My Pada Josef has many enthusiasms. Science. Teaching. Anything that makes a loud bang, even better if it also stinks.
The Great Library at Alexandria was a pet interest. He wanted to disperse its vast contents to many smaller libraries throughout the known world. “Do you realize how vulnerable it is? Fire! Vandalism! Earthquakes! I tell them to make copies of everything and send them everywhere. But they don’t listen!”
“Wouldn’t it be awfully expensive?” I loved prompting him to get really worked up.
“Of course it would be expensive! But consider the cost of losing everything!” He started coughing, and I felt a twinge of remorse.
I had been relieved of the usual lessons girls got—thanks to my new, secret status as da resu—and was now attending his sporadic lectures. I sat veiled at the back of the room, behind his smelly, arrogant male students who sent me curious glances. History today, which Pada made almost interesting. I loved his stories of ancient Greece, especially when he quoted poetry from hundreds of years ago.
Later, as I clattered down the stairs from his small lecture hall in search of something to eat, Sigrun suddenly glided from a shadowed corner, clutched my arm and whispered, “Vara, you have to come with me, right now.”
I was used to her commands, but lately I’d been questioning them. Sigrun often didn’t think things through. “Why?”
“Lord Petru is here!” Her voice trembled with excitement. “Here in Perpignan, but just for today. This might be our only chance to see him!”
“See him! Where will he be?” I tried to sound interested. I didn’t really want to spend time with Sigrun, who was brilliant at ferreting out information. Mother had made it very clear that my being da resu was never to be mentioned, even to my best friend.
“He’ll pass through the main square, on his way to the barracks. Say you’ll come, Vara!” She gave my arm a hard squeeze.
Sigrun had a father and two brothers, who lived with us. Her mother had died in childbirth, along with the stillborn baby, a few years ago. Her father was our chief accountant. Her older brother was studying with his father, but the younger had run off to the western coast to learn shipbuilding, which was an insane hotbed of development these days. With no mother to watch her, Sigrun had a lot of freedom, and excelled at talking me into doing things that I’d never think of on my own.
Her excitement started to infect me. I nodded, and we made quick plans to meet in an hour at a sweet shop on the square.
A simple plan, but it did not work out as we hoped. We had underestimated just how popular Petru was. Or perhaps we simply didn’t understand the undercurrents of life under the rule of such a man.
*
The sweet-shop’s proprietor cast a jaded eye upon us. He knew us well, and our kind: over-privileged females anxious to waste our coins on candy. He was ready to do his part. As he weighed our purchases and doled them into small sacks, he said to me, “One day you’ll give up that Owl to buy sweets.”
“Never! My Grandmamma Svobodová who is dead now gave it to me.” The silver Athenian coin dangled on a chain around my neck along with my Eye. It had the head of Athena on one side and a sweet, rather silly-looking owl on the other. It was real, not a cheap copy, and was terribly old. A charm, supposed to bring wisdom. I would never use it as currency.
For a moment I felt the slice of steel in my neck, and had to swallow carefully to keep from gasping. It was true that I’d never give up my owl, for I had seen it with me when I died.
The merchant began to shoo us out.
Sigrun protested. “But we want to watch Lord Petru from in here!”
“I need room for customers.” He gestured to the crowds gathering on the street. “When the show is over, those people will want to buy my wares. Off with you!”
We shuffled outside, stuffing our faces with marzipan and chewy, pistachio-studded nougat. At least this distracted me from thinking about my neck, until a rhythmic shouting started, and the clop of approaching hooves got louder and louder.
Sigrun and I ran to the nearest corner but soon found ourselves shoved back by the crowds. We couldn’t see a thing, but then managed to dodge into an alley and climb up on some barrels. From there we had a narrow view of the street.
The shaded alley framed a hot yellow slash of activity. Men and women of all races and classes jostled for a glimpse of the procession. Children clung to their mothers or nurses and begged to be lifted up to see. The chanting rolled along getting louder and more coordinated by the moment: Pet-ru, Pet-ru, PET-RU!
Despite myself, I felt a shiver of anticipation. The air seemed filled with a tang almost like orange rinds, sweet and harsh, and the sun seemed to waver and darken, casting shadows at strange angles. The Gods were overhead. I didn’t dare look up.
Petru had a God on his side, it was certain. One that was goading him into greed for territory and taxes, and the increasing glory of his mundane idol Saraf. It made me feel sick.
A couple of ragged urchins made an attempt to commandeer our position, but we kicked and shouted them off. A roar cascaded along the street. Mounted soldiers, three abreast, went by on prancing horses held in control by cruel metal bits. The men were armoured and helmeted, white plumes in stiff crests above the glinting, polished metal. Many wore the long, drooping moustaches the Huns favoured. Each man stared straight ahead, stern and upright. More and more clattered by, their horses’ shod hooves ringing loud on the cobbles.
Sigrun and I clutched each other, on tiptoe on our precarious perches. My heart was racing, I admit it. Did I really want to see him so very badly? My father had met Petru, and had fashioned a word-painting of what he looked like. We craned our necks to try and pick the chieftain out of the men parading by. At last we saw him, unmistakably the centre of attention. He rode slowly by, ignoring everyone.
“Is that him?” Sigrun screamed into my ear.
“Yes!”
“Oh, just look at him! He’s magnificent!”
He was magnificent, I had to acknowledge it. Lord Petru Aska Tolny, simply known as Petru, was burly and big-headed, his mane of ginger hair loose and flying in the sun. His chin was shaved bare, but his moustache was luxuriant and dangling with pearls at the low-drooping ends. He held his helmet under one bare, muscular arm, reining in his huge grey Andalusian stallion one-handed. He didn’t smile, nor even really look at anyone. Either he wanted to seem aloof and regal, or he simply didn’t care to acknowledge the seething mass of his Emperor’s subjects, many of whom were trying to grab handfuls of his mount’s tail, or lay a fingertip on his booted foot, though they couldn’t get anywhere near him. He was more popular in these parts than Emperor Ludvik, and he knew it.
The sun, dark gold and hot, shone mostly upon him, as if funnelled like wine into a jar. The crowd of watchers screamed like animals running toward their death, and loving it.
They loved him. They loved the death he promised.
I shuddered, and tried to pull my thoughts away from hot, painful, glorious death.
Two bareheaded men clad in grey robes trotted beside him, each holding a long, barb-tipped whip. Randomly, they slashed these whips around, not seeming to care whom they hit. People pushed and shoved their way forward to get a chance at the touch, whooping gleefully at the sting, proudly displaying a fresh welt or torn skin. I watched, my mouth open, my flesh crawling. Some cheered the newly marked, some jeered at them. Those who jeered or frowned soon shut up, when they saw the avid looks Petru’s men gave them.
Petru suddenly started shouting something about loyalty, or maybe it was liberty—I still couldn’t hear him over the crowd—and his citizens responded by yelling harder and pumping their fists. Many of the women were tossing bunches of flowers at him, or displaying their bared backs or breasts, apparently in hopes of a whipping. A hot wind seemed to be forcing the crowd to surge back and forth. Fights started to break out. Dust and sun were in my eyes, making it hard to see. I wanted to run away, but I wanted even more to press forward and get close to Petru. I wanted to bare my back to him.
Sigrun jumped and screamed, waving a handkerchief above her head to catch his attention, with no luck. She had pulled the front of her robe down, and I could see her round pink breasts. I think the only thing that stopped us from joining that maddened throng was the certainty that if we left our place in the alley, we’d be trampled to death, or worse.
My eyes snapped back to Petru. I couldn’t look away.
With a nudge of one booted foot Petru made his mount rear and wheel around, his sword, his hair, and his horse’s gleaming hide shooting bright lances of light around him, as if he were the centre of something marvellous I now saw that Petru wore only a leather harness that crossed over his shoulders and joined his metal-studded belt, leaving most of his broad back bare to the sun. I blinked, dazzled.
Then I blinked again to sharpen my gaze, though what I saw was plainly visible. His scourge marks.
It wasn’t only his subjects who loved the whip.
Petru was called the Scorpion—which was the ancient Latin term for the Roman flagrum. I’d heard that he whipped himself with it, or had others wield the wickedly painful instrument of penitence. Now everyone knew it. Like the scorpion, the flagrum stung hard. In fact, it was said to sting like a snake, another name for Saraf the Burning. Petru encouraged Sarafites to follow his example and gain the sinuous lines of the burning snake upon their backs.
My back itched and the skin crawled as if insects were in my clothes. Again I felt the urge to run into the street and bend to the whip.
With a hot, queasy feeling in my stomach I traced with my eyes the pale lines and puckered welts that decorated his tawny skin. And the fresh, crusted marks of a recent scourging. What if we all became Sarafites? Everyone here, now, wanted it. Pada Josef believed it would happen, and soon. We would all be whipped till we bled.
Then he moved out of our line of sight. The air thinned and lost its dusty burning smell. The shouting receded along the street.
At that dizzy, empty moment I became truly frightened of Petru and what his madness meant for our land. Though I’d heard not a word he said, and knew little about him really, I knew that he could squeeze us all into happy submission with the clench of his fist.
The last of the throng following him roared dazzle-eyed past us under the watchful gaze of soldiers.
Sigrun stood teetering on her barrel, grinning like a maniac and fanning herself with one hand, when suddenly she screeched, flung her arms up and disappeared from view. Her vacated barrel rocked. She’d been grabbed by the legs and pulled off it, and now lay on the filthy ground shrieking with pain and fury. Immediately she jumped up and began to tussle with the boys who had pestered us before.
This time they had the upper hand. Sigrun and I were thoroughly kicked and spat upon, and robbed of our purses. And our remaining candy. With a few final taunts the boys ran off.
“What will I tell my father?” Sigrun howled, wiping her tears and trying to pull her shawl over her head again. At least the sons-of-pigs hadn’t stolen our shawls, leaving us to slink home bareheaded.
Since we weren’t supposed to be out in the first place, we could hardly tell the truth. Could we? Would Mama punish me less if I claimed public duty? But claiming devotion to Lord Petru would be a mistake. And a dangerous lie to allow inside my head.
Mother came in when I was washing. I had stuffed my soiled and torn clothes into the basket for cleaning and mending, hoping the servants would ask no questions.
“What in the name of Uzma have you been up to?”
“Nothing.” I tried in vain to hide my scrapes and bruises with my hands.
Her eyes narrowed and immediately she strode to the basket. It was as if she could read my guilty mind. “Your clothes are ruined!” She marched up to me, grabbed my chin in her hand and raised my face to examine it. “Vara, what has been going on?”
“Nothing! I fell!” Why, oh why, couldn’t I be more composed in front of my mother? Soon she had the whole story, even the stolen candy part.
“You stupid child. You went to see Petru, eh? You could have been injured, or killed. Or worse. And all to gawk at that… that…” Her lip curled. I had rarely seen her more angry without beating somebody.
“But… but, I just wanted to see him!”
She pushed me down onto my bed and growled deep in her throat. “See the man who won’t rest until every one of us is flattened under his boot-heel? Is that what you wanted?”
I shrank back. “No! I…I…”
She gave my face a hard slap. “You and that little besom Sigrun—neither of you has a grain of sense.”
I bit my tongue and lowered my eyes. I wouldn’t betray Sigrun by insisting it was her idea. That much pride I could hold on to. And I had learned something today: a man sufficiently insane could be more compelling than logic, more enthralling than truth. Petru had ensnared my friend with his madness. I had felt, myself, how easily he could do it.
He was a man to whom the Gods had given a taste of their own power.
He was turning into a God, and Gods demanded to be worshipped.