From The River To The Sea - Second Excerpt

Earlier this year, I posted a bit from my to-be-published Book 2 of my Old Empire series. In that excerpt, we came to be introduced to a rather silly group of ne'er do wells, adventurers with a somewhat questionable history.

For this week's story, I'm putting up another excerpt. And yes, we're introduced here to another, slightly less silly, pair of ne'er do wells.

One of them whose history is just beginning to unfold. But that's what stories are for, isn't it?

An Excerpt from From The River To The Sea, Book 2 of the Old Empire Series by M. K. Dreysen

Far to the south of where Rudolphus grunted and cursed every over-extravagant meal his friends had ever eaten, an old man stumbled to his chamberpot.

Once he'd satisfied himself that he wouldn't piss the bed, not yet by God not yet, Marcesus then made his way to the window to try and gauge whether the Empire's sway still held.

The torches lining up in the far distance told him the worst. "Son of a bitch."

Well, almost the worst. Marcesus turned away from the tower's south window and hurried to pack.

He had time to escape the city and its fate. Just. He'd purchased the tower, despite the laborious climb, for reason of the view. Three stories above the crowded streets.

And here, the payoff. The approaching army, whoever they were, hadn't yet encircled the city.

Best of all, the port remained open. A few hours remained before the dawn tide; Marcesus had traced the moon's progress as he always had. Now, he thanked God's providence for a habit that had rarely seemed so useful.

He'd come here to get far enough away from Rome to drift into the political void, yet not so far away as to fall away from the protection of the legions. Five years of good dry heat had done wonders for Marcesus's arthritis. And his book collection.

He mourned every one that he couldn't tuck into his pack. Mourned them, and glanced at them not at all once he'd packed his bag. Clothing, the good pair of boots, the heavy cloak he hoped he wouldn't need. A small handful of books, yes, and most of all the correspondence. Whether the Empire or their enemies, he wouldn't leave the letters to be found by either.

"The bastards might yet survive this," Marcesus reminded himself. The last thing he needed was one of the governor's oh-so-supercilious bootlickers going through the tower, looking for ammunition.

Marcesus stopped at the door, back already warning him that this had better be a short walk. He surveyed his room. "It'll have to do," he told himself, then closed the door and went looking for a boat headed somewhere else.

Behind him, five years' worth of accumulated life testified that its owner had just stepped away for a moment or two. Behind the papers, the wards that Marcesus had cast, and other lingering traces of his workings, began to fade to quiescence.

He stepped out of the tower and into the time of running away. Past the time of drunks and yet too early for the time of the bakers.

Marcesus expected to walk through the empty streets, to the port and the captains making ready for the tidal change, without disturbing the conscience of anyone that he knew. And, so far as anyone who might count in the governor's reckoning, Marcesus did escape from the city without notice.

The merchants, the ones who'd parted with coins only grudgingly when their sons required tutoring, slept in their villas. Most of the soldiers, too, snored in their single story barracks. Their officers had usually been much more willing to part with coins because generating reports was part of their budget. At least when the pay chests arrived on time.

Marcesus had taken their teasing over the years. "Old man, how long does it take you to get to your rooms?"

He shook his head. None of the townfolk, or the plain soldiers, deserved what was to come. But Marcesus had no way to stop it. The soldiers manning the walls tonight, and their commander, braced for what awaited. The legion's commander had warned the populous of the chance that the city could fall under siege.

Herrion had done his duty, Marcesus acknowledged. But the habits of Empire, the mindset Marcesus had observed now for decades, held more sway than the threat of war.

The habit, and the governor's rituals. Marcesus felt them now, whispers at the edge of his mind. The promise of protection. Marcesus spit into the street, fought off Nonnian's false dreams.

The governor knelt in his villa every night, and whispered those dreams to the city. Of peace, of power, of wealth. Even asleep, Nonnian's promises lingered, soothed the sleeping city.

Well, except for the girl. "I guess I should have known," Marcesus whispered to himself.

Nonnian had taken the governor's position just months before Marcesus himself had found his way to the city. The bakers, the brewers, the merchants, the folk of the street, these faces too the old man remembered, and in most cases treasured.

The soldiers rotated regularly. The sailors and those they carried drifted to anonymity just by the fact of their staying here for almost less than a minute.

The girl was, in many ways, the most constant face of all. And, Marcesus reminded himself, his truest friend here in Antioch.

She sat, huddled against the winter night, in the one alleyway he needed to pass through; the last such before the piers.

Marcesus paced his way through the shadows. She had to have hidden here knowing that most would need torches to find her. Away from the fitful moon, the buildings almost merging overhead.

Marcesus didn't need the moon light. Too many hours tracking her progress through the city, when he'd given her a coin "To post this letter, and another when you return if its been done properly." Ceila's mind, the surface thoughts at least, was as familiar to him as her face.

She'd ever refused his offer of a place to stay. Five years since he'd passed her a penny, "Where's a quiet, safe place for an old man to sleep, young lady?"

Ceila had shown him to a tavern that night. The next morning, Marcesus had been little surprised to find her waiting outside the tavern's door. "Just in case you need more directions," she'd said.

He'd taken her up on the offer. And when he'd found the tower rooms, he'd promised her, "If you ever need a safe place to stay, there's a room for you."

She'd never once accepted the aid he'd offered. Even when the occasional snow or ice storm made the street life unimaginable to Marcesus, Ceila had kept that distance.

Marcessus let these memories run through his mind while he stopped and wrote a note in the shadows. When he'd finished it, he took two keys from his pockets, two silver coins as well, and folded the letter around them all. Satisfied the letter would hold these things safely, the old man bent over the sleeping form, tucked the letter beneath her arm, and turned for the port.

****

Ceil prided herself on her instincts. Which tavern she needed to avoid because the locals were far too close to the governor's limits. When she could visit the market in safety. When the riots were gearing up. The merchants and soldiers to avoid. The thieves who'd share a penny from the day's take, and the ones who always found themselves a little short of the fees their master demanded.

If she were the bragging type, Ceila would have told the other street kids, "There's no way in hell someone could sneak up on me at night." And she'd have believed it.

Until she woke in the pre-dawn stillness with a heavy letter beneath her folded hands. Heavy because of the coins, and two other small metal objects. The coins kept her from throwing the letter away and running as far and fast as she could.

Ceila's pulse rushed and pounded like she'd taken to her heels anyway. Her face flushed, her chest heaved.

The paper crumpled in her hands; she gripped the letter until the metal poked at her fingers.

So far as Ceila knew, only one person in the entire world even knew that she could read.

Merchants and soldiers alike preferred messengers who couldn't. She earned her living, such as it was, in part because none of her customers knew what the old man had taught her. That was one of the reasons she'd refused every offer the old man had made for a place to stay.

It would have been bad for business. "Fine, Marcessus," she whispered. "What the hell do you want?"

She put aside the fear, how he'd found her, how he'd snuck up on her at night. That part she'd have to consider later. Right now she needed a way to read the letter. The moon, when Ceila stuck her head out of the alleyway, was almost, but not quite, enough.

The only torches lit at this time of the night hung outside of the barracks. Light from the bakers' windows would do it, as well, but the bakers didn't open their shutters until they'd filled their shelves for the day's selling.

Ceila checked both ends of the alley; the streets on port side and hill side remained clear. Satisfied for the moment, Ceila returned to her corner and patiently sparked one of her precious candle stubs, carefully horded from the tower and her lessons with the old man, to life.

"C: As we both suspected, the Persians have arrived. I cannot say yet whether the city will fall; if not this time, then soon."

Ceila snorted at that. From what she knew of the old man, Marcessus considered history in decades. She might be an old woman, toothless and bent, and the old bastard's ghost would still count that as "soon".

She continued reading. "I've taken to the water. As ever, I assumed that you would refuse any offer to accompany me."

'Damned right,' Ceila muttered. She was willing to admit Marcessus had shown himself no threat, at least compared to the average. She wanted it kept that way.

"Still, I hope that you'll accept a different offer of aid. The larger key is for the tower itself; the smaller key for a chest you'll discover there. However, you won't find the chest, nor open it, until you've read and well understand certain of the books you'll find in the tower. Actually, I should say your new library. The tower and all it contains are yours. You've learned enough I think to begin taking advantage of what they contain; I hope that you do so. Close the shutters and lock the doors, in the manner that I've shown you, and the tower will protect you from any that might come looking. I hope someday to receive letters from you. Search well and you'll find instructions for getting them to me. Be well, stay safe. M. P.S. I leave the coins to help bridge the time until you find the right books to read."

Ceila had tucked the coins and keys into her pocket first thing; she blew out the candle and sent the letter into hiding along with them. Then she lifted her own pack, little more than a sailcloth bag full of those possessions she allowed herself, and left the alley and its shadows.

The alley should have concealed the candle's light; she'd used it often enough in reading the books Marcessus assigned to her. But if the Persian army really did ready to attack the city, the Roman soldiers would be far more paranoid than they normally were.

Ceila moved through the remaining hour before dawn deliberately. She stopped at corners to listen. Walked across streets, then turned to look and watch.

Finally, when she'd convinced herself that she was, as ever, beneath the notice of anyone important, Ceila walked to the tower. Such as it was.

Five years ago, Ceila had brought Marcessus to the tower because it was the only building that anyone would sell to an outsider. Well, a scholar, anyway. Merchants had golds, soldiers connections. Scholars being possessed of neither, Antioch's citizens had, collectively, laughed in the old man's face.

Marcessus hadn't given up. Which impressed Ceila, then and now. He'd kept asking, and eventually someone had decided to offload the neighborhood eyesore. None of them expecting that Marcessus would have the funds to buy the slowly collapsing pile of rock.

Visually, the tower hadn't improved any in the five years since she'd first brought Marcessus to see it. Three stories of desert brown stone, unmortared to begin with and the stones were migrating for freedom. Few of them remained in their original position.

But the tower did, somehow, yet stand true. Ceila had walked the stairs often enough to feel it. Only, as she did now, every time she approached, her mind insisted that the tower would collapse beneath her as soon as she climbed high enough to be killed in the fall.

And that feeling had gotten stronger, Ceila thought. Almost as though Marcessus had encouraged it, somehow. She shrugged the familiar tingle of fear away. Then, after glancing around to check yet again that no one watched, she unlocked the door and slipped inside.

The latch, and the lock, thudded home. Ceila listened to the echo. The darkness of the ground floor agreed with the outside of the tower. It whispered to her, said "You aren't safe here. Run, before I collapse and take you with me."

Even when she sparked one of the candle stubs alight, the room continued to press its message of decrepitude.

But just as with the outside view of the place, the feeling here was a familiar one. And, now, Ceila felt herself feeling possessive. The dust and cobwebs in the corners, the way the stones didn't quite align with each other. They hinted that, in daylight, you might be able to see between them.

And that they might come apart completely the next time an earthquake rumbled. The room was tiny, too, not very much taller than Ceila. It insisted that, "Linger here and you'll soon know the feeling of your tomb."

She smiled. At the room, at the cracked and twisted stones of the stair leading up. If someone came looking, broke the door to see what might be hiding in these shadows, they'd take a look at the stairs and the room and think twice of daring the rest of the tower.

Ceila climbed past the broken steps. Oh, they were every bit as broken as they looked; but the fractured pieces held her just as well as full stones might have. Her eyes, and the tower, wanted her to believe otherwise. But her feet and balance told her something else.

By the time she and her dancing candleflame twisted around the winding stair to the second level, she'd left most of the unease behind. The steps here still showed their cracks, but the second floor room felt just a little more secure. If almost as empty.

"Why haven't you filled it with bookshelves?" she'd asked Marcessus. "You're always complaining there's no more room for your books."

The old man had chuckled. "It serves for visitors. The kind you don't show the important things to."

She'd taken a year or two to figure that one out. Oh, the second floor room's furniture was obvious enough. A handful of chairs and a low small table between them, all arrayed in front of the second story fireplace. Ceila had more than once listened to Marcessus host visitors in this room.

Ceila's memories of her mother faded, little by little, with every year. She remembered the room that had been theirs, and the few neighbors. When someone came to your home, you sat them down in midst of your life, because it was all you had. And they'd only had visitors they knew, anyway...

"Damnit," Marcessus had muttered. Ceila sat in one of the tower's windows, a pillow under her butt and Marcessus's current assignment, Thucydides, open on her lap. "Stay there until I get rid of whoever it is," Marcessus told her.

By now, Ceila had learned the routine. Her job was simple, stay in the third story room, behind the door Marcessus closed but did not lock. If it was someone that did talk themselves into the library, for whatever reason, Ceil would jump into the special wardrobe.

The one with a nook in the tower stone hidden behind a false backing.

Ceila had not quite mastered the art of reading while this went on. Instead, she concentrated on what she could hear of the conversation below. On this occasion, the visitor was indeed someone who, when he insisted, could avail himself of Marcessus's library. "Oh hell," Ceila whispered, when she heard the governor's voice coming from the other side of the door.

She'd just pushed her way past Marcessus's winter clothes and slid the concealing door closed when Nonnian entered the room. So she hadn't the chance to watch Marcessus's face. The scholar had found himself caught between hope at the governor's ability to pay.

And frustration at his consistent proclivity to ask far more for his coin than any sane person could provide. "You say the maps are recent, Marcessus? How recent?"

Ceila snorted; she wasn't the only one who'd become accustomed to the way the old scholar didn't quite connect with time as normal folks knew it.

"Perhaps... five? Ten years? The maps are from the legion's survey, they're notated as being generated by order of a Commander Roclivius."

"Legate," Nonnian corrected. "Rocliv commanded the legion some two years before I, and I believe you as well, came to Antioch. So, yes, five years. Show me, please?"

Ceila listened as the scrolls were unrolled. "Ah," Nonnian said. "Yes. These do appear to be the same as those included in my own reports..."

"You had doubts?" Marcessus asked.

"Not doubts, so much as concerns over the time intervening. The land might not have changed, but Rocliv's worries and my own differ. Five years is time enough for new enemies to arise, don't you agree?"

Marcessus had agreed, well enough to leave the next day, a purse full of the governor's coin and a squad of legion soldiers to escort him on his "Cartographic expedition", as he'd called it.

That had also been the first time that Marcessus had left Ceila a key to the tower. And the peculiar set of instructions regarding its use. "When you leave, as you're locking up, stop and picture the room on the other side of the door in your mind."

He'd made her practice until she could hold the image, of dust and low ceiling and stones barely holding themselves together, to the old scholar's satisfaction. Though how he knew when she'd managed it, Ceila couldn't tell.

The occasions since, when he'd gone away to draw new maps of smuggler's caves, or search Alexandria for a record of Caesar's Egyptian travels, or the half a dozen other scholarly pursuits for the governor or a similar few wealthy merchants, Marcessus had marked each trip by handing Ceila the key.

And making her practice the visualization until she did so automatically, without pause to consider it, on locking up the tower. "You'll have an explanation," Marcessus had promised. "But for now, practice first. Theory comes after you've mastered the process."

Only now, as she stood in front of the door to the final level, did Ceila realize that the explanation Marcessus had promised would never come. The tower was hers, now, the scholar's letter had said. No further explanation provided.

Except for whatever information the books on the other side of the door might give. This door, too, testified to the tower's decay. The wood looked dry, felt that way and more to the touch. But the joins under her fingers held smooth and clean, and she knew from experience that light did not bleed past the door when it shut.

Ceila traced the lock with her fingers, hesitating in the face of what unlocking the door meant. Then she inserted the key and opened the door to her new home.