Kiss Across Chains (Kiss Across Time Series)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Greek, Veris realized. He lifted his hands to clamp the pulsing vein and realized they were bare. Ancient Greek, he amended and realized where he was. He adjusted mentally. “Right,” he said. “Let’s get this finished.” He looked for something that would work as a clamp and sighed when nothing presented itself. “As quickly as possible, anyway,” he added, delicately clamping the bleeding vein with his finger and thumb.

  Two hours later, he stepped out of the treatment center and plunged into the spring. It was supposed to be sacred, but all he cared about was washing the blood from his arms, for it reached as high as his shoulders. There was no one else in the spring, for it was night and all the visitors to the Sanctuary of Asclepius had gone for the day. Besides, Pergamum had been steadily losing it majesty and popularity for nearly two hundred years. The Christians had seen to that. Statues of saints that wept blood and created miracles had stronger appeal than Greek temples filled with doctors that used science and practical medicine.

  Veris floated in the water for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts, then climbed the steps back to the stone seat where he had left his tunic. Cydones was sitting next to it.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you, Northman?” Cydones said.

  Veris picked up the tunic. “Yes.”

  “You pleaded with us, when you came here. You begged us to teach you all we knew. You said you’d had a bellyful of war.”

  “All of that is true. I will be back, Cydones. But I must go to Constantinople for a while. I have friends in trouble.” He slid the tunic on and pulled his hair out of it. It slapped wetly against his back, almost to his waist.

  “How could you know that?”

  He bent to slide on his sandals. “I just know. I can’t explain it.”

  “The same way you just knew how to perform an operation we have never seen done before?” Cydones asked.

  Veris stood up, keeping his face neutral. For a long moment, he couldn’t think of anything to say to cover this major gaff. Then he settled for a partial truth. He looked Cydones in the eye. “I couldn’t let the patient die, could I?” he said simply.

  Cydones considered him for a moment. Then he smiled. “I wouldn’t have, either,” he agreed. He got to his feet. “I hope you are wrong about your friends.”

  Veris shook his head. “I’m not.”

  “How will you get there?”

  “As fast as possible.”

  “When will you leave?”

  Veris stood up from fastening his other sandal. “Now,” he said simply. He held out his hand. “I will be back, Cydones. I have to be.”

  “Pergamum will still be here when you do, Northman.” Cydones gripped his upper forearm. “Perhaps you can teach us something, instead.”

  * * * * *

  There had been hostels and inns operating in Pergamum time out of mind, catering to the tourists and sick that sought help or rest in the famed city. There weren’t as many operating now as there might have been when Pergamum was at the peak of its power and fame as a city of healing, but Veris had found one that didn’t fleece as badly as the others and was willing to charge a long term rental for a room where he could come and go with minimal interference.

  He changed into a longer tunic and dalmatic, added a cloak pinned at the shoulder and a sword about his waist. He left a month’s rent in his room and cleared it of valuables, including all the coins, which he put in his wallet on his hip. There were half a dozen hidden weapons on his body, but he still felt naked stepping out onto the road without a shield against his side.

  He wasn’t travelling as a mercenary this time. It wouldn’t serve his purposes to walk through the double rampart walls of Constantinople as a for-hire dogsbody. He needed to look like someone with influence and power…at least until he had sniffed out what had gone wrong and found Taylor and Brody.

  Then he travelled through the rest of the night, walking silently along the deserted road, heading for the tiny mining town north of Pergamum. Soma had the virtue of being small and having caves and pits of coal dug from the hillsides. The people of this time called coal ‘black stone’ and found it useful for their fires. Veris had found the porous countryside useful for another reason.

  He arrived in the tiny town as the day was beginning to start and found someone who was keener to acquire coin than keep horseflesh. He bought their horse for less than the going rate and was trotting into the rising sun before breakfast, already heading out of town again.

  He retraced steps he had taken the night of walking from Pergamum to recall and found the cave just north of Soma with no trouble. It lay untouched since he had left it covered with grasses and overhanging branches and landfill over the mouth of it. It lay far off human paths, too far for even the curious to accidentally find.

  He lit a torch and went inside while the horse munched contentedly on wild grass.

  Inside was a virtual Aladdin’s cave. Decades of pillaging and raiding, while never settling down in one spot meant Veris had acquired a small fortune he had not been able to drink and dribble away on dice and women. He had stored it away, instead. Occasionally, he had sold pieces off to eager collectors, always at very good prices and always for gold or gold coin and no other, for other currency tended to lose its value over the long term.

  He had relocated his hoard to Soma when he had decided to study at Pergamum, because he wasn’t certain where his life would take him after that. The row of chests sitting beside the cart he’d used to bring them here contained a collection of coins, precious gems, objets d’art and other prizes of war. Most of them made Veris sick to look at them.

  All or some of them would help him win through to Brody and Taylor now.

  He shrugged off his cloak, then the dalmatic and threw them both over the low sides of the cart. In the flaring and flickering firelight of the torch, he picked up a pair of gem-encrusted sheers from one of the chests and grabbed a hunk of his hair and started to cut.

  * * * * *

  Taylor stood in the middle of the opulent room, afraid to move. The young guard had walked her through the streets of Constantinople and it had been more than eye-opening—it had been nearly overwhelming.

  There were thousands of people on the streets. It had been shocking. There were so many people squeezed behind the high rampart walls of the city it made New York look placid.

  These were not just people of Greco-Roman ancestry, which she might have expected, but people of every possible race and color, all dressed similarly, or in variations of the same sort of vaguely Roman style, with the excessively colorful layers on top. Her mind reeled.

  There were definitely the haves and the have-nots. Thanks to her time spent in Jerusalem during the first crusade, this fact wasn’t the shock it might have been. Brody’s situation already had her braced for the ugly truth. Taylor – or Ariadne – was one of those who were well off. Brody was a slave, who had nothing. Then there were poor classes, who scraped by and working classes, who did okay.

  When the guard stopped in front of a grandly ornate columned and statue-filled white marbled palace-sized building and bowed and backed away from her, Taylor realized with horror that Ariadne wasn’t just well off. She was far beyond that.

  There was a shout from inside the building and guards and women in the same flowing white elegant robes as herself, but not nearly as elaborate or elegant, came tumbling and running down the long flight of stairs at the front, calling her – Ariadne’s – name with voices filled with panic and delight. They surrounded her and began shepherding her up the stairs. Questions battered at her.

  “Where have you been?”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Where did you go? Two days we’ve been looking for you!”

  “Mercy, the master will be relieved!”

  Slowly, as Taylor was shuffled through elegant room after stunning room after more breathtaking room into yet another one, she realized that she was being taken directly to see “the master,” and that the flo
od of questions weren’t designed to let her answer, but for everyone to vent their relief and dismay at her disappearance and sudden reappearance.

  She was deposited in the middle of the floor she now stood upon and the servants, as she finally surmised them to be, departed to get the master.

  Taylor swallowed her growing fear as she looked around the sumptuous decorations and paintings. Finally, she was beginning to understand what was meant by Byzantine elaboration. Nothing was left plain and unadorned. Filigree and gilt covered everything. Brocade and marble was everywhere. It was rich, ornate and stunning.

  There was a murmur of voices. A pad of footsteps on marble. Then a flash of movement from the far corner of the room. He was coming.

  She straightened up, adjusting the veil on her head as she had seen the women wearing them in the streets.

  The man that came toward her was short. Only about five ten, very nearly her own height. He was richly dressed, of course—as well dressed as any of the men she had seen so far. He wore boots rather than sandals. The boots had soft soles and would be warm on all this marble. He had pale brown eyes, but they were looking at her sharply.

  He took her chin in hand, looking at her.

  Then he glanced over his shoulder at the servants who had followed him in. “Everyone leave,” he said curtly. “Leave me alone with my wife.”

  My wife.

  Taylor shuddered.

  The servants all vacated the room again, leaving them alone.

  He was staring at her hard. His hand dropped away from her.

  “You are not Ariadne,” he said softly. “You look so very much like her, but you are not her.”

  Taylor considered for a second whether to bluff, or not, but the certainty in his voice told her a bluff would fail. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Your servants hurried me in here before I could explain. They didn’t give me a chance to speak. Even the guard that brought me here was convinced. I’ve been trying for an hour now to find a way to tell people I am not Ariadne, but everyone is so convinced I am her, they don’t even question it.”

  “Have you?” he said sharply.

  “Have I what?” Taylor said.

  “Found a way to tell anyone?”

  “I don’t know how!” Taylor said. “No one even questions whether I’m anyone else. They just assume I am your wife. It’s very strange!”

  He seemed to relax. “Good,” he said.

  “Good?” Taylor replied, astonished.

  He whirled away, troubled, then back to face her. His expression was that of a man skewered by a dilemma. “Do you even know who I am?”

  “I arrived in Constantinople this evening,” Taylor confessed. “I know nothing of this city.”

  He wrung his hands together. “I see I must beggar myself then. Do you have a name, dear lady?”

  “Tyra…” She hesitated, then added with a smile, “Gallagher-Gerhardsson.”

  Matthew frowned. “A most unusual name. Irish Celtic and…Nordic?”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  He bowed slightly. “I am Matthew. They call me Matthew of Antioch, although it has been years since I left that city.”

  “Ariadne is your wife,” Taylor concluded. “And from what your servants were saying, I have guessed that she is missing.”

  Matthew pursed his lips, his expression growing darker. “They believe she is merely missing. I know that she has been taken and why.”

  “Taken? Why would they take her? For money?”

  Matthew looked affronted at the idea. “For the races,” he said, as if it were perfectly obvious.

  “What races?” Taylor asked blankly.

  Matthew looked at her as if she were stupid. “The chariot races, of course.”

  “They would take your wife hostage over racing?” Taylor tried to keep any incredulity out of her voice. She was in a different time and culture and she knew she was missing a big chunk of information. Byzantium wasn’t a subject she had studied in her trips through the history books and she was feeling that lack now.

  Matthew narrowed his eyes, studying her. “Now I really do believe you arrived here this evening, if you would question such a thing. Yes, they would do this. I am the owner of a string of chariots and drivers. They wear the green and we’re winning so far this year. The blues would do anything—anything—to ensure we lose.”

  “They…would kill your wife, if you let your teams win?”

  Matthew sat on a nearby divan with a heavy exhalation. “One of my colleagues, two years ago, also a businessman with a string of highly successful chariots, had a beautiful wife he doted on. I don’t know what happened to her, but she was found floating in the Golden Horn one day, half her body eaten away by fish. My friend sold off his chariots. He lives in Sicily now.” Matthew looked at her. “I could speculate, Tyra. I don’t think it would be a difficult exercise.”

  “But this is outrageous!” Taylor protested. “Surely there is a governing body, some sort of regulating agency that controls the races? Someone you can appeal to?”

  “You mean the emperor, perhaps?” Matthew asked.

  Taylor caught her breath. “Do you have access to the emperor? Can you appeal to him?”

  Matthew smiled dryly. “I could. But he favors the blue and spends pots of gold on making sure they win each week. I wouldn’t expect any appeal to him to be received with sympathy at all.”

  Taylor hissed out her frustration.

  Matthew’s smile broadened and he stood up again. “I prefer to approach this with more finesse than the bull-at-the-gate strategy you have in mind. Now I have met you, there is an alternative.”

  “And that is?”

  “With your agreement, you continue to pretend to be my wife Ariadne in public, especially at the races tomorrow. That will confuse whoever is holding Ariadne and give them less power over me. If they think they have no leverage, the threat is lifted.”

  “But what of Ariadne? What will they do to her?”

  “I will do what I have been doing all along,” Matthew said firmly. “Use all my resources to find her. If you appear in her place tomorrow, it might cause enough of a stir amongst the blues that her location is revealed to me.”

  Taylor considered. “And when I am not parading as your wife?”

  “You will need to stay close to the house as my wife would, but you are free to take advantage of the amenities here and enjoy the benefits as she would.”

  “I may need to move around the city on errands of my own,” Taylor pointed out.

  Matthew considered this. “As long as you travel as my wife would travel, with a full complement of servants and escorts and bring no shame on this household or my reputation, then you are free to do what you will.” His eyes narrowed. “No late night sallies to the slave quarters.”

  Her heart quickened. He had been informed where they had found her, then. The servants of this household were, of course, loyal to Matthew and not her.

  Should she agree to this charade? Where else would she find protection, shelter and an instant identity as a rich, landed woman with means to help Brody? She just had to learn the ropes in this culture so she could figure out how to move outside them. “I supposed, then, yes, it is an arrangement I can work within,” Taylor said hesitantly. Brody, hang on, she mentally begged. I’m coming for you.

  Matthew nodded. “Good,” he said, sounding pleased.

  Then he backhanded her across the face with a blow so powerful it knocked her to her knees and blinded her with the pain.

  Chapter Five

  “You want him fit enough to drive that chariot tomorrow, don’t you? Then let me feed him the slops. It’s little enough, after what Basilides handed out.”

  Brody fought to bring his mind together. Evaristus. That was Evaristus speaking. About him, he realized.

  Time passed.

  “Braenden!” The voice was hissing in his ear. “Braenden, you stubborn git, wake up!”

  Brody forced his eyes open, although he did
n’t want to. It was easier to float.

  There was a wall in front of him. Bars in front of the wall.

  Cage. It was a cage.

  “Look at me, Braenden.”

  Brody turned his head slowly, but even slow was a mistake. It brought all the pain slamming back into his body. He groaned and closed his eyes again. That was why he had preferred to float. While he was floating, the pain hadn’t bothered him. Now it was a raw, throbbing thing in his brain and body, stealing thought and breath.

  “Come over to this side, so I can reach you,” Evaristus whispered. At least it sounded like a whisper. “I can help with the pain.”

  Brody forced himself up off the floor of the cage and shuffled over slowly, trying to find a comfortable position on the bars on the bottom of the cage. Evaristus pushed cloth through the holes in the bars. “To sit on,” he said.

  It gave some padding.

  The man pushed a small tin cup through. “Eat,” he encouraged. “It’s the only food you’ll get until just before race time tomorrow.”

  Brody sipped and almost gagged, but made himself drink the disgusting thin soup. It had the virtue of being hot.

  “Turn and let me get at your back,” Evaristus whispered.

  He turned, still drinking.

  Evaristus began to smear something onto Brody’s back. It was cool and that helped. Whether it would help with the healing, that was another matter. This was about 491 A.D. as far as Brody could remember and calculate. Medicine had been basic back then and he was human and vulnerable to infections and more…the whole shooting match.

  He pressed his head against the heel of his hand. Where was Veris? What was Taylor doing? What had he got them into? How had this happened? He had been happy to return home. The pall of memories of this place had been momentarily lifted by the satisfaction of defeating Tira and getting out from under the charges. He had relaxed.

  Brody paused, with the cup halfway to his lips. He had relaxed.

  Evaristus reached through the bars to pluck the cup from Brody’s hand, disrupting his chain of thought. He tugged at Brody’s elbow so that Brody turned to lean a shoulder against the side of the cage. Evaristus sat with his shoulder against the outside, facing Brody.