Sword and Serpent Read online

  SWORD AND SERPENT

  By

  Taylor R. Marshall

  Published by Saint John Press on Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 Taylor R. Marshall

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, existing locations, or real people, living or dead, are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are the creation of the author, and any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Smashwords License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For my children Gabriel, Mary Claire,

  Rose, Jude, Becket, Blaise, and Elizabeth:

  Cum gladio et sale interficite dracones.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Lexicon

  PROLOGUE

  Antiochia ad Orontes — A.D. 299

  “Domine. The gods are silent.”

  The words came as a whisper, under the breath, as quiet as the end of times is ever proclaimed. The haruspex bowed as he spoke, cringing between the stony stare of Jupiter Capitolinus, towering in carved marble over the altar behind him, and the deadlier, weightier stare of the divine Diocletian, Emperor of Rome. The priest kept his gaze on his bloodied hands, shaking with three days of ritual fast, and prayed to the silent gods that Diocletian would not command him to take the sacrificial victim’s place.

  Several minutes slipped away before the haruspex finally lifted his eyes. The light of the ritual fires caught the smooth line of Diocletian’s clenched jaw and glimmered in the brilliant azure of his eyes. In the deep purple of his toga, he was as imposing and beautiful as a god himself.

  And, the haruspex realized, just as silent.

  Diocletian beckoned him closer. The priest stumbled toward him, hunched in a bow, fingers half-curled like lifeless talons.

  “Faustus,” the emperor said, his voice quiet and terrible. “The portents.”

  “None, domine. Apollo sends us none. The gods are silent.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. The victim was untainted. No vitium corrupted the sacrifice. But I read nothing in the lamb’s vital organs.” His voice pitched up, threaded with panic. “The gods are silent!”

  Diocletian never moved. “Do it again,” he said. “I don’t care how long it takes. Repeat it!”

  Faustus’ tongue flicked over his cracked lips. He could taste the birth of fear in the smoke-haze of the temple. The attendant stationed at the brass tripod was trembling with it, barely keeping the incense burning. It was in the pale faces of the few members of the imperial household, clustered near the great doors of the Temple. But it was in the heavy silence that Faustus could taste it, bitter as the tang of blood running over the altar stone.

  Faustus staggered back toward the altar. Fear was never without his companion Rumor. If Faustus repeated the sacrifice, there would be no stopping either of them.

  Not that it mattered now. It was all coming to an end.

  As he neared the altar, one of the servants by the door moved. The haruspex watched sidelong as the man raised his hand and made a slow, curious gesture, brushing his right thumb over his forehead, down, then across.

  Faustus stiffened. It was a subtle gesture; it might have been nothing. But he knew better. He’d seen that sign before. It wasn’t Roman. It certainly wasn’t Etruscan. It belonged to the strange new cult that had risen in this gods-forsaken region and now infected even Rome herself, and it had no place in the great Temple of Jupiter, Jupiter the All-Powerful, Jupiter the Victorious.

  He moved to rebuke the man, but stopped when Diocletian shifted his weight. The gods might be silent, but the will of the emperor was clear.

  He turned back to the bloodied altar, calling for a new victim. His attendant dragged a young sheep forward, and Diocletian stepped forward again with the ritual knife.

  Four times they repeated the sacrifice.

  Four times Faustus failed to divine the will of the gods.

  It was no use. For thirty-nine years he had read the lines of livers and hearts, and counseled generals and emperors with the messages he found there. But not now. The gods were most definitely silent.

  Rome was forsaken.

  When the fifth victim failed, Faustus fell on his knees before the altar, soaking his toga in the blood that ran like water down the sanctuary steps. The mangled carcasses of the spoiled victims lay strewn around him, unfit to be burned, all wasted.

  “Speak, Apollo,” he whispered to the smoke and the silence and the deepening shadows. “Declare your will…”

  He tore at the veiling fold of his toga with bloody hands, staining the white wool crimson. As his frantic thoughts scattered in panic, his eyes fell on the servant who had made the strange sign. And in that moment, all his fear turned to rage.

  “We are lost,” he hissed, standing to face the emperor. “The impious defile the sacrifices. Apollo will not speak while we tolerate their blasphemies.”

  Diocletian’s face hardened. “What impious?”

  “Rullus, there,” Faustus said, pointing at the servant. “He made an impious sign. He has desecrated this sacred place.”

  The emperor kept his gaze fixed on the haruspex. “Rullus called on his own god, and you found yours silent? I don’t wonder at your panic. Perhaps you are sacrificing at the wrong altar.”

  “Domine meus!” Faustus recoiled. “You can’t mean that.”

  Diocletian did not answer. He glanced at his secretary, who came immediately with a profound bow.

  “The gods are angry with us, Piso,” he said. Faustus watched the blood drain from Piso’s face, but Diocletian had his gaze fixed on the stained altar. “Send word to all the Legions calling for public sacrifice. We will unite the empire in blood, it seems.”

  Piso bowed and withdrew, leaving F
austus alone with the emperor again.

  “Jupiter has always guided me,” Diocletian said, touching his forehead before gesturing at the massive statue of the god in all his glory. “If our tolerance of some foreign deity has angered him, then Jupiter must be appeased. Let the upstart god be silenced.”

  1

  Satala, Anatolia

  Standing at the edge of the dusty village of Satala, Jurian watched as a small crowd gathered outside the walls of the Legion fortress. Even from his distance, he could easily see what made them push forward in hushed expectation—the Emperor’s signum flashing in the cold autumn sunlight near the fortress gate, signaling the arrival of an imperial messenger. This far out on the Empire’s frontier, the signum was a rare sight, rare enough that it lured even Jurian’s younger sister Mariam toward the village, all curiosity that she was.

  Jurian followed her uneasily. When they reached the crowd he snatched her arm, stopping her, as if she’d strayed too close to a chasm.

  “What’s going on, Jurian?” she asked.

  He was tall enough to see past most of the people, but it did him no good. From this vantage he could make out nothing but the signum and the plumed helmet of the messenger giving his report to the Legate. They were too far away for Jurian to hear what the man said. He doubted any of the people could hear him either—and the messenger was certainly speaking in Latin, anyway—but that hadn’t stopped them from pressing toward the walls to gawk.

  “I can’t see anything,” Jurian said, squinting against the cold sunlight. “And you wouldn’t be able to either.”

  “Let go. I want to get closer.”

  “You’ll get smothered by Matrona Priscilla there,” he said with a smirk, gesturing toward the wide back of a woman standing on tiptoes a short distance away. “And how would I explain that to Mother?”

  Mariam’s grey eyes widened, then creased with a sudden smile. “You’re horrible,” she said. “Come on, Jurian!”

  Jurian sighed. He let her take his arm and pull him toward the front of the crowd, though he smiled as she steered well clear of Matrona Priscilla. The pit of his stomach crawled, but he held his head high, refusing to let it show. He would rather die than let the Legate see his uncertainty. Even after so many years, Jurian still couldn’t look at the man without seeing his father—his father, who had worn that toga with so much more strength and authority than Marcus the Pompous Valerius Flaccus.

  His father, who had died when Jurian was fourteen, barely three years ago. Three years that felt like one…or a thousand.

  Jurian jerked his gaze from the Legate and buried the pain deep inside.

  By the time he and Mariam threaded their way to the front of the crowd, the messenger had already been escorted into the fortress. The Legate remained behind, standing pale and shaken in the shadowed archway. Marcus Valerius should have been ashamed, Jurian thought, letting the crowd and his own Guard see him so unnerved. Jurian’s father would never have been so weak. His jaw tightened.

  I will never be so weak.

  The Legate lifted his hand and the crowd grew deathly silent. Speaking Greek for the lower-born citizens to understand, Marcus Valerius said, “The Divine Emperor Diocletian Augustus has ordered all Legions and all the Empire to offer sacrifice to the gods, to plead their mercy and favor. A great darkness has fallen over the world.” He paused, his hand restless on the hilt of his sword. “The portents have failed. The Emperor’s haruspex and now even the augurs cannot divine the will of the gods.”

  A gasp rippled through the crowd. One matron standing near Mariam wailed and pulled her palla over her head like a mourning veil. Mariam caught Jurian’s eye, a faint line of confusion between her brows. Jurian shook his head subtly. Now was not the time for her questions.

  The Legate’s raised hand quieted the people again. “We will begin sacrifices at the Temple of Apollo tonight at sunset. Go now. Honor the gods.”

  Jurian took Mariam’s elbow and propelled her back the way they had come, hoping to slip away before anyone recognized them. But he was too slow. Just as they reached the edge of the crowd, someone sidled up behind him and dropped a flaccid hand on his shoulder.

  Jurian's grip on Mari’s elbow tightened. Then he released her and turned around, barely stifling a groan when he realized the hand belonged to Casca, the son of Legatus Marcus Valerius. Even two years Jurian’s senior, Casca was barely Mariam’s height, and he had the unfortunate aspect of a newly beached fish—he always looked surprised and a bit breathless, his face a little too pale and eyes a little too wide.

  But for all his flabby, goggle-eyed looks, Casca was a snake in the grass, and he’d been singling Jurian and Mari out ever since the Valerii had come to Satala. Jurian did his best to keep Mari clear of him, but there was no avoiding the confrontation now.

  Casca squinted up at him, smiling nastily. “What’s wrong, Georgios? Running away?” He jabbed Jurian in the shoulder. “Only the guilty run away. Is it your fault the gods are silent? You and your half-breed sister?”

  Mariam stiffened beside him.

  “Don’t call me that. And don’t ever call her that again, Flaccus,” Jurian said, his voice low.

  “That’s not funny!” Casca said, glaring at Mariam as if she’d put Jurian up to saying it. “That name has belonged to my family for hundreds…maybe thousands of years!”

  “Of course it has,” Jurian soothed. “It perfectly suits your family. Or wait, are you ashamed of it?”

  Mari’s breath escaped in the barest whisper of his name.

  “No,” Casca said. “I think you’re jealous of it. They say green eyes are a sign of jealousy.” His lip curled. “Or mixed blood.”

  Jurian swallowed back his roiling anger, forcing an easy smile that he was sure barely concealed his desire to break Casca’s nose. Some of the town’s citizens had stopped on the street to watch them, and Jurian knew that an audience would only make Casca more vicious. The snake loved to make a scene, and even though they were speaking Latin, the meaning was obvious. He couldn’t give Casca the satisfaction of baiting him in front of a crowd.

  “Nice seeing you, Casca,” Jurian said. “I’m sorry we missed your father.”

  He tried to turn away, but Casca grabbed him again, this time twisting the neck of his wool tunic in his fist.

  “You’re trying to call me fat, aren’t you?” he demanded, deliberately raising his voice to capture the crowd’s attention. “You insult me, and you insult my family! I’m not fat!”

  Jurian's hand flashed up and gripped Casca’s wrist until he squawked and released Jurian’s tunic.

  “I know,” he said. “And I’m not Greek. I’m Roman.”

  “You’d never know it by that barbarian name you call yourself, Jurian,” Casca snapped, slinking in a circle around them. “Seems you don’t even know what you are. And besides, your father was Greek. Hardly a real Roman, not to mention the biggest disgrace in the history of the Apollinaris Legion!”

  Jurian’s eyes narrowed. “What do you call a real Roman, Casca? Everyone here is some kind of Greek.” He nodded toward the small crowd. “Would you like to explain to them how they aren’t real Romans? Oh, wait. I forgot. You don’t speak Greek. Should I do it for you?”

  Jurian toyed with the idea of repeating it all in Greek for the crowd, but thought better of it. A quarrel between families was one thing. A rebellion against the Roman Empire was something else…and great fires could be kindled by a lone spark.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Casca hissed.

  “Anyway,” Mari interjected before Jurian could answer. “Father was a friend of the Emperor’s. You have no right to insult his memory, Casca!”

  Casca snorted, shaking a limp lock of dark hair off his forehead. “So you say. But where’s the Emperor now? Friends take care of each other, don’t they?” He tapped his forehead. “So remind me where you live now? And why my family was sent to this gods-forsaken vestibule of Pluto’s hell in the first place?”

  Ju
rian made no answer, and Casca’s teeth flashed in a grin.

  “Right,” Casca continued. “We wouldn’t want to say, would we? Because friends don’t let that happen to friends, do they? Seems like our divine Imperator, gods long protect his rule, forgot all about his dear friend's barbarian children and the widow who’s too frail to—”

  Jurian swung his fist. Just before it slammed into Casca’s jaw, a hand caught his wrist with painful strength and drove him back.

  “Is there a problem here?”

  Jurian twisted to see the Legion Tribune, Titus Terentius Varro, standing beside him. Varro dropped Jurian’s hand, his grey eyes dark and stern beneath his plumed helmet. Jurian squared his shoulders but dropped his gaze, feeling suddenly, strangely, ashamed.

  “This isn’t your affair,” Casca sniffed, brushing off his toga. “I’m just having a chat with my friend here. Nothing the Tribune need be concerned about.”

  Jurian’s jaw tightened as Varro swung around, dismissing the little knot of spectators without a word. As soon as the people had dispersed, Varro frowned down at Casca.

  “Your father is looking for you,” he said. “I suggest you don’t make him wait.”

  Casca’s mouth twitched, but he nodded and turned away, spearing one last spiteful glance at Jurian as he left.

  “Mariam,” Varro said, smiling at her as he dropped a heavy hand on Jurian’s shoulder. “Would you give me a moment to speak to your brother?”

  Mariam swallowed and glanced anxiously at Jurian.

  “Don’t worry,” Jurian said. “Go make sure Mother doesn’t need anything.”

  Mariam caught his gaze and nodded at the warning she read there. She turned to leave, but paused and inclined her dark head to Varro, murmuring, “Thank you, domine.”

  “Whatever for?” Varro asked.

  She smiled faintly. “Preserving the peace.”