He missed that, the closeness, the days on the march, the tight community of the army. A sad look came into his face and the Prince looked away from his brother, feeling very lonely. Tears threatened to well up as he struggled against a flood of emotions. He treasured those days, now long gone. He thought of leaving; this was too painful.
“I traveled with friends, brother. It was very safe, safer than your journey.”
Galen nodded, his face marked with a wan smile. “What is it? Wait, you must be starving from the look of you. Eat first, then tell me.”
The Emperor rang a small bell that sat on the side of the table, and a moment later one of the household servants entered. The old man, a Greek, smiled to see Maxian and bowed deeply to the Emperor.
“My brother has had a long journey. Bring something hot to drink and whatever is left of the dinner. And warm too, not cold.”
The old-Greek scurried off, calling out to the other servants as soon as he left the tent. Galen stood and walked around the table to his brother. Maxian stared up at him, his eyes dull with fatigue. The Emperor reached out, clasped his brother’s hand, and drew him to his feet. Maxian stared at him, filled with an odd dread. His brother wrapped him in a fierce hug. Maxian looked away, blinking back tears.
“I missed you and Aurelian,” Galen whispered. “I…”
The servants bustled in, laden with platters and jugs and a bucket of coals. Maxian stepped aside from his brother and greeted the cook and the other house servants. He had known them for as long as he had lived. They laid out a feast: roast pheasant, lamb stew, grilled fish, hot rolls with butter, a thick gruel of chickpeas and spices. The cook pressed a mug of hot wine into his hand. Maxian drank deeply, feeling the heat flush through his body. He sat again and stared in amazement at the platter of food in front of him.
“Eat,” Galen said. “I’ll wait.”
The engine was quiescent, its fires banked, midnight wings folded in against the serpentine body. It crouched in a defile a mile or more from the Roman camp, hidden by evergreens and a thicket of gorse bushes and thorn. Krista sat on the huge head, feeling the heat of the metal under her, her legs on either side of the long pointed snout. She had adopted woolen leggings and a heavy shirt under a half-tunic of lambskin with fleece on the inside. One of the Valach who now served the Prince had shown her how to make it, his thin fingers quick with a heavy needle to stitch the fleece to the leather. It was warm, a little too warm now that they had come to this temperate land. But when the engine was in flight, high among the clouds, the wind bit with teeth of ice. She gazed mournfully off into the darkness in the direction of the Roman camp.
She would have to make a decision soon, to go or to stay. To fulfill her duty or to hang on, seeing what more she could learn. A soft giggle distracted her, and she drew her legs up, folding them under her. Two shapes moved in the darkness under the shoulder of the engine. White skin flashed in the dim moonlight, and a deeper voice answered. Krista curled her lip in disgust. For a dead man, the old Roman had not lost any taste for the pleasures of the flesh.
And Alais is all too willing, seeking some advantage of it.
The dynamic-of the small group had changed markedly with the introduction of the Valach girl and her “friends” to the circle. The other Valach, pale and quiet, had proved invaluable in the completion of the engine. They were tireless, once Maxian had graced them with the elixir, and the dreadful haunted look that had filled their eyes was gone. Some, like the boy Anatol, were even kind in their own way. He had spent hours stitching the rich image of a curling serpent that adorned the back of her half-tunic. But Alais? She was poison.
Krista smiled, caressing the shape of the spring gun snugly tied to her left arm. Someday something would happen in some confused moment, and the Valach woman and her soft full breasts, overgrown like some lush flower left in the dark for too long, would be a corpse. Laughter filtered through the trees. The old Roman and the woman had gone through the brush and up the hill. Moonlight fell in long slats in the passages of the wood. Krista stood, shrugging the half-tunic into place. A little ways away, she could see them.
Alais was dancing in the moonlight, her long hair slowly swirling white around her pale shoulders. Her dress clung to her like a spiderweb, sheer and fine. Her long legs flashed in the silver light as she turned and spun. Gaius Julius leaned against the trunk of a tree, his face in shadow. She danced closer to him and his hand flashed out, capturing her arm. Krista turned away and climbed down off of the great engine. She stooped to enter the dim, hot chamber at the center of the device. Night would proceed. Maxian would return soon.
Galen watched his brother closely while he ate. Something had happened to the youth he had left behind in the capital. He had somehow become a man in the past months, a man with a haggard face and secrets hiding behind his eyes. His clothes, too, were strange. Dark rich robes and a mottled gray tunic underneath. The Prince finished the platter of food and pushed it away from him. The Emperor put down his own cup of wine and motioned for the servants to leave them.
“What troubles you, Maxian? Something important must have transpired since I left the city. Has something happened to you?”
Maxian nodded, his head heavy. He had just eaten more than he had in the last week and his body was seized with lethargy. For the first time in days, he thought of sleep. Something about the old familiar tent, the narrow, concerned face of his brother, the smell of the candles and the horses, made him feel safe and comfortable. He yawned, then blinked and rubbed his face fiercely.
“Do you remember the night that you, and I, and Aure-lian were at the Summer House? You were telling me of your plan to invade Persia. I felt something that night,
(Al something I had felt only two times before. Brother, it frightened me. You know that I am a healer, that I have power in the unseen world.“
Galen nodded, his attention fixed on his younger brother.
“Like a sorcerer, or a wizard,” the Prince continued, “I can see the invisible powers. That night, in the little temple under the moon, I felt something powerful. Something inimical to men. It piqued my curiosity, so I started to ask some questions…”
Maxian continued for close to an hour, his even voice recounting nearly all that he had done and all that he had seen since that night. He left out only the details of his companions. When he finished, he sipped from a cup of wine the servants had left when they cleared away the dinner plates.
Galen stared at him, his face pale and drawn with horror. The Emperor looked away suddenly, and when he looked back, his eyes were angry. “Fool of a brother! How many times could you have died in this? Without anyone knowing? And your curse… if it is true, then my life is forfeit if I return to the West. I will die as surely as your friend the shipwright, or these weavers.”
The Emperor sprang to his feet and began pacing, his face a mask of concentration.
“No,” Maxian said, staring in surprise at the agitation of his brother. “You, of all men, are safe in this thing. Such a construction needs a focus, some point from which all else springs. You are that focus, as the Emperor is the focus of the state. I know that you are safe. It may influence your thought and your intent. But so too does it protect you and shield you. Of all the men in the world who do not count mastery of the hidden world among their skills, you are the only one who can know this thing.”
Galen turned, fists clenched in anger. “What would you have me do? Throw down the state I have sworn to defend? Wreck the Empire that, for all its faults, brings peace and protection to the people of half the world? I cannot do this thing. I will not do this!“ His voice had risen, almost to a shout.