Children and dogs played in the streets. A few women sat on their lintels, talking and spinning yam between their palms. They watched the visitors. One of them called a knowing greeting to Romulus, but for the most part their eyes were on Herosilla’s saffron shawl. It was the only item of her own clothing that she’d dared bring on the muddy track.
A horn blatted from deeper into town. “We’re here on market day,” Remus explained. “That’s the signal that the king is ready to hear petitions in the forum.” “Better if we’d gotten here sooner,” Romulus said. “It can’t be helped now.”
“It couldn’t be helped at all unless you were willing to carry me on your back,” Herosilla snapped.
Both brothers had been surprised at the slow pace she set them, though Remus had been more polite in his comments. The ability to stride swiftly through muck had never been a virtue Herosilla thought to cultivate. Now she felt unreasonably angry at herself for that failure.
“There’s no great hurry,” Remus said. “Amulius would want to see her even if it weren’t his petition day.”
For all that, Remus moved faster through the twisting streets. Herosilla quickened her step despite fiery pains in both shins. The brothers led her by half a stride, clearing obstacles with their spearshafts or shoulders regardless of complaints from townsfolk.
Despite herself, Herosilla was expecting Alba’s forum to have some kinship with the forum of a town of her own day. No commemorative arches or statues of leading citizens, but a covered porch for market days in bad weather and at least a few stone buildings.
This forum was a wide junction of the streets feeding it. That would have been greater praise if the streets had been more than dirt alleys. There were several hundred people present, some of them crying the remainder of their produce at reduced prices. Most of the citizens were indistinguishable from the shepherds of Palatium, though a few of the wealthier sort wore dyed cloth and metal or amber jewelry.
On one side of the forum was a compound surrounded by a log stockade. Two spearmen with bronze breastplates, plumed helmets, and large round shields guarded the gate. Across the forum was a similar stockade, marginally smaller.
“That’s the king’s palace,” Remus said, nodding to the first compound. “The other’s Numitor’s. He’s an envious little toad.”
If Romulus disagreed with the description of the man he claimed as grandfather, he didn’t do so aloud. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get to the front.”
The gate of the royal compound swung inward, opening. The stockade enclosed four or five buildings much like those in the rest of town. Amulius lived with guards and servants, maybe even courtiers if the term could be applied; but he lived in conditions very like those of Alba’s other three thousand or so residents.
The horn sounded twice from within the compound. Four more guards and several attendants walked through the gate accompanying a man in his sixties who wore an embroidered purple robe.
One of the attendants carried a cow horn with a wooden mouthpiece; another held a wooden staff with knob of carved ivory; and the third had a folding stool which looked similar to the senatorial chairs of Herosilla’s day except for being wood rather than ivory. The gate guards fell in at the end of the procession, leaving the stockade open behind them.
The brothers led Herosilla to the front of the crowd with the same strong-arm technique that had cleared the route through town. Citizens bleated at being shoved aside, but when they saw who was responsible they merely muttered about ‘wild men from the hills.’
Herosilla smiled wryly. The folk of this day saw gradations in a culture which was from her viewpoint as uniform as a mud puddle. To the townsfolk, the shepherds were uncouth thugs who couldn’t be expected to understand civilized norms.
The attendant spread the legs of the stool. As he did so, the gates of the other compound opened. Two spearmen with helmets but no shields or breastplates led out a man in a blue cloak. A group of blue-clad servants already at the front of the crowd opened space for the newcomers.
“Numitor,” Remus whispered.
“So I gathered,” Herosilla said.
Amulius sat on the stool, careful not to overbalance. He was somewhat overweight, while his brother was as thin as an aging weasel. The staffbearer raised his arms and said, “Citizens of Alba, your king is now—”
“King Amulius!” Romulus boomed as he stepped forward. “I bring you the messenger sent me by the gods in a lightning bolt. She—”
“Seize that man, Amulius!” Numitor cried. “And his brother too! They’re the leaders of the bandits who’ve been attacking my herdsmen!”
“Seize me yourself, Numitor!” Remus said. He faced the king’s brother, holding his spear held upright with the point down. Though not directly threatening, Remus could rotate and throw his weapon in a fraction of a second.
The crowd was already backing away. Amulius’ guards moved in front of the king and raised their shields. From their shelter he cried, “Stop this! Stop this right now!”
The staffbearer leaned down and spoke in the king’s ear. Numitor’s guards raised their spears. Numitor touched their arms, restraining them.
“Citizens of Alba!” the staffbearer said. “There is inviolability for all during the king’s petition time. Put down your weapons.”
“Another time,” Numitor said. He hadn’t flinched during the confrontation, though he must have known as Herosilla did that Remus was strong enough to strike his target even if that meant the spear went through a guard first. “Let’s hear the messenger of the gods, shall we?”
“King—” Romulus resumed, turning his own spear butt-down again.
“I can speak for myself,” Herosilla said, stepping in front of Romulus. That brought her almost in contact with the king’s guards. She prodded the shepherd with her elbow to back him up. “King Amulius, I am Flavia Herosilla, a gentlewoman of… of another place.”
‘Rome’ would mean nothing. Saying she came from Cumae wouldn’t dispose the king to help her.
Amulius leaned forward and tapped his guards to move them aside. He peered at Herosilla without expression.
“lightning struck an oak tree in the storm yesterday and she appeared,” Remus said. “We saw her, my brother and me, while we were herding your sheep.”
“She’s proof of my high destiny,” Romulus put in. Nobody seemed to pay any attention. Even in Alba they’d probably heard the claims often enough.
Amulius and his attendants bent their heads together for a moment whispering, their eyes on Herosilla. The king sat up again and said, “Are you claiming to be an oak dryad, then?”
“Nothing of the sort!” Herosilla said. “I’m a gentlewoman, a noble of my own country. I—”
Spectators laughed. Herosilla realized she was dressed for the most part as a peasant and was filthy from the joumey besides.
Amulius’ eyes narrowed in puzzlement. The staffbearer whispered to him again. “Well, what is it you want from me, woman?” the king said.
“I—” Herosilla said. She paused, stunned when her mind burst through the wall it had raised to protect her from the full horror of her situation.
She wanted to return to civilization. There was no civilization. Rome didn’t exist. Athens and the other cities of Greece would scarcely be intellectual centers in this age. Writing was a new art, and literature was limited to drinking songs and oral renditions of Homer.
Should she go to Egypt, the source of so many of the beggars clogging the streets of Rome in her day?
Or should she simply open a vein and end this misery?