The laugh stuck in his throat. “No,” he said, confounded again by the unfathomable ways of females. “Only very young.”
She lifted her chin. “I am fifteen. Other girls…” She stared at the floor between them. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because Lady Danae asked.” He pushed the hood back from her head and unfastened the pin that closed the cloak at her throat. “You should appear comfortable, or the next guard may think you haven’t pleased me.”
Briga stood absolutely still while Quintus eased the cloak from her shoulders and draped it over one of the chairs. Beneath it she wore a simple floor-length chiton caught around the waist with a braided cord. Her body had the underfed, coltish look of a girl at the threshold of womanhood, but no one could doubt that she was about to step through that fateful portal.
“Sit on the couch,” he told her. “I’ll remain near the door unless someone comes.”
Hesitantly Briga went to the couch and sat, plucking at the folds of her chiton as if she had never worn such a garment before. A kitchen slave might own a single scrap of cloth to serve as clothing for all occasions. Quintus noticed that her hands, slender as any aristocrat’s, were roughened and chapped from constant work. Hands that had summoned fire to her unwitting call.
“Do you love Lady Danae?”
The girl’s question startled Quintus from his thoughts. He sat down at the table and refilled his cup. “What makes you ask such a thing, Briga? Do you know who she is?”
“She is the emperor’s hetaira. His mistress.”
“Then how could a mere prisoner love her?”
“Everyone must love her. She is so beautiful.”
Quintus sighed and glanced over the delicacies that had been provided for their dinner. “Are you hungry, child?”
She began to bristle at the word, blue eyes bright enough to spark her hair into living flame. Her stomach rumbled loudly. She pressed her hands over her ribs. “Have you any bread?” she asked.
“Better than that.” He picked out the best slices of meat, selected a piece of fruit, tore off a chunk of bread and arranged the food on a smaller platter. “You had better eat all you can now, since we don’t know when Danae will come for you.” He took the smaller platter to Briga and set it on the couch. “Do you know where she intends to take you?”
“Only out of the citadel,” Briga said. She stared at the food, licked her lips and chose a morsel of meat with the uncertainty of one unused to such rich fare. “I have never been outside the palace.”
Quintus had little difficulty imagining a life of such confinement. He had grown up in a noble Tiberian house, fiercely protected by his adoptive mother and seldom allowed beyond the confines of the estate. Even when the empire took the city and his family fled to the hills, Quintus’s period of freedom had been brief.
Since the day he had escaped the Tiberian rebels’ custody, he had seen much of the world and the cruel empire that ruled it. Soon this child would face more challenges than she could begin to imagine.
“You will have a great deal to learn,” he told her. “Many things will be strange to you. Watch and listen. Speak seldom. Keep your anger under control. Let Lady Danae guide you.”
Briga took a large piece of fruit. “Were you truly a rebel?”
“What do you know of rebels?”
“They fight the Stone God. In the kitchens they talked of how the emperor stole you from the High Priest,” she said, swallowing the fruit a little too quickly. She hiccuped and belatedly covered her mouth with her hand. “The priests are afraid of you.”
“What makes you say that?”
She grinned, subtracting several years from her age. “They said Baalshillek was very angry. People get angry when they’re afraid.”
“Perhaps the High Priest would fear you if he learned of your ability with fire.”
Briga pushed the plate aside. “I couldn’t hurt him,” she said. “But I wish I could.”
“Because of what they would do to you?”
“Because of what they did to my mother.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She isn’t really my mother. The priests took her son when he was only a baby and gave him to the Stone God. They took her man, as well. She would have been taken, too, except she came to work in the palace. The emperor doesn’t let the priests take his servants. But Lady Danae said even the emperor can’t protect everyone.”
Quintus wanted to tell the girl that Nikodemos was not the noble champion she seemed to believe, but it was more important that Briga trust Danae than that she comprehend the complexities of a world beyond her ken.
“Did you ever know your real mother?” he asked.
“No. I was too little when I came to the kitchens. But Annis always loved me.” She speared Quintus with a look of fierce defiance. “You think no one could love me.”
“I see no reason why you should not be worthy of love, Briga.”
She met his gaze. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened in her pale, freckled face. Abruptly she snatched at the chunk of bread on the rejected plate and tore it into two pieces. “Are you going to escape, too?” she demanded.
“If I can.”
“Then I want to stay with you.”
Quintus flinched from the unreasonable worship in her eyes. “That is not possible.”
“I could find a way to hide. I’m good at hiding. I won’t make another mistake with the fire.”
“You must do as Danae tells you.”
“I could serve you as well as anyone else,” she insisted with artless innocence.
“It’s far too dangerous,” he said. “You don’t even know me, Briga.”
“Danae said you were a good man.”
“I may die here, today or tomorrow.”
“But you are the emperor’s brother.”
“I am also his enemy.”
“Then I would die with you.”
Her naive passion tore at his own foolishly weak heart. “I can account only for my own life, Briga. You do not belong to me. I own nothing, control nothing. Whatever you may think, I—”
Without warning the door opened again. The intruders entered boldly and came for Quintus before he could get to Briga. Two guards forced Quintus’s arms behind his back while two other men snatched Briga from the couch.
“No!” Quintus said. “Why are you taking her?”
“By the emperor’s command,” one of the guards said, twisting Quintus’s deformed arm until the bones seemed ready to snap. The moment his fellow soldiers had Briga wrapped in her cloak and out the door, he and his partner released Quintus.
Quintus hurled himself at the closing door and struck it with his fist. Briga was gone. All her innocent, bold plans had been ground into the dust beneath Nikodemos’s sandals, and there was nothing Quintus could do but curse. And mourn.
“If you hurt her,” he swore softly, “if you touch one hair on that child’s head, Nikodemos…”
He slumped against the door and thought of Danae. Somehow her plot had been exposed. There was no telling how the emperor might punish her for scheming behind his back, or what he intended for Briga. Even if Quintus pleaded for the emperor’s mercy, he might only make matters worse for both of them.
Unless this was all a part of Nikodemos’s game, and he knew his brother better than Quintus knew himself.
If that were so, gods help the world. Quintus could no longer lift a finger to save it.
Chapter Seven
B aalshillek paced in the reception room off the emperor’s private suite, counting each slow drop of liquid from the water clock in the wall niche. The emperor was making him wait, as always—a petty display of his majesty, that he alone could keep the High Priest of the Stone God idle.
The High Priest was not unduly perturbed. He gathered his patience, with which he was plentifully supplied, and imagined Nikodemos’s screams as Stonefire devoured his flesh.
“I trust you have not been waiting long, Baalshillek.” Nikodemos entered the ro
om and sprawled in his fur-draped chair, regarding his guest over tented fingers. “I was detained by matters of great importance.”
“So I have heard,” Baalshillek said. “Perhaps these matters had something to do with the recent fire in the palace kitchens.”
Nikodemos raised a brow in disbelief. “When did you begin to take an interest in the domestic arrangements of my household?”
“Only when your servants evince certain powers that fall under the purview of my god.”
The emperor snorted and poured himself a cup of wine. It was his habit to dismiss even his most trusted slaves when he met with Baalshillek…a wise precaution, given the nature of their conversations.
“Why don’t you tell me what you think you know, Baalshillek?” Nikodemos said. “I might find it amusing.”
“No doubt. Servants will gossip, and you are a most lenient master.”
“Because I don’t feed my people to your altars?” Nikodemos shrugged. “There was a fire in the kitchens a day or two ago. It did little damage.”
“A fire started by a young female servant.”
“Indeed. That sort of carelessness will, of course, be punished.”
“Perhaps you have already located this careless slave.”
“As you said, servants will gossip.”
“Especially when the subject of their talk is one who can summon fire from ashes without touching them.”
“Is that what you’ve heard?” Nikodemos sipped his wine, eyes hooded in apparent boredom.
“I also hear that the girl in question is marked in such a way that she should long since have been given to the Stone God…if the palace servants had been properly tested.”
Nikodemos yawned. “My physician said she was burned in the fire…disfigured. Perhaps that is punishment enough, eh?”
Baalshillek wearied of the game. “If this child has power over fire, she must be examined.”
“As you ‘examined’ my brother?”
“You should have no objection to my priests questioning a slave.”
“Except that your priests can be imprudent in their interrogations. Death by torture seems an extreme penalty for a foolish accident.”
And Nikodemos prided himself on keeping his household, staff and soldiers free of the Stone God’s influence. That was provoking enough, but Baalshillek had received new reports of an even greater insult to the god’s power: the emperor was seeking out children and youths who showed any signs of godborn heritage, those very children who should have become priests or breeding females for the Temple.
This slave who had manipulated fire might be one such discovery, and Baalshillek could not allow the emperor’s scheme to go unchallenged. Nikodemos might only be testing the Temple’s sources and means of intelligence or be playing yet another infantile game. But he could also be attempting to build or breed his own private army of godborn, unlikely though his chances of success might be.
“You try my patience, Nikodemos,” Baalshillek said gently.
“Alas.” Nikodemos began to pare one of his fingernails with the blade of his dagger. “I will have Kleobis inquire as to the present whereabouts of this dangerous child. Is there something else you wished to discuss?”
Baalshillek smiled. “I wish to propose a wager, my lord Emperor.”
Nikodemos paused in his trimming and eyed Baalshillek with surprise. “I didn’t know you were a wagering man, priest.”
“Only when the odds are sufficiently intriguing.” He stroked the great stone pendant on his chest. “Now that you have had the young rebel Alexandros in your care for many weeks, have you come to a decision regarding his fate?”
“You mean whether or not I’ve decided to give him a place at court?”
“Then you intend to let him live.”
Nikodemos swept nail shavings from the table with the side of his hand. “I do not like being hurried, priest. What I do with my kin is my own concern.”
“Not when it affects the entire empire. Then it also becomes mine.”
The two men stared at each other, blue eyes meeting icy gray. “You said you had a proposal,” Nikodemos said. “What is it?”
“You may talk of kinship and blood, Lord Emperor, but even you dare not risk the chance that young Alexandros will turn on you the moment he is given his freedom.”
“Your concern touches me deeply, Baalshillek, but—”
Baalshillek raised his hand. “Surely you intend to test him before granting him power he might use to destroy you.”
“It’s your own destruction you fear, priest.”
“If I thought you were so naive as to believe that the Stone God’s fall would not result in your own, then I would be forced to call you a fool. And I do not think you have become a fool…yet.”
The emperor rubbed his chin with his hand and scowled like a thwarted child. “Of course I’ll test him. I have only to choose the method.”
“Then let me suggest a means that will satisfy us both.”
Nikodemos listened, unmoving save for the steady tapping of his thumb against his jaw. His eyes narrowed as Baalshillek finished, and then he smiled with grudging admiration.
“It was only a matter of time before my own agents discovered this Buteo’s plans,” he said, “but I could not have devised a more effective trial myself.”
Baalshillek inclined his head. “I thank you, Lord Emperor. You see that there could be no better opportunity than this.”
“And what stakes do you propose for the wager?”
“Only what you would expect. If Alexandros ignores the bait and thereby proves his ultimate loyalty to you over the rebels, I will no longer object to his place at your side.”
Nikodemos leaned far back in his chair. “That is a great concession, lord priest. You would surrender all claim to my brother?”
“All.”
“Even though his particular power threatens only your god and its priests?”
Baalshillek swallowed rage and feigned only the mildest reproach. “You jest, my lord. Palace and Temple are allies. One cannot exist without the other. If Alexandros is your sworn vassal, then what cause have I to fear that his power would ever be turned against us?”
Nikodemos grunted. “And if he falls into your trap?”
“Then the emperor will give the rebel up to the altar for sacrifice…and surrender the servant with power over fire and any similar individuals of whom he has knowledge.”
Nikodemos stretched out his long legs and closed his eyes. He almost appeared to be sleeping, but the tension in his body and the rapidity of his breathing gave him away.
“If I knew of such…individuals,” the emperor said at last, “I would agree. As it is—” He shrugged. “I accept your terms as to Alexandros’s fate.”
Baalshillek let the tension drain from his muscles. “Your judgment is, as always, impeccable,” he said.
Nikodemos opened his eyes and stared balefully at his guest. “I agree to the wager on the condition that I and my chosen men have equal part in laying the trap and are privy to all its details.”
“Naturally, Lord Emperor.”
“Then I’ll summon Kleobis and Iphikles to witness our bargain.”
Baalshillek shook his head. “Even the highest of servants gossip. The more who know in advance, the better chance that the boy will learn of the trap before it is sprung. What need of witnesses when our vows are heard by the God and your own honored ancestors?”
Nikodemos lunged up from his seat. “Curse you, Baalshillek. If you play me false…”
Baalshillek also rose. “I have weighed the odds and the consequences, my lord, and I find them suitable. I have no reason to cheat you.”
“Then prepare to be disappointed, priest.” Nikodemos went to the door and opened it. “You will lose this wager, and I shall drink to victory with Alexandros at my side.”
The first Quintus learned of his new freedom came in the form of an invitation.
The request for Quintus�
�s presence at a feast to be held in the emperor’s hall was delivered by the young courtier Hylas, who arrived at Quintus’s door with a faint, provocative smile and a sly offer to help the emperor’s brother select attire appropriate for the celebration.
“You have only today to prepare, my lord Alexandros,” Hylas said, looking Quintus over with the boldness of an experienced whore. “I am accounted to be very good at arranging matters of dress…at least among my friends.”
Quintus glanced past Hylas’s shoulder through the open doorway. Not a single guard stood watch there. Hylas’s servants, a pair of boys almost as pretty as he, bore draperies of fine fabric and trays of wine, fruit and pots that smelled of paint and perfume.
Hylas cleared his throat. “May I come in, my lord?”
Quintus backed away, leaving room for courtier and slaves to enter. Hylas sat and arranged his long embroidered chiton with the fastidiousness of a beautiful woman. He looked around the room and clucked under his breath.
“This is where they have kept you for so many weeks?” he said. “I was right when I feared you would be lonely. What an ordeal for such a strong and vigorous young man as yourself, my lord.”
Quintus found himself unable to laugh. Last night the guards had taken Briga away; he’d heard nothing since, and now—many weeks after he’d been presented as a prisoner before the emperor and his court—he was told to prepare for a second public appearance for reasons he could not begin to guess.
“My name,” he said stiffly, “is not Alexandros. Why are you here?”
Hylas raised kohl-darkened brows in wounded surprise. “But I thought I had made that plain, my lord Alex…Quintus. The lady Danae desires your presence at a celebration to be held for our lord Nikodemos this very night, and she will be devastated if I do not return to her with a guarantee of your attendance.”
Danae. Quintus leaned against the wall and collected his disorderly thoughts. She must be well enough if she was to play hostess at the emperor’s feast. Either her part in Briga’s attempted escape hadn’t been discovered, or Nikodemos knew and approved of her work.
“Are you here to answer my questions, or merely to make me presentable for your friends?” he asked Hylas.
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