Byzantium's Crown

by Susan Shwartz

  Stephana raised her head. "Your sister, my love? Indeed, I am glad she lives; you grieved so. But are you—"

  He kissed her words to silence.

  "Once more you give me life and hope back, Stephana. What manner of woman are you?"

  "Yours," she said faintly. "Yours . . . and the Goddess'."

  Marric bowed his head over hers. Goddess, don't let me fail her as I failed Alexa. He carried Stephana to the mats that Taran unrolled and covered her with her cloak and his own.

  Nicephorus brought water again. "I reset the wards. Now Taran can speak with Imhotep." He put out one hand and smoothed back Stephana's hair. She opened her eyes and smiled at him, then rested her cheek on her hand and slept.

  Nicephorus glanced over at Marric.

  "Nico, I swear by all the gods that Stephana will never want for anything as long as she lives!" Did Nicephorus think that Marric could ever abandon her, sister or not? "Least of all," he continued, his voice shaking, "for my love."

  Nicephorus patted his shoulder. "Rest, Mor. We face a long road in the morning."

  Could Marric love two women? Apparently he did. Joy filled him.

  Carefully, not to disturb Stephana, Marric settled in next to her. Nico was right: they had a long road ahead of them. At the end of it lay an empire to win, a queen to regain, and all the rest of their lives to celebrate their victories.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Prince Marric leaned back against the railing of the merchantman Pride of Isis and tried to force himself to inner stillness. It wasn't easy; he doubted it ever would be. Once again he had a new identity—Alexandros the merchant, sailing with a party of priests to Byzantium with one of the all too infrequent grain convoys. Behind them across open water lay Alexandria. By avoiding the usual night harbors, the captain and convoy hoped to escape pirates.

  For right now, he was safe, and Stephana and Nico with him. He might as well stop scanning the horizon for pirates.

  That night in Taran's cabin, Stephana had restored his hopes. And Taran had traveled out of body to speak with Imhotep. Returning to himself at dawn, he told Marric that the Osiris priest had foreseen no more difficulties with Berber raiding parties. They were cut off, the only route of escape lying through the necropolis west of Alexandria. And the tomb guardians—not all of them possessing bodies or human form—would punish those who profaned them. Marric, the priest agreed, had found his own path to freedom. Let him come to the temple with his friends.

  "Come with us," Marric urged Taran. The druid refused.

  "I am eyes and ear for my order here. Would you abandon your post?"

  Long ago, in what felt like another life, Marric had done just that to try to take up the empire he thought he owned—but that owned him. Now he shook his head.

  "It is hardly the same—"

  "Because I am old and bear no weapons? Prince Marric, innocent of war as you think I am, if I had not wished your coming here safely, you would be wandering the swamps. Please believe me"—his glance left Marric and lighted on Stephana, who still slept, exhausted—"I am in less danger than any of you."

  At twilight Stephana had led them through the fog again. Nicephorus, tied to a horse, maintained the glamour that let them approach Alexandria invisible to guard, traveler, or thief.

  By midnight they arrived outside the south wall. Stephana headed for a small, concealed entrance. After he forced it open, Marric found a long underground passageway of dressed limestone that led to the temple itself. Imhotep awaited them. He nodded and hurried them inside. No one else saw them—and thus could not be blamed. As the passage wound on beneath the city, it pressed in on Marric. Halfway to the temple, by Imhotep's reckoning, his torch flickered out.

  "Do you wish me to summon light?" Stephana asked. Echoes hissed and grumbled.

  "Light has never shone here." They continued in darkness.

  As Marric began to wonder if being lost in a tomb could be more unnerving than this—and what if they were lost beneath the maze of streets—the passage opened into the brightly lit inner precinct of the temple. None of the priests and scribes there stopped to wonder at their superior's shepherding a bandaged man with the bearing of a general, a woman with silvered hair, and a slighter man who might have been one of them, were it not for his look of hard usage.

  They were assigned quarters where they found supplies and garments suitable for a sea voyage.

  When Marric had left Tmutorakan for his capital at Alexa's summons, he had had no doubts of his fitness to rule. Now, turning over the contents of the sea chests, he felt unsure of his strength. Could he reconcile Huns, Aescir, and the empire? And then there was Irene. He had sense enough to fear her powers and no idea of how to fight them.

  As Marric finished donning the breeches and full tunic of a prosperous merchant, Imhotep entered.

  "Do you think I can do it?" Marric asked without preface.

  "Can you not try and go on living?" The priest's irony reassured Marric more than any assurances. "There are dangers, and you know them now. But you are not without allies. We in Alexandria will alert our brothers and sisters in Byzantium. They will harbor you while you make your plans."

  "I have to thank you—"

  For the first time in their acquaintance, Imhotep smiled. Then his face changed, and Marric laughed. He knew the expression from the days before he entered training: priest reproving him for his temper.

  "You are going to warn me against rashness again, aren't you?"

  "Only a rash man would attempt what you do. I will give thanks for your rashness each day of my life. But I do wish to remind you of one thing. Prince, you are on the Wheel. For all that you do, there comes payment. There will always be payment, in this life or another. Be careful you do nothing that will make you pay more than you can bear."

  Marric would have questioned him further. But Imhotep held up his hand, forbidding questions. Marric remembered this gesture too.

  "Come now and join your companions."

  The long tunic of a scholar made Nicephorus look younger yet more dignified than Marric thought he could. But Stephana, she was the wonder. Over her blue tunic she wore a rich dalmatic with embroidered key-trim at hem and at her knee. A semi-circular cloak in a darker blue lay over her arm. The gold brooch that fastened it gleamed with a sapphire. She bore herself like the great lady a kinder fate would have let her be. Marric grinned, and she whirled before him, delighted by his admiration. Seizing his hands, she led him to a seat.

  "In seven days a grain convoy will embark for Byzantium," Imhotep told them. "Until then—well, no one objects to worthy, pious citizens who take quarters in Rhakotis by the Temple and spend their days in prayer."

  "Is it safe?"

  "Rhakotis is the oldest part of the city. Those who live here are Egyptians of the old stock, loyal to the temple and to me. Of course, I could send the lady to the temple of Isis. Pharia: the island is well secured."

  "Let me stay here!" Stephana interrupted. "If I am to help him—" She broke off and laughed. Marric had never heard her sound so carefree.

  "I assume your plans are the best possible under these conditions," said Marric. "We will stay together."

  "No one will know where to seek us," said Nicephorus.

  "Not on this level of being," said the priest. "I caution you against venturing out on any other. By now Irene knows that the prince has eluded her. And she has creatures who will search the astral planes for Marric. If they find him—"

  "I cannot travel as Taran did," Marric objected.

  "Not that you perceive. But it lies within you, and your companions' gifts quicken your own. But since you cannot yet defend or conceal yourself, you need protection."

  Marric started to object to that term.

  "You protected me, love. When I would have lived out my life joyless, you forbade. Let me thank you by doing this."

  "If you wish to protect me, love," Marric said, smiling into her eyes, heedless of their companions, "we left your lanc
e behind."

  "I am not joking," said Stephana. She turned to Imhotep. "Do not even think of separating us. Who can guard him better, night and day, than I?"

  The priest inclined his head in respect. "I cannot withstand fate. Be it as you will, child."

  The wind blew Marric's cloak about his tall form. He smiled at the lingering memories. Now, on board Pride of Isis, he played the part of a well-to-do merchant. Stephana posed as his wife. As far as Marric's feelings were concerned, that was no imposture. Day after day—even while learing the disciplines of breathing and thought Imhotep put him through—Marric had watched his lover flower. Even Antonia, his mother, could not have borne herself with more grace.

  But Stephana could not escape her past. Some evenings Marric found her seated before a candle flame, seeking calm with the patience adepts had. At other times nightmares made her toss and moan. After he woke and comforted her, and before she could sleep again, she would perform rituals of protection. The air would shimmer with blue light. And even after that, when she was exhausted, she would lie and shiver in his arms.

  What was she anyhow? Marric had known women who made a profession of beauty and turned pleasure into high art. He had known women who were royal, whose birth and strength of will equaled his. Why, then, did he love this woman whose great arched eyelids and slender bones made her look fey, a woman who had spent part of her life in misery and another part—equally arduous—in esoteric study he couldn't even understand? Power had cost her cruelly. But it did not deprive her of her essential shrewdness. Marric trusted her judgment as he hoped one day to trust his empress'—assuming Alexa was learning the same harsh lessons slavery and despair had taught him. But Stephana had courage and humor, a great capacity to take joy even in the smallest gift. She would have made a fine empress.

  Stephana's maid, muffled in a heavy cloak, approached Marric. Her very intonations a copy of her lady's, she repeated a message: Did my lord intend to fast all day?

  Now Marric remembered. Not all gifts gave Stephana pleasure. Daphne had been one such.

  In Alexandria Imhotep had opened the treasuries to Marric. "You are Horus. Take what you need. All we have comes from you, and is held in trust for you."

  With this money Marric was able to purchase even the gifts with which he would bribe Irene's servants. His own needs, like Nicephorus', were simple: one attendant would serve them both. And they had him, the urchin Marric brought to the temple was pleased to leave Alexandria. But he would stay with the ship.

  Marric assumed that Stephana would need a serving girl and that she would require what any other lady needed in a maid: health, strength, pleasantness, skill in fine sewing, hairdressing, and perhaps music. Stephana's own skills, in short. It would be an interesting challenge to please her. Seeing Daphne in the market, Marric decided she satisfied the requirements and did not even bother to bargain for her. He tossed a pouch to the dealer, sent a temple servant to procure her a decent gown, and told her to dress and follow him.

  He had presented her with some anticipation to Stephana. "This is Daphne," he told her. "She will serve you well . . . won't you, child?"

  "Yes, please, lady," the girl had stammered. She watched Stephana with eyes almost blank with fear. And she shrank away from Marric. Had the girl really thought he wanted a concubine? She was scarcely thirteen!

  "Daphne, did my lord explain we have a long way to go? Will you come with us?" Stephana asked.

  "Willing?" Daphne fell on her knees and burst into babyish, astounded tears. Stephana took her head between her hands, while Marric started to leave the room in some embarrassment. It was not going properly. He could rely on Stephana to calm the child down.

  When Stephana's fingers brushed Daphne's collar, no thicker than the one Marric had broken from about her own throat, she went rigid. Stroking Daphne's curly hair, she looked up.

  "Marric!" she called. Her voice was indignant and reproachful. "You bought this girl and simply would give her to me? Oh, Marric!" Pain shimmered in her eyes.

  Stephana had needed a maid; he had provided her with one. That seemed simple enough, didn't it?

  "She is unfree," said Stephana. "A slave. As were we, my lord, as were we."

  Daphne would be well treated, Marric started to say. Seeing that she would serve Stephana, how not?

  "How could you forget?" Stephana asked. Tears spilled down her face. Before Marric could reach her, Daphne flung both arms about Stephana's waist, and they were consoling one another. As Stephana promised that no one would ever hurt her, and Daphne protested that she would be happy to belong to her, Marric stood astounded. Then Stephana explained how sorry she was and—embarrassingly—how her lord had simply forgotten her hatred of slavery. Daphne glanced at him, so much taller than she, terrifyingly male, as if . . . What does she think? that I would rape a child? That was what had happened to Stephana. He could understand it now: the older women awaiting sale, seeing him, envious of the child, determined to terrify her.

  Ashamed of his forgetfulness, Marric walked over to the weeping women and raised Daphne. A pretty, healthy girl, she had light-brown hair that curled freely down her back, a high complexion made pinker by tears, and amber eyes.

  "I did forget one thing," he said. He was aware that Stephana watched him closely. He snapped the girl's collar between strong fingers. "Be free, Daphne. I will register it tomorrow. But please, serve my lady well. She is worthy of all you can give her."

  He would never be sure how he found himself embracing his lover and her serving maid or why his eyes stung.

  Now, standing on the deck with Daphne watching him, Marric recalled himself to the present. Daphne was waiting for an answer. He smiled at her absently, and she flushed. "I'm not going to fast any longer at all," he said. "I'll come now." Nodding to the sailors and the ship's captain, he went below.

  Quarters on a merchantman were spacious, far better than anything he had had on a warship. And there was no comparison to his last voyage in the hold of a slaver. Remembering slave ships had sobered them all for the first three days of their voyage.

  On Stephana's lap lay one of the ship's cats. Lean, scarred, a veteran, the cat spurned all the crew and passengers except for Stephana. Marric had requested that it not bring her rats and not sleep with them; he had scratches from enforcing this rule. Now Stephana stroked the cat while Marric watched her and coveted that touch for himself.

  When she saw Marric, she slipped to her feet. The cat glared balefully at him, then leapt past and skittered around the corner toward the hold.

  "You adjust well to the sea," he observed.

  Stephana laced her arm through his and drew him to join Nicephorus.

  "I'm coast-bred, Marric, and not a fragile lady: I am used to much less than we enjoy here. This is luxury."

  "I have been telling Stephana," said Nicephorus, "that one never steps in the same river twice, or the same sea. One day you are a slave, the next a prince's lady wearing silks. How do you maintain equilibrium in the midst of all this flux, Stephana my dear?"

  Stephana went suddenly tense. "Just for now," she said, "I float with it. Just for now, for the time we are in transition. I want to pretend, just for now, that we are . . . free of the Wheel. Let me, please, Nico." Her voice became sad and earnest. "I want to be simply a woman, not a seeress. For just this little time, is that so dreadful?"

  "Have you seen danger?"

  "Let it be, Nico."

  Marric never envied his friend his place in Stephana's confidence, his sharing of her secrets of power. But now for the first time, he wished that he understood better what they meant. The priests had taught him a few tricks of meditation; Marric still used their teachings to compose himself for sleep.

  More useful were other kinds of knowledge: friendship, for example. Nicephorus' friendship had survived the discovery of Marric's identity. And Marric, freed from plotting, struggling to survive, and—just for now—danger, could relax and enjoy a new luxury: unfeigned friendship.
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  "Have done with your dreary metaphysics," he teased Nicephorus. "Drink up. How, that's a good fellow. The day is fine and you skulk here, babbling about your precious Heraclitus. Save your gloom for sleepless nights."

  "When he has no one to share it," Stephana cut in acidly. She rested her hand briefly on Marric's shoulder. Looking at her, who would not have thought of her as a carefully reared Byzantine maid of good family?

  Daphne served them all and disappeared to allow them privacy. She had become devoted to Stephana. When the meal was over, Nicephorus rose and stretched, then went up on deck.

  "I never really had such a friend before," Marric said.

  "Your sister?"

  "I entered training so early," Marric explained, "that we never were really close once we were out of babyhood. Besides, I think that even during our childhoods we knew that what mattered was the empire, not our own lives. We always knew that."

  "Has Nico turned you melancholy?" Stephana asked. "I wish he had not." She slid her arms about Marric's neck and kissed him, while lingeringly her hands rubbed the tension out of his arms and shoulders. Rose fragrance mingled with the scent of the sea teased his senses. Marric pulled her close.

  "You make me dizzy," she said.

  "Not the wine?"

  "You. You're so alive," she said and ran her hands up his back. "Even when we bound your spirit within your flesh because we feared you might die in the night."

  "I returned from the place of my own will."

  "Your gift is for life, Marric. Remember that. Love, if I died tomorrow, I would still bless you for having shared it with me. I had given up."

  "You don't have to think of it." Marric wanted to promise her extravagant gifts—love, honor, safety, wealth—for her whole life. She asked only a brief time of peace.

  He kissed her, letting his hands rove over her slender body for the sheer delight of her response. Footsteps approached and they released each other with a start.