For Want of a NailDana E. Beehr
4100 words The field altar had been set up on the grassy plain before the walls of the enemy city, close to the huge siege engines and in front of the blocks of tents that formed the castrum. The location had been carefully selected to be pleasing to the gods; it would not do to scant the ritual before the commencement of hostilities. Legate Arrius waited beside it, looking every inch the Taeran general: average stature, short-cropped iron gray hair, military bearing, and chiseled profile—eagle eyes over a hawklike nose. His features would not have looked out of place on one of Taere’s golden coins, the avris. He squinted at the sun and then nodded as the Chief Priest Soricanus approached. “A fair day,” Arrius said by way of greeting. “A good sign.” “That is for the gods to decide,” Soricanus said somewhat primly. The sunshine brightened the priest’s fair hair golden as he spoke a few instructions to his acolytes, clustered in a small knot around the three sacrificial animals. He turned back to Arrius. “All is in readiness for the evocatio.” Arrius turned his gaze to the crenellated walls of Riam, over twice a bowshot’s length from where his army camped in the field. “Very well,” he said. “Begin.” Soricanus ceremonially raised a fold of his toga over his head. Shining gold armbands flashed in the morning air as he lifted his hands, palms up, to the sky. “O Gods of Riam! Rimaran Wind Bringer! Remna Corn Grower! Lesistra River Maiden! Himanus Sea Heaver! Scolara Huntress! Sola Bright Shiner, Lunus Silver Moon! Avra Dawn Bringer and Duscus Night Weaver! Hear us now!” His voice rang in the still, clear air, carrying over the field—and to the walls and ears of the waiting city. “To you we sacrifice!” An acolyte led forward a ram, whose drooping head showed it had been drugged for easier handling. Soricanus’s ritual blade flashed in the sun, and blood gushed out from the ram’s neck into a bronze bowl. Soricanus raised the bowl high, and then poured the contents on the ground in front of the altar. “To you we sacrifice!” Next was a pig; Soricanus’s silver blade glimmered. Once again the bronze bowl was held in the air, and then poured into the earth. The heavy, coppery scent of blood filled the air. “To you we sacrifice!” A bull, pure white, with flowers round its neck and its horns bound with gold ribbons. Once more Soricanus’s blade plunged, once more the bowl, once more the shining blood. “Receive our gifts, Gods and Goddesses, great and good, just and fair! Grant our plea! We have come to battle against the people of Riam, who have burned our sacred groves, destroyed our temple statues, profaned our sacred ground! We plead you, Gods and Goddesses of Riam: Leave this city, these impious people to their fate, and come to the aid of our cause!” Now Soricanus stepped back and Arrius approached the altar, along with his second in command Leontus: a grizzled veteran carrying a large strongbox. He set the box on the altar and Arrius opened it to reveal shining gold within. “I am Legate Corvus Arrius, patrician of Taere,” he said in a clear, firm voice. He indicated the box of coin. “Gods of Riam, I present to You these riches as a token of our piety toward you. Leave the Taratians and I promise you far greater wealth: temples of pure white marble, statues in gold and silver, festivals and worshippers and sacrifices beyond imagining. Give Your favor to our cause, and on my honor as a Taeran Legate, we will pay to You the homage, wealth and respect You deserve.” Soricanus took over again. “You have seen and heard, Gods and Goddesses of Riam! Grant our plea!” He bowed three times to the altar, then with a snap, he lowered the toga from his head, indicating the sacrifice was over. Leontus closed the box and handed it to an acolyte; the gold would be buried—“given to the earth”—with the appropriate rituals, and the sacrificed carcasses burned over the offering. “How will you know if the evocatio succeeded?” Arrius asked. “I will conduct the first divination momentarily,” Soricanus replied. “We will divine again at sunset, and a third time at moon-high. But I see no reason to assume the ritual failed.” He glanced at Arrius. “But if it did?” “Then we make war in any case.” Arrius turned a hungry gaze on the distant, gleaming Riam walls. 
The airy, open hall of Riam’s Centum chamber was bursting at the seams; not only the Hundred and their aides had been convened, but the entire Temple staff of priests and priestesses. Every member of Riam’s priesthood was there, from the stout and pompous Hermanus, Primus Pontifex of Riam’s tutelary deity Rimaran, and his huge retinue of sacrificers, scribes, blade-holders and pen sharpeners, all the way down to old Hestia who swept and cleaned the temple complex and looked after the city’s minor deities. The city’s entire divination corps was in evidence as well, led by Chief Diviner Esvas with her long blonde braids and her spare ascetic appearance. On the center dais sat King Fulvius, a stately, elderly man, gray-haired with a long beard in a time when the new fashion was to be clean-shaven. His voice rang with the commanding echoes of the general he had been in his younger years. “Primum Pontifex Hermanus: Your report.” The stout man’s usual bluster was gone as he approached the throne, his jowly face pale and sagging with fear. “Grave news, your Majesty. All our divinations and oracles show the Taerans’ appeal was successful. The gods have-“ He paused to gather his strength. “Your Majesty, the gods have abandoned us.” A collective gasp swept the room. King Fulvius paled as if he had received a mortal blow; the Centum burst into excited cries. Angry shouts, babbling and accusation rose and echoed in the rotunda that crowned the chamber, growing louder and louder every moment. “Enough!” King Fulvius’s voice snapped off the marble walls, bringing a shocked silence. “Chief Diviner Esvas—are you sure?” Esvas’s lean face was haggard. “Every divination we performed had the same result, no matter the method. We received no answer. The gods are gone.” The king sank back in the throne, his regal form bowed by the terrible knowledge. He raised one palsied hand to his brow. After a moment he asked faintly, “How do you advise we proceed?” Hermanus swelled with self-importance. “There is only one choice. We must surrender to the Taerans at once.” “Surrender?” Fulvius exclaimed. “Are you mad?” “The gods themselves have told us that they are against us. Without their favor, how can we possibly win? The Taerans are a reasonable people. If we surrender, they’ll offer us fair terms. If we fight without the favor of the gods, who knows what disaster might befall us?” A hopeful murmur rippled through the Centum chamber. The laws of war were well known: a proportion of the city’s wealth would be demanded, a certain proportion of the population, usually a tenth, taken off as slaves, and continuing tribute to Taere. Not pleasant, but it was something. King Fulvius lowered his head, deep in thought. When he looked up, his face was etched with care. “I cannot.” Hermanus looked astounded. “What do you mean you can’t?” “I have a duty to the people of the city.” Each word was weighed down with sorrow. “I must defend them. It is the reason for Kingship in the first place. I can’t cowardly buy my way out of trouble and see my people carted off as slaves.” “But—but—if the gods have abandoned us—we can’t win!” Hermanus exclaimed. “Fighting may only anger them further—“ “Perhaps,” Fulvius admitted. “But I obey my conscience. And my oath of kingship.” He rose to his feet, sweeping his gaze over the Centum. Some ghost of the mighty warrior he had been in his youth seemed to return to him. “I cannot ask the same of anyone else here. But for myself, I will stay and fight for my city.” Hermanus’s heavy jowls quivered with disgust. “Then you fight alone.” With those words, he and the rest of Riam’s religious establishment swept from the chamber. 
The news that the gods had forsaken the city quickly spread throughout Riam, bringing frenzy in its wake. The laws of war decreed that the besieged citizens be given a single day, from sunup to sunup, to buy their way out of the doomed city; everyone wealthy enough to do so packed in a hurry and made for the gates. Chief Priest Hermanus was one of the first to leave, followed quickly by the other great priests of the city. All day long, the stream of the wealthy, the great and the good jammed the city’s main thoroughfare. There were riots and looting in the poorer quarters as some sought to gain passage money by theft, but when the word spread that ransom would be one hundred gold talents—more than most would see in a lifetime—the violence gave way to a deep sense of futility. Night settled in, bringing with it a pall of cold despair. King Fulvius had ordered sacrifices at the public altars by those few priests who remained. Throngs crowded around, watching in numb silence. But the dread that permeated the city would not be dispelled. The gods had abandoned them. As the shadows gathered in the great Templum Magnum, a lone figure pushed her broom across the floor and hummed a gentle tune. Old Hestia had been cleaning this space since she had first been dedicated to the temple, fifty years ago: a young maiden from a pious family of modest means with no better gift to give. She had grown up, grown old in this service, passing through youth and beauty to adulthood, to middle age, to well into the winter of her life. She had never married, had had no children; the temple and its environs were all she had ever known. “Here’s where I’ve lived,” she murmured as she pushed the broom, “and here’s where I’ll stay. Only thing certain in life is death. What’s it matter if I die a little sooner? Don’t much know or care who’s to win this war. Temple floors still need to be swept. Oil lamps need to be filled. Fire needs lighting, offerings need to be collected. Life goes on. No sense worrying.” Hestia picked up the dusting cloth, turning to the statue of Rimaran. “No acolytes now. Only me. Pardon my dusting.” She moved on to Remna. “And you, my lady. Is it true you’ve abandoned us? No matter; there’s still work to be done. Little things need looking after. Leave the great ones to their own.” She moved on: Lesistra, Himanus, Scolara, Sola and Lunus, Avra and Duscus last, murmuring gentle greetings to each one. Finally she passed to the back of the shrine, to the small chamber that was her own special domain: the chamber of the Thousand Little Gods. Light from her oil lamp flickered over brick walls, bare without the elaborate frescoes and carvings that festooned the rest of the temple. The chamber was crammed full of figurines, ranging from the length of a hand to that of a forearm. A very few were made of precious metals such as gold and silver; others of stone, bone or ivory, some of wood, but most of clay; they ranged from elaborate, intricate carving to rough hewn work. Many were so aged their features were almost worn away. The oldest, far in the back, were little more than shapeless lumps in a rough approximation of human form. These were the very first gods that the founders of Riam had brought with them centuries ago. Hestia moved among the packed rows with her broom and dusting cloth, lovingly attending to each statue, speaking to them all like old, much-loved friends. “Filima, Goddess of Cords … Armao, God of Harness … Lucerna, Goddess of Lamps, Pallium, God of Woven Cloth, Paxillus, God of Nails, Arbus, God of Timber … how are you all today, my dears?” She ran her cloth over them with an almost maternal tenderness, occasionally turning a statue to display it to best advantage. “A long time we’ve been together. I’ve cared for you, watched over you since I was a girl … can’t leave you now. Everyone else is going, but not me … not Hestia.” She whisked her cloth over the last figure, sighed and leaned against the wall, setting her tiny oil lamp on a shelf. “That’s better. Old bones aren’t what they used to be.” She straightened up and looked on the collection of silent statues, shadowed in the pea-sized light from her small lamp. “We’re in danger now, they say. A big army, from some place called Taere. Camped before our walls right now. Some ritual … they say the gods have left us. All the priests and priestesses too. But not me. I’m here.” She paused. “Served you faithfully all my life. No family, never wanted one. Caring for you was enough. “If there’s anything you can do … save us. Save us all. There’s only you to do it.” She rubbed her back, and with an air of finality picked up her little oil lamp. She nodded to the rows of statues. “Goodnight, my dears,” she said, and curtseyed to them gently. Taking her broom with her, she stepped out of the room, and closed the door behind her. In darkness, the rows of silent statues remained. Watching. 
The morning dawned calm and clear. The exodus had almost ended, except for a few stragglers; those who remained huddled in their homes, hoarded food and water, and waited. Up on the walls, the Riminian soldiers stood guard in full armor despite the day’s promised heat. Runners brought them flasks of water and ration loaves throughout the day, along with oil, bowstrings, and anything they might need. They stared out over the field toward the distant Taeran army, hands nervously clenching and unclenching over their sword hilts, their bodies tense with anticipation. The entire city waited. And still, the attack did not come. 
“What do you mean a third picket line broke in the night?” Arrius slammed his fists down on his map table—and then jumped back, cursing as a lamp tipped over and splashed to the floor. Oil scattered over the maps, turning the inked lines into a smeary mess. Arrius cursed again in baffled fury, then rubbed his jaw. He’d woken up with the beginning of a toothache, which was not helping his mood. “J-just what I said, sir.” The young cavalry officer looked as if he thought the general might eat him—which, from Arrius’s expression, he might well have done. “At morning inspection we found the line snapped and all the horses gone.” “Not one of you noticed? How could this happen?!” “It must have been when we were trying to round up the horses from the first two lines—the entire wing was chasing them most of the night and—“ “Enough!” Arrius snapped, wearying of explanation. “So where are all our horses?” “Well, we managed to get … maybe a score rounded up, but the rest are gone.” Arrius’s jaw twinged. Over two hundred horses, vanished. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered aloud. “I just can’t—“ A footstep caught his attention, and he looked up to see the short, plug-like form of Chief Healer Vennius in the doorway. “Bad news, sir,” the gruff man said. “Just spoke to Centurion Morvus. Most of the fourth cohort came down with the shits last night and it’s spreading through the camp like wildfire.” “Tell me you’re joking.” “No sir,” Vennius replied. “Bad provisions. I went to look at the food myself. Grain’s full of weevils, meat crawling with worms. Dunno how it wasn’t noticed till now.” Arrius cursed viciously. “I’ll have the quartermaster flogged for this. If he—“ He broke off as the swarthy, grizzled chief engineer Leonus entered the tent. “You’d better have good news.” Leonus grimaced. “Sorry, sir. Morning check of the oil shells found we have maybe a tenth of what we thought. The rest are empty. Cracks, poor sealing—all the oil’s leaked out.” “This doesn’t make any sense!” Arrius shouted. “How could so many things be going wrong at once?” The twinge in his jaw was growing worse, and he struggled to concentrate: his entire campaign—his electoral career—was falling apart. “Vennius, can you—“ A thunderous crash cut him off. 
Arrius flung the tent flap open into a wild tumult of voices. Men in armor were surging to and fro, shouting in agitation and gesturing wildly. He raced through lines of tents in the direction of the commotion—toward the ridge where the artillery had been set up—then stopped and stared in flat disbelief. Two catapults had collapsed into a tangle of wood and splinters. He turned to Leonus, who had followed him. “What under the gods—“ With a terrific groan, one of the three remaining catapults began to cant drunkenly to one side. “Way!” “It’s going to fall!” “Look out, sir!” Leonus grabbed Arrius by the arm and yanked him back just in time as the massive siege machine tipped over with a thunderous, dust-raising crash. As the echoes died away, cold anger descended. Arrius strode quickly to the wreckage. “You there, what’s your name?” The man Arrius had addressed snapped to salute. “Caminus sir, 2nd Artillery!” “What happened here?” Caminus looked baffled. “As near I can figure, it’s dry rot, sir. Look—“ He picked a fragment of wood from the mess, and closed his hand around it; it crumbled into sawdust. “But I don’t understand—the catapult was sound last night, I’d’ve bet my life!“ Arrius clenched his fists. The lines on his face deepened until he looked like one of the graven statues that lined the Theran Street of Honor. He rounded on Leonus, who was at his side. “Sabotage?” “Don’t see how, sir.” Leonus picked up another spongy splinter of wood, snapped it in two, and tossed the fragments down. “Could be a curse, maybe.” “A curse?” “My cousin is a curse specialist, though I can’t imagine she could do something like this.” Leonus shrugged. “But perhaps the Riami have something stronger. Perhaps ... “ He hesitated. “Perhaps their gods are stronger?” Arrius frowned. “But the divination said the gods had abandoned them.” “Maybe the divination was wrong.” Arrius’s scowl deepened. His tooth was now throbbing, pain starting to crawl up the side of his head. He studied the wreckage another moment. “Get me Soricanus.” 
The atmosphere inside the command tent was stifling, yet the heat from Arrius’s glare was worse. “Soricanus,” Arrius began without preamble, “what is going on? You said the evocatio worked—that the gods had left Riam to join our side. So how is it that our army is beset with such disasters? Was your divination incorrect?” Soricanus looked deeply offended. “That is not possible,” he said stiffly. “All the proper procedures were followed. The divination’s result was clear: the evocatio succeeded.” “Well, do another one!” Arrius snarled, then winced. “Something has to be causing this!” Soricanus coolly inclined his head. “If you like.” He turned and spoke a few words to one of his aides, who held out a mirror and a small vial. Soricanus took the mirror, laid it down on the table, and poured some water onto it, then tapped a few drops from the vial onto the water. “What are you—“ Arrius began. “Shh! I must have absolute quiet!” Soricanus gazed intently at the mirror, murmuring under his breath; then he blew onto the surface of the water, disturbing the swirling patterns. Arrius waited impatiently; he had never put much stock in the diviners’ trade. His toothache was getting worse from moment to moment, and he reflected dourly that it would probably need to be pulled. The priest-diviner continued to peer into the mirror, his brow furrowed in concentration. He made a few more passes and then looked up. “Just as I said. The ritual was successful in calling out the gods we addressed.” As Arrius would have protested, Soricanus held up a hand. “However—it appears that there were … others.” “Other … gods?” Arrius’s voice was deathly quiet. Soricanus looked pained. “They are not what we would call ‘gods,’ more like helper spirits. For example, the spirits of locks, ropes, nails, and so on.” “Well yes, the numines,” Arrius said impatiently. “What does this have to do with anything?“ Soricanus raised one brow. “Apparently someone or something has awakened these numines and turned them against us.” Arrius stared at Soricanus. The pain in his jaw had reached the level of his temples; they throbbed in time to his tooth. “Are you telling me that the army--my army—the Legions of Taere are being thwarted by—what, the tutelary spirit of nails?” The priest shrugged. “The gods work in mysterious ways. We can only try to interpret them.” Arrius shook his head in disbelief. The idea sounded utterly absurd—and yet it was happening. “What can we do? Is there a way to pacify them?” “I am a Priest of the Taeran Gods, not a village curse specialist. Such … beings … are beyond my scope of practice.” Soricanus’s eloquent expression made it clear he considered such dealings to be far beneath him. “Even if I could find a way to appease them, well, the damage has been done.” He gestured, indicating the whole Taeran encampment: the chaos and devastation. Arrius snatched up a cup of wine, stared at it, and then gulped the entire thing. How did it come to this? This should have been his career-making campaign—his chance to gain the wealth and recognition to launch his bid for the consulate. And to have it all undone because … because … because of a bunch of household spirits— His aching tooth fueled his rising ire; for a moment, fury almost choked him. But, above all, Arrius was a realist. He downed another cup of wine, hoping it would push back the pain a little, then turned to his waiting tribunes. “Summon the herald. I have a message to send to the rulers of Riam.” He paused and rubbed his jaw. “And then send me a healer.” 
When the herald approached the city gates, bearing the white flag of truce and holding aloft the golden horn of parley, he was greeted by the Rimians’ own chief herald bearing the customary bread and salt. Then he was conveyed through the city streets up the hill to the palace where King Fulvius waited in the throne room, with his military men. The herald bowed and, with an air of supercilious magnanimity, proclaimed: “In his great wisdom, General Arrius has chosen to show clemency on behalf of the mighty City of Taere. In order to avoid the lamentable spilling of much blood, our illustrious general chooses to offer terms of a truce.” After a pause suiting of his dignity, King Fulvius replied, “Tell General Arrius that I accept his offer of truce, and praise his wisdom. But had he chosen to fight, he would have seen that the spirit and vigor of the Rimians are without equal.” Brave words, and all present were profoundly relieved not to have to prove them in battle. Within a week, the Taeran army packed up and began the ignominious trek home while Arrius tried to figure out how best to present some sort of victory to the voting Taeran public. Meanwhile the Rimian nobles filtered sheepishly back into the city. The event became known in the annals of Rimian history as “the Flight” and for decades afterward, Riam’s noble scions insisted fervently that their ancestors had taken no part in it, leading to the historians’ jest that if everyone who’d claimed they’d stayed had actually remained in the city, there would have been no need for a truce as they could have handily defeated the Taeran army. The salvation of Riam took on a life of its own in song and legend. Rimians wielded it as proof that Riam was under the protection of a unique and powerful deity, while the Taerans insisted it was sabotage; Arrius stoked the rumor, claiming that his opponents had been behind the loss, and enough believed him to give him the High Consul’s chair. Only old Hestia knew what had really happened that day; and no one asked her. She simply went on sweeping the temple, filling the oil lamps, and dusting the statues daily, just as she always had—murmuring from time to time, as she went about her tasks, “Little things need looking after.” |
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Dana E. Beehr
Dana Beehr lives in a small Midwestern town with her husband and assorted animals. She has a couple of degrees in Anthropology and currently works in real estate. In her free time she enjoys reading, crafting, and opening various doors in hopes of finding a portal to Narnia.
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