"Ah…," said Varus. "I don't think that would be a good idea just now. I don't think father would be able to do anything, and, ah, I think he's busy. With mother."
I don't understand-Alphena thought. Then she gasped, "Oh!"
"I sent a messenger to Publius Corylus, though," Varus said. "When he arrives, the three of us can discuss the best way to proceed."
He looked away; he was obviously embarrassed about having shocked his sister. Though of course I know that it happens. Or it can happen. I know it does!
"Yes," Alphena said aloud. "That's a good idea. Corylus will know what to do."
She really did believe that, she realized. Though she didn't have the faintest notion of why she believed it.
Corylus reached the alley to the back of Saxa's house, loping at well below the best speed he could have managed. He wasn't in quite the shape he had been on the Danube frontier, but he used running-and sports more generally-to cushion himself against the stresses of Carce as well as to stay physically fit. He could keep up with even a professional courier over the distance from his apartment block to here.
The footing over Carce's streets, even on a familiar route, wasn't safe for a dead run after moonset. Even at a measured pace Corylus had slipped several times, saving himself by tapping one end of his staff or the other down on the pavement.
Men with lanterns and clubs blocked the middle of the alley outside Saxa's back gate. Corylus slowed to a walk as he started toward them. A voice with a harsh German accent called, "Hold it right there, you, or I'll split your head!"
A number of replies bounced toward Corylus' lips. The same reflex readied his staff for a straight thrust that would show that barbarian what it meant to threaten a soldier of Carce. But-Corylus' grin, though wry, was nonetheless real-that wasn't what he'd come here for.
"I'm Publius Corylus, here at the summons of Lord Varus!" he said. He didn't halt, but he slowed further with half-paces. "Who's in command here?"
"Ajax, get your bloody ass back here!" shouted Lenatus from the gateway. "Otherwise you'll be lucky if there's enough left of you to strap to the flogging horse. He's his lordship's friend!"
"Here I am, Publius," Varus said as he broke through the clot of servants. "And, ah, my sister."
Corylus clasped his friend. Varus wore slippers and a knee-length linen tunic, probably what he had worn under his toga at dinner. Alphena was in a short wool tunic of military cut and heavy sandals. She wasn't wearing a helmet or body armor, but she had belted on a long sword.
Corylus had seen Alphena use the weapon. The edge of the gray blade was sharp enough to shave sunlight, and the point had ripped open fire demons; whatever it was made of wasn't ordinary steel.
Lenatus had followed the siblings, but he stayed politely in the background. He too carried a sword, but his was the ordinary weapon of a legionary. With him was one of the night doormen; and Agrippinus, the major domo, stood a pace behind the two lesser servants.
Varus looked around. "I sent Culex with the message," he said. "Didn't he return with you?"
"The runner?" Corylus said. "He'd told me what he knew-that Pandareus walked onto Fullers Street and somebody, a gang, apparently grabbed him. I asked your man to follow along with Pulto. I could get here quickly, but I didn't want to chance Pulto stumbling and, well, being alone at night on the streets. He wasn't pleased at being babysat, as he put it, but-"
His mouth twisted into a smile of sorts.
"-he wasn't able to catch up with me to clout me into proper respect for the man my father depended on to keep me safe."
"I don't think any of us are safe," Varus said with a tired grin. "But I suppose that's always true. Demons are no more deadly than the ordinary summer fevers; they're just different."
"Fevers weren't going to burn the whole world to a cinder," Alphena said. "Anyway, I don't think it was demons that took Pandareus, though I don't know why anyone, demon or human, would."
She frowned and said, "They may have killed him and carried off the body. I couldn't see that well."
"Master Corylus?" Lenatus said, choosing to address himself to the soldier-or semi-soldier-rather than to the children of his noble employer. "I checked the alley mouth, and there wasn't a splash of blood on the pavement. From what Ferox here says-"
The doorman nodded vigorously but didn't speak. He held an oak cudgel with an iron ring shrunk over the business end.
"-they were waiting for Master Pandareus. It wasn't a chance robbery."
"Aye," said Ferox. "They come from both sides, slick as garroting a rabbit. I figure they threw a bag over him. They was waiting for him, no doubt about that."
Corylus looked to where the alley met the next street over. The sky was pale enough that he could see the top of the peach tree which leaned over the wall of Saxa's garden.
He thought for a moment, then shrugged-after all, there could be no harm in asking-and said, "Gaius, can you arrange for me to be alone in the garden for a little while? Without any servants or, well, anybody?"
"Yes, of course," Varus said. He looked at his sister with a worried expression. "Ah-that is…?"
Alphena wrinkled her face in irritation. "We asked Master Corylus to come because we thought he might have a suggestion," she said. "Of course we'll do any reasonable thing that he asks!"
She turned to Agrippinus and said, "Get everyone out of the garden. Then you stand in front of the inside gate and make sure nobody comes back. You personally!"
"Your ladyship!" the major domo said as he went back through the gate with little mincing steps. As soon as he was inside he cried, "Get out of here at once, all of you! Back into the house unless you want to spend the rest of your lives chained to plows in Sardinia!"
"I'll see to it that nobody comes in from the alley," Alphena said, drawing her sword and placing herself in the gateway. The gray blade gleamed like a stream of ice water.
"Thank you," Corylus said as he stepped past her into the garden. He shut the outer gate. Agrippinus had already closed the interior one behind him.
Alphena's gesture seemed unduly melodramatic, but it had certainly worked. Soldiers learned to appreciate tactics that worked, because you didn't have to be on the frontier very long before you had plenty of experience with things that didn't work.
The garden had three stone benches. Corylus sat on the end of the one nearest the peach tree. When nothing had happened immediately, he said in a quiet voice, "Persica, I'd like to speak with you, if you don't mind."
There was a further long pause. Well, it seemed long. Then the peach nymph appeared, seemingly from behind the trunk.
She hesitated. Corylus patted the bench beside him; she settled onto it sinuously.
"I didn't have anything to do with the men who took the old fellow," Persica said; her tone was a defensive whine. "I know what I did before, to you and the little trollop who fancies you, but I didn't do this."
"I didn't imagine you did, mistress," Corylus said. "But because of where you're standing, I thought you might have seen something."
He paused, but the nymph didn't volunteer a reply. "In fact I'm sure you saw something," he said. "Who took my friend Pandareus?"
The nymph looked at him sidelong. "Will you be nice to me if I tell you?" she said in a tiny voice.
"Tell me out of the goodness of your heart, Persica," Corylus said calmly, as though he were speaking to a child. That was true, in a way: dryads were as quick and light as children in their enthusiasms and their malice.
The nymph sniffed and made a face. "You humans," she said. "I have no heart."
She met Corylus' eyes. "But I get very lonely. You're hard, though, so you don't care."