themselves and not lose themselves in their mania.”
“I had hoped he was mistaken, but I trust your feelings on the nature of that scroll. That she would willingly have something like that in her possession could only mean her judgment has been affected. Which means I must—somehow—discover what it is and what use she has of it.” Her eyes travel to the scrolls with a sour look. “Learn a few new languages, including one composed of evil ink blots, to try to divine the mind of the most intelligent woman Rome has ever produced: simple enough.”
Sappho smiles. “Domina did say you were the quickest of her children.”
Sempronia snorts as she gets to her feet. “Nonsense: I have never been a great scholar. My understanding is no more than average—”
Sappho makes a disparaging sound. “Yes, yes, you are average in all ways and have never been pretty and your only attraction is your great name and astronomical dowry.” Sempronia blinks slowly at Sappho as she rises. “Your mother says the same of herself, it’s maddening; perhaps this is a defect of the brain in the gens Cornelia that I am not aware of? Know thyself, it is said: you and your mother have not achieved even a passing acquaintance!”
Sempronia stares for a moment longer, blank-faced, before she starts to laugh, cheeks reddening and the wide brown eyes—Cornelia’s eyes—filling with light. Sappho stills, watching her as if standing before a holy image, and Dean’s got to wonder how the hell Sempronia can be missing the way Sappho looks at her (though how she missed what was going on during that massage is still up in the air).
“You are strange, Sappho,” Sempronia says finally, wiping her eyes, and Sappho immediately arranges her expression to polite annoyance. “Can you finish this? I want to see Claudia; do you know what it is Emet recommended for her treatment? I understood it was simply an alteration in her diet to encourage her to eat, but she has not improved. She seemed afraid today.”
“No, and those assigned to the duty don’t speak of it, at least to me,” she says. “When I offered my help, your mother said it was not fit for me.”
Sempronia checks her step, frown deepening. “Interesting.”
Dean looks at his companion. “What’s she doing with Claudia? If she won’t eat?”
She shrugs. “Let’s go find out.”
Warnings: explicit involuntary force-feeding, suicide ideation, discussion of suicide.