Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1) (15 page)

It took Ocella longer to get to the foreign section than the taxi ride to the Fields. Along the way she had to avoid aggressive merchants trying to make their final sale of the day, side-step blood in the street from the butcher merchants cleaning their stalls, and twice hide between stalls to avoid silver-helmed lictors on foot patrol.

She reached the entrance to the foreign section, descended cracked stone steps down a steep gravel hill, and started searching the parked ships for a Zhonguo merchant. Though the foreign section was far smaller than the Roman section, there were still dozens of stalls and parked dropships lining the riverfront. It could take hours to search every one.

She found a merchant from Aqalax, a small Lost World one way line jump from Roman space. His ancestors were from Terra's Atlantium continent, for his skin was dark bronze and his long black hair was decorated with beads. He was packing up his goods when Ocella approached.

“Can you tell me where the Zhonguo district is?”

He stared at her, and Ocella was about to try the dominant language on Aqalax when he replied in accented Latin, “There are no Zhonguo here.” He waved toward the riverfront. “Maybe farther down.”

Ocella thanked him and proceeded down the dirt road.

She passed stalls and ships from all over Terra and the Roman Republic. Egyptian, Ethiopian, Indian, Palestinian, Greek, and more merchants from Atlantium. Some smaller Lost Worlds were represented as well, like Roma Nova which was close enough in culture to Roma, yet not a vassal world and thus considered “foreign.” She asked several merchants about the Zhonguo district, and she got the same response as the Aqalax merchant. She continued on.

She reached the end of the riverfront and still had not found a Zhonguo merchant. She cursed under her breath, realizing she should have known this was a futile search among the hundreds of stalls and ships on the Fields. She sighed and then made her way back along the riverfront toward the Roman sections. Perhaps the Zhonguo contact worked for one of the Roman merchants. She tried not to despair at the thought of searching the entire Trading Fields for a Zhonguo face.

As she passed the Aqalax merchant again, he smiled at her. “My lady, a hot drink of fresh ground
xocolatl
? The
xocolatl
on my world is far sweeter than from my honored ancestors in Atlantium. One sip and you will agree, my lady.”

The merchant tried handing her a cup of dark liquid, but Ocella declined and kept walking. “Are you sure, my lady? Your family would bless you for bringing home such a sweet and filling treat. Especially your son.”

Ocella stopped. She turned back to the merchant. He held a cup to her, but he also held a small canister with an elaborate logo painted on the front emblazoned with the word “
xocolatl
.”

“A free sample for my lady,” the merchant said. “All I ask is that if the sample agrees with you, perhaps you'd be so kind as to come back and buy a generous portion for you and your family.”

Ocella walked back to the merchant and cautiously took the canister. “Thank you.”

“Instructions are inside the canister. Be sure to follow them explicitly or else the drink will not satisfy.”

Ocella nodded.

“Very good,” the merchant said, his smile widening. “Is the lady interested in any other produce? I’m packing up for the night, but I would be happy to unpack anything of interest to my lady.”

“I believe I have what I came for.”

“Of course. Good night to you, then.”

Ocella turned and started back up the stone stairs to the Roman section, holding the small canister in her left palm. She made her way through the Fields, avoiding lictors and passing merchants shutting down for the night.

When she emerged from the gates, she walked straight to the taxi and got in. Before ordering the taxi to leave, she opened the canister and searched the contents. It contained a dark brown powder that smelled both sweet and bitter. On the canister lid were instructions on how much
xocolatl
to mix with hot water or milk. She poked her finger through the dark powder but found nothing in it. She ground her teeth, hoping she hadn't mistaken a simple merchant trying to make a sale as Scaurus’s contact. She dumped the dark
xocolatl
on the taxi floor and searched the canister bottom. Scrawled on the bottom was a date and time.

Noon. Two days from now.

Ocella screwed the canister lid back on, put it in her pocket, and then told the taxi to go back to the Aventine. Two blocks from Scaurus's house, she ordered the taxi to stop.

“Delete recent destination logs,” Ocella ordered the taxi.

“Logs deleted.”

“Go to the intersection of Via Ferinum and Via Hollae in the Suburba, wait for three hours, and then discontinue maintenance override.”

Ocella hoped an electric taxi sitting near the high-crime corner of Ferinum and Hollae would make a tempting target for thieves. Three hours was enough time for thieves to strip the taxi of all its valuable parts. It would take days for the taxi company to dissect the taxi’s electronic brain to figure out what happened.

She got out of the taxi and made her way through the revelers, passed the vulgar play still going strong, and then ducked into the alley behind Scaurus's house. She arrived at the wall to the yard with the hatch and listened a few seconds. Hearing silence on the patio, she jumped to the top of the wall and peeked into the garden. Nobody outside. She pulled herself over and jumped down onto soft grass. She hurried over to the hatch and pushed away the dirt and leaves she'd put over it. She opened the hatch, stepped down onto the ladder rungs, and then tried as best she could to pull some fallen branches next to the hatch as she quietly closed it. The neighbors would notice the hatch the next time they decided to pick olives from their tree. Ocella hoped it was after she and Cordus were gone.

She climbed down the rungs and scurried back through the tunnel to the dim basement sanctuary. She stood up and closed the bookshelf over the tunnel.

“Cordus?” she called as the bookshelf clicked shut. She peered around the free-standing bookshelves, but did not see him at the tabulari.

“Cordus.”

He was not on the couch watching the holo either. The bathroom door was ajar, but it was dark inside. She pushed open the door and turned on the light. He wasn't there.

“Cordus, you're being a baby. Where are you? I have some good news.”

After a fruitless search, she yelled, “Cordus, this isn't funny.”

Ocella's annoyance began turning to panic.
He actually left.
She tried thinking like the boy. He burned to leave the basement, she knew that, and he had an elevated opinion of his street sense. Whether or not he had ancient knowledge in his brain, he was still a twelve-year-old boy who would not stand a chance against common street toughs. He could be lying in a gutter right now, his body violated, his throat slit—

Ocella stopped. She could not let herself think what might have happened. She had to concentrate on her situation as she knew it.
Think like the boy
. Where would he go? He had no money or a voice account, so he could not have hired a taxi or taken a bus. He had to have walked. This was the first time he’d ever been on his own. He would want to see as much as he could. Even the most mundane, plebeian pastimes would fascinate him. She had been gone less than two hours, and given his curiosity, he could not have walked farther than the Aventine.

She searched her memories for anything he might have said, any hint as to what he wanted to see on his own. Games? The nearest coliseum was by the Forum, a two-hour walk if the boy took his time. She didn’t think he would go near the Forum because even he knew how dangerous it was to stray too far. He didn't want to get caught any more than Ocella. What Aventine “sights” would interest a young noble out for the first time?

Or maybe someone had seen her leave the tunnel, then came through to take Cordus. She felt blood drain from her face as she realized the Praetorians could be watching the house right now, waiting for her to come out again, waiting to take her back to their headquarters and make her talk.

She hurried up the basement stairs to the house and saw the secret pantry door was cracked open. Cursing, she opened the door wider so she could slip through. She pulled out her pistol, and stepped quietly into the dark kitchen.

The lights were on in the rest of the house, making Ocella hesitate. The Praetorians likely did that so they could see anyone moving around. She stayed in the kitchen’s shadows and did a brief visual search of the room, but did not find Cordus. She did see a large blood stain near the couches next to the door, and she said a silent prayer for Scaurus's soul to find rest in Elysium. She also noticed the front door panel said it was locked. Cordus didn’t know the key code, so he couldn’t have left that way. She didn’t think the boy was so colossally stupid as to climb through a window, though the fact he’d not only gone upstairs but left the house made her doubt that assumption.

She went back through the secret pantry door, taking care to close the door this time, and down the stairs. She stood at the foot of the stairs, trying to calm her shaking hands, trying to ignore the nausea rising from her gut and the cold sweat tricking down her warm back. She pounded her fists on a bookshelf. She had completed dangerous missions for Umbra and had never felt this panicked. She had to stop, to breathe.

Then she noticed a sheet of paper on the floor next to the tabulari. She bent down and picked it up, turned it over, and read Cordus's elegant penmanship.

“I have gone for a look around. No fear, I shall be careful and return presently.”

Cordus must have put the paper on the tabulari, but it had fallen to the floor.

Ocella crumpled up the paper and threw it at the tabulari. She grabbed a fresh coat from the locker, then hurried over to the wall bookshelf and opened the tunnel. As she crawled through, she decided if street toughs hadn't killed the boy, she would.

The party guests were inside, so Ocella jumped from the hatch and scurried up the wall before anyone could come out and delay her from strangling Cordus.

She hurried down the alley and onto the Via Ostiensis. If anything, the crowds were larger this time. It was less than an hour before midnight, the prime of the Aventine’s revelry. Ocella kept her hood up, and scanned the crowds for Cordus and obvious tails.

She passed the taverns and brothels, knowing Cordus would be curious, but not comfortable there by himself. She walked by the old men playing board games, searching the gray and bald heads for a head of black hair. She didn’t see anyone under sixty.

She stopped at the street play, which had switched from a vulgar sex show to a vulgar puppet show. The crowd roared with laughter as a puppet with a Zhonguo’s creased eyes tried making love to a squirming dark-skinned Kaldethian.

Ocella searched the audience and found the boy sitting in the center. She took a deep breath, relaxed her clenched fists, and sat down just behind him. Cordus laughed right along with the crowd. No one paid attention to him despite the fact he wore no hood and had on the same high-quality tunic and coat he'd worn when they'd escaped the Consular Palace. Once again she thanked the gods that pictures of the Consular Family were forbidden in Roman media—the Praetorians’ own security protocols were the only thing keeping Cordus from being recognized on the streets.

Ocella leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Cordus, what do you think you're doing?”

The boy jumped and turned around. When he saw her, his face went from terrified to annoyed. He turned back to the stage.

“I am enjoying this play. Watch with me.”

“We're leaving,” Ocella said. “Now.”

“I am staying until the play is finished.”

Ocella ground her teeth. Umbra had taught her many ways to incapacitate a human being, but never how to quietly drag an insolent child out of a public place. She didn’t know if Cordus would fight if she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Considering his recent behavior, she wouldn't put it past him. So her only choice was to endure the puppet show until
His Majesty
was ready to go.

After another fifteen minutes of sophomoric jokes and unrealistic puppet sex, the show thankfully ended and the audience stood to leave. Cordus turned to her with a grin.

“You have to admit that was funny,” he said. “They never had shows like that in the Palace.”

“Let’s go,” Ocella said, then grabbed the boy's arm and pulled him down the street.

They had gone several dozen steps before the boy yanked his arm from her grip. “I do not know why you are so angry.” He straightened his coat, but continued walking beside her. “I was only gone for an hour. Praetorians do not congregate on the Aventine.”

Ocella pushed Cordus into a shadowy alley. She wanted to wait until they got back to Scaurus’s house before she screamed at him, but she couldn't hold her anger that long. She grabbed the boy’s shoulders and used all her will to avoid slapping him.

“You heard what happened to Scaurus less than three blocks away! The Praetorians are watching the house, you fool, so what makes you so sure they aren't watching the surrounding streets? They have face-recognition cameras scouring the city for you! Every godsdamned camera on every godsdamned utility pole, taxi, or whorehouse peepshow can do that!”

Cordus's eyes grew darker as she railed on him.
Let him get mad.
The boy had to know how much danger he’d put himself in by leaving the safe house.

“Do not call me a fool,” Cordus said sullenly once Ocella had paused her rant to catch her breath. “I would have slit my own wrists if I had to endure another moment in that basement.”

Ocella’s mouth opened for another tirade, but she stopped. She had felt the same way. It was why she had worked so hard to find Scaurus’s secret exit. Not only had she wanted to escape and find Scaurus’s contact, but she had also needed to get out of that stuffy, constricting basement where she’d spent the last two weeks. Even if it meant risking capture.

She sighed. “You scared me, Cordus.”

“Because you did not want to get caught.”

“No,” she said, “because I was worried about
you
.”

He looked up at her. “Me?” It seemed like the most foreign concept he'd ever heard. It made her more angry at the Consular Family for how they had treated this boy his whole life.

“Yes,” she said.

She surprised herself as she said it, because she meant it. She had been more worried about the boy's safety than her own fate. It stunned her, and she knew she had to stamp out that feeling. The boy was a mission, and her mission was to get him off Terra. She could not afford an emotional attachment to this child. It would compromise some hard choices she might have to make before this was over.

Cordus studied his feet and tucked his hands in his toga. Then he lifted his chin. “I am sorry I worried you. That was not my intent. I...I should not have left the basement. You are right, I put us in danger.”

Ocella realized she still held his shoulders, so she released him. “Just don't do it again. We’ll only be there two more days.”

Cordus nodded, then brightened. “You found the contact?”

“I think so. He wants us to meet him at in the Mars Trading Fields in two days. I think we can both survive the basement that long. And that means no more trips upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”

“In Scaurus's house,” she said. “No more exploring, understand?”

Cordus's brow creased. “I did not go upstairs.”

“But the pantry door was open.”

“I only went through the tunnel and the hatch in the garden.”

“Then why was the pantry door...?”

Ocella’s palms moistened. She pulled Cordus further into the alley’s shadows.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think someone was in the basement.”

She scanned the crowds, searching for anyone who would stand out as a Praetorian or a hired lictor.
Was that a Praetorian?
She decided against the young man across the street. He guided his aged mother through the crowds, and Praetorians would not use old women for props. They might get in the way.

“What do we do?” Cordus asked.

“We can't go back to the house.”

Two men burst into the alley from around the corner, one bumping into her. She pushed the man away, drew her pistol, and aimed at both. They stopped, their eyes wide. Then the man who bumped her vomited on his shirt and shoes. The other man burst into drunken laughter.

“Easy, lass,” said the older man in a drunken slur, “we ain't trying to rob you. My nephew here’s just making more room.”

He laughed again. The sick nephew, straightened, his legs wobbly. “That ought to do it. Let's go back before they run out of wine.”

They both staggered from the alley and around the corner.

Ocella holstered her pistol, then grabbed Cordus's hand and hurried down the alley.

“What are we going to do?” Cordus asked again.

She didn't answer him. Because she had no idea.

Lepidus watched the woman and the boy run.

“Should we follow them, sir?” Appius asked.

“No. The tracker will do that now.”

Lepidus glanced at his apprentice, who pulled off his vomit-stained tunic and tossed it in the trash. He fit right in with the rest of the Aventine’s half-dressed plebeian mob. Some of the passing women—and a few men—gave Appius appraising stares.

“Well done, Appius. I didn’t believe you could vomit on command. Interesting talent.”

“Been able to do it since I was a child, sir. Got me out of many meals I didn’t want to eat.”

Lepidus smiled. “Just as long as the tracker is secure.”

“I placed it behind her neck. She won't find it unless she's looking for it.”

Lepidus nodded. The tracker was a recent gift from the gods to the Collegia Pontificis. A clear bit of adhesive no bigger than a fingerprint, enabling Lepidus to track the woman so long as she stayed on Terra.

“Congratulations to you, too, sir,” Appius said. “I didn’t think they’d run after seeing the pantry door ajar.”

“Subtlety is far more powerful with people such as Marcia Licinius Ocella,” Lepidus said, watching the woman and boy leave the alley at the far end. “She is not only a trained Praetorian, but a skilled foreign agent. She’d only leave the safe house if she knew it was too dangerous to stay. Let her believe we’re sloppy. It will be to our advantage in the long run.”

“Now we follow her.”

“Yes. She will lead us to her contacts, and then we will cleanse Roma of all foreign terrorists and assassins.” He frowned at Appius. “Find a shirt, will you? People are staring.”