Byzantium's Crown Read online

  "Your back heals," Stephana said after a long pause. "Does this hurt?" She ran her fingers across the welts tentatively. "Not much? Good." In some places Sutekh's lash had wrapped about Marric's sides. She traced these lines too. Marric drew back, unable to tolerate a healer's touch he found so unexpectedly erotic.

  "I see," she whispered.

  "Do you?"

  "You're the one who doesn't see, Mor. You never have. You still think like a man whose will is his own, not a slave."

  "I am a man, not a slave."

  When Marric had been a prince, a governor, even a junior officer, he had always found women: highborn ones, his for an easy chase; slaves, his for a casual summons. And they had all seemed eager, had seemed to take equal pleasure in the sport. Had any of those women had to battle fears like Stephana's? Had he ever forced a slave? He was bitterly ashamed that he couldn't remember clearly.

  Slavery was far worse for a woman than for any prince, for any man at all. With that agonizing sensitivity of hers, Stephana faced added humiliations. Marric wanted her, but her life had been so painful that he wondered if she could ever respond to anyone.

  She scrambled her jars, plates, and linen together and fled. Marric did not know if she would ever come back.

  "You will be scarred," Taran the druid told Marric after inspecting his back.

  "Do you think I care about that? I was a soldier. But"—the question escaped before he could stop it—"what can I do?"

  "About Stephana?" asked the druid. His eyes met Marric's, and a familiar roiling in his soul warned him that Taran looked into his thoughts. This time, however, instead of rebelling or recoiling from the touch, Marric held firm.

  "So you sense that your life is joined to hers?" Taran asked. "I think you are right. But I imagine, Mor, that you are not the sort of man to whom things of the spirit come easily."

  There had been that place of light. Even the glimpse of it had changed him. But for the rest of it, no, the things of the spirit came hard.

  "However long on the Wheel it has taken you to come this far, I begin to understand you. I know you.

  "Stephana knows you, too. You see, she is not just an adept and a student; she is a seeress, and far advanced in her tale of lives. She has foreseen that if she makes no grievous errors in life, she will be freed to take the next step along the Way. Now she must atone for one thing and one thing only in all her past lives before she wins release: cowardice caused her to betray a friend. It was a slave's act, and she has been reborn as a slave to atone for it. So, in this life, she knows that She must battle fear and aid someone who needs it. That person too is ordained for her."

  Marric gestured impatiently.

  "But you want more of her than prophecy or her quick wits. You want her. That terrifies her still further. She has suspected, you see, that you are the one who will demand courage of her. Mor . . . " The druid let Marric see that he knew his true identity with his tone of voice. "Not an easy man to help, are you?"

  I don't want this. I don't want to be responsible for a slave woman or for a sorceress. What happens when I escape?

  Yet the remembrance of how soft her skin had been made his fingers tremble with desire to stroke it.

  "I would not harm her. How could I? Sutekh had hurt her. I only meant to care for her as she had done for me. Yet the instant I touched her—" He remembered his desire for her. Then he drew the last thing, the unbearable memory out. "She said once that I would be her death."

  "Adepts do not fear death, my son. Not as you do. Violation, humiliation: these are the things that Stephana fears." Taran waved a hand and turned aside. When he spoke again, it was in a deliberately inconsequential tone.

  "You're well enough now to do light work. I will have Nicephorus tell Strymon."

  "Is Nico also a seer?"

  "Just a scholar with some small power. Nicephorus is too committed to individuals to be greatly adept. He fears for them and fights with all his heart to protect those he loves. He fought bravely for your life."

  "What are they—Nico, Stephana—to you?"

  "My pupils now. In another life perhaps they were my teachers, and I repay them now. Later they may be guides to other spirits, as will I."

  "And I?"

  "You know well what you are, and why we are drawn to help you. The land withers."

  "The water sinks . . . I saw in the city, fights, hunger . . . they hunt druids—"

  "Just so. The land fails when deprived of its proper leadership. Sometime I must tell you of my homeland in the Isles of the Mists."

  "A man I knew once came from there."

  "Aillel, who joined the Varangian Guard? He was a prince among us."

  Marric no longer bothered to wonder how Taran knew Aillel's name. "I met a druid in Byzantium and he—what do you call it?—he scryed for me. Warned me. Are you warning me, too?"

  Taran glanced aside. The sky was reddening before a fierce dawn. "I see danger for both of us if I do not leave now. But let Stephana fight her own battles. Little as she may trust herself, she has enough courage for the task."

  Taran slipped out of the shed. A faint tingling, followed by a sense of vacancy, a way laid open, told Marric that the wards that had been protecting him were removed. He was free to take up his own life again.

  Chapter Nine

  The morning star dimmed in the sky. With a sudden flash of green at the horizon, dawn drove the last soft traces of violet night before it. Marric gazed east, narrowing his eyes as the red sun smoldered in the shrunken lake. The canal that began at the Nile and ran many miles to Alexandria carried less water, too. The water levels in the house cisterns had sunk still further. And the fresh, living mud that had made Egypt the granary of Empire was very thin this year.

  All the slaves feared the great crocodiles that were ravenous and torpid by turns. They were going to get hungrier still. But Marric had no intention of remaining a slave long enough to see.

  As the food ran out, soon the poorest and the eldest in Alexandria would begin to starve. The babes at their mothers' breasts would thrive for a time, then die quickly. People would knife others at first for a loaf of bread, and later for even a chunk of a loaf. Disease would scythe through the crowded Old City.

  Out here the slaves would not starve; still, the prospect of famine and plague in Alexandria made Marric feel helpless and guilty. By rights, he was the land's steward, as Horus had been when gods still walked the earth. If the empire starved, it was his fault. Hellenes, his dynasty called themselves. Still, this land was dear to their hearts.

  Sun, water, and land quivered in the early morning quiet. Even a slave might find the sight peaceful. The sun felt good on Marric's healing back and chest. Now he felt strong enough to try to escape.

  A shadow, stunningly dark in the brilliant light, startled him. With the pitcher on her head supported by an upraised, slender arm, Stephana looked at a casual glance like any one of a hundred women carrying water. But Marric would always know her. Something in her bearing, a blend of assurance and fragile grace, delighted him. The light made her gleam. She raised a hand to shade her eyes.

  Once he escaped, he would never see her again.

  He shut that thought from his mind. Why was Stephana out here? Usually she did not venture far from the inner courts, as he well understood. From what he had seen, and what Nicephorus, had let fall, it was no wonder that her hair had silvered when she was little more than a girl. But no maid: the secluded innocence of maids had been utterly foreign to her ever since slavers had snatched her in childhood from her seacoast home. Since then, Tarran and Nicephorus had been the first men who had perceived her as more than a pair of hands or a convenient female body. And then Marric, wanting to comfort her, had had to touch her too intimately and destroy whatever trust she might have come to have for him too.

  She might not trust him now, but Marric was sure of one thing. She was too vulnerable to attack by slaves or lizards, standing alone at the water's edge. He moved slowly to
ward her.

  She had her back toward him. Lifting the pitcher from her head, she knelt and filled it. With the care of a priestess performing a solemn ritual, she poured the water back. The place where she had emptied her pitcher lay unnaturally calm, reddened from the earth and the sun that simple folk said quickened it to produce frogs. Stephana stared rapt at the smooth water.

  Her low cry broke the morning's peace. The pitcher fell unnoticed from her hands and shattered. A shard of the unglazed pottery rolled into the water and broke the spell she had laid upon it. As if released, Stephana leapt to her feet and turned, ready to flee.

  She had been only a child who liked to stare out over the winedark Aegean, imagining, as children did, that she could see pictures in its surging waves. Then, as the child grew toward womanhood, she could see. What she saw terrified her. She ran from the visions straight into the cruel actuality of a slaver's hold.

  How could Marric sense her terror so clearly? If he ran after her now, she would panic. So he doubled back to cross her path. As she came up beside him, he caught her in his arms. For an instant she straggled against him, reliving the old nightmare of kidnapping and enslavement.

  "It's Mor, Stephana. Mor. What troubles you?"

  "Did you see it, too?"

  "See what?"

  "In the water, Mor. Ships, pirates, oh, Isis, and they had terrible curved swords . . . horses jumping over broken walls. Burning . . . "

  Men with curved swords; pirates or Berbers attacking overland? Had Stephana seen an attack on Alexandria?

  "This land is guarded," Marric tried to reassure her. "Foot soldiers. The city guard itself. And the great houses have their own trained men." Stephana's silvered hair was very soft against his mouth.

  Light danced in its tangled strands as she shook her head vehemently. "Not so, Mor! What if the guards are withdrawn?"

  "Where do the soldiers go, Stephana?" Her fear compelled him to believe, little as he liked it, and he stared at the lake as if he could see troop transports assembling.

  "She . . . she cannot hold what she has seized. Mother Goddess, help!"

  Exhausted by her vision and the violent backlash from it, Stephana slumped. Marric supported her, welcoming the slight weight of her body against him.

  Why would troops be withdrawn from Alexandria, the gateway to the Nile? There could be only one reason: Byzantium itself was in danger. Had Irene recalled . . . ?

  "You would really choose this as a meeting place?" Sutekh's voice was heavy with sarcasm. In his weeks of house duty Marric had forgotten how much he hated that voice. The way Stephana shuddered made him hate it worse.

  Marric turned so that he stood between her and the overseer. Now she was out of the man's reach. Up by the house, people were stirring. The labor gangs trudged off to the fields. Marric had a sudden vision of nail marks on Stephana's body, another vision of Sutekh striding across the fields, brandishing his whip at laboring slaves.

  "Run back swiftly, Stephana. I'll keep you safe." He released her, and she darted up to the gates. When Sutekh would have stopped her, Marric stepped forward with his arm outstretched to block him.

  "Walk carefully, hero. What I did to you once, I can do again. Want another lesson to add to the ones you already wear on your back?"

  "Find a willing woman!"

  Sutekh's fist drove out, but Marric was prepared. He caught the man's wrist and twisted it, a grip that would have brought a smaller man writhing down on his knees. They faced off, almost as close as brothers embracing after a long parting. Each struggled to upset the other. Finally Marric threw the overseer off balance just slightly.

  Drawn by the struggle, the crocodiles were crawling out of the water. Marric glanced at Sutekh's whip coiled at his belt. If he could only wrest it away.

  But Stephana, who hated violence, was safely beyond Sutekh's reach. She had tried to tell Marric of a vision of war throughout the empire. That was more important than a personal grudge. Emperors had no right to personal grudges. Let the man live, then.

  "You have your duties, as I have mine," he said quickly. "Perhaps your labor gangs will escape while you tend to me. Or do I go tell Strymon that once again you're adding slave murder and rape to your tasks?"

  Marric turned his back on the overseer and walked toward the house. At any moment the whip would curl agonizingly about his tender shoulders. If Sutekh struck him now, Marric was afraid he would fight until one of them died.

  Master of no man, least of all yourself.

  If Marric couldn't master himself, how could he hope to win his rightful place? Sutekh was unimportant.

  "You'll pay, slave!" the overseer shouted at him. "By my name, you'll pay!"

  Decently attired in a plain tunic, Marric searched the house for Nicephorus. As always, he ignored the slaves who scuttled along the sides of the corridors and strode boldly down their centers. He found him in the accounts room.

  "Nicephorus?"

  His friend laid down tablets and scrolls. He turned to face Marric, who leaned against the lintel. Then, as he saw that Strymon was also in the room, he straightened politely.

  "Why this disturbance, Mor?" Strymon asked.

  The man was old and shrewd; Marric thought fast. "I walked by the lake shore this morning, master. I observed how low the water line is. This year's crops will be meager. Perhaps I could suggest that the house buy supplies now—for use and possible resale. Prices will rise."

  Nicephorus stared at Marric. Well, let him. How could he explain in front of Strymon that Stephana's vision had disturbed him—or even that she had had a vision. Nor could he say that a trip to Alexandria gave him the ideal chance to escape alone. Even Nico would slow him, and be had to get back to Byzantium.

  "How is this your concern?" asked Strymon.

  "I have been a soldier, master." Marric gave him part of the truth. "An army is only as good as its source of supply."

  Strymon rubbed his chin, rose from his stool, and opened a bound volume of grain records.

  "Well thought. Even if we do not need the grain, we can, as you said, Mor, resell it. Excellent. In fact, you might reap a reward yourself for your forethought. Nicephorus, you will take the wagon into the city to market today."

  Marric looked earnestly at Nicephorus. Ask for my help.

  "I'll need someone to carry the sacks," Nicephorus said. "How about Mor here?"

  Strymon stared narrowly at Marric, who forced himself to assume an expression of earnest docility, eagerness for an outing, and a future reward. And he thought courtiers had been servile! Finally Strymon unlocked a chest and tossed a purse at Nicephorus. "Mor," he said, "you will consider yourself under Nicephorus' instructions. Watch that you do not strain yourself; I understand that you are only recently returned to duties."

  Marric bowed his head just deeply enough. With luck this would be the last time he would have to bow to any man.

  "May we leave now?" asked Nicephorus. "The noon sun will be like hammer on anvil."

  They walked side by side down the corridors, Marric moderating his long, impatient stride to the shorter man's pace. From a side room Stephana emerged. She parted her lips as if to speak, then turned away. Marric forced himself not to look back at her.

  Nicephorus wiped his eyes, which streamed from the dust on the road into Alexandria. "Grain," he said in disgust. "What devil in your skull made you drag us both out of the house on a hot day?" He glanced up at the huge sun.

  "Strymon agreed," said Marric. He shook the reins. "You've seen the water levels. And the wharf rats are thin. It's only prudent to fill the storehouses."

  "And you're just the prudent soldier, are you? Surprising that you haven't turned your warrior's training toward escape. I had expected you to be long gone by now."

  "With this collar on me or a raw back?" Marric laughed shortly.

  "You are healed now."

  Marric shrugged. "Not all sickness is of the body."

  Nicephorus looked over at him. Marric saw a slight,
indoor man with weak eyes. Marric might topple him from the wagon into the ditch, might kill him for the silver he carried. Nevertheless, the scribe sat relaxed, unconcerned.

  He laid a hand on Marric's arm. "I cannot go home. I am as well served here as anywhere."

  "But if you were a freedman—"

  "Who among us is truly free? You, Mor? Since the moment they tossed you into the hold beside me, you've been like a wing-clipped hawk. Doubtless I will contrive to protect myself after you . . . "

  Marric drove on in silence. He was ashamed. What if he did take Nicephorus with him? The scholar had been tough enough to survive the crossing. And he was shrewd, or he would have died in the fight with the pirates. But brave as he might be, he hadn't the instincts of a fighter born and trained. And if he thought remaining a slave might help his family, he would refuse to leave, and Marric would have to abandon him.

  When I rule, I will restore you to your home, Marric promised him silently.

  "Tell me, Mor," Nicephorus asked after a long silence, "did you see Stephana this morning?"

  "Saw her, yes, and prevented Sutekh from doing more than that. Why do you ask?"

  "Something distressed her badly, besides Sutekh. I thought you might know."

  Now the truth could come out. Nicephorus must suspect that Stephana had had a vision that had propelled Marric into action.

  "She said she had a vision," he began cautiously.

  "Then she did."

  "As you say. She saw guards withdrawn from the city, soldiers summoned from this entire region to the capital."

  "Do you believe her?" Nicephorus asked.

  "I believe in my observations. She is worth observing, too."

  Nicephorus laughed pleasantly. High above his head a bird circled in wide, lazy swings, scanning for prey. "Always the soldier, Mor. You felt you ought not to trust, so you invented this errand as a way of arranging a reconnaissance."

  Marric let the reins fall and looked at his friend. He grinned in a way he had not done for a long time.