“We have no mother but the earth, no father but the sword.”
The city rose from the wheat fields of the surrounding steppe, a gem in a sea of gold, and it prospered through the labors of its inhabitants. Their farms yielded in abundance that would have made the richest western plowman green with envy, and their cleverness yielded ingenious works of art and machinery: sextants and astrolabes that were sold to seafarers a thousand miles distant, gear-driven clocks that kept perfect time, and planetary models used to divine the movements of the heavens and scry out the will of the gods. Titus, chief acolyte of the temple of the war god, had no trade save for that which he earned at the point of a sword – even the craft of the bladesmiths was beyond his understanding – but he marveled at the city’s comings and goings, and the endeavors of its farmers and tradesmen filled him with a nameless warmth. Pride in one’s city, he called the feeling, but the word seemed misplaced, a shabby description of the farmers and laborers, the merchants and law courts, which made the city run as smoothly as the machinery in a scryer’s laboratory. Good men and women, he thought. Most of them, at any rate.
On this particular morning, a pleasant day in the seventh month, he stood in a portico that overlooked the public square and watched as the crowd gathered for the execution. The auguries were good and the sentence was just, and he was at a loss to explain the sense of unease that had nagged at him since he had risen at dawn. Perhaps the high priest had sensed it as well, for he had dismissed Titus from the preparations – “Your time will come soon enough. For today, simply watch and learn.” He scanned the center of the square, just beyond the spot where the crowd was allowed, and observed from a distance as the high priest assembled the instruments of the ceremony – the fire, the implements of torment, the wooden headsman’s block – as the lesser acolytes scampered about the platform, arranging everything in accordance with the high priest’s pointed finger.
The dignitaries began to assemble in the reserved stand – the high council of the city, the priests of the other temples (“the lesser temples,” the high priest frequently noted with disdain), and the world’s oldest man, revered totem of the Cult of Long Life. The world’s oldest man was reputed to be nearly threescore and ten years old, a thought that boggled his mind. It is rumored that they abstain from meat, from strong drink, from the knowledge of women, he remembered. And by renouncing all that makes life worthwhile, they extend the span of their existence for a few years. Perhaps was the nature of his own calling that made their lifestyle repellent, for the children of Mars typically died young – Titus was an old man at thirty, and the high priest of the war god, barely forty years old, seemed positively ancient.
At last, the condemned was brought forth, a slave in the early years of adulthood, and Titus winced as an odd sympathy stabbed at his heart. A sturdy youngster. He could have made a decent footman, had his crimes not outraged the council as they did. His life would have been short in any case, for the temple lost so many footmen that it was difficult to make good the losses from one year to the next, but an honorable death was better than a shameful end. Alas, the council has made its decision –
“Quite a spectacle, is it not?” Titus jumped, startled that the woman could have slipped up on him so easily. “On what charge is he condemned?”
He turned his head slowly, sizing her up even as he marveled at her beauty. The woman was tall, with a long head of hair gone prematurely gray, and adorned in a fitted robe that hinted at a good figure beneath her garment. She looked into his eyes, and Titus was startled by the ageless quality of her face – had she announced herself to be sixteen or sixty, he would not have been surprised.
“He is condemned for blasphemy,” he replied, stumbling a little over the words. “What brings you to our fair city, my lady?”
“Such a polite young man.” She flashed a winning smile, but there was something about her eyes that unnerved him, a hard quality that was not softened by the upturned mouth. “The guard at your gates was much rougher when he examined my arm.”
“My apologies,” he said. “The city guards make up a lack of imagination with a surfeit of brutishness. I must confess that I’m curious… May I have a look?”
The woman raised the sleeve of her tunic, and the fingers of his right hand tingled as Titus carefully traced the runes. The sigil was genuine, he could see as much from the correct ordering of the artist’s strokes, but its significance was unknown. Some lost tribe from antiquity?
“Thank you. Would you like to see mine?”
“There is no need, for I know an acolyte of the war god when I see one. Have you ever celebrated the Festival of Mars?”
“Members of the temple do not discuss our rituals with outsiders.”
“Don’t be so coy with me, for your rituals are no secret.” A soft tone belied the harshness of her words, and Titus caught the flash of pity that crossed her face. “Every village within a hundred leagues whispers of it, but they fear to speak too loudly, lest they bring a curse upon themselves. The temple does good things, in its own way, for many an orphan would have starved without its care, and yet…”
“I told you already, we do not speak of such things.” He gestured toward the center of the pavilion. “Now be silent, the ceremony is about to begin.”
The prisoner was led into the square, naked save for the hood that covered his head. That was another part of the ritual, for though every inhabitant of the city knew his route and destination, the sightlessness was intended to confuse the condemned man’s final minutes and to elevate his fear. A pair of footmen grasped his upper arms and tied him to a stake, and a murmur washed over the crowd as the high priest removed the hood with a flourish. Lost in the moment, Titus forgot his companion for an instant, until she tapped his arm.
“Tell me again of his crime.”
“A bit of doggerel verse,” he replied. In the distance, the prisoner struggled against his bonds as the high priest selected the first instruments of torment. “He scribbled upon the outer wall of the temple of Mother Earth, and I will not repeat the contents of his writing, but the fool neglected to ensure that his crime was not observed.”
“How unfortunate.” She stared rapt as the first tribulation began. “When I passed through the city gate, I heard that none less than the world’s oldest man testified to his deeds. Is it so?”
“So I have heard.” Titus paused in mid-thought as cries of pain echoed across the square. “The honored citizen was taking his morning constitutional when he came upon the criminal.”
“There was also talk that he was not alone.” The woman’s hand brushed his arm. “Indeed, there is gossip that the very head of the high council was with him. Interesting that a pair of esteemed citizens would happen by the temple at that very moment, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know.” There had been questions, of course, for the prisoner was apprenticed to a tradesman employed by the head of the high council himself, and it was rumored that a slave in the councilman’s household – a beautiful girl of sixteen, whom the councilman desired for himself – had yielded to the advances of the luckless apprentice. The first tribulation ended, and the prisoner hung by his arms, exhausted, as the high priest selected another implement. The ceremony consisted of three tribulations, and the council had been relatively merciful, for the third tribulation would be the prisoner’s beheading. Titus had seen men crucified or impaled for their crimes, and in one case, he heard of a man being flayed alive, his still-living body cast out through the city gates to feed the wolves that roamed the steppe. Unusual to grant such a quick death, he thought. It was almost as if –
“It’s almost as if they want him quickly removed,” the woman said, “a means of preventing him from talking.”
Steel flashed in the morning sunlight as he drew his knife, moving faster than the eye could follow. Titus held the blade to her throat, but she did not flinch.
“Witch!” he hissed. “Do you presume to read my thoughts now?”
“I am no witch,” she said calmly. “Your thoughts are all over your face, plainly written for anyone who cares to read. Besides, you have surely heard the rumblings throughout the city?”
“What of them? He was duly convicted of his crimes…”
“By friends of the purported witnesses, one of whom had a personal stake in the outcome. I suppose it matters little now, for nothing can save him from the high priest and his axe, but by some accounts, false testimony is every bit as serious as blasphemy. I wonder if our esteemed citizens gave any thought to the consequences of their actions?”
Titus, chief acolyte of the war god, turned to respond, but the woman had vanished into the crowd.
He scanned the assembled throng as the second tribulation ended, searching for the woman. You never answered my question, dear lady – what brings you to our city? The prisoner was forced to kneel, his neck stretched across a wooden block, as the high priest removed the axe from its place among the implements. She reappeared at the base of the pavilion as the axe swung upward in preparation for the killing blow, and Titus’s eyes widened in disbelief as the woman leapt onto the raised platform. The high priest’s back was turned, but the head of the high council saw, and he pointed at the interloper, his mouth opened to give a command that was lost in the roar of the crowd. They love it, Titus thought – the strange woman’s appearance added to the entertainment, and even the high priest could discern as much, for he paused with the axe raised overhead, perhaps believing that the crowd was cheering in anticipation of the final stroke. The world’s oldest man stumbled to his feet, doddering a little on his cane, as Titus saw the pair of flintlock pistols, and the axe began its downward arc as she took aim. The gunshot was little more than a pop from his own vantage, like a cork pulled from a wine bottle, but Titus caught the sudden flinch of the high priest’s body – the noise had startled him. The axe continued to swing as the world’s oldest man fell dead upon the stage, and the second shot came as the blade severed the prisoner’s neck. Titus scarcely believed his eyes, for acolytes of the war god were taught that pistols must be fired from the strong hand only, yet the woman’s left hand proved as accurate as her right, and the bullet struck the leader of the high council in the center of his forehead.
All was chaos as the spectators fled from their places of honor, but the high priest stood his ground, wrenching the axe free of the block as he turned to face the murderer of two of the city’s most honored members. She dropped her empty pistols as the blade swung in a long, looping stroke, and Titus was seized with the urge to shut his eyes, for the prospect of her death wrenched cruelly at his heart. The woman turned to face her doom, and he stared, transfixed by the silver mane that billowed freely as the blade swung for her skull –
– and missed its mark. A pirouette, lacking a dancer’s grace but executed with flawless precision, removed her body from the blade’s path, and as the axe bit into the stage, a half-step forward brought her within range of the high priest. She evaded his grasp with a quick feint, punched once at the center of his torso, then leapt from the far side of the platform, vanishing into the crowd as the first contingent of city guards made their way onto the stage. The high priest watched her depart, his head slowly turning to follow her movements, then staggered to one knee before collapsing onto the platform. He lay unmoving as more guards cleared a path through the crowd, one outstretched arm nearly touching the headless corpse of the boy.
***
“He wishes to see you now.”
Titus waited for hours as the healers performed their work, cleaning the wound and burning various herbs to cleanse the air of the sickroom. A dagger concealed in the folds of her cloak, the guards claimed, and he remembered the manner in which the garment had clung to her figure. How did she conceal a trio of weapons with such ease? The high priest was conscious and, to his undying surprise, in excellent spirits.
“Titus my boy.” The high priest touched his shoulder, a gesture of paternal affection that surprised and moved him. “It’s so good to see you before I cross over.”
“I’m glad to see that you’re well,” he said. “Considering –”
“Considering that I’m dying?” The high priest laughed, then winced as mirth gave way to a new round of pain. “I suppose I’m shamed for being killed by a woman – but such a woman! Did you see her? As worthy an opponent as any I ever faced, and it’s not every day that one dies at the hand of a Gray Wolf.”
“A Gray Wolf?” Titus raised one eyebrow. “I thought they were only legend.”
“Not legend, though there are few enough of them remaining. They –” The high priest groaned as he clutched at his belly. “They wander the earth, rejected by the Great Household of the gods, and they cause mischief for every civilized tribe between the steppe and the western ocean. Penance, they call it.”
The high priest was caught up in another wave of pain, then his body relaxed, and his breathing became so shallow that Titus was certain that he had crossed over into the next world. The dagger had nicked one of the vessels that ran from the heart, too small to kill him quickly, but large enough to fill his final hours with agony as his abdomen filled with blood. Titus felt the veins beneath the wrist and detected a weak pulse, and after a long interval, the high priest drew a shallow breath.
“There is one more thing,” the high priest croaked, his voice weakened by this final tribulation. “You are to succeed me, and the stars are aligning as they will not for another thirty years. The calculations are in my study…”
“What is it, my lord?” Titus seized his wrist.
“The Festival of Mars.” His eyes drifted shut, and the high priest could not see as the blood drained from Titus’s own face. “Like none the world has ever seen. You must celebrate when the summer solstice…”
The high priest’s breathing grew labored, then ceased, and the wave of emotion that overwhelmed him was so great that Titus found himself weeping. “We have no mother but the earth, no father but the sword,” he whispered, the great invocation that opened every prayer to the god of war. The dead man in the sickbed had been a father of sorts, harsh and cruel, but filling his life with genuine purpose. Had the temple not taken me into its ranks, I would have died in the gutters, a nameless orphan whose life meant nothing. Titus had loved the high priest as much as he had loved any man.
And yet…
“The Festival of Mars,” he repeated quietly. Titus had been a celebrant of the last festival, held a baker’s dozen years prior, and the memories of that night filled him with horror. I was a boy of sixteen, he repeated to himself, barely old enough to comprehend what I had done. Now he was a man, next in line for the high priesthood, and the weight of office could scarcely have been more oppressive if the war god himself had descended from his throne. He bent over the sickbed, kissing the dead forehead, then Titus, high priest-elect of the temple of the war god, left the sickroom without speaking to the healers. The temple was now his, and he made his way there now, his mind only half-aware that he had already made a decision.
***
They stood in the doorway, the chief healer, the second of the high council, and a stranger, whom Titus presumed to be the newly-appointed world’s oldest man. The city fathers were escorted by a pair of teenage boys, lesser acolytes of the temple, and Titus dismissed them with a nod as his visitors crossed the threshold of the study.
“My lord,” the second said, eyeing the papers upon his desk. “The high priest died of his wounds this evening. His funeral–”
“Will be held at the temple,” Titus interrupted, “in accordance with our secret rites. Castigere will take my place at the ceremony, for I am going on a journey.”
“Most unusual,” the newly-crowned world’s oldest man said. “That you should leave him to cross over alone –”
“We are warriors.” Titus did not look up as he shoved a batch of papers into the leather satchel on his desk. “We all die alone in the end. Besides, I do not journey on my own account, but to carry out his final instructions.”
“Well yes, of course.” The second man of the high council warily eyed the longsword that hung from his left shoulder. “It’s merely that with all that has happened on this day, a day unlike any since the dawn of creation, the council believes it expedient to return the city to its normal order of business with as little disruption as possible. If I might ask…”
Titus looked calmly into the watching faces until each man dropped his eyes, then waited in silence, as unmovable as the stones of the earth.
“If I might ask,” the second stammered again, “what was the high priest’s last request?”
“With the insult that we suffered today, do you need to ask?” For the first time in hours, Titus smiled as he gestured toward the open doorway. “He sent me forth from the city with a final command to avenge his death.”
***
He wore the brown cloak of an acolyte and carried no insignia of office, and those who passed him on the road might have marked him for an ordinary traveler, save for the sigil that adorned his left arm and the longsword that he carried on his shoulder. The sigil marked him as a devotee of the war god, but his right arm was unmarked, for the children of Mars claimed allegiance to no tribe. The leather satchel was long gone, the bag and its contents traded to one of the many caravans that plied between the steppe and the unknown lands of the east – even in his extremity, Titus could not bring himself to destroy the sacred numbers. In due time, perhaps the calculations would find their way back to the temple, but by then, the stars would be out of alignment, and the time for the Festival’s bloody celebration would not return for another thirty years. If it ever comes again, Titus thought. They would wait for him until summer’s end, then the maneuvering would begin among the lesser acolytes, and the struggle for power would bleed the temple white.
He caught up with her after three days, but Titus gave no credit to his own tracking skill – the Gray Wolf sat at the crossroad, watching her backtrail like a girl waiting at midnight for her lover’s arrival. He removed the sword from his shoulder and sat at her side, staring upward at the cloudless sky.
“You told me you weren’t a witch,” he said after a long silence.
“And I spoke truly,” she replied. “I am skilled at reading men, such that I seem to know their thoughts. Did they send you to kill me?”
“Not precisely, though the city fathers believe that to be my purpose.” He paused, staring at her face. “The festival of Mars will not happen this year. Perhaps it will never happen again. Was that your plan all along?”
“What plan?” She asked with such innocence that Titus wondered whether she was taunting him, but the Gray Wolf’s face was empty of all guile. “I came upon a man like any other, tainted by evil, yet retaining goodness at his core, and I spoke to him. What will you do now?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “The temple was my life, and now I am adrift.”
“Then come.” The Gray Wolf rose and began to walk up the dusty road, not looking to see if he followed as she called over her shoulder, “There’s a big world between the steppe and the ocean, and there’s always a need for a man of courage.”
He watched for a long time as she receded into the distance. A man of courage? The old shame weighed upon his heart, and he forced the memory away. “They cause mischief in every civilized tribe,” the high priest had warned. “Penance, they call it.” His eyes returned to the hard blue of the sky, perhaps seeking the answer to an unspoken question, then Titus, former chief acolyte of the war god, rose and followed, his footsteps stirring the dust as he headed away from the city.
'a gem in a sea of gold'--beautiful imagery. This is really good!