Like Fire Through Bone

by E. E. Ottoman

  Eventually he drifted off to sleep.

  HIS side felt stiff and sore the next morning and had turned mottled red, dark purple, and black in an area bigger than the width of both of his hands. He bathed the area in the cold water from the pump out in the garden before pulling his tunic over his head.

  Irene looked at him sympathetically and gave him a large basket of wool and two carding brushes. Vasilios sat next to the fire in the kitchen and carded the wool, while Irene and her children worked around him. After the wool had been carded, Vasilios helped Eva make the bread for the day. When the bread was baked and wrapped in cloths to keep it warm, Vasilios helped Irene slice vegetables and meat for the evening meal. About the last thing in the world Vasilios wanted to do was serve the meal, but he didn’t really have much of a choice. Besides, he would not allow Anthimos’s behavior to keep him from doing his duty as he always did. Along with Joachim, he carried the serving dishes of food into the dining room and then knelt on the floor as Nereida and Anthimos entered. Vasilios stared at the floor, listening to the sound of Anthimos’s boots against the tile.

  The meal passed in complete silence. Vasilios hated the fact that his body remained tense throughout the entire thing, waiting for any sign that Anthimos was about to come closer to him. As far as he could tell, though, Anthimos never even glanced at him. After eating, Anthimos left the dining room first.

  “Walk with me?” Nereida asked, as she finished her dinner and stood. “Come, let’s walk in the gardens.”

  Vasilios stood and followed her obediently out through the kitchens and into the garden. They walked around the large part of the walled space where vegetables grew, then through the space where flowers and trees grew.

  “You said that you met Theofilos Yalim?” Nereida asked as they walked. “I do not mean any disrespect on Panagiotis’s house, but it doesn’t seem to me as if Theofilos would frequent there often, or at all.”

  “I did not meet him there, no.” Vasilios couldn’t help but smile. “I met him at General Markos’s house. General Markos was a sometimes associate of my late Master’s.”

  “Oh.” Nereida thought about this as they walked another round of the garden path. “Are they friends, General Markos and Theofilos Yalim?”

  “I believe General Markos is closer to Ilkay Zoe, actually,” Vasilios said, feeling a pang at the memory of the afternoon he’d spent with the three of them.

  “If you could do anything, what would you do?” Nereida asked finally, stopping by one of the fruit trees and gazing up past its branches at the sky above the top of the garden wall.

  “I don’t know.” Vasilios looked away then. “I try not to think about what will never be. I am the eunuch of a well-placed household, good at what I do, and that is enough.”

  “Is it?” Nereida reached up and touched one of the low hanging branches of the tree.

  Vasilios looked at the ground, feeling his side ache. He clenched his jaw tight.

  “It has to be.”

  Nereida turned away. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. I didn’t mean to turn the conversation to such serious things. I just… sometimes, I would have loved to be a scholar, do so many other things than this.”

  Vasilios didn’t know what to do or what to say to comfort her. For a moment, they stood there together. Finally Nereida gave him a small smile. “Maybe one day we can talk about happy things, but for today we should probably go inside.”

  She turned and headed toward the house, and Vasilios followed.

  “I think I’ll go to the market tomorrow and buy some fresh fruit,” Nereida said. “Would you like to come with me?”

  Vasilios nodded. “If you want me to.”

  “I would like that.” Nereida smiled at him. “I hope they have figs.”

  They entered the kitchen, and Nereida reached out and put her hand gently on Vasilios’s arm. “Help Irene to clean up and then go to bed. I should see what Anthimos is doing.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Vasilios didn’t really trust Nereida to be all right in the same room with Anthimos, although seeing that they were married there was little he could do about it.

  She waved him off. “I’m fine. Help out here, and then get some rest.”

  Vasilios hesitated but then nodded and watched her leave before turning to Irene.

  HE WOKE the next morning feeling stiff but at least not having dreamed the night before. First came the preparations for the morning meal, and Vasilios helped in the kitchen and then served the meal and knelt through it.

  “I thought I’d go to the market this morning,” Nereida told Anthimos over breakfast. “I would like to take Vasilios with me to help carry things and pick out some food for the next few days.”

  Anthimos grunted without looking at either Nereida or Vasilios. “Do as you like. Oh, and make sure to buy some good wine for dinner, so I can celebrate that business deal. I will be finalizing things this morning.” When he was done eating, Anthimos left without having acknowledged Vasilios’s presence, and Vasilios couldn’t help but feel grateful for that.

  After helping clean up from the morning meal, he sat in the kitchen and ate some bread with fruit and a cup of wine. Once he was finished, he went to find Nereida to see when she wanted to go to the marketplace.

  It turned out Nereida had almost no skills when it came to haggling over prices.

  “No.” Vasilios glared at the man who was asking two follis for pomegranates. “We will go someplace else. There are many more reasonable vendors willing to sell us fruit in this market.

  “But—” Nereida started, and Vasilios took her arm gently but firmly and led her away from the stand.

  “Wait,” the pomegranate vendor called to them. Vasilios stopped but waited a few seconds before turning around and making his way back over to the vendor’s stand.

  “I could be talked into a lower price.” The vendor smiled at them. “I would hate to see the lady have to settle for less than the best.” He smiled across Vasilios’s shoulder at Nereida, and Vasilios frowned.

  “How much?”

  “Three half-follis.”

  Vasilios laughed, and shook his head at that, reaching for Nereida’s arm again. “Come, my lady. This man is wasting our time.”

  “Two decanummium,” the vendor offered.

  “Two nummus, more like.” Vasilios studied the fruit with a critical eye. “These are hardly the best, after all.”

  The vendor frowned and huffed at that. “Well, if my lord is that particular, you can buy your pomegranates elsewhere, but I am telling you, these are the best.”

  “Three pentanummium.” Vasilios held up the copper coins. “And we take two of the bruised ones as well.”

  The vendor eyed the coins but finally nodded grudgingly, and Vasilios handed over the money while Nereida picked out the fruit.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Nereida told him as they walked away from the pomegranate vendor. “I would have paid the full price.”

  “He wasn’t expecting us to pay the full price,” Vasilios told her. “He was expecting us to argue him down lower. We paid almost what he wanted anyway.”

  They bought figs, olives, and apricots before heading back to the house. On the way, they stopped and bought a more expensive bottle of wine than Vasilios knew they could afford, but he didn’t comment as Nereida handed over the money.

  Once back at the house, Vasilios carried the fruit through to the kitchen. He had put the basket on one of the worktables and was unwinding his scarf from around his head and neck when he heard voices raised in anger in the front of the house. He turned toward the sound in time to see Anthimos storm into the kitchen.

  When Anthimos struck him hard on the side of the face, it took Vasilios by surprise and caused him to stagger and then fall to his knees. There was blood in his mouth, Vasilios could taste it, but his mind was wrenched away from that when Anthimos grabbed him by the hair. Vasilios kept his hair short, cut as close to his head as he could, so
there was little for Anthimos to get a hold of, but it was enough for him to fist. When Anthimos started to move toward the garden, Vasilios staggered up so fast he almost fell into Anthimos. The pain through his scalp was like fire, and he was afraid Anthimos was going to tear his hair out, maybe take skin with it. Vasilios tried to keep pace with him, so he followed as fast as he could, half bent over and eyes stinging with pain.

  Anthimos dragged him out of the kitchen and across the garden to where a dead tree stood, the top part cut off to leave the withered trunk still imbedded in dirt. There were iron chains, each with a heavy cuff driven high into the tree. Vasilios knew when he saw it what was coming, but couldn’t think of how to make it stop. When Anthimos used his grip on Vasilios’s hair to swing him off balance and throw him at the tree, Vasilios managed to get his hands out in front of him to keep from colliding headfirst with it. Anthimos slammed his own body into Vasilios’s so they were pressed from shoulder to knee against each other, back to front, with Vasilios trapped against the tree. Anthimos was slightly smaller than him but faster and younger, and he managed to wrestle first one and then the other of Vasilios’s wrists into the cuffs while keeping him trapped against the rough bark.

  Vasilios gasped, trying to catch his breath, trying to think of what to say or do in this situation. The cuffs had him against the tree with his back vulnerable to Anthimos. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a knife blade flash. His whole body went stiff and ready, bracing against the pain he knew would come.

  Anthimos cut his tunic off him, tearing the cloth when it resisted.

  “Joachim,” Anthimos yelled, when the tunic lay on the ground. Vasilios heard footsteps running. He tried to twist around enough to see and got backhanded into the tree for his trouble. “Get the whip,” Anthimos said.

  Vasilios stared straight ahead at the dried dead bark that was starting to rot. He could smell it.

  “I did not get that business deal I had been working for,” Anthimos said, his voice deceptively low and even. “The other party told me that they had decided to go to Damianos to handle their contract instead.” Anthimos was pressed up against him again. Vasilios could feel the softness of Anthimos’s own linen tunic against his bare back, feel Anthimos’s breath down the curve of his neck. As Anthimos pressed him forward with his body, Vasilios’s chest ground into the rough surface of the tree.

  “You know why I hate my brother?” Anthimos asked. Vasilios knew better than to answer. “Because he poaches my business. He has for years. Then he dares—he dares to send you to teach me a lesson.”

  Anthimos took several steps away from him, and Vasilios heard footsteps running across the garden path again. He closed his eyes. He wouldn’t scream. For as long as he could manage that, he wouldn’t give Anthimos the satisfaction.

  The lash sliced the air with a soft sound, but there was nothing soft about it when it cut across Vasilios’s back like fire. Vasilios took a deep breath. The whip had multiple tails with knots or maybe something tied to the end of each tail. He was going to lose skin; there was no doubt about it. He hoped he wasn’t going to die here.

  Think of something else, he told himself as the next lash fell—anything else. Intense, biting, tearing pain radiated out from where each of the tails struck, crisscrossing over each other. Vasilios thought about Markos, thought about each time they had spent together. He remembered how Markos listened when Vasilios spoke, and how he took what Vasilios said seriously and without question. He thought about the way Markos bit his lip when he was thinking and ran his fingers through his hair to make it stand on end when he was worried or distracted by something. There was the way Markos smiled, the fine lines that formed at the corners of his eyes, and there was the sound of Markos’s laughter, rich and deep and joyful. Vasilios remembered the feeling of Markos’s hand cupping the side of his face during their trip home from the desert, the gentleness in Markos’s voice when he’d told Vasilios to rest. Blood ran down his back now. The pain made him light-headed, and his vision blurred. He was dimly aware that he was making involuntary pained noises between clenched teeth every time the tails hit wetly against his back, his body rocking back and forth with the force.

  He struggled, grasping at images of things that weren’t this. He thought of Eudoxia, when she had been younger, watching her children play in the garden. He thought of the way Panagiotis had smiled at him the first time Vasilios had haltingly read an entire page without making a mistake. More recently, he thought of Patros talking about learning to ride horses as a boy, Ilkay laughing, Theofilos smiling back. He couldn’t hold any of these images long enough to use them to fight through the pain that was quickly overwhelming him. He thought of Aritê kneeling under the small thorny tree in the desert, chanting Psalms to the sky, but before he could grasp at it and hold on, the image faded. He thought of the feeling of Markos’s hands against his waist, holding him close when he’d been too tired to protest, warm, solid, and gentle.

  There were tears on his face, but he was too tired to care. The pain was like having his insides ripped out through his back, and at this point, he thought blurrily, it would probably have hurt less if Anthimos had gone at him with the knife. There was blood everywhere, and his body was quickly going slack against the chains. Anthimos hit him again and Vasilios’s knees gave out. Pain of a totally different sort shot up both arms as they were forced to hold his entire weight.

  Dizziness began to close over Vasilios as the lash hit him again and again, shoulders, arms and back. Someone screamed, and he didn’t know if it was him. He tried to reach for something, an image or a memory, and found nothing there.

  The beating stopped, and Vasilios was vaguely aware of voices yelling but couldn’t make out what they were saying. There was a buzzing muffling his hearing, and his vision was quickly going black. He stared at the sky. It was blue, a bright, pure, clear blue. He’d thought he’d forgotten, but he remembered now. The ocean. It had been that exact shade of blue the last time he’d seen it. It had been so long since he’d seen the ocean. It was a pity really. He’d always wanted to see it again. At least once. Someone called his name, over and over, but Vasilios didn’t listen, because the black was closing in too fast.

  The last thing he saw as it took him was blue.

  7

  HE STOOD in the desert.

  In that first flash of awareness, the desert stretched around him on all sides. Then came recognition of his body, dressed in light-blue silk and feeling no pain. He stood still for a while and tried to figure out what had happened and what to do. Then he turned in a slow circle and stared around at the desert. Alone, with nothing but sun and sand, Vasilios pulled his scarf up to shield his face as a light breeze rose up. Finally, with nothing else to do, he started off across the sand.

  There was an element of unreality about the entire thing. He could feel the sun beating down on him, but he did not feel hot or burned, and he knew he’d walked far, but he did not feel tired. Up ahead, he finally saw something, and as he drew closer, he could make out a small, thorny tree, growing alone in the middle of the desert. The tree was covered in green leaves, although there was no obvious water to feed it. Vasilios stopped when he came to it, and looked up at its branches. There was fruit growing there, large and red, and when he reached up and pulled one off, he saw they were pomegranates. After a few moments of wrestling with it, he managed to break through the tough outer skin and found it was ripe and sweet inside. He ate the seeds with his fingers.

  “Do you know what you seek?” said the same voice from his dream.

  Vasilios jerked in surprise and turned quickly, but no one was there.

  “You wish to cast out the enemy of Mikalos,” the voice said.

  “I don’t wish to do anything,” Vasilios said out loud for the first time. “Except survive.”

  “That is not the path that has been chosen for you,” the voice said flatly. “Look there.”

  Vasilios turned without meaning to, until he saw something tha
t had not been there earlier. A snake. He swallowed. He was not overly fond of snakes, although he did not fear them. The snake was not large, but it was not small either, dark red, and lying in the shade beside the tree. As Vasilios watched, it moved, slithered out from under the tree and across the sand. Vasilios wondered briefly if he had a choice. He set down the fruit and followed the snake.

  The snake led him through the desert, and Vasilios followed at a good distance, keeping the snake just within sight. He didn’t know how long he walked. Everything seemed dreamlike. The sun hadn’t moved that far across the sky, though, when the voice spoke again.

  “There,” it said. “What you look for is there.”

  The snake had coiled itself in the sand, and Vasilios shaded his eyes with his hand. Ahead, sandstone cliffs stretched up to the sky, and on the top of one, balanced on edge as if it would at any moment plunge down into the desert below, was a walled complex of buildings, made of the same stone that surrounded it. The largest building, domed with red clay tiles, had an iron cross stretching from the top of it toward the sky. A monastery, Vasilios assumed.

  “You must hurry,” the voice told him. “The enemy of Mikalos will return soon, and feed.”