Foreign Devils Read Online Free Page A

retrieved a cloth napkin from the table and mashed it into my palm.
    The glow from the Quotidian became more intense, pulsing, and small wisps of vapour emerged and rose to join the blue tabac smoke hanging above us in the lantern light. Then, with a lurch, the device began to move. It slid across the parchment at a furious pace: in its passage it left a trail of ink and blood. The air of the tent filled with a scratching, hissing noise. The thing was writing.
    ‘This Quotidian is paired with Tamberlaine’s own,’ Cornelius said, looking away from the device’s movements. Lupina came forward holding the decanter of whiskey and poured him another glass. ‘In this way are the Emperor’s orders disseminated throughout the Empire, almost instantaneously.’
    For a while, Cornelius, Secundus, and Fisk simply watched and drank whiskey as the Quotidian smoked and dashed about the parchment. Lupina handed me a wad of raw cotton, a dour look on her face. I mashed it into my palm. Eventually, Cornelius glanced at me and said, ‘Take up a glass, dwarf. Lupina!’ He pointed at me. ‘Whiskey. You’ve paid for that drink in blood.’ Then he smiled, curling his mustachios upwards. ‘You’re a freeman and a stout little fellow, after all, and a good friend to our family. Have a seat.’ With his bear-foot, he pushed out a wicker chair for me to sit in.
    Rumans are mercurial. I took my seat, making deference to the senator by bowing my head, but all the while aware he could have me crucified tomorrow, on a whim. My hand throbbed with each pumping of my heart and I held my hand over my head to lessen the flow.
    Cornelius watched me, implacably.
    When the Quotidian stopped its movements a few minutes later, Cornelius didn’t move to pick it up. ‘It’s got to cool, a bit,’ he said, sipping his drink. ‘The blasted thing doesn’t get hot enough to scorch the parchment, strangely, but it’s hot enough to burn your hand. It’s as if it’s got a taste for blood.’
    Finally, he gave the bowl to Lupina to wash and returned the Quotidian and its accoutrements to the box. From a salt-well, he liberally dusted the parchment, allowing the granules to absorb any surplus ink mixture, and then picked up the paper and began to read.
    He stopped abruptly. ‘Get Livia in here,’ he said to me. ‘Now.’

TWO
    7 Nones, Quintilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
    I found Livia washing her hands in a bowl of bloody water underneath a daemon lantern. The optios sat near her, chatting in the easy, loose way that soldiers do when not actively on duty and camp has been pitched. She smiled as she noticed my approach.
    ‘Ma’am? Your father requests your presence.’
    ‘I’m almost through here, Mr Ilys. I’ll be with him shortly.’
    ‘He was adamant,’ I said.
    ‘He’s always impatient.’ She wiped her lancets, scalpels, and various sharp pointy things and began to place them them in her bloodkit next to the bottles of acetum and tersus incendia. ‘You’re injured, Shoe. Give me your hand.’ When she’s distracted, Livia will return to using my nickname. And I’d had that particular one so long – Shoestring – that I even thought of myself that way.
    I gave her my hand and she turned it over in her own. ‘So calloused. It’s like they’re made of stone.’
    ‘A gift from my mother.’
    She nodded, thoughtful. Picking out the acetum, and some cotton bandages, she cleansed my palm and wrapped it with gauze. ‘Aurelius says that one’s hands are the truest glimpse into the character of a man.’
    “He is loud and portentous, yet his hands are soft,” I said, grinning, giving her one of the most oft-quoted lines from Bless’ His Infernal Demise. New Damnation’s Cornicen had begun printing that play in serial, and I’d taken an earnest liking to it despite my obvious lack of any sort of education. Much to Fisk’s irritation, I’d even taken to memorizing some of the more penetrating bits.
    ‘What’s the emergency this