Read Online End of the Century by Chris Roberson - Free Book Online Page B

something his late mother used to say, about not trusting the ready smile, and looking instead for the one hard won.
    A short distance from the Gallus, in the lengthening shadow of the riverside wall, they came to a fired-brick building constructed along familiar lines. Even before they passed the threshold and into the warm air within, Galaad had recognized it as a therma public bath.
    â€œOhhh.” Galaad sighed, shoulders slumping. “I've not had a proper bath in too long a time.”
    Caius grinned at him, and pinched his nose shut with thumb and forefinger. “I hadn't noticed,” he said, his voice nasal and piping.
    Galaad looked down at the filthy state of his clothes, the crescents of dirt packed into each fingernail, his hair hanging lank and matted, and could do nothing but shrug. “It is a long way from Glevum.”
    â€œWhich is in Powys, I'm given to understand,” Caius chided. “Come along, then. Let's get to it.”
    The baths were in reasonable repair, but not all of the rooms remained in use. They passed through the disused tepidarium and went straight to the caldarium.
    The air within was steamy and warm, heated in the hypocaust beneath the floor and then fed through earthenware pipes in the wall, and the floor was so hot they had to wear wooden clogs to keep the soles of their feet from blistering. Galaad gratefully shucked off his breeches, boots, tunic, and undergarments and slid into the bath of hot water sunk into the floor. He breathed deeply as the dirt, sweat, and grime of his long days of travel streamed away from him into the steaming water, and closed his eyes, just luxuriating in the heat. Caius floated in the waters across from him, regarding him with amusement.
    Once they'd rinsed off and wrapped clean linen towels around their waists, they moved onto the laconicum. The air was sweltering, even hotter than in the caldarium, and the sweat poured from their bodies as they lounged on benches.
    â€œYour feet seem in a sorry state, friend,” Caius said languidly.
    Galaad looked down at his own bruised, bloodied, and blistered feet, and suppressed a shiver. Released from the confinement of his marching boots for the first time in nearly a dozen days, his feet seemed to throb and pulsate with a generalized pain, punctuated here and there by the more localized agony of individual blisters and abrasions.
    â€œWhat did you do, walk from Powys?” Caius laughed.
    Galaad answered with only a blank stare.
    â€œWhat?” Caius's eyes widened. “Could you not arrange the loan of a wagon, or even just a horse?”
    Galaad shook his head. “I prefer to walk,” he said, struggling to keep his tone even.
    Caius blew air through his lips. “Not me, friend. If I could stable my horses within the palace itself, I'd not even walk as far as the bath but rideeverywhere instead. I'd take my meals in the saddle, at that, and roam from room to room on horseback. And when they came to inter me in the ground, when my hour comes around at last, they'd need to bury my horse first, that they'd have some place to rest me.”
    Galaad forced a smile on his lips, but the expression didn't reach his eyes, in which cold fires burned.
    Later, after scraping the dead skin from their bodies with a strigil, they had a quick scrub and then a cool dip in the pool of the frigidarium. They dressed, Galaad having managed to get his clothing into a more respectable state by knocking the dirt loose against a pillar, and then, with Caius in the lead, returned to Artor's palace.
    To Galaad's sincere relief, the subject did not turn again to horses, and he managed to go a short while without dwelling on the memories of that spring day.

    A place had been made for Galaad at the palace. Formerly the room of a high-ranking slave or household servant, it had evidently stood unused for some time, if the dust lining the mantle and eaves was any indication. But it was dry and warmer