Read Online Rome: The Emperor's Spy: Rome 1 by M. C. Scott - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: M. C. Scott
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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through to a blinking triad of stars. At the meadow’s end, a wide river ran lazily to the sea, hushing a lullaby for the lost of the world: for herself, for Math, for half of Coriallum if Ajax was right.
Too far from sleep, with her stomach still full from a celebration feast she did not want and the worry of Math crimping the borders of her mind, she let her eyes rest on the brief triangle of stars she could see. Presently, when her heart was less clamorous, she built the full sky around the three visible stars, setting the constellations in their places, naming them as she had been taught. Then, because she was still awake, lying in a tent in Coriallum, as far from Rome as she could get, she tried to remember instead the alien names and shapes of Gaul in place of those she had learned as a child.
The crocodile and the hippopotamus were gone, and she had no idea what replaced them. Amon, she thought, was still the ram, but Mentu, the bull, sacred to Mithras and Serapis, was named instead as a she-bear and worshipped by the warriors as a pattern on which to mould their own courage.
She had seen bears only in the market at Alexandria, sorry beasts chained through the nose and made to dance, but even in her short time here, the bards of Gaul had woven word-pictures of bears that matched the gods; great-voiced, great-hearted, greatly wise in the ways of beasts and humankind and possessed of a courage and ferocity that no other living thing could match.
She felt it, and then heard it, and then smelled it; richly, warmly dangerous. She was not asleep. In that moment, in fact, she could not have been more sharply awake.
She sat up. The beast padded past a second time.
‘Math? Is that you?’ She whispered it. The beast, unsurprisingly, did not reply.
In all the turbulence and wonder of her life, in the months of training spent in the desert, facing the demons of the inner and outer worlds, in the complex intrigue among the sisterhood in Alexandria, nobody had ever suggested that Hannah was a coward.
She rose and re-belted her tunic and pushed open the flap to her tent. Outside, a fire sent tendrils of sweet smoke to the clouded sky.
For one heart-stopping moment, she saw a bear crouched there, stirring the embers with a stick. Then she blinked, and there was only Ajax, the chariot driver, sitting with his back to her, staring at the new-wrought flames.
A smell of wetness came from him, of clean, cold river water. His body dripped star-silver dew. His head shone slick where his hair would have been had he not shaved it every morning. The gaping hole that was all that remained of his right ear was starkly black. He had not yet noticed her presence, so lost was he in the fire’s red heart.
She sank to a crouch, resting her weight on her heels, watching the lift and fall of his breathing. She saw the moment when he became aware of her presence and the moment after it, when he decided not to move. Some time later, when it was clear he wasn’t going to speak, she said quietly, ‘Do you never sleep?’
She saw the corner of his mouth twitch. ‘As much as you, it seems.’ He did move then; a small motion of his hand that invited her to join him at his fire, which had been her fire first.
She took her place at his right hand. ‘I thought I heard a bear,’ she said, ‘but it was you.’
He glanced at her sideways. ‘I was blundering more than I thought,’ he murmured. ‘I apologize.’
He had, in fact, been quite astonishingly quiet. They both knew that.
She said, ‘Was it the river caused your clumsiness? Did your gods speak to you there?’
He looked at her directly then, not a thing he did often. In daylight, his eyes were a curious pale amber, entirely at odds with the solid black of his brows. In the firelight, they glowed a rich copper-gold, bright as a hawk’s.
‘Am I still wet?’ he asked.
‘That, and you smell of river water.’ Hannah nodded to the barn. ‘I’ve been with Math, who has a new
Too far from sleep, with her stomach still full from a celebration feast she did not want and the worry of Math crimping the borders of her mind, she let her eyes rest on the brief triangle of stars she could see. Presently, when her heart was less clamorous, she built the full sky around the three visible stars, setting the constellations in their places, naming them as she had been taught. Then, because she was still awake, lying in a tent in Coriallum, as far from Rome as she could get, she tried to remember instead the alien names and shapes of Gaul in place of those she had learned as a child.
The crocodile and the hippopotamus were gone, and she had no idea what replaced them. Amon, she thought, was still the ram, but Mentu, the bull, sacred to Mithras and Serapis, was named instead as a she-bear and worshipped by the warriors as a pattern on which to mould their own courage.
She had seen bears only in the market at Alexandria, sorry beasts chained through the nose and made to dance, but even in her short time here, the bards of Gaul had woven word-pictures of bears that matched the gods; great-voiced, great-hearted, greatly wise in the ways of beasts and humankind and possessed of a courage and ferocity that no other living thing could match.
She felt it, and then heard it, and then smelled it; richly, warmly dangerous. She was not asleep. In that moment, in fact, she could not have been more sharply awake.
She sat up. The beast padded past a second time.
‘Math? Is that you?’ She whispered it. The beast, unsurprisingly, did not reply.
In all the turbulence and wonder of her life, in the months of training spent in the desert, facing the demons of the inner and outer worlds, in the complex intrigue among the sisterhood in Alexandria, nobody had ever suggested that Hannah was a coward.
She rose and re-belted her tunic and pushed open the flap to her tent. Outside, a fire sent tendrils of sweet smoke to the clouded sky.
For one heart-stopping moment, she saw a bear crouched there, stirring the embers with a stick. Then she blinked, and there was only Ajax, the chariot driver, sitting with his back to her, staring at the new-wrought flames.
A smell of wetness came from him, of clean, cold river water. His body dripped star-silver dew. His head shone slick where his hair would have been had he not shaved it every morning. The gaping hole that was all that remained of his right ear was starkly black. He had not yet noticed her presence, so lost was he in the fire’s red heart.
She sank to a crouch, resting her weight on her heels, watching the lift and fall of his breathing. She saw the moment when he became aware of her presence and the moment after it, when he decided not to move. Some time later, when it was clear he wasn’t going to speak, she said quietly, ‘Do you never sleep?’
She saw the corner of his mouth twitch. ‘As much as you, it seems.’ He did move then; a small motion of his hand that invited her to join him at his fire, which had been her fire first.
She took her place at his right hand. ‘I thought I heard a bear,’ she said, ‘but it was you.’
He glanced at her sideways. ‘I was blundering more than I thought,’ he murmured. ‘I apologize.’
He had, in fact, been quite astonishingly quiet. They both knew that.
She said, ‘Was it the river caused your clumsiness? Did your gods speak to you there?’
He looked at her directly then, not a thing he did often. In daylight, his eyes were a curious pale amber, entirely at odds with the solid black of his brows. In the firelight, they glowed a rich copper-gold, bright as a hawk’s.
‘Am I still wet?’ he asked.
‘That, and you smell of river water.’ Hannah nodded to the barn. ‘I’ve been with Math, who has a new
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