by Sandra Hill
Drifa took a deep breath and said, “Let the lessons begin.”
Chapter Seventeen
It wasn’t the wedding of Kate and Prince William, but still . . .
For the days that followed, Drifa felt the presence of someone watching her. A stranger. Not Ivar and the other guardsmen. Never in a private place.
The wedding procession from the Great Palace to Hagia Sophia cathedral was led by a hundred Varangian Guardsmen in dress uniforms; she’d seen them earlier lounging about playing dice as they awaited their duties. The Varangians were followed by another hundred tagmatic troops, also in dress uniforms. All wore plumed helmets and rode black stallions with silver trappings. She assumed Sidroc and Finn would have been among them if they were in the city.
After that were several dozen priests and monks, hands folded together in front of their chests in a prayerful attitude. Drifa was glad she wasn’t close to their aromatic bodies since so many of them disdained bathing as a lust of the flesh.
Then came choirs that sang beautiful hymns in Latin, followed by drummers and lute players. The only thing missing was the acrobats, but they would probably come with the exiting procession.
Emperor John was already in the cathedral with his entourage awaiting his bride, who rode in an ivory, gilt-edged sedan chair with curtains of spun gold mesh. She was carried by eight Ethiopian men of equal height, whose muscular skin had been oiled to look like polished ebony. Camel guards surrounded the chair, and behind rode the patriarch on a snow-white mule, an attitude of humility and purity, Drifa supposed. After that were the empress’s eight ladies-in-waiting with their kohled eyes, rose-pomaded lips, and chalk-powdered throats and bosoms riding two apiece in their own sumptuous sedan chairs. What a contrast to the churchman! How the nun-like Empress Theodora must hate all this pomp!
The people who crowded the city streets kept shouting, “Long live Empress Theodora!” followed by cheers. Occasionally she would reach out a hand and toss coins to her subjects, causing near stampedes.
Princess Drifa and her four guardsmen—who looked especially handsome dressed all in black, tunic and braies of softest wool tucked into their waists by heavy etched silver belts, with silver-hilted swords scabbarded at their sides—walked behind the procession, along with several hundred other dignitaries and emissaries from other countries. In all, the procession along the short distance from the palace to the church took more than two hours.
Halfway through their walk, Drifa was bumped from behind. When she turned, dark eyes stared at her intently from beneath the burnoose of a desert-style robe, the kind she’d seen her brother-by-marriage, Adam the Healer, and his aide Rashid wear on occasion. “Begging your pardon, mistress,” the man said in heavily accented Greek and bowed away. It happened so quickly that her guardsmen saw her stumble but hadn’t noticed the man, who’d no doubt pushed her. She decided not to alarm them, leastways not until later.
Once inside, all thoughts of danger melted away under the most magnificent splendor. Drifa was not a Christian, but she could appreciate the heavenly sense of beauty dedicated to their One-God. The high central dome had dozens of arched windows that let in sunshine to reflect off the marble pillars and mosaic walls, many with colorful lapis lazuli, telling stories in art about their One-God and saints and angels. It was enough to turn a heathen Viking into a believer.
“Holy bloody hell!” Ivar murmured beside her, and it did not sound at all sacrilegious. All of their jaws were gaping open with astonishment.
At the altar the emperor stood in a pure white silk robe. The empress, whose face was veiled, wore pure white, too, except her gown was of brocade with raised designs in silver and gold. Extremely ornate and heavy crowns were held above their heads by attendants as they spoke their vows and exchanged rings.
Various high church and civil dignitaries presented themselves before the emperor and empress by prostrating themselves on the floor in front of them in a position of obeisance called proskynesis. It was an extreme sign of allegiance to not just the emperor but his new wife, who just stared stonily forward.
A totally inappropriate-for-a-church thought came unbidden to Drifa, a picture of Theodora doing those things with John that she had done with Sidroc. Almost immediately, she knew. It would never happen. What does that say about me? Mayhap just that I was never destined to be a nun? Or an empress? She put a hand to her mouth to prevent herself from laughing aloud.
Ivar slanted her a questioning look.
She pretended not to notice.
But Drifa did notice everything she saw and heard, hoping to imprint it on her memory so she could tell everyone at home about it all. If only she had a real talent for painting!
Once when he glanced around during the lengthy rituals, she saw Eparch Mylonas staring at her from across the aisle. A shiver of apprehension raised the fine hairs on her body.
It wasn’t that the eparch looked at her with lust, as some men did. Nay, it was more like dislike. Rabid dislike. What had she done to engender such animosity in the man? Ah, she realized. Her half-Arab ancestry. To some Greeks, just being Arab was reason for hate.
And that reminded her of the man in the Arab burnoose who’d bumped her earlier in the procession. She must tell Ivar about both these happenings, not that there was much to tell. Just an uncomfortable feeling.
Later at the wedding feast, in the Hall of Nineteen Couches, Drifa was seated at a table of strangers. Her guardsmen were permitted to stand off to the side under the colonnade, but they were not invited to partake of the feast itself. There would have been no room, if nothing else.
The people she dined with were pleasant enough, though none of them spoke Greek as a first language, and the conversations were ofttimes stilted. Toward the end of the evening, though, the man from the Rus lands on her right side leaned closer to her and said, “I have a message for you from your cousin.”
“Cousin? What cousin?” She tried to recall if she’d ever heard her father mention a cousin. Nay, she decided. He had not.
“Bahir Ahmed ad-Dawlah, your cousin thrice-removed.”
“Huh?”
“He saw you today in the procession and he is pleased.”
The man in the burnoose? “That’s nice.”
“Mayhap a wedding will be in your future.” The Rus man winked at her.
“What? You cannot be implying what I think you are. Impossible!”
“Who knows what Allah has in mind for us?”
Ah, so this man, though of Rus background, was a Moslem. That was fine, but she was not, and no god was proclaiming a marriage for her, especially not with a stranger.
“Do not be afeared, m’lady. Bahir is young and virile. He has already produced ten sons and six daughters with his other wives.”
“Other wives?”
“Of course. What kind of man of wealth would he be at forty and one if he did not have at least three wives? Bahir has five.”
“And I would be number six?”
The Rus man nodded. “And most favored.”
“Sorry I am to decline this most unusual proposal, if that is what it is. But I have more than enough ‘favors’ back home in the Norselands.”
“No, no, no, princess. Baghdad is your true home, and the desert your garden.”
Ha! Some gardens I would be able to plant in the endless sand.
“A fair maiden like you does not belong in the icy land of the barbarians.”
“My father is not a barbarian.” Not often, leastways. “And let me repeat: Thank you, but nay, I am not interested.”
The man just smiled and turned to speak to the lady from Crete on his other side. The lady was a distant relative of the emperor.
Later, when she told Ivar about the strange proposal, she thought he would laugh. But instead he ranted and raved. “We should go home immediately. It is as I expected. More and more danger. Everywhere you step there are pitfalls.”
“Ivar! It was a silly marriage proposal from afar. The man di
d not even ask me himself. And, besides, this is not the first marriage proposal I have ever received.”
“More like fiftieth,” he grumbled.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled some more. Then, he straightened. “Methinks I should call in some seamen from your longship to help us stand guard over you.”
“What? Nay! That is ridiculous. Four Viking guards is plenty. Any more and I will just be calling attention to myself.”
“As if you do not already!”
“Ivar, I do not like your tone, not by half.”
“I do not mean disrespect, m’lady.”
She bowed her acceptance of his apology and put a hand on his forearm. “We will be careful, my good friend. And if there are any further ‘problems’ we will reassess the situation. I promise you, I will agree to go home if it is deemed a clear danger.”
He nodded, but he was not happy. “The back of my neck is twitching all the time, a sure sign that something bad is coming.”
The next sennight, the bad arrived.
For whom the bell tolls . . .
Sidroc and Finn had been at the mountain retreat of General Leo Biris for a sennight when they had to admit that the warlord was no imminent threat to the emperor. And they told him so.
“I ought to lop off both of your fool heads for sneaking into my camp under pretense of joining my guard,” roared the big bear of a man with a mane of thick black hair and full beard.
“Please don’t. You might get blood on my hair, and I just washed it. Rather, one of your pretty maids washed it for me.” Finn finger-combed the long blond locks off his face in a preening fashion.
For a moment, Leo went slack-jawed at Finn’s halfwit humor. Then he slapped him so hard on the back that Finn nigh went flying across the table where they sat following the evening meal.
“Leo, you must understand that Finn is a man like no other. He takes some getting used to.”
“That is for sure. I swear, Finn, if I had not come across you tupping my wife’s weaving maid behind her loom, I would think your bells gonged in a different direction.”
Finn straightened with affront. “My gong goes in only one direction.”
They all laughed.
“Have I mentioned that I have five unmarried daughters?” Leo inquired slyly, not for the first, or twentieth, time. If they were not careful, they would find themselves landlocked and wedlocked on a Byzantine mountain.
Sidroc had kept his braies tightly laced since he left Miklagard. For him, that was a long period of celibacy when there were willing partners aplenty. Finn, on the other hand, had tasted every other comely being with breasts that came within smelling distance.
“I have not touched one of your daughters,” Finn protested.
“I know,” Leo said unhappily.
He and Finn had discussed in private that neither of them should so much as find themselves alone in a chamber with one of Leo’s daughters, aged from fourteen to twenty. Not that they weren’t attractive. They were. But Finn was determined to find the most beautiful woman in the world, one to match his beauty. And, if Sidroc was going to be forced into marriage, he would rather it be with a woman of his choice. For some odd, infuriating reason, Drifa came to mind.
I should not have coerced her into doing the things I did.
She should not have complied.
An innocent maid deserves better than such rough handling.
But she rough handled me, too. I have the marks to prove it.
She was a virgin; so the child Runa cannot be hers, as I suspected.
Then why the big secret? Why has she refused to discuss the child, or its father, with me?
In any case, Sidroc had decided over this past sennight to end his threat over Drifa’s head when he returned to Miklagard, as tempting as her charms were. Secrets be damned! Time to put the past behind him. If she came to his bed again, it would be her choice. But then, he expected to leave this land soon. Mayhap, as with Ianthe, ’twas best to cut ties and just be friends.
A strange laughter erupted in his head at the prospect of him and Drifa being just friends. But, nay, it was Leo laughing. Apparently the general had continued talking whilst Sidroc’s mind had gone a-wandering.
Finn excused himself and went off to check on his horse, which had a hoof disease he was treating. It would have to be healed before they left.
“So, the bastard turned on me once he went from military tent to soft bed?” Leo mused about the emperor once it was just the two of them. “As a fellow soldier, if nothing else, I thought John knew me better.” Leo appeared hurt at the actions of his old friend.
“I don’t think it’s so much the emperor as General Sclerus and Eparch Mylonas who have suspicions,” Sidroc told him. “As you know, the empire relies on you border lords to hold off the Moslems. And they depend on the taxes you funnel to the capital. But it’s your very strength that makes them fear you, meaning all the dynatoi. They’re afraid you might use that strength for your own ends. Leastways that is how Sclerus and Mylonas see things.”
“Pfff! Bugger the both of them! Just because I’m popular with my people and our lands flourish, just because more and more soldiers want to join my ranks, they figure I must be doing something wrong. Does it never occur to them that I am doing things right, as they should?” The general slammed a big hand on the table, causing the goblets of ale to teeter before righting themselves.
“I know this to be true, and it is what I will report to the emperor.”
“Will they be sending you to investigate the other dynatoi?”
Sidroc put up both hands. “Not me.”
“Are you sure you would not reconsider my offer to join my ranks? I would give you and Finn positions of authority. You would be well paid.”
“Nay. ’Tis past time I established my own homestead.”
“Why not here? I could give you land.”
“Again, I thank you for your offer, but I am a Norseman. ’Tis time for me to go home.”
And, actually, Sidroc had decided that his destination would in fact be the Norselands. He was tired of letting his father dictate his life. He would not settle in another country just to avoid proximity to his villainous family. Not too close, though. Mayhap he would seek an estate farther south in Vestfold. He would know the right place when he saw it.
Three days later, he and Finn were practicing swordplay with some of Leo’s soldiers when a messenger came riding in from the south. The closer he got, the more Sidroc stiffened with apprehension. He soon realized that he recognized the man. It was Farle, one of Drifa’s guardsmen.
This could not be good news.
Chapter Eighteen
The terrible trouble arrives . . .
Drifa had been in Miklagard for more than two sennights, and she’d seen only a tiny portion of what she’d planned. Still, she was missing Runa fiercely.
So she decided to spend some time with Ianthe, who had become a good friend. She was bringing her sketch box with her, not just to show off her work, but in hopes that Ianthe could fill in some of the blanks about certain flowers that grew differently in this climate.
Ivar had rolled his eyes when she’d informed him of her plans. “Gardening again!” he complained. Really, Ivar was better suited to fighting her father’s battles with his battle-axe, not guarding her in yet another garden.
So she was not surprised that Ivar’s boredom had led to sleep when she went out to the hall that afternoon to inform him that it was time to go back to the palace. The palace gates closed at mid-afternoon, so they must hurry.
“Ivar!” she yelled with distress when she was unable to wake him.
At the same time, Ianthe yelled at her, “Drifa, come here at once.”
It was already too late. A masked man had come up behind her, lifting her off her feet and carrying her back inside.
“Oh my gods! You’ve killed my guardsmen,” she said in Greek, since she assumed that was his nationality
.
“He is alive. Just an herb-induced sleep in his ale,” the man replied, also in Greek, but it was clear this was not his first language.
“But I brought him his ale,” she said, her gaze catching with Ianthe’s fearful one.
“The ale was tampered with. Your other guardsmen and my workers are ‘asleep’ as well,” Ianthe told her. “Even Joseph Samuel.”
“As you two will soon be, too,” her captor said, then spoke in a foreign language to three other masked men who emerged from the balcony door, as well as the steps leading to the shop below stairs. Although she was not proficient in Arabic, she recognized bits and pieces of their words as ones Rashid, her brother-by-marriage Adam’s healer assistant, had taught her when she visited their Northumbria home.
Drifa and Ianthe were bound and gagged then with some scarves the leering men found in a low chest in Ianthe’s solar. Then the men dragged in Drifa’s four guardsmen and Ianthe’s shop workers with Joseph Samuel, all limp with the same deep sleep as Ivar; they bound and gagged them as well. The only one missing was Irene, Ianthe’s elderly maid, and Drifa could only assume that she was the culprit who’d tampered with the ale and helped these men. Luckily Drifa and Ianthe had only drunk wine, or they would be in the same condition.
“We must wait for a few hours until it is dark,” her captor said in heavily accented Greek.
“Shall we put these two to sleep, Hakeem?” one of the others asked the man who appeared to be the leader.
“We can wait, Faisal, as long as they are gagged. Did you put a sign in the shop window saying they are closed for a funeral?”
“Yes. I wonder whose funeral it will be? Ha, ha, ha!” Faisal must be the second man’s name. By the gods, he reeked of garlic. Did no one ever tell him a little went a long way?
Drifa saw no humor in such a morbid jest.
“Shall we take both women with us when we go?” another man asked. “The Greek woman could act as translator.”
“I do not think it will be necessary since the princess speaks Greek,” Hakeem remarked. “Although we could use the Greek woman on our journey to sate our lust and then sell her in the slave marts in Baghdad.”