Search the Seven Hills by Barbara Hambly Page A

thrust her deeper into the hot blackness of the back of the room. She stared at the rack in a kind of horrible fascination, the stained boards, the long pale hollows worn by countless digging heels, the filthy leather and the dark iron shining with oil and grease. The gears and cogs and levers, stronger than any human flesh. He held her against his mailed body, so she could not turn away from the sight, but Marcus did not see that she even made the attempt. What Arrius said to her he did not hear, for the centurion’s voice was as low as a seducer’s, murmuring in the woman’s ear, but once he heard her groan, “I’ll recant! I’ll burn the incense,” and he said quietly, “I’m not asking for that, Arete. Now—how long have you been a Christian?”
    She stammered, “Three years—almost four years.”
    “And did you know the priest Nikolas, who was executed?”
    She raised her head a little. “That dolt? They were all scum, they weren’t even true Christians at all, just a bunch of superstitious heretics who followed Paul’s letters as if they’d been handed down by God himself. Butt-headed and ignorant as a corral full of jackasses. They—”
    “I’m not interested in their faith,” murmured the centurion through his teeth. “Who were they? What were their names?”
    She hesitated, looking into his eyes and evidently finding nothing there to give her hope. Then, with a kind of defiance, she rattled off a list of names, accompanied by abusive commentary upon the morals, character, and faith of each. “But they’re all dead, the filthy heretics, and good riddance,” she finished. “I don’t see what—”
    “You don’t have to see,” grated Arrius. “Did any of them leave families?”
    “I don’t know,” she said sulkily. He shoved her back against the rack, so that her buttocks pressed the edge of the worn wood. She tried to pull away, frightened, but he kept her there, his body pinning hers. “I don’t know, I tell you!” she gabbled. “I wasn’t in that group, or anyway not for very long, I didn’t know them. And anyway if their families had sense they’d have left the city before they were pulled in, too.”
    “Were there any survivors?” he pressed her, and her breath caught. She tried to turn her face away, but he seized her by the hair, twisted her head brutally back to look into his eyes. “Who?”
    “There weren’t,” she gulped, panic in her voice.
    “Don’t lie to me. You said a minute ago they weren’t real Christians anyway.”
    “Yes, but...”
    “You said you’d recant the faith. You still mean that?”
    “If you...”
    “You ever seen anyone racked, Arete? Ever seen what the joints look like after the bones come apart?” Moaning she tried to writhe free of him, but he held her, breast to breast like an iron lover, and past that unyielding mailed shoulder Marcus could see the gilding of oily sweat on her terrified face. “You going to let that happen to those soft limbs of yours, over a bunch of swine who don’t really understand the faith at all?”
    She whispered, “But they’re...”
    “They’re what?”
    With his hand tangled in the knot of her hair she could look nowhere but into those cruel wolf eyes. Her face changed; she said spitefully, “They’re that superstitious lout Telesphorus and his whining jackal Ignatius. They were the only survivors.”
    “What about the Christians on the Quirinal Hill?”
    Her eyes flared wider. “You know?”
    “Who are they?”
    She stammered, gulping, “There—there aren’t any.” And she cried out in pain as his grip tightened on her arm and her hair.
    “You just said there were. Who are the Christians in the prefect Varus’ household?” And when she only stared at him, he shook her again, bending her body backward over the rack.
    She sobbed, “No, please, I don’t know—I really don’t—”
    He said through his teeth, “That’ll be too bad, won’t it?”
    “I—they—it’s the