As the figure drew closer, though, Vasilios saw with relief that it was not the demon who had devoured the babies in his previous visions. This figure was tall, with striking, strong features and wide shoulders. The figure was dressed in dark-blue silk, of a shade Vasilios had never seen before, with a scarf pulled over his head and tucked around his shoulders in the way eunuchs wore them. His skin was the color of fire-darkened copper. As he drew closer, Vasilios saw under the thin, filmy silk of his head scarf that his scalp was smooth and shaved bald, and he wore gold earrings in each ear. He was carrying the snake from Vasilios’s previous dream, or one like it, its dark-red scales twined around the eunuch’s hands and arms.
The figure stopped in front of Vasilios and looked down at him.
“Why are you sitting there?” he asked, voice surprisingly light and sweet, like that of a court jewel despite his large size and muscular build. “You must get up and go forth. The enemy of Michael will not wait forever.”
“I cannot,” Vasilios said. He was still in pain, so much so that he was afraid if he moved again, his back might start to bleed once more.
The man knelt beside him, letting the snake slither from his hands to the ground, and Vasilios eyed it warily, hoping it would not come anywhere near him. The stranger stared at him for a long minute, and Vasilios shifted nervously. The other eunuch’s eyes were dark, but flecked through with gold.
“I do not know your name,” he said, and the stranger frowned and tilted his head to the side.
“Call me Malachi,” he said.
Vasilios frowned a little at that, trying to figure out why the name sounded familiar to him. “Is that not the name of a prophet?”
“It was once,” the stranger who was called Malachi confirmed.
“Is it your real name?” Vasilios asked, although it did not matter really. This was a dream, after all.
Malachi smiled at that, causing small wrinkles to appear around his eyes and Vasilios to have a view of white teeth. “No.”
Vasilios shook his head. “All right, then. If it is what you wish, I will call you Malachi. They call me Vasilios. That was not the name I was born with, although you probably know both those things.” He winced and tried to shift a little in the sand.
“Take off your tunic,” Malachi said, and Vasilios jerked around to stare at him, then let out a pained wheeze at the sudden movement.
“What?”
“Let me see your back,” Malachi said. “So I can tell how badly you are injured.”
Vasilios didn’t know what to do or say. He had no idea who Malachi was or what he could want. It’s a dream, just a dream, he thought, but considering his other dreams, this didn’t reassure him at all. He moved his hands down to the hem of his tunic, and struggled to remove it. Lifting his arms sent jagged shocks of pain down his back and shoulders, and he gritted his teeth and then gasped when Malachi reached out to him.
Malachi’s hands were warm and large and felt far too real to belong in a dream. Vasilios froze as Malachi helped ease the tunic up over his head and then off.
Once the tunic was gone, Malachi sat back and stared at him for so long that Vasilios began to feel rather self-conscious about his chest, with his small but firm muscles and complete lack of hair, except for the soft down that started below his navel. He wanted to cross his arms over his chest, but moving them that much would be painful, and his back was already screaming at him for moving at all anyway.
“Turn around,” Malachi said. “Let me see your back.”
Hoping this would be over soon and he could put his tunic back on, Vasilios did as he was told. He could almost feel Malachi’s gaze on him, and then warm fingers lightly skimmed across his shoulders and along his sides where the skin was welted but had not been broken. Vasilios heard Malachi let a breath out through his nose, making a huffing noise.
“Ordinarily there would be no need to do anything,” Malachi said finally. “These wounds are not life threatening, and they will heal in time, but our enemy grows restless, and time is something we do not have.”
Without warning, Malachi pressed his hand flat against Vasilios’s back. There was a sensation of intense burning. Vasilios thought he might have screamed, but he wasn’t sure through the pain. Blackness rushed at him with frightening suddenness, and Vasilios thought he heard Malachi say, “There,” sounding pleased, but he was not sure.
WHEN he woke next, he was lying in his bed in Panagiotis’s house once more, and Nereida was kneeling by his side, head bent and hands clasped in prayer. He could hear her murmuring softly to herself as he stirred, and she looked up quickly when he cleared his throat.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and he nodded, feeling groggy. Nereida stood to pour water into a cup for him.
“My back,” he said, after taking several sips of water. “I had a dream that a man healed my back, and it doesn’t hurt as much now as it did.” He tried lifting his arms experimentally to test that statement, and found in fact it didn’t. It still hurt, there was no doubt. It felt like he’d taken quite a beating, and he could feel the welts and bruises all across his back and over his shoulders and sides. There was no longer the pull of half-healed wounds, though, no longer the sharp stabbing pain that felt like someone cutting into him.
Nereida unwound the bandages from around his chest and then examined his back. “It does look better,” she said after a minute. “Much, much better in fact. Thank God. Do you still need something for the pain?”
Vasilios tested out lifting his arms a little higher this time, and there was definitely pain, but it was not unbearable. “I think I’ll be all right without it,” he said, a little surprised to find it was true. “Help me up please? I need to go see Markos.”
“Are you sure you’re healed enough for this?” Nereida watched with a frown as Vasilios pushed himself up and carefully climbed out of the bed. Walking was painful, he found once he was standing up, but not impossible, and he limped toward the chest where his clothes used to be.
“I think I should be fine.” Vasilios opened the clothes chest and found a few pairs of clothes remaining. He began trying to struggle out of the pair of lamb’s-wool trousers he’d been wearing, so he could put clean ones on. “Thank you for taking care of me, and for getting us away from Anthimos.” He turned back to her after pulling on a pair of light-green trousers, to find that Nereida had turned her back to him to give him privacy while he changed. He was grateful for this little gesture. “It was very brave.”
“I needed to do something.” Nereida shrugged. “He would have killed you if we’d stayed there. I managed to stop him from beating you to death. He might have just continued to do the same the next day.”
Vasilios frowned as he pulled on a matching tunic, sorry now that he hadn’t asked for more details about how they’d come to be at Panagiotis’s house—no, Eudoxia’s house now—in the first place. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” Nereida shook her head. “Not really. I managed to stop him from continuing to lash you after you’d fallen unconscious, and then I waited until he was asleep and came here to beg Lady Eudoxia for help. She sent a servant back with me to help carry you here all under the utmost secrecy.”
Vasilios swallowed hard. He could not imagine how hard it must have been for her to come back for him after she had already gotten away. He owed her a great debt. He reached for a scarf, pulled it around his shoulders, and then tried to bend over to pull on his slippers. He hissed in pain at the sudden movement, unbalanced, and would have fallen over, if Nereida hadn’t moved to grab him at the last minute.
“Thank you,” he said to her, gripping her shoulder for balance has he toed on first one and then the other slipper.
“You shouldn’t go out.” Nereida put her arm around his waist for better balance, and Vasilios took a breath.
“I have to. Have you heard about the babies that have gone missing? There is something out there taking them, and General Markos is trying to find and stop it, and
for whatever reason, I have been useful in this.” He looked up at her. “And if I can continue to be useful, then I need to do that.”
Nereida gave him a long, searching look and then slowly nodded. “All right,” she said. “But be careful. You’re not completely healed yet, and if Anthimos were to find you, he would take you back. We are both protected from him as long as we stay in the house but not beyond that.”
“I know.” Vasilios pushed away from her grasp and took a few tentative practice steps on his own before pulling his scarf up over his head.
He made his way to the door, still moving slowly and with a heavy limp, and let himself out into the hall. The stairs were harder, but he took the steps one at a time and got down them.
“Vasilios.”
He had been almost all the way to the door that led out into the front courtyard when he heard Eudoxia call his name. He’d been hoping to avoid this meeting, but he turned anyway.
“My lady.” Vasilios wanted to go down on his knees before her, but he didn’t. He forced himself to remain standing. If he was going to defy her, he wouldn’t do it on his knees. It was for the best anyway, he thought. He didn’t think he would be able to stand back up if he’d knelt now. “Thank you for your protection.” He did bow, though, the action sending a twinge of pain up his side.
“You do not have permission to leave,” she said, eyeing him up and down.
“I know.” He straightened back up. “But I am going to anyway.”
She stood and looked at him for a moment. “All right, then,” she said finally, as he blinked at her in surprise. “I will do my best to keep my sons from knowing you have gone.”
“But…,” Vasilios started. He really hadn’t thought it would be that easy, and she waved her hand at him.
“You and General Markos are plotting something, and I do not need to know what it is or why it is you the General requires, but I remember General Markos from when I was at court before I was married, and I trust him. Whatever he needs you for, I will support. Besides….” She shook her head. “You should not have gone to Anthimos to begin with. We will see what we can do about that in the future. But for now, go.”
She turned to go back down the hall, and Vasilios hesitated but then took a step toward her. “Wait, Lady Eudoxia, please.” She turned to look at him, and Vasilios swallowed. “I am in no position to ask anything of you, or to speak against this family that I have served for so many years,” he said. “But please look after Nereida. I do not want to see her come to harm, not now, not ever.”
Eudoxia’s expression softened, but then she shook her head again. “There is only so much I can do,” she told him. “Damianos is the head of this family now, but I will see if I cannot think of something.”
“Thank you.” Vasilios bowed once more and then turned back toward the door. He opened it and slipped out into the courtyard.
8
AT LEAST the guards at the gate did not try to stop him as he made his way out onto the streets. It was late afternoon and Vasilios kept a lookout for anyone who might recognize him from Anthimos’s household. He made his way slowly up the hill toward Markos’s house.
He did not relax or let down his guard until the soldier at Markos’s gate had let him into the courtyard.
“Vasilios.”
He looked up at the sound of his name for the second time in less than a quarter to see Patros in uniform, coming toward him across the tiled courtyard.
“I did not think you were well enough to be up and moving.” Patros stopped to clasp Vasilios’s right hand with his own and Vasilios’s left shoulder with his other hand in the traditional greeting between soldiers-in-arms. “I am glad to see you are well, although not as glad as the General will be.”
Vasilios thought about the dream he’d had of Malachi in the desert. “It’s a long story.”
“Well, come in.” Patros led the way to the front door and pushed it open. “Ilkay and Theofilos are here, trying to figure out where this mysterious monastery of yours might be.”
He pushed open the door to Markos’s receiving room, and Vasilios stepped inside. Ilkay and Theofilos were sitting together on the couch with Aritê sitting across from them, and Markos at his writing desk. All of them turned to look at Vasilios.
“You are late.” Aritê informed him first. Markos stood and crossed the room toward him.
“Are you all right?” Ilkay also stood. “Markos said you were injured.”
“I’m all right,” Vasilios said, and Aritê smiled as Markos reached him and put his hands on Vasilios’s shoulders, his grip light as if he was afraid of hurting Vasilios more.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Markos studied him carefully, and Vasilios forced himself to keep his gaze steady and fixed on Markos’s eyes. “I want to believe that if you say you are, then you are, but I only saw you a few hours ago last, and you were in a lot of pain then.”
“I am all right, really.” Vasilios reached out and clasped Markos’s shoulder, and Markos nodded slowly and took a step back.
“Here.” Theofilos stood from the couch and sat in the chair next to it. “Sit on the couch. I’ll sit here.”
“There is really no need,” Vasilios told him, but Ilkay had already seized his hands and was leading him over to the couch.
“I was telling Markos,” Theofilos said when they were all settled again, “that there are any number of monasteries or convents the one you described could be. There is a whole branch of the church, in fact, that favors secluded and hard-to-reach sites for their communities. The ones I have heard of would be the convent of St. Firmina, the monasteries of St. Aba of Kashkar, and St. Haralampos, the monastery of the Holy Hand, and the convent of the Sacred Flame. Then there is the monastery of the Archistrategos Mikalos and the convent of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. All of these are remote communities centering in or around the Eastern desert region of the Empire. But there are probably lots of smaller communities I don’t know of.”
Vasilios frowned. “The voice in my dreams kept calling the demon the ‘enemy of Mikalos,’ so perhaps the monastery of the Archistrategos Mikalos is what we are looking for.”
Aritê was also nodding. “Yes,” she said. “The demon Gyllou is indeed the enemy of the angel Mikalos. It would make sense for the one we seek to be in the place of worship dedicated to his name.”
Markos looked back at Theofilos. “Do you know where the monastery of the Archistrategos Mikalos is?”
Theofilos shook his head, frowning. “I don’t, having never been there. I’ve only heard of it. If I were you I’d send word to the Bishop.”
Markos nodded and stood. “I am going to speak with the Bishop. Patros will prepare for the journey. Amma Aritê”—he turned to her—“you must accompany us there. I think you will be the best at explaining the situation.”
“I want to come as well,” Theofilos said. “If for no other reason than I’ve never visited the monastery of the Archistrategos Mikalos but would very much like to.”
“I would like to come as well,” Vasilios said, and everyone turned to look at him.
“I don’t know—” Markos started, and Vasilios took a breath.
“I had a dream,” he said. “Before I awoke and came here, I met someone in my dream who called himself Malachi and….” He took a long breath, mostly because he wasn’t sure he believed the next part. “He touched my back and healed it. He seemed to think this was something I needed to do, not simply tell you about so you could do it.”
“Well, then,” Theofilos said.
Vasilios kept his gaze fixed on Markos, who was watching him with a slightly concerned look on his face. Finally, though, Markos nodded.
“I don’t like the idea of you going on this journey,” he said. “Not after you have been so recently harmed, but your seeings have not been wrong so far, and I will trust you and them in this.”
“I’ll stay here,” Ilkay said after another long moment. “Make sure the Bi
shop, bless his Holy name, doesn’t do anything stupid while you are gone.”
“Speaking of the Bishop.” Markos stood. “I must go speak with him. The rest of you are of course welcome to anything in my house you might desire.” He moved across the room toward the door and paused beside Vasilios to rest his hand on Vasilios’s shoulder again. “Rest,” Markos said, looking down at him. “I do not know how long this journey will be, and we will need to move quickly.”
Vasilios nodded, and Markos smiled at him before continuing to the door and out into the hall.
Theofilos stood. “I’m going to need to go back to the house and pack, then,” he said, nodding to Vasilios and Aritê.
“I should go with you.” Ilkay also rose, pulling his scarf up from around his shoulders. “Be well, Vasilios, Amma Aritê, and I hope to see you both again soon.”
Aritê also rose and followed them out. Vasilios didn’t really know what to do. It seemed strange to wander about Markos’s house, but he had nothing to pack. Finally he stood and made his way out of the receiving room and down the hall.
He had meant to find Phyllis and ask if there was anything he could do to make himself useful. Instead, he ended up in the garden. The table and chairs were no longer on the stone patio, but there was a wooden bench with cushions on it. Vasilios sat on the bench and stared off across the garden. He didn’t like how tired he was, considering he had not long ago awoken. The sun was warm, the bench was comfortable, the cushions soft, and Vasilios let his mind drift.
HE MUST have dozed off, because he woke with someone’s hand stroking across his head. He was lying on the bench now among the cushions, and he blinked, looking up at Markos who was smiling down at him.
“I’m glad you decided to rest.”
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