A Burning Sea

by Theodore Brun

  ‘Hmm.’ The emperor brushed the imperial seal on his knuckle thoughtfully over his lips. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘They fear the Bulgars far more than they fear us. The people of the shadows, they call them.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘General Suleiman presses Maslama to reach out to them in alliance against us. He counsels him to appeal to the caliph to send gold for the purpose.’

  The emperor scoffed. ‘The Bulgars would never ally themselves to followers of the Prophet.’

  ‘Nevertheless, Maslama is considering it. Only the loss of personal honour makes him hesitate. To seek allies would be to admit failure – and with a force larger than any ever assembled. He wears it sorely.’

  ‘Maslama always did prefer to save face, whatever it cost him,’ observed Leo. ‘The Bulgars, eh?’ he muttered to himself, pacing up and down the priceless Bukharan carpet that warmed the marble floor.

  ‘There is one further thing you should know, Majesty.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They have an agent within the city walls.’

  Leo frowned. ‘An agent?’

  ‘A spy—’

  ‘Did you learn his identity?’

  ‘His. Or hers. . .’ The Jewess shrugged her small, sharp shoulders. ‘Alas, no. But they seem confident that their. . . person. . . is well placed.’

  ‘Mother of God,’ Leo swore, and paced even more restlessly. Katāros looked on, face impassive, though he couldn’t help but notice a glance from those kohl-rimmed eyes in his direction. He ignored it. For now.

  ‘High Chamberlain – take note,’ said Leo suddenly, spinning on his heel. ‘I charge you with sniffing out this. . . this vermin. Do you hear?’

  ‘Of course, Majesty.’

  ‘No stone unturned. No one above suspicion. We must take care. We can afford no mistakes. Send the sons of Kallinikos to me. They must be warned. And protected.’ These ‘sons’ – known as the lamproi, the ‘Brilliant Ones’ – were the only men in the empire who understood the secret of its greatest weapon. Kallinikos – a Jew who had fled Syria ahead of the Arab tide – had saved the city a generation ago with his liquid fire. Now his sons were charged with saving it a second time.

  ‘It will be done without delay, Majesty.’

  ‘You have done well, fair lady,’ Leo said, addressing Lucia. ‘Uncommon well.’ The Jewess bowed gracefully. ‘Arbasdos did not overstate your skill.’

  ‘He knows me well, Majesty,’ she said demurely.

  The emperor chuckled. ‘I’m sure. Go then. Lord Katāros, see she is rewarded.’

  Outside, the pair walked the full length of the first hallway in silence. Only when they had turned a corner did Katāros speak, choosing his words carefully.

  ‘A remarkable achievement,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think so?’ she replied, a smile twitching at the corners of her small mouth. ‘Oh, by the way, Abdal-Battal sends his respects.’

  Katāros stopped. She stopped with him. ‘So,’ he sneered, ‘where are the marks?’

  The confident smirk faltered. ‘Marks?’

  ‘I take it you required some persuasion.’

  A long eyelash flickered. ‘Across my back,’ she admitted.

  ‘Any others?’

  ‘They were enough.’

  ‘Not so skilful then,’ mused Katāros, half to himself, then strode on. Lucia hurried to keep up with his long, swinging stride. ‘Easier to sneak in, than out.’

  ‘It was. Then again to send a woman in there was a folly only Arbasdos would’ve been conceited enough to make. But the emperor will soon pay the price for his friend’s mistake,’ she added, spicily.

  ‘Did they speak my name?’

  ‘They didn’t have to. As soon they told me they had another within the walls, I knew.’

  ‘How?’

  She gave a tinkling laugh. ‘Call it a woman’s intuition. Alas, you would not know of such things.’

  ‘You understand nothing of what I would or would not know.’

  ‘Oh, my! And I thought your kind could feel nothing. But your pride is pricked as easily as any real man’s—’

  ‘Enough of this nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘What have they told you? Did Lord Battal give you any message for me?’

  ‘Lord Battal, is it—’

  ‘Quickly now.’

  ‘Patience, little one.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘They want the fire. They want it soon. Soon enough to arm the new fleet.’

  ‘So the fleet is coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why did you give Leo the truth?’

  ‘Why withhold the truth when he will find it out in time anyway? He will only trust me the more.’

  ‘You didn’t have to tell him of their spy.’

  ‘No,’ she conceded with a smile. ‘But I thought it would keep you honest. With me, at least.’

  ‘You meddlesome little—’

  ‘What better way to prove your loyalty, High Chamberlain? I’m sure you will have no trouble turning out a whole army of little traitors, scurrying about the gutters of the city. Hey?’

  Katāros nodded slowly. There was, after all, some sense in that.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ her sweet-husk voice hardened, ‘you can do what you should have done a long time ago. Or is the task beyond you?’

  Katāros ran the tip of his tongue along the edge of his teeth, refusing to rise to her goading. ‘I think I can see a way to it. Now. And you?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry for me. I have my own charge.’ Her mouth contracted into a teasing pout. ‘I shall not delay so long as you have in fulfilling it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He regarded her with a sardonic eye. ‘You seem to enjoy this work. Far more than if they had turned you by force alone. I thought you were Arbasdos’s creature.’

  ‘I was,’ she smiled.

  And that was all she would say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘How is our friend?’ asked Lilla briskly one morning when Gerutha was brushing out her hair.

  ‘As crabby as ever,’ replied Gerutha. ‘Yesterday she was angry because I only brought her one flask of wine. She’s made me promise to amend for my meanness, as she calls it, by bringing her three next time.’

  ‘Three!’ laughed Lilla. ‘Gods in Asgard – you’re supposed to help the poor people, not drown them in drink.’

  ‘Alethea thinks that is helping her.’

  ‘And what does Domnicus say?’ This was the priest who held some office or other in the palace, whom Gerutha seemed to have befriended – or else he had befriended her. She had become a regular companion of his on his forays into the darker nooks of the city to bring succour to the poor.

  ‘He doesn’t approve, of course. But he overlooks it.’

  ‘It would be a brave man to deny Alethea her wine,’ observed Lilla.

  ‘Or a cruel one.’

  On occasion Lilla had joined them, wanting to escape the scented hallways and echoing staircases of the palace and see for herself the squalid alleys and dismal courts of the poorer quarters.

  The worst of them were truly wretched – dark, fetid places, a welter of disease and misery. The people were not yet starving but the cold made them suffer all the same. Domnicus, a lean, long-shanked man with a sparse sandy beard and eyes bright as blue flames, sought out the poor like a dwarf digging for gold. The elderly, the sick, the maimed, the hungry. The cold drew them forth into the narrow, lightless lanes like a flame driving lice from a seam. There was no shortage of work for him.

  She and Gerutha would bring baskets of scraps gathered from the palace kitchens, or else blankets and copper coins. And of course wine.

  Alethea was a beggar for whom they had both developed a fondness, although she was a truly repellent creature. She had no legs. She wedged her stumps into a small box on ill-cut wheels and pushed herself about with wooden blocks – even though she only ever sat on the same corner of the same filthy passageway next to the s
ame little wine shop. She was wrapped head to toe in rags and some infection had eaten away half her nostril, leaving behind a purple crater. A difficult face to look at, certainly, except that she was always smiling.

  But today Lilla made ready for more elevated company. The emperor had summoned her. And she intended to make the most of her chance.

  However, when they came for her, his attendants led her not to the golden throne hall, but down to the main courtyard spread before the Triklinos of the Excubitors – the sentinels’ barracks – where an imperial litter awaited her. She gathered up the folds of her silk robes and climbed inside, unsure what to expect.

  The litter bumped along in time with the bearers’ steps. It was an uncomfortable mode of transport, she decided – unbearable had she not been wedged inside with half a dozen cushions. She braced herself with a hand on either window, preferring to travel with the curtains open so she could distract herself with the passing city.

  Once clear of the palace precinct the litter-bearers turned west up the Mese. Those few hardy merchants still plying their trade – who grew fewer by the week – moved aside for a litter blazoned with the imperial eagle. Meanwhile she gazed out. The coming of the snows had given her a pang for her homeland. There, first snow was not exactly a thing to celebrate – but it brought with it a certain beauty, a familiarity, a kind of cosiness, which only the tall, frosted pines and the powdered shingle hall-roofs could recreate. Here, it was different. A city under snow was an ugly thing – the flurries of ice-dust, the roof tiles rattling in the wind, the endless shifting slush. She felt dislocated, cut off, her heart sick for a home that she feared no longer existed – at least not as she knew it.

  Before they reached the Forum of Constantine at the top of the hill, the litter turned left off the Mese and continued a short distance down a side street that must eventually lead to one of the harbours. There was some manoeuvring into a still smaller passage and at last she was set down. The door was held open for her and she got out. To her surprise, she found the emperor waiting for her, this time garbed in the simple clothes of a soldier, a thick cloak of red wool wrapped around him.

  His greeting was effusive. ‘Good morning, Queen Lilla! Forgive this. . . well, I could say inconvenience but I assure you it will be worth your while. There’s something I have been wanting you to see.’

  He led her into a nearby doorway which looked unremarkable enough. Inside were posted two of the city guard, one of whom passed Leo a torch, already lit.

  ‘This is a little mysterious,’ she said. Her Greek had much improved over the winter months; Leo’s best tutor had seen to that.

  ‘You will see why very soon.’

  She enjoyed seeing him free of his purple robes. He seemed ten times more natural in the guise of a soldier, his movements deliberate, the hunch of his muscular shoulders strong, almost dangerous. He plunged through another doorway into darkness instantly lit by the torch flame.

  ‘Watch your footing. We go down now.’

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked, taking care to replicate his steps down a stone staircase that materialized out of the gloom.

  ‘This was once one of the city cisterns. It serves another purpose now.’

  As they neared the base of the staircase, she had a sense of a deep looming space to her left, and as the flame-light chased away the darkest of the shadow, she could make out a small forest of pillars, each trunk as thick as a hundred-year oak, stretching away from her as far as the light would penetrate. They passed two more guards standing in the gloom at the foot of the stairs, a weak torch fixed to the wall there.

  ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘all of this filled with water!’

  ‘Don’t you have need of it? The city cannot run dry.’

  ‘We have twenty more like it, and bigger, spread around the seven hills, all still nearly full. But this one –’ he turned, his smile a cave of shadow – ‘this has a very special purpose. Come – I will show you.’

  She followed him deeper into the bowels of the cistern – which, devoid of water, seemed more like the underground hall of some dwarf king than a kind of well; and presently she noticed beyond the pool of torchlight another source of light ahead. There was a strong smell, sharp in the nostrils, and under it another, like the trace of rotten eggs. The other light soon grew brighter as they approached and then she heard voices and the light tap-tapping of metal; she saw torches sconced on the walls and pillars, and still further on a murky, green glow.

  ‘This, Queen Lilla, is why the city will not fall.’

  Without warning, there was a sudden rush of heat and light, a roar of flame that made her shrink back, startled. In her shock, she gripped Leo’s arm. The emperor laughed. ‘Don’t worry. You’re quite safe.’

  ‘Safe? How can anyone be safe around this. . . this—’

  ‘We call it hydron pyr. Liquid fire.’ The fire-jet had landed with a loud splatter down one of the avenues of pillars, the flames still burning brightly amongst the puddles and damp pavings on the cistern floor. ‘These men manufacture it in quantities sufficient to keep our fleet stocked at all times. Some say it’s the most precious thing the empire possesses. It’s certainly the most deadly.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘Pine resin, naphtha, sulphur. That’s the smell, huh?’ He wafted his hand in the air. ‘These, I know. Many of the other substances required, I do not. I must not. Not even I,’ he exclaimed with a laugh. ‘Since knowing it, I might give that knowledge away. Especially to one so disarming.’ He held up three fingers. ‘Three men only know the exact composition. We call them the “Brilliant Ones”.’ He smiled. ‘Our little joke. Here –’ he beckoned her to follow again – ‘you can meet one of them.’

  Lilla followed, feeling both intrigued and excited. There was another great whoosh of flame and this time she wasn’t startled, but watched with silent fascination. She felt a dark thrill at the power of the thing, feeling its heat prick at her face. She thought of her promise to her dead husband. If somehow she could gain the use of this. . . weapon, perhaps then she would be able to keep her word to him.

  They approached a far corner of the cistern where the walls were more brightly lit. There were several men working at benches where there were sets of scales and pots of various powders and some larger vats of liquid set on pallets on the ground. In another area, a man was tapping a little hammer at a narrow piece of piping.

  ‘Nikolaos,’ called Leo softly. A man bent over a set of scales rose from his bench and squinted into the half-gloom. Seeing them, his expression fell. ‘Majesty,’ he gulped and made to kneel.

  ‘There’s no need for that. Please.’

  The man straightened.

  ‘There, that’s better. Now – I want you meet a guest of mine.’

  Nikolaos dusted off his hands as Leo presented Lilla to him, explaining who she was. The man was very tall for a Byzantine, with a smooth dimpled face and long elegant fingers. He bowed self-consciously over her hand. ‘My lady,’ he said, his voice smooth but sonorous. ‘It’s an honour to receive you here.’

  ‘Tell her what you’re doing.’

  ‘Yes, of course, sire. We are testing a new syphon this morning.’

  ‘It seems to be working.’ Leo gave a dry chuckle.

  The man stroked nervously at the bridge of his nose. ‘Well – almost, sire. The viscosity is still not quite right.’

  ‘It’s impressive, nonetheless,’ Lilla offered. ‘Yes. . . And rather horrifying, don’t you think?’ he added, with another nervous pluck at his nose.

  ‘Isn’t that the point?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it is.’ The man’s eyes darted like a bird’s, seeming ill at ease in new company.

  ‘Go on,’ urged Leo. ‘Tell her how the thing works.’

  ‘Majesty?’ The fire-maker’s smooth brow crumpled in a frown.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I thought, in light of what you told us two days ago—’

  ‘What? No! Good God – Queen L
illa is no threat. She’s never even seen an Arab! Go on – explain it to her. Not the detail, man – the principle, the principle!’

  ‘As you wish, Majesty.’ And so he did, looking decidedly uncomfortable at first, but soon warming to his own expertise and the readiness with which she drank in his every word. It seemed the genius of it was a combination between both the mechanics of the syphon machine and the composition of the liquid itself. But she felt that his explanation left the details deliberately vague.

  ‘Of course, it’s all rather precise. Any mistakes and. . . well, it doesn’t work.’

  ‘Fascinating. Still, it must be rather gloomy, working down here, so far from daylight. I feel rather sorry for you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ growled Leo. ‘We pay him well enough, I assure you. Besides, it’s his vocation.’

  Nikolaos smiled at Lilla. He had a gentle face, pale and sensitive. ‘Your concern is kind, my lady. But the emperor is right. Our father came from Antioch. He lost his lands to the infidel when Syria fell. He never forgot it, nor would he let us forget. I suppose this was his way to take back something of all that he lost.’

  ‘By burning men to death?’ she said, in a voice innocent as a lamb.

  ‘By saving an empire!’ Nikolaos blustered. ‘He saved many lives. Saved a way of life.’

  ‘The city will always honour his name for it,’ said Leo reassuringly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve offended you.’

  Nikolaos merely smiled but the wound was plain to see.

  ‘How can I make it up to you?’

  ‘There’s no need—’

  ‘Truly, I must.’

  ‘Well. . .’ He hesitated, apparently too coy to go on.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I thought that. . . well, it would give me great pleasure if you would call on me. Lord forgive me, but the work down here can be. . . so dull. I should like to hear something of where you’re from.’

  Inwardly she smiled. ‘And I should like to tell you.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Erlan had waited patiently for five days. But tonight, at last, was his opportunity.