Heart, Faith, and Steel 4/8
===========================
Xanthos awoke from his nap late in the evening, then sighed and put his
hands behind his head. He had been planning to leave Corinth this summer,
but he hadn't been quite ready to go. Certainly not this way. Dying in
public was annoying.
Cassia came upstairs a short time later, carrying a large bundle and looking
very tired. He got up and went to sit on the clothes-chest, absently
fondling Dion's ears. She nodded to him and sank onto her bed, laying the
bundle on the floor beside her feet.
Xanthos decided a joke was in order. "Well, I finally got to sleep in your
bed."
Her reply was sharp, yet amused. "Was it worth dying for?"
He pretended to consider it. "No." He could not resist adding, "Not without
you there."
Cassia shook her head in exasperation, but a faint smile touched her lips as
she slowly took off her veil.
"What did you tell them about the missing body?" he asked.
"I told your business associates that it is an Egyptian custom that the body
not be displayed before cremation. Tomorrow ... well, tomorrow there will be
great commotion when they discover the body and the sword have been stolen.
And the shutters to your chamber broken, and your money and clothes taken."
She glanced at Dion, who was panting happily, and said, "You should take the
dog with you, so they won't wonder why he didn't wake the household."
Xanthos nodded. It was a good plan.
She gestured to the bundle on the floor. "Your sword is in there, and money
and some of your clothes." She sighed and stretched her arms before asking,
"Who were you fighting?"
"We have never introduced ourselves," Xanthos replied, "but he is a Kurgan."
Cassia nodded, and a flicker of distaste twisted her mouth.
Xanthos knew she needed no further explanation. Everyone had heard of the
Kurgans, the bloodthirsty tribe that lived far to the north, beyond the
Black Sea. The Kurgans were said to throw children and hungry dogs into pits
and watch them fight over scraps of food.
"So you've met him before," she observed, bending to unlace the straps of
her sandals.
"I killed his horse about two hundred years ago," he said.
"And he is still angry at you?"
Xanthos shrugged. "Perhaps. It was a very large horse, very rare."
She paused, one lace in her hand, and looked at him more closely. "You are
angry at him."
He was not surprised that it showed. "He killed my wife," he said shortly.
The Kurgan had raped her first, then left her to burn to death inside their
house while Xanthos lay dead with the other defenders of Babylon. A servant
had told him the tale when he had made his way home.
Cassia sighed, then said simply, "I'm sorry."
He nodded, then stood and walked over to the tiny space at the end of her
bed. There were no stars out tonight; the sky was dark with clouds. The sky
had been dark that day in Babylon, too, but with smoke, black billows that
reeked of burning flesh. King Sennacherib's troops had left nothing alive,
then they had diverted the river to flood into the city. The mud brick
buildings had collapsed, and Babylon had drowned in water and blood, while
the skins of its inhabitants adorned the broken walls.
Xanthos would look for the Kurgan tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day.
And maybe the next. He wasn't going to spend his entire life hunting that
slime, but as long as he knew the butcher was nearby, he would hunt.
"I should be going," he said to Cassia, turning from the window. "I've freed
all my household slaves in my will, given them money." She nodded, for they
had spoken of this, but he knew this next part would surprise her. "And I've
given you both of my factories here, and the factory in Potidaea."
"Lord Xanthos...," she protested.
"Xanthos is dead," he answered. "And your master is dead." He sat down on
the edge of the bed, close to her, but not touching. "I would like it if you
called me by my birth name: Tak Ne."
"Tak Ne," she repeated, and she smiled at him, that brilliant smile he had
seen only rarely on her face.
"And your name?" he asked, wondering how far he dared push her.
"Cassandra," she answered, with another smile.
"Are you a Trojan?" he asked, curious to know where she came from. Troy had
fallen three centuries before he had been born, but everyone in Greece had
heard the stories of the ill-fated prophetess named Cassandra who had lived
there.
"No," she said. "I do not know the name of the place of my birth. I was
raised in a desert, somewhere south of Babylon, I think. But Cassandra is my
name, given to me by my first teacher, the Lady of the Temple of Artemis on
Lesbos. She was of the Minoan culture, as was Troy."
Tak Ne shook his head. "I know of no such temple there."
"It was burned," she answered shortly, "right before the Hellenes laid siege
to Troy." Her gaze went inward, dark and haunted. "The Hellenes burned Troy,
too. The streets ran with our blood; our screams echoed in the courtyards.
And then, nothing. Only silence, save the flapping of birds' wings, and the
wind."
The sounds of death. He knew them well. "Like Babylon."
She blinked, banishing the memories, and turned to him again. "Yes," she
said, shrugging a little. "We've seen it before. We'll see it again."
Probably. "Did you know the other Cassandra?" he asked.
"Yes." Her eyes darkened again. "Her mother Hecuba and I were friends, and
she named her daughter after me. An unlucky choice, I think."
Tak Ne decided to change the subject. "So you are ... eight hundred?"
"Nine, I think," she answered.
He nodded in satisfaction, for he had guessed her age to be close to one
thousand. "And you already know how old I am, and where I am from."
"Yes," she agreed, with a smile deep enough to give her dimples. "But
Xanthos--Tak Ne--I cannot take your factories."
"I'm giving them to you," he said, with an impatient wave of his hand. "We
both knew it was time to leave Corinth, and I've already made arrangements
for myself in the city of Sybaris. I have factories there, and investments
in many places. Besides," he said enticingly, "now you can start your
school."
"Yes," she murmured, then said again more strongly, "Yes."
"Good!" Now to say farewell. "I've enjoyed our time together, Cassandra.
I'll miss you."
"And I will miss you." Her gaze wandered to the small flame of the oil lamp
hanging on the wall, then back to him. "But we will see each other again."
"Will we?" he asked, wondering why she sounded so sure.
Her eyes were dark and wide in the flickering light, the shadows outlining
the curve of her cheek. "Yes."
He took her hands in his, and gently kissed her lips. "I'll look for you,
then."
She kissed him on the forehead, a light warm touch. "And I will look for
you."
****************************************
FAITH
Callista and Lucius
****************************************
=====================
Masallia, Gaul
Vestalia, the Ides of June
The seventeenth year of the reign of the Emperor Diocletian
(302 CE)
=====================
Cassandra was looking for her lawyer Justinius. She walked gracefully and
sedately through the crowds at the governor's mansion, followed by her
retinue of two slave-girls and an impressively muscled Nubian who wore only
a loincloth and a turban. Rich widows had to keep up appearances.
They were passing through the gardens when her head began to ache with the
presence of an Immortal, and Senator Tullo's peevish voice came from a small
high window in the guest quarters. "You are like an ass at the lyre, fool!
Do you know nothing of how to arrange the toga?"
Cassandra was still walking calmly, hoping to leave before being discovered,
when a softer, deeper voice replied. "Your pardon, Most Illustrious. I am
entirely clumsy."
She recognized that voice immediately, even though she had not heard it for
almost eight centuries. The goddess Fortuna had turned the wheel; Tak Ne was
the slave this time, and Cassandra was in a position to buy him, if the
senator were agreeable to the sale. Cassandra smiled to herself and kept
walking. He would be. She would see to that.
~~
A short time later at the banquet, she asked the governor to introduce her
to the senator.
"Most Illustrious, this is Callista Macedo, one of the largest landowners in
the area," the governor said as he bowed to Senator Tullo, a tall man with
thinning gray hair. The senator bowed back minutely, and the governor left
them alone.
"Is this your first time to the province of Gaul?" she asked, smiling at the
senator.
Senator Tullo sniffed and refolded a pleat in his toga. "Our Divine Emperor
Diocletian has decreed that Gaul is not a province, but a diocese, under the
rule of Caesar Constantius."
"Of course," she murmured, bowing her head. "Thank you for correcting me. I
am unaccustomed to thinking of such matters, unlike an important man such as
yourself."
He sniffed again. "You are a woman. You have no need to know of such
things."
"As you say, Senator," she agreed. "I am a widow, with no husband to guide
me." She put on her most innocent, helpless expression. "I am in need of
advice, and I had hoped that I might ask you?" She glanced around the
crowded banquet hall, then said, "But perhaps, in private? It is ... a
personal matter." She laid her hand appealingly on his arm.
"Of course," said the senator, with a wintry smile and a lustful appraisal.
"I would be glad to help you, in a personal matter." The gongs were struck
to call the diners to the tables, and he said, "I will look for you, after
the banquet."
Cassandra smiled and bowed her head again.
~~
The next morning, Cassandra left the governor's mansion with a signed bill
of sale in her hand, granting her ownership of one Lucius--a male slave, age
fifty years, no scars, fluent in Greek, Latin, and Egyptian, able to read
and write. Tak Ne was hers.
But not for long. "Should I free you now," she asked after they had gone
through the city's gate, and headed on the North Road to her estate, "or do
you want to work it off?"
"Before I decide that, I want to know much I cost," he said, walking beside
her litter. A male slave could not ride with his mistress, not without
arousing indignation and gossip, and the roads were crowded with people on
their way to and from the city.
"Not very much," she said, then laughed at his affronted expression. "It's
no matter. I want to repay you for those factories you gave me back in
Corinth. You'll be free in a few days. My lawyer is already drawing up the
papers."
"Thank you," he said, with a slight bow. "I didn't enjoy catering to that
pompous idiot."
"No," she murmured. "I didn't think you did." She didn't enjoy catering to
masters, either. "How did you come to be a slave?"
"Taxes," he said in disgust. "I had a comfortable little farm in Sardinia,
then one day it was confiscated by the tax officials, and me along with it.
The other farmers and I were sold to pay off the tax bill." He shook his
head. "These taxes are going to destroy the empire. There won't be anybody
left to pay them if they enslave everyone."
"It is getting bad," Cassandra agreed. "And the new edict against raising
prices has confused things even more. People are hoarding food, bartering
for goods, hiding what little money they do have."
"At least we're done with those interminable wars of succession. Four
emperors in one year, armies tramping everywhere--bah!" He glanced at the
richly appointed litter and the escort of slaves and bodyguards walking
alongside. "You're doing well for yourself," he commented.
She smiled thinly. "I am a rich landowner. I am exempt from paying taxes."
That was the tax policy which would destroy the Empire. She had seen it
happen before. But this culture wasn't ready to collapse completely, not
yet. She would stay for a few more decades. It was nice to be rich, for a
change.
His gaze had come to rest on her, starting at her high-heeled sandals, up
the silken folds of her turquoise gown, to the jeweled belt around her
waist, then more slowly along the curves of her bodice until he met her
eyes. "You look ... exquisite," he said, his brown eyes glinting in the
sunshine, his voice as she remembered: warm, deep, and inviting.
"Thank you," she said, then leaned over and opened the curtain wider to let
in a cooling breeze. It was much too hot inside the litter. "So, what of
your sword?" she asked briskly.
"I hid it, right before they came for me." His mouth twisted, firm lips
thinning behind the short-clipped beard. "I hope it's still there."
"I'll give you a travel pass to go get it, after you're freed."
"Good." He picked at the rough weave of his simple brown tunic disdainfully.
"I'll need new clothes, too, before I travel." Tak Ne grinned at her. "Can I
borrow some money from you?"
"Yes," she said, amused by his audacity.
"Did you start a school with the money from the factories?" he asked.
She nodded. "In Potidaea. I lived there off and on, for about seventy years,
until Athens lay siege to the city." She had been captured during that war
and sold into slavery. Again. It got tedious.
"And since then?"
"Teaching, of course. I started four other schools, and I was at the library
in Alexandria most of the last century. I've traveled quite a bit."
Sometimes she had hidden, sometimes she had run, occasionally she had
fought, but she had survived. "And you?"
"Traveling, as you say. Seeing what the world has to offer." He smiled at
her, offering a great deal.
Cassandra nodded pleasantly, then leaned back on the cushions and covered a
yawn with her hand. "We'll talk more later. I'm going to take a nap now."
Tak Ne bowed his head in a show of obedience, then moved back to walk with
the other slaves.
She dozed off easily, lulled by the swaying motion as her bearers walked
along the straight stone-paved Roman road. She had not gotten much sleep
last night.
~~
They stopped for the mid-day meal near a bend in the river. Tak Ne stood
next to her while she ate under the shade of the trees. Appearances must be
maintained. The other slaves sat a short distance away, eating their food,
save for young Marcia, Cassandra's personal servant.
"How much longer until we reach your estate?" Tak Ne asked.
"We're on it," Cassandra answered, then motioned to the fields of grape
vines and the cattle pastures in the hills. "That's all mine."
"Really?" Tak Ne shot her a look, more appraising than appreciative, more
respectful than familiar. "You are doing well for yourself."
Marcia poured a cup of wine, then offered it to her mistress. Cassandra
sipped at it, smiling up at Tak Ne. The wheel of fortune had indeed turned.
~~~~~
