BOOK

Enjoy the first chapter of my upcoming novel! Feel free to share any comments – what you liked and/or what you think I should change.

A.D. IX KAL. SEPT. MCLXIV A.U.C. ~ August 24, 410 A.D.

What is on the other side of all that water?

Is it safe there?

Our forefathers long believed that the great Titan Oceanus encircled the entire world with an unnavigable river, but the old gods are all dead, driven from Mount Olympus by a new, jealous deity who couldn’t stand the competition.

Love thy neighbor? We tried. They shot back!

Try as it might, the roar of wind and crash of waves against the sea cliffs no longer drowns out the clatter of four dozen angry men on their way to destroy us. They’re getting closer. A murder of crows bursts from the tree line, protesting the interruption to their midday siestas. Two crash into each other and fall from the sky. I’ve never seen that before.

“Where’s an augur when you need one?”

“I don’t need a bird to tell your fortune today,” taunts the other man – a villain I have hated with every fiber of my being; a foe I swore to kill more than once; a rival I would likely now die defending.

“Or me, yours,” I sneer back to show I’m not afraid of death. I didn’t used to be. “Not for us. Them.”

His eyes betray his usual bravado by flickering up the hill in doubt. Hidden, our friends are already hard at work on phase two of the plan. Phase one is to buy them enough time to finish.

He grunts in reluctant agreement. “In that case, stop moping and let’s get a move on.”

“What’s your rush?” I laugh to prove him wrong – moping! “Those brutes down there won’t start without us.”

My enemy favors me with his favorite maniacal grin. “For Irena?

“For the woman we love!”

CAPITULUM I: NOVA

A.D. IV ID. OCT. MCLXIII A.U.C. ~ October 12, 409 A.D.

The sun’s prismatic reflection off the Mandarache Sea and white walls of Carthago Nova blinded Valeria Irena as she pressed against the ship’s bow in excitement. If that weren’t enough, a sudden blast of wind knocked her backwards, almost off her feet. The young Romana laughed, more exhilarated than ever. As if a puff of air could stop her!

The wind could be stubborn, too. Irena’s nose twitched in recognition of the most prestigious garum factory in the world. The reek of fermenting fish guts comprised just one minor note of the bouquet of city stink she would need to readjust to. Regardless, the din, tang, and crush of too many bodies in a small space called to Irena – the pulse of life itself.

Undulating waves of raven black hair defied her halfhearted attempt at a bun. Rather than adjust the fillet band, she tried pulling her palla up over her head for greater modesty, but the long shawl whipped just as wildly. The medica shrugged and stopped fussing. Who did she have to look nice for? As long as her eyes and hands stayed free to save lives, she never dedicated much thought to appearances.

At just over five feet, Irena would never stand out in a crowd – she could barely see over the ship’s bulwark. Up close, though, rosy lips balanced a prominent aquiline nose; olive-oil skin glowed with just a touch of gold; and her kind, black eyes twinkled like the night sky reflected in a tranquil sea. When her temper flared, those stars exploded into blistering comets, raining fiery death upon any who dared challenge her. Fortunately, Irena usually smiled.

As the corbita docked, however, she frowned. Something felt off.

Perhaps it was her own fault for building this moment up in her head. Stuck in the Italian port of Ostia for months, Irena had nothing to do but accost random sailors with questions, plan, plot, and dream. Illiterate, she’d done her best to interpret maps and memorize the quickest route to the far northwest corner of Hispania. All would begin here in Carthago Nova, fittingly enough the same soil where her Republican ancestors had first turned their minds to empire building.

A lot can change in six hundred years, though. The provincial capital felt old and worn. Sailors, merchants and slaves tramped across the piers with ample space for courtesy, but what about nautical tradition? Where was the pushing, shoving, cursing?

Nearly forgetting to grab her manticam of sparse personal belongings, Irena was first down the gangplank. A satchel overstuffed with medicinal herbs slapped familiarly against her hip as she followed the trickle of commerce down the main road towards the forum. Head swiveling with growing concern, she tried to read the vitals of the city like one of her patients.

From a distance, Carthago Nova boasted all the markings of a prosperous Roman metropolis, including a massive temple to Iupiter overlooking the bay, an abandoned amphitheater sulking outside the walls like a naughty child, and additional shrines topping each of the five hills. Overlaid letters XP and drawings of fish splashed defiantly around the lintel designated a few repurposed buildings as churches. The whisper of music teased a theater somewhere behind multi-storied domi and apartment buildings as well.

Upon closer inspection, however, most of these stood vacant, neglected, graffitied; often all three. The forum didn’t so much hum as cough, its citizens ambling without purpose, going through the motions without quite remembering why.

Irena shivered with déjà vu.

Nearly a year ago, barbarians had besieged RomaAeterna for the first time in eight centuries. Alaric, leader of the Visigoths, hadn’t even needed to breach the gates to bring the Capital of the World to its knees and shake the faith of civilized people everywhere. Starvation forced the residents to agree to any terms he demanded, anything to make him ride away and promise never to return.

Dark memories seeped through Irena’s thoughts. Suddenly, ghosts walked the streets before her. Two images – the Roma of her past and Carthago Nova of her present – superimposed themselves on each other and she struggled to distinguish which was which. The street spread before her simultaneously bustling with activity and deadly quiet, abandoned but for corpses left to rot.

Irena had been luckier than most. Coming from a long line of medicae, her herbal healing skills and reputation for helping anyone protected her throughout the worst of the crisis. Still, she jumped at every intersection, every sudden movement. Raw recruits joined the gangs every day, and no one was safe in a turf war.

Now she stared as a wealthy patrician and her grocery-toting slaves strolled carelessly through the apparition of a young boy stabbed for the heel of moldy bread in his hands. Irena remembered how he had died in her arms, whimpering for his mother.

A dog barked and she marveled how any animal had survived this long without ending up in someone’s cook pot. Rats had so little meat after all the effort of trapping and skinning them. In the forum, more and more had demanded a price be set for human flesh. When bodies disappeared overnight, no one asked questions.

Ghostly faces, scarred and bloody, glared silently from empty doors and upper windows. Irena screamed from her eyes, hiding behind a plastered smile. Her feet sped faster and faster back towards the docks, never running, though it felt like she’d sprinted the entire way from Italia. The pounding of her heart against an impossibly tight chest blocked any other sound besides howls in her head to GET THE INFERNO OUT OF THERE!

Within minutes she was back to the ancient Carthaginian walls. They hadn’t kept the Romans out before and Irena, rabid with panic, would have torn them down brick by brick if anyone tried to stop her now. Only after dashing through the gates did she realize she’d stopped breathing. She collapsed against the wall, unfocused eyes staring unseeing across choppy blue water.

The visions finally ceased, but would she ever stop shaking?

Someone tapped her shoulder. Irena screamed out loud.

A man threw his hand over her mouth and gestured with the other, moving his flat palm downward. He pointed at her, then shook his index finger. Calm down! Where were you? As an afterthought, he swiped his sideways hand against an upward palm in a short chopping motion. Are you alright?

“Fine, Frater,” she lied in a shaky voice. “Sorry.”

This time he didn’t even have to sign – his cocked eyebrow said it all. She hadn’t fooled him, but he wasn’t the type to keeping pressing if his sister didn’t want his help. Gaius Valerius Corvinus had enough problems of his own.

The family resemblance was obvious. For one, the siblings shared the same noble nose – a mixed blessing. Seven centuries ago, their ancestor had volunteered to confront a giant Gallic warrior in one-on-one combat. A crow alighted on Valerius Corvus’ helmet before launching itself at his enemy’s face. This divine distraction led to a legendary Roman victory. Honor aside, the giant beak on Corvinus’ face lent the family name a new sense. Even Irena never used her brother’s praenomen when “Crow” suited him so well.

In recent months, “scarecrow” fit better still. His skin had burned and roughened like burlap after working all summer as a deckhand, soft patrician hands torn and blistered. He preferred them that way, refusing to let Irena apply her balms with the same feral abandon that resisted any attempt to attack his sable rat’s nest with a comb. About a palm taller than his sister, that still left him on the short side. Ironically, Corvinus compensated for this by slouching everywhere. Since no one knew his real height, most added a few mental inches. Similarly, a loose tunica hid his true weight, or lack thereof. The siblings had starved together during the siege, but while Irena gradually managed to add a little meat back onto her bones, her brother remained an anorexic skeleton, dangerously undernourished yet inexplicably nauseous at even the thought of eating.

That hadn’t always been the case, just like he hadn’t always been mute. A year ago, Corvinus had stood on the brink of achieving everything he’d ever dreamed: a thriving business, a beautiful wife, a baby on the way. Now his black, matte eyes sucked light itself into their infinite depths, nourishing something dark and unspeakable.

The guilt of pillaged memory tortured him doubly. Mobs torching his medical supply warehouse in search for anything edible – that he recalled, but how had his wife died? He’d simply woken up one morning to an empty house, head swirling, stomach churning, unable to speak a single word.

Irena wouldn’t tell him what had happened, pleading ignorance. Frustrated by her lies, Corvinus finally stormed out of their insula and kept walking until he reached the sea. He mimed his way into a job, hoping to lose himself in a new life – or the waves if all else failed. A fall from those high masts would do the trick, too.

No such luck. His sister had eventually tracked him down, begging him to join her on some insane quest. They were all each other had left. What could he say?

I didn’t want to bring you here in the first place, and it’s not too late for me to turn back now, Corvinus threatened, hands flashing in their rudimentary sign language. Knowing each other so well for so long helped fill in the gaps. Forgive me if you were bored, but some of us had work to do and wages to collect. Can you believe they tried to cheat me eight nummi? No more running off!

“I’ll behave, Frater.” Irena batted her eyes innocently. “Are you hungry?”

He shook his head. No surprise there.

“Shall we pass by the baths?”

He rubbed his thumb and index finger together.

“Too expensive?” Irena scowled at the glistening brine crusting his hair. “Avare, you can’t spare a single bronze semifollis?”

Normally, she’d force him to suffer through a massage out of spite too, except that would requiring braving the forum again. “Have it your way,” she huffed. Hopefully they’d pass a smaller balneae sooner than later; otherwise, she’d have to hold his head underwater and scrub him herself. Stubborn, self-destructive man!

A stray thought – that was too easy – floated lazily in the back of Corvinus’ mind, but it wasn’t bothering him, so he didn’t bother it. He felt the weight of six months’ salary divvied among hidden pockets. Every step reminded him how quickly it would all be gone. Then what?

Lead on, he beckoned sarcastically and nestled comfortably back into his cocoon of numbness, willing to follow his sister to the end of the earth – literally – as long as he didn’t have to think.

That was the closest Irena figured she’d get to a conversation for the rest of the day, and she was right. She, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking as the siblings crossed the western bridge and ascended through poorer neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the patinaed capital. They paused to purchase light provisions – dried fruit, nuts, cheese, bread, wine, and farro for porridge – then snacked while they walked. Irena pressed on past cauponas and the temptation of a real bed. Gradually civilization faded to fields and forests, where walls couldn’t contain her.

The ghosts didn’t follow – that she could see, at least.

Softer memories stirred. Roma would always be her city, but babbling brooks, flowering trees, and pungent earth comprised her earliest memories. Irene was a goddess of spring after all, charged with restoring peace and harmony to a world wallowing in eternal winter.

Irena pretended that was where her name came from, though really she’d been christened after her mother who died in childbirth. Pater shipped the infant and his six-year-old son off to live with their grandmother in the countryside while he buried himself in work and quickly forgot them.

The ancestral Valerian estate had once housed a luxurious, rambling villa fit for a long line of senators, consuls, and emperors, but its original complex had crumbled from neglect centuries ago. The land itself was divided by so many generations that the plot Avia tended barely accommodated her humble cottage. The matriarch of obduracy, however, she coaxed life out of every inch.

Avia knew the secret to growing carrots, leeks, beets, and fava beans in harmonious bunches, one practically on top of the other. Fig trees hung heavily over the gate, and grape vines climbed trellises all over the casula. Basil, lovage, rosemary, and dill poured out of every glassless window. Even so, medicinal flora outnumbered the rest by spades in this healer’s haven: yarrow to staunch bleeding and reduce fever, poppies for alleviating pain and anxiety, elecampane for the stomach and lungs, fenugreek for pneumonia, mandrake for insomnia, fennel for lactation, cabbage for sprains and headaches, and garlic for the rest. That and honey. Bees buzzed everywhere.

Her prize possession had been a rare cinnamon tree from the distant tear-drop island of Taprobana, propagated from the original plant her own great-grandmother had conveniently stumbled upon in a totally legitimate night market. Avia sustained the sapling indoors and employed the bark for everything from preserving meat to fighting inflammation to adding spice to customers’ bedrooms. Its popularity in high-end oils and luxury funerals attracted clients “worthy of the Valerian name.”

Any Greek freedman could slap bodies back together, Grandmotherlectured time and time again. Corvini men and women labored aloof from the rest to preserve the dying art of authentic Italian medicine. A portrait of Cato the Elder in a field of cabbages hung over the larario. Irena dishonored him and her ancestors by obsessing over innovators like Fabiola, who had opened the first hospital for average citizens, not just soldiers, and staffed it with Athenian hacks.

“Medica, cure thyself.” Avia explained her self-coined expression: a healer who couldn’t take care of herself – financially or otherwise – was useless to anyone else. “Just because your patients come first doesn’t mean you must come last. Never give away so much of yourself that you lose who you are.” Corvinus never passed up an opportunity to remind Irena, endlessly frustrated by his sister’s habit of giving his products away for free.

On top of such practical matters, Grandmother drilled both siblings on their ancient lineage to instill pride of heritage. Humility before the gods of old was even more important. Just because the Emperors had fully embraced Christianity didn’t mean the mos maiorem should be abandoned. Irena still hung a traditional lunula crescent around her neck for protection along with a cross. It couldn’t hurt.

Pater eventually recalled his legacy and ordered the siblings back to Roma to be married off. Corvinus, at least. Teenaged Irena lived less than two months in her father’s household before he abandoned her a second time. The deal of a lifetime ended up costing the merchant his life when he ran into Alaric’s first incursion onto Italian soil. His will bequeathed nothing but debt that outvalued the domum.

At least they weren’t around to watch their idyllic childhood home go up in fragrant flames as Radagaisus’ horde swept even farther south four years later. Avia must have already passed before then, or the Visigothic warlord would have never survived bruising a single petal of her precious garden.

All suns must set. On that bittersweet memory, the siblings’ first day in Hispania came to a close. They picked out a promising nook in an empty field, rolled out their blankets, and fell straight to tossing and turning. Eventually, Irena threw herself from the covers in frustration, hissing at the unfamiliar discomfort of stiff muscles. Massaging eucalyptus oil into the small of her back, she took a stroll to work out the kinks.

When the world is at its darkest, look up, her grandmotherwhispered from beyond. Tragedy had pursued Irena from her first breath, but she drew strength now from the calm, shimmery brilliance of the swirling heavens. A sliver of crescent moon smiled, and she clasped her lunula more tightly to her chest, remembering the rest of the quote. When even the stars hide, light the way for others.

“I will, Avia,” she breathed back, imagining what a beautiful world it could be.

The rocks and roots weren’t any kinder when Irena lay down again, but she tried to be a little more forgiving. Sleep came eventually.

Irena awoke the next morning tired, sore, and inches from a cow. Its warm, moist breath flecked snot onto her cheeks.

“Aah!”

“Who’s there?” threatened a voice from behind the forest of bovine legs.

Corvinus bolted upright as a calf started licking his head.

It took them both about five seconds to fully register what was going on, then another five to pause and recover their breath a mile down the road. Soaking clothes and sore muscles no longer weighed on their minds, at least until the adrenaline wore off.

As a result, Irena passed the morning a bit crankier than usual. “They call this a road?” she grumbled mostly to herself after tripping over yet another loose flagstone. “Via Herculea? I’d like to see what the real Hercules thinks about them naming this sorry excuse of a footpath after him. He’d say this stinks worse than the stables of Augeas and probably rip somebody’s head off!”

She heard the clatter of speeding hooves just in time to throw herself off the road as a uniformed officiant sped by on horse. “When you’re done delivering that mail, try posting yourself some manners!”

Corvinus allowed himself the luxury of a small snigger. He liked his sister best when she took a break from saving the world and let herself be human, especially if that involved scolding someone else for a change.

Irena noticed. “Shut up.”

Eventually the sun rose bright and hot. Irena’s temper dried out along with her clothes, just as a new problem presented itself: A journey of a thousand miles, it turns out, is very, very boring.

The world crawled along at such a mind-numbing pace that even dowdy mules pulling the occasional carrum seemed to zoom past like undercover racing stallions. Irena savored the rare, awkward rush of meeting other wretches on the road too poor to afford more than a sturdy pair of sandals, yet that still left hour after empty hour with no alternative but conversing with an antisocial mute. Irena gushed on and on about her grand plans, detailing every step she’d worked out so far and deliberating every possibility she could think of ad nauseum, as if Corvinus hadn’t heard it all a hundred times already.

As far as he knew, nothing had changed since they’d left Ostia a few days ago. Irena’s secret panic attack in Carthago Nova had rattled her to the bone, however. What would happen if she couldn’t enter any city without risking a total meltdown? Her brother’s mental health hung by a thread as well. Who would take care of him if she went crazy? Would he stay for her?

She rambled on to distract her mind and obscure her fears. After thoroughly exhausting the immediate present, Irena forecasted further and further into the future, painting a rainbow-hued paradise for their happily-ever-after. New markets for his business: a pharmaceutical empire. There was too much competition in Roma anyway. Here he could be rich – rich enough to rule a whole city!

She painted such a vivid picture that Corvinus began to drool. Then she went and ruined it by prattling on about how she’d devote his wealth to helping the sick and needy. He stopped listening again. Even she recognized how ridiculous she sounded after a while.

Exhausting that topic, Irena resumed commenting on their surroundings, albeit in a much more optimistic vein. Intuiting that her brother had checked out long ago, it made just as much sense to address the scenery directly.

“I see you, thyme! Just a little snip – it’ll only sting for a minute. And is that rosemary?”

“It’s so dry here! Why don’t you clouds send a little rain our way?”

“What a beautiful flower! What’s your name, little guy?”

“Who’s a pretty colchicum? You can’t fool me, you poisonous little devil!”

“I don’t know how you big, bushy oaks stay in shape with so little water. Hang in there! Oh, great. Where did those clouds from earlier go? They must be hiding from me! It’s ok, I don’t bite!”

No ifs about it – she was definitely going crazy.

Judging from the miliairiis markers along the road, Irena and Corvinus covered ten miles their first full day. Witnessing the sun flaunt its royal purple and red gold on the way to sleep was at least a little reward for their efforts. Irena was torn between pride at the modest achievement and despair at the hundreds and hundreds of miles left to go.

More pressing was the sinking reminder that night was dark. Yet again, the siblings found themselves without a place to sleep.

“You haven’t seen any cows recently, have you? Any sheep? Pigs?”

Irena could barely make out Corvinus’ shaking head in the extra dim light of a waning crescent moon. No, though he looked nervous too. Surveying their surroundings and shrugging helplessly, she realized they’d have to risk it.

A short distance off the path, a patch of three ancient cypresses jutted out of the earth at unnatural angles. Their roots, too, protruded unusually high. Avia used to call these the trees’ knees, but they appeared more like a menacing minion army in the dark. Regardless, Irena had learned her lesson about sleeping completely exposed. She hunted out a spot just wide enough for her and her brother to squeeze between without too much discomfort and settled in, daring the trees to do their worst.

The trees felt that was very unfair, especially with so many real bandits roaming at night.

After hours of more turning and tossing, the wind died down just long enough for Irena to hear something that made her blood freeze. She struggled to place the sound at first: harsh, asynchronous. The crunch of hobnail sandals on gravel. The creak of stiff leather. The swish of metal slicing through air.

They were not alone.

Corvinus’ eyes snapped open intuitively, and Irena raised a finger in warning to stay silent. In retrospect, Irena chided herself for such a useless precaution, but in the moment she didn’t dare take any chances. He complied without even rolling his eyes for once, but not everyone got the message.

“I thought you said you saw something over here,” a rough voice rasped from the other side of their tree.

“Maybe it was just these fatuae roots,” a second voice responded.

Thump.

The shadow laughed in a way that made Irena wonder if he had any more brains than the wood he had just kicked. The tree countered by raining silver leaves over everyone’s head.

“No, like this,” his partner guffawed back. Thwack. Metal stuck in the trunk, shaking the tree even more. He needed both hands to pull his weapon back out.

Thud. Chunk. Whack. Crack. Irena wanted to scream just to put an end to the brainless tittering.

Even they bored eventually. “That’s enough,” scolded the first thug. “You know wood dulls the spikes. Let’s look somewhere else. The roads have been busy. Someone’s bound to be out there with a fat purse and a little extra weight on their shoulders.”

“Ah, alright,” nimrod number two whined with one final whump, inches from Irena’s shoulders. They slunk back into the darkness with considerably less stealth then when they arrived. Still a long time passed before either Irena or Corvinus could breathe again.

Irena’s fingers were the first to resume contact with her brain. Slowly, she reached backwards, fumbling blindly near the root. There, just as she’d suspected. Hands shaking, she showed her brother, whose sharp intake of breath seemed amplified like a shout in the tense silence. Raven-black hair cut cleanly from her head.