Out of the Waters Read Online Free Page B

Alphena had found no difficulty in hating her. What she couldn’t do—what nobody seemed able to do—was to ignore her stepmother. Instead of ignoring Saxa’s children the way their birth mother had, she had become their mother in fact as well as law. That hadn’t affected Varus much; he continued to take classes and, in his spare time, write poetry—an acceptable occupation for a nobleman if not a very heroic one.
    Alphena, though, had found herself being forced into ladylike pursuits. She couldn’t fool her stepmother, and she had found to her amazement that Hedia’s voice was louder than her “daughter’s” and that she had no compunction about causing a scene.
    For that matter, the servants were more afraid of Saxa’s wife than they were of his daughter. Alphena and her famously bad temper could no longer rule the household. For three months she had subsided into sullen anger, which Hedia had resolutely ignored as she ignored everything that didn’t suit her.
    Then Alphena had found herself trapped in a place she couldn’t have freed herself from, and Hedia had rescued her. Alphena had already felt gratitude toward her stepmother even before she learned that Hedia had literally gone down into the Underworld for her.
    A fragment of myth fluttered through Alphena’s mind: Hercules had visited the Underworld too, but he had brought the monster Cerberus back to the surface with him. What would Hedia say if Saxa had commissioned a mime on that subject instead of the conquest of Lusitania?
    Alphena giggled, then worried that she shouldn’t do that now. Fortunately, what was happening on stage had absorbed everyone’s attention.
    Two tall Nubians had entered, bearing a platter with a domed silver cover. The actor playing Mercury cried, “Behold, great leader! The head of Geryon, conquered by your prowess!”
    He whisked off the cover, pointing toward the platter with his free hand. On it was the head of a man whose tawny moustache flared back into sideburns of a paler color. His face had mottled during strangulation, and his eyes started in their sockets.
    â€œThe bandit Corocotta!” shouted a spectator who recognized the dead features.
    â€œCorocotta!” shouted the crowd as a blurry whole. “The head of Corocotta!”
    Alphena had heard—from gossiping servants—about the coup that Meoetes, the impresario, had arranged with a help of a great deal of Saxa’s money. A noted Sardinian bandit, Corocotta had been captured after years of terrorizing the countryside. Instead of being crucified in Caralis, Corocotta had been brought to Carce and marched through the streets before being strangled in the prison on the edge of the Forum.
    Corocotta’s body had been dumped in a trench outside the religious boundary of Carce, but his head had been preserved for this performance. Saxa’s triumph was greater than that of the governor of Sardinia, who had caught the fellow to begin with.
    The audience stood and began stamping its feet in delight. Saxa sat straighter on his golden throne: beaming, flushing, and happier than Alphena had ever seen him before.
    She grimaced. She hadn’t given her father much reason to be happy in her presence. She had resented him, and she had resented the world that said that a daughter wasn’t free to do the things that sons were encouraged to do. Varus could be a military officer, could rise to general even—but Alphena, who was easily able to have chopped her brother to sausage in battle, had to threaten a tantrum merely to be taught the manual of arms by the family trainer.
    Being forced into close contact with Hedia had given Alphena a different perspective. Alphena’s ability to use a sword had been helpful and occasionally very helpful. Hedia wouldn’t have considered gripping a sword hilt and wouldn’t have known what to do with the weapon if she’d been forced to