Bowling, Nicholas - In the Shadow of Heroes by Bowling Nicholas

Author:Bowling, Nicholas [Bowling, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911490982
Publisher: Chicken House
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

XVII

Cadmus quickly climbed through the hole in the wall and went around the back of the farmhouse. The priestess didn’t follow him. Where the main portion of the building had been demolished there were several large piles of rubble, where he could hide and watch the courtyard. The dog joined him, panting quietly. Cadmus could feel his warm, thin ribs pressed against his thigh.

The heroidai emerged from the night, moonlit and fire-lit and weirdly iridescent. There was one who stood out among them. He wore the Golden Fleece over his shoulders, and a mask of gold to match it. He was a good head shorter than the others. He also wore a set of armour that had been specially contoured to accommodate his considerable gut. Nero had come in person.

The emperor and his heroidai were followed by perhaps twenty slaves and two old men. Cadmus recognized both of them, too.

The first loitered at the back of the group, scroll in hand, his face somehow grey despite the red pulse of the torches. However much he tried to hide himself, he was unmistakably Gaius Domitius Tullus. Chastened, but alive, Cadmus was glad to see. He was staring at his sandals and seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking at the priestess.

The second man was even older than Tullus. He arrived several moments after everyone else had assembled, bent almost double, propped up on two slaves. His head was veiled, as it had been before, and all Cadmus saw was the man’s chin, tufted and greenish like fruit left to rot. It was Polydamas. Cadmus found himself thinking of the cranes he’d seen on Roman building sites, or water pumps, or siege weaponry – there was something mechanical and angular about the way the soothsayer moved, like he had been poorly engineered and might fall apart at any moment.

The priestess came out of the doorway and stood before the assembled men. She looked so small, swaddled in her many robes. A child, almost.

Polydamas limped over to the emperor and spoke something into his ear. His lips curled like leaves in winter, then he withdrew. Nero lifted his mask.

‘Good evening, my dear,’ he said. He licked his lips. ‘Perhaps I should offer you my thanks, first of all. For helping me to find my inheritance.’

He gave the fleece a little flourish. The priestess said nothing. Nero stepped closer. Uncomfortably close.

‘Of course,’ he said, waving his fingers in front of her blindfold. ‘You cannot even see it. You don’t even know who I am! Or maybe – ’ he leant into her ear – ‘you know me by the sweetness of my voice?’

From where he was crouching, Cadmus saw the priestess’s snake twitch underneath the mounds of her hair. It slithered down her neck and began winding its way up Nero’s bronze-clad forearm.

It was a moment before the emperor himself realized. He jerked backwards, squealing and swinging his arms wildly. He hurled the snake over the wall of the farmhouse, and fell over with the momentum.

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