The Gate of Fire (71 page)

Motion on a nearby mound of cracked olive jars and discarded racing chits drew her eye. A man in a dirty brown-and-white cloak was scrambling up the side of the road embankment. His face and hands were wrapped in grimy linen. Krista snapped the iron knife out of its sheath and whirled around. The driver, startled by her motion, looked back toward her. Four more men had appeared out of the rubble on the other side of the road and were running toward the wagon. The driver shouted in fear and cracked his whip over the heads of the oxen.

Krista rolled off of the seat as the cart jerked forward, hitting the ground hard on the balls of her feet and then bouncing back up. The bag with the little cat was clutched tight to her chest. The four men reached the road, ignored the cart, and ran toward her. The lead man was shouting something, but the rags that covered his face muffled the sound. Krista dodged across the road toward the single man who had just managed to make it up the road embankment. He was just standing up, brushing dirt from his tunic, when she spun into him, her right foot flashing around and up to crack against the side of his head.

The man cried out and staggered back. Krista dropped down lightly and then jumped over the side of the embankment. Dirt fountained under her feet as she slid down the side of the road. The man, stunned by her kick, toppled off the road and bounced down the slope, crashing into a great pile of half-burned wicker baskets. Krista hit the bottom of the slope running, and dodged off through the smoldering piles of refuse.

On the road behind her, the leader of the four men cursed and ground his fist into his thigh in disgust. "Krista!" He cupped his hands to make his voice carry farther, but the girl was already gone.

It was well past sunset when Krista finally entered the city. After the close shave on Via Appia, she had picked her way through the rubbish yards to the Ostia gate—the next closest entrance in the wall—but some suspicious characters had been loitering in the shade of the gate towers. She crouched in the shadow of a mound of broken statuary for almost two hours before one of the ragged men she had seen before appeared and spoke quietly to one of the watchers. It was afternoon, then, and she took her time working through the debris and smoke and funereal tombs to the east. The city of Rome was entered by many gates, but all of them had guards. Some of the watchers would be more alert than others, and she had no idea how many of the ragged men there were.

At nightfall she fed the little cat the last of the smoked fish from Herculaneum and scratched its ears. She sat in deep shadow under a curving section of wall at the eastern end of the city. The wall was odd looking, lined with arches and pillars in three courses. The main wall ran into it at an angle and stopped abruptly. The archways were filled in with mixed brick and concrete. Over the walls, the daytime din and clatter of the Asinara district was fading as people went home and closed up shop. The little cat was nosing about, looking for mice in the high grass that grew along the verge of the rampart. Not more than ten feet away, a doorway was set into the wall in a very shallow embrasure. The door was iron and heavy and locked, but Krista could smell the rank odor of urine on the bricks that filled the archways on either side.

The curved section of wall was known to her, too; it was the outer face of the amphitheater of Castrense—a theater of moderate size that had been incorporated in the outer city wall hundreds of years ago. Once, she supposed, official games and pageants would have been held in it. Now she knew that it hosted a stodgy succession of theater revivals, religious festivals, and—in the evening—it was rented out for private parties. Even with the height of the wall above her, she could hear the tinny clash of cymbals and the racket of young boys singing. The little black cat sidled back up to her, nosing at her hand. Krista smiled and opened her palm. There was no more fish. The little cat gave a quiet sigh and crawled into her lap.

She sat quietly, waiting for an overindulgence of wine to take its inevitable effect.

Krista glided into the alleyway behind the Duchess' villa with trepidation. Rome after midnight was still a dangerous proposition—filled with footpads and murderers—even under the firm rule of Emperor Galen. The city was just too big and crowded and filled with foreigners to police properly. It had taken almost three hours for Krista to make her way across the city to the Quirinal hill and home, but now she was at the back gate, feeling the strain of the long day in her calves. Luckily, the Duchess had great call for people to come and go quietly from her house so there was always a watchman on duty.

She rapped on the stout wooden panel with the pommel of the iron knife and, after a moment, there was a rattling as the spy hole cover was moved aside. A bleary blue eye peered out and widened at the sight of Krista standing under the gate lamp. Krista made a half snarl and bobbed her head. "Let me in." She was very tired and very grumpy. The door clanked as the locking bar was thrown back, and she pushed in before it was even open. The man on watch made to say something, but Krista raised a hand to silence him. "Later, Macrus, later. After a bath and sleep. Oh, what happened to your eye?"

The servant, a burly man with thick forearms and a trunk like neck, had a bandage wrapped around his head and over one eye. He made to speak, but Krista ignored him and carried on. "Oh, it doesn't matter. I'll find the Duchess by myself. You can tell me tomorrow."

She hurried off, her whole body aching with desire for a hot bath and a bed with fresh, clean sheets. At the gate, Macrus closed his mouth with a snap and shook his head in amusement as he locked the gate again.

Krista clattered down the steps into the gymnasium and the baths, her cloak already bundled under one arm with the bag and the cat. On the lower level, she turned left in the round atrium, intending to enter the series of rooms that held marble tubs set into the floor, but the ring of steel drew her attention. On the right-hand side of the gymnasium was a practice floor of sand surrounded by an arcade of columns. Krista slipped into the room, her sandals off, and came to stand next to one of the fluted green pillars. Oil lamps in bronze holders burned on each acanthus capital, casting a steady, warm glow over the rectangle of sand in the middle of the room.

In the fighting square, Thyatis attacked furiously, her Indian-steel blade flickering in the air. She was clad in only a short kilt and a twisted cloth
strophium
that bound her breasts close to her chest. Her long hair was pinned back in a bun and away from her face. Her skin was slick with sweat and silver droplets flew off her arms as she pressed the attack. Nikos faced her, stripped to a loincloth as well, his own sword a blur in the air as he matched her stroke for stroke. Thyatis bounced back, the tip of her blade trapping his on the withdraw. Nikos lunged in, striking for the inside of her arm. She blocked downward and turned on her heel, trying to lead him past her. He countered and threw an elbow at her face.

Thyatis leaned aside, slipping the blow. Her sword flashed back at his throat, and he parried furiously. They traded a passage of lunge and thrust and parry and then stood back, chests heaving with exertion. The echoes of steel on steel faded in the high arch of the roof. Nikos' bald head and bare chest gleamed with sweat. Krista started breathing again. Both of them seemed possessed.

"That is enough." The deep husky contralto of the Duchess filled the air, and Krista started in surprise. Anastasia appeared between the pillars on the far side of the fighting square, her oval face filled with weariness. Krista frowned, seeing that the Duchess was wearing only a very simple gown. The lady's hair was bound up in a silver net, and her makeup was unusually heavy. Behind the striated green pillar, Krista licked her lips. There was some great trouble in the air.

"If you press yourselves more, you will only gain exhaustion, not skill." The Duchess' voice was already weary, and she stepped down onto the sand with the assistance of a little blond slave. Krista raised an eyebrow, seeing her replacement already in train. The girl was watching Nikos, however, and Krista smiled to see the intent look on her face. The Illyrian was rubbing his face with a towel, having put his blade away in its old, weathered leather sheath. The sweat-soaked loincloth left very little of his tough, muscular physique to the imagination. Thyatis turned to face the Duchess, her face grim and set. "We need a little more time on the sand," the young woman said. "Everyone's timing is off."

Anastasia nodded and handed another towel to Thyatis. The young woman smiled back and took it, drying her face and arms. The little blond slave sidled up to Nikos to take his towel away. The Illyrian grinned at her, and she glowered back before escaping with the towels through the pillars.

"I know." The Duchess sighed and pinched her nose. "My men have yet to find the Prince, so we can only train and wait. His caravan disappeared before it reached Cumae, but I have agents quartering the entire province in search of him."

Krista swallowed and stepped out between the columns. In her arms the little black cat poked its head out of the bag, looking around in interest.

"Mistress?" All four heads turned as one, and Krista saw incredulity and amazement and, best of all, joy in the face of the Duchess as she was recognized. "Which Prince would that be?"

Morning sun shone down on the garden, casting long slats of warm light on the wooden table and the chairs pulled up around it. Some of the servants had pulled an awning out over the terrace to shade the Duchess, and it blocked off part of the clear blue sky. The haze of the previous day had been driven off by a cool breeze, and larks and robins sang in the trees. Small puffy white clouds tracked across the sky, looking like so many wayward sheep. Glass tinkled as Krista put an empty sherbet plate back on the table. She had slept very late, drugged with exhaustion and the lassitude of a long, hot bath. She held the memory of the Duchess' warm embrace and greeting close to her heart. The remains of a huge lunch of fresh bread, scented olive oil, cut fruit, thin slices of lamb, fresh pomegranates, and light sweet wine cluttered the table. Krista leaned back in her chair, feeling the softness of the cushions under her head. She was very tired, the more so for having spent the last three hours pouring out the tale of her long absence.

The Duchess held her right hand fiercely tight, and the older woman's face was a mask of pain. The shadow in her eyes had grown deeper and deeper as Krista had related the events of her journey in the east with the Prince—their excavations in Rome and Constantinople, the flight on the great Engine into Persia, the battles in the crypts under Dastagird, the opening of the tomb of gold and lead. The others had listened quietly, though the tension around their eyes as she related these events had chilled the air. Now, even in the late morning heat, Krista could feel their grim humor. Thyatis, in particular, had drawn her longsword near the beginning of the tale and was now working the edge of it with a whetstone. The metallic scrape of the stone seemed to calm her, but it put everyone else under a pall.

Krista watched the Duchess carefully. She had not told her mistress everything by any means, only the skeleton of the tale. But Krista knew that the Duchess, somehow, held the missing portion—the matter of the Oath—the part that could not be said aloud. Anastasia stirred among the cushions in her chair and slowly released the claw-like grip on Krista's hand. The older woman put her hand on the man sitting next to her for support. Krista suppressed a frown at this—she had never known the Duchess to need the help or support of a man for anything. This barbarian was well made; tall and muscular, with a noble bearing and liquid dark eyes, but Krista did not trust him.

Indeed, many of the man's kinsmen were in attendance, and Krista wondered what had happened to the merry band of rogues who had served Thyatis before. A great deal seemed to have changed in her absence! These barbarians seemed quite at home, sitting on the tiled floor of the terrace and eating a great deal of the Duchess' food and drink.

"And now the tale is known in full." Anastasia sat upright, drawing strength from some inner reserve. A hint of the vigor she usually showed reappeared. "We know the provenance of the creature you fought in the house in the hills; we know whereat the Prince has been, who he has consorted with, and what he has been about."

"And we know where he now resides." Thyatis leaned forward, chin on her palm. Her gray-green eyes surveyed the little group, passing over Nikos, Anagathios, the Khazar Jusuf, Krista, and finally alighting on the Duchess. "But there are things left unsaid in this tale. There is the question of why the Prince should attempt to move heaven and earth in his search for the body of this Greek. Why be so secretive? What does the Prince intend? How is the Emperor involved in all this?"

Krista met the red-haired woman's gaze without flinching, but she could think of nothing to say that would not put everyone in danger.

"The Prince," Anastasia said, breaking the silence, "I believe, intends the Emperor harm."

"But..." Thyatis stopped, for the Duchess had raised a pale, jeweled hand. "There are matters afoot here that will not be discussed. It is enough for you to know, as we suspected before, that the Prince has fallen under evil influences and must be dealt with."

Thyatis grimaced and steepled her fingers, frowning over them at the Duchess. "Do you wish this Prince dead, or alive? What says the Emperor of this?"

Krista grinned, seeing that the redheaded woman had grown, too, while she was away. Thyatis and the Duchess matched flinty stares. After a tense moment, the Duchess nodded her head and looked to the side. Krista thought she was expecting someone to be standing behind her, but no one was there.

"The Emperor says and knows nothing of this." Anastasia's voice was tired. "My command is that the Prince shall be put to death. Should the fates smile and he is taken alive, then I shall deliver him to the Emperor, but I fear that he has grown too powerful in this dark magic to be an easy captive. Prepare and plan that this young man shall be slain and his body burned in fire until there is nothing but ash. Even those remains we shall cast into the sea."