The Gate of Fire (57 page)

"Where now?" Her voice was languid, though she had been observing the Prince closely since they had slipped out of Rome three days before. Cold conscience disputed the feeling of her heart. She had to make a decision about this man, and soon. "A nap, perhaps, under a shady tree?"

Maxian grinned and shook his head. He reached under the seat and pulled out a flagon of wine. After taking a long swallow, he offered it to Krista. She shook her head slightly. A headache was already tickling around the edge of her consciousness; she didn't need to help it along.

"I think this is the turnoff to an old estate that came from my mother's family." Maxian pointed between the trees that lined the road, up the long slope of the mountain. Acres of vinyards and orchards sprawled away from them, reaching up into the fluffy white clouds that were clinging to the summit. It was a hot day, and the air was sticky with humidity. Flies and bees hummed in the air, and the thick green smell of the countryside was overpowering. Krista wrinkled her nose. She preferred the clean breezes of the seaside to this soupy atmosphere.

"The last that I heard, it was deserted save for a caretaker and some tenants. We should find plenty of quiet."

Gaius Julius came up on the side of the wagon, his leathery old face fairly beaming with the genteel beneficence of a patrician on summer holiday. He was wearing a short-sleeved white tunic that showed off the muscles of his upper arms and an impossibly broad straw hat with a pointed top. A pair of
legionaries caligulae
that showed off his splayed toes and hairy feet completed his outfit. Krista looked away, stifling a laugh. The old Roman had conceived an abiding love for this image of the patrician farmer on holiday. "Ah, my lad, this is a fine day! We should have taken a holiday earlier—have you ever tried the wine from these parts? Oh, it has a particularly stiff taste—metallic almost..."

Krista rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the old Roman, whose tendency to maunder on about vintages and vinyards and casks and aromas for hours induced an overwhelming urge to sleep. Maxian's eyes were glazing over as well.

"Mylord," Krista interjected in a sharp tone. "Are we stopping for lunch, or taking a nap, or getting wherever it is we're going?"

Maxian's head jerked as he woke up and he nodded, his eyes bleary. Gaius Julius had continued to propound on the waters of the district and their undoubted effect on the vintages derived therefrom.

"Yes," the Prince said, "we turn right here. It is only a mile or so to the house."

"Good," Krista said, giving Gaius Julius a slit-eyed glare. "Let's go."

Krista watched the old Roman swing down off of the wagon step with relief. Gaius Julius had begun wearing a strong lemon pomade of late, and it turned her stomach. At her side, the Prince flipped the reins and the mules shuffled their feet and leaned into the traces. The wagon rolled slowly forward.

A thick overhang of twisted dark brown vines and prickly bushes made a wall on either side of the road that led off the main highway into the old estate. The stoutly built
carruca
barely fit into the dim green passage. Krista leaned back in the wagon seat, watching the leaves pass by overhead as the wagon rocked back and forth, rumbling up the long, shady road. Her fingers toyed with the amulet around her neck, feeling the smooth bronze links of its chain and the incised symbols on its surface. Maxian was oblivious, staring up at the mountain that slowly grew before them.

The Prince had given her the medallion—a circle of brass with a plain surface, marked with rings of small letters that radiated out from a central point. That center was a hole cut through the brass and notched with tiny marks. For a brief moment, since it was so obviously something that he had made with his own hands, she had been very happy. No one had ever given her something they had made expressly for her before. The visitors that had come and gone from the Duchess' house had often given her flowers or gewgaws or presents refused by the Duchess, but they were second-hand things.

Then, of course, the Prince had explained what it was for, and her heart had turned cold.

In this amulet
, he had explained in a brisk, professional tone,
is trapped a fragment of my power. It holds a similarity of the Shield of Athena that I maintain around all of us at all times. While I live, the device will echo my power and my shield—though around you rather than me. It is less powerful, but it should serve to protect you if you are away from my immediate presence. I have made others for Gaius and Alexandros, of course.

Though she feigned sleep as they rattled and rolled and creaked up the mountainside with Gaius Julius and the others in tow, her mind was turned to thoughts far away from the Prince. She thought more of her home and a hot bath and even the hectoring voice of the Duchess.

The Prince
tsked
at the mules, and the wagon passed under an old arch of hand-carved stone. They had entered the domain of his patrimony. The clouds seemed very close, and the sun waned. Krista sat up, disturbed from her doze by the chill in the air. It was not cold, exactly, but cooler than it had been down on the plain. Orchards surrounded them, grown wild from lack of care. High grass heavy with seed pods and flowering weeds clogged the ground under the apple trees. The hedgerow that marked the road fell back, becoming a low wall that ran along the verge of the track.

"Just a minute more." Maxian smiled at her, his face open and cheerful. Krista smiled back, though there was the hint of a shadow in her eyes. "Fret not, love. We should be quite safe here."

Clouds parted again as they came out of the apple trees and a house lay before them. Krista smiled involuntarily, seeing the simple, clean lines of the brick walls and the slightly canted roofs of the buildings. This was the kind of place that she knew well—a classic Roman rural villa, all square buildings and tiled roofs, pillared colonnades, and atriums open to the sky. A brick wall, overgrown with roses and creeping yellow vines, surrounded the house. The front gate stood open, the old iron latticework green with rust.

"Ah." The Prince looked abashed. "It's smaller than I remember."

Krista laughed and put her hand on his arm. He flicked the reins, urging the mules to hurry up, and then they rolled through the gate, the stretched cloth top of the
carruca
barely passing under the archway. Within, an open square of hard-packed earth sat between the outbuildings and the main house. The edge of the yard was piled with reefs of blown leaves and twigs. Krista stepped down from the wagon and looked around with wary interest. The place was empty and abandoned, with closed doors and shutters on all sides, but she did not feel like a stranger. It had the feel of a place where the hostess had stepped out and she would be back in just a minute. The walls of the buildings were still plastered and trim, without any fallen-in roofs or broken doors. The other wagons rolled up and parked in a line along the side of the yard toward the mountain. There were barns clustered there, and the faint smell of old manure.

The Walach boys ran past, freed at last from the boring confines of the wagons. They sketched a bow as they ran past Krista, their bare feet thudding on the ground, and loped off between the buildings. Krista took a straw hat—much smaller and more demure than Gaius Julius'—out of the wooden box under the wagon seat and tied it on her head. After undoing a lock, the Prince and Alexandros were opening the doors to the main house. Gaius Julius had already disappeared; doubtless off to find the cellars and winepresses.

A pitiful mew drew her attention, and Krista smiled, her teeth flashing white in the shade under her hat. Two little yellow eyes peered at her out of a red wicker basket stowed behind the seat. Reaching in, she dragged the basket out and held it up. The little black cat was sitting in a nest of old sheets, staring out with wide eyes at the yard and the sky. It mewed again, imperious in its desire to be let out.

"I think not, little squeak." Krista pulled her bag of clothes and sundries out, too, and walked toward the front door of the house, now standing wide, with the faint gleam of sunlight on tiles shining from within. "We have to get settled first, but then I'll get you some cream."

Old wooden shutters creaked open, and Krista coughed as dust hazed the air in the kitchen. Unlike the dark, enclosed rooms of the kitchens in the Duchess' house in Rome, here, a long rectangular chamber set at the far end of the house held an iron stove and marble countertops. Nex to the stove was an open, bricked, fire-pit with a griddle built over it. There was a big basin-shaped sink fed by round ceramic pipes, too, which sat under a long series of windows that looked out on the north side of the big house. With the shutters opened, the room was flooded with a cool, northern light and treated to a fine view of the mountain sloping away above the villa. It would be cool in the summer, with its high ceilings and a row of grillwork-covered windows under the eaves.

Krista clapped her hands together, trying to get the dust and grime off. It was no use; the whole house needed a thorough cleaning, and she grimaced, realizing she was likely the only one to care. All of the Persian and Nabatean servants Abdmachus had gathered were dead or missing, which left her only the Walach boys for helpers. They were not very good at cleaning, having a tendency to get into fights with one another or loll about grooming themselves or sleeping. If there was hunting to be had, or some dark business in the nighttime, they were the very soul of attention. But sweeping or scrubbing down countertops? Never.

Footsteps clattered on the smooth tiles of the kitchen floor, and she turned.

"Would you like to go for a walk with me?"

Maxian had changed into a short kilt, leather sandals, and a Greek-style tunic that bared one arm and shoulder. Krista blinked, not having seen him look so, well, rustic before. She stifled a laugh, imagining him with a crown of laurel leaves and an amphora of wine under one arm. He looked relaxed, and the thin creases of strain and worry around his eyes had faded. "What is so funny?" He leaned on the counter, his head at a slight angle, looking down at her.

"Oh, my Lord Bacchus," she said, turning away and smiling over her shoulder, eyes twinkling. "Have you come for a revel?"

Maxian was perplexed for an instant, and then looked down at his costume. "Brat! We're on holiday in the country!" He grabbed her waist, and she skipped back, laughing. "Come here!"

"No!" she caroled, and darted out the door to the back garden. Behind the house and lying under the kitchen windows had been a large vegetable garden fronting on a brick porch with a stout roof. Now it was as overgrown as the orchards or the cattle pens, but a walkway of round stones had been laid from the back door to a gate in a fence of wooden slats. Krista sprinted across the garden, laughing, and the Prince was hard on her heels. "You're too slow, my lord! But catch me if you can!"

Inside the house, Gaius Julius leaned out of one of the windows on the second floor of the sleeping quarters. His old face creased with a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. Like the kitchen in the lower floor, the sleeping rooms were graced with big, tall windows and latticework shutters of thin-cut pine. He had found a chamber to his liking and opened them, letting the late afternoon sun stream through. Even the dust was not so bad. He leaned on the windowsill, watching the figure of the Prince disappear into a stand of olive trees.

"That seems a delightful pursuit."

Gaius turned a little and saw that Alexandros had entered the room. The youth had stripped off his shirt, and the sunlight played over supple muscle and smooth flesh. Even the welts of two deep scars, one along his side and the other just below his shoulder, did not mar his beauty. He had tied his hair partially back, which left it hanging in a thick mane of blond curls behind his head. Gaius Julius grinned wryly, reflecting on the true age of the "young" man. "Would you care to test your strength?"

The old Roman raised an eyebrow and turned around. The Macedonian's eyes met his, and Gaius Julius felt the shock of the man's power to attract and command. "Ah, lad, you know how old I feel..."

"Illusion," Alexandros said, grinning like a god, and took his hand. "Let me show you."

Maxian and Krista climbed through stands of cypress trees, sunlight and wind in their hair. The trail, twisted and strewn with rocks, turned and they stopped, looking back. Far below they could make out the red tile roofs of the villa and the outline of the wagons, still sitting in the foreyard. The clouds had blown away to the northwest, out over the Bay of Neapolis. From this height they could see out over the long curve of the shore and toward the headland that held Puteoli and the great military harbor at Misenum. Somewhere below the blue-and-white haze, beyond the sparkling bay, was Cumae and the summer villas of the rich.

"This was my mother's own house," the Prince mused as they walked, clambering up over black rocks with rough pockets cut out of them. "She had it from her father—she was his only heir—and she kept it as she liked. Father built her a whole new house at Cumae when he was made governor and tribune, but this place was the dearest to her heart."

"What happened to your mother?" Krista scrambled along behind him, feeling the twinge of exertion in her thighs. It had been some time since she had had a chance to work up a real sweat. The cool mountain air was refreshing and clean, far better than the humid lowland vapors. She noticed that the Prince had gotten back a little color on his legs and thighs. He seemed fitter, too, though that might just have been the skimpy outfit. She grinned again. This was a thousand times better than spending the whole of the day and the night in some noisome cellar, watching him mutter and chant, bent over some ancient tome.

"
Mater
died in the first plague—the one that made you cough until blood came out of your mouth. She and
Pater
were in Narbo at the other house. I only found out by letter. I was away in Africa, visiting cousin Antonius in Leptis Magna. I came home as fast as I could, but she was already gone. Father kept the household on here for a time, but then the War of the Pretenders began, and they must have fled."