by Mia Marlowe
The Greek who'd been vying with Hauk for her raised his bid without prompting.
When the auctioneer recovered his power of speech, Erik's hand flew up to best the Greek.
“What are you doing?” Hauk demanded.
“Probably doing you a favor.” Erik signaled again as the bid volleyed back and forth across the colonnade. “She's a witch, I'll warrant. I'm saving you from her curses. Anyone with eyes can see this girl is trouble.”
“A man can always do with that kind of trouble.” Hauk crossed his beefy arms over his chest and raised a russet brow at his friend. “If you wanted her, all you had to do was say so.”
Erik barely heard him. He edged closer to the dais, one hand on his ax handle, the other hefting his money pouch, trying to calculate how much of last month's pay still resided in the leather bag.
The Greek raised the bid again.
Erik narrowed his eyes at the man. He'd seen him before at the palace. A eunuch, he was sure. Nearly all the officials who kept the Byzantine Empire humming were members of the "third sex." Even though the Greek's frame had the wiry toughness of one who'd seen combat, Erik fancied he could smell the man's perfume from across the colonnade. His lip curled in dislike.
Could the Greek be trying to acquire the girl for his employer? Not likely. The emperor was a follower of Kristr. His Imperial Greatness kept a discreet mistress or two, but no harem. That was the province of the followers of the Prophet who made Miklagard their home.
“Lend me the rest of your bezants,” Erik said to Hauk as he signaled once more to the auctioneer. Hauk pressed his purse into Erik's hand.
The girl still stared straight ahead, as if unaware that she was the vortex of the market's swirling excitement. Her eyes seemed to lose their focus and her lids fluttered rapidly for a few heartbeats. Then she gasped as if she'd been holding her breath, her gaze darting about like a starling in a net. She gave herself a brief shake and continued to stare into the distance.
Is she spelling me, even now? Erik wondered. It didn't matter. For one brief moment, when she looked at him, he'd tasted home. He had to have it again. Erik nodded at the auctioneer and glared over at his competitor.
The Greek's dark eyes met Erik's, and then slid over him in that damnably condescending way the Byzantines had. Something in their very stance shouted how superior they felt themselves to the barbaroi—the barbarian sobriquet with which they tarred the rest of the non-Byzantine world. Even this eunuch, this limp-sword, this half-man felt himself better than Erik.
The Greek flicked his fly-whisk again and, even counting Hauk's coins, the girl's price climbed beyond Erik's reach.
Impotently, Erik watched as the eunuch paid the auctioneer and signaled for a sedan chair. The Greek bundled the girl into the enclosed seat and climbed in with her.
The knot of buyers dissolved around Erik, scurrying off to the next venue where the finest examples of human flesh might be offered for sale.
“What does a ball-less wonder want with a woman?” Erik asked. And why that one?
“Who knows? I've little luck when it comes to understanding the way these Greeks think. Guess you won't be needing this,” Hauk said as he snatched his purse back from Erik. “You were probably right about her. A permanent woman is more trouble than she's worth. Let's go see if we can wake up those little dancers at the tavern by the Xenon.” Hauk strode from the colonnade.
Erik glared at the empty dais. She'd shown such courage, his chest ached. The outlines of the girl's bare feet still showed, pink-tinged on the marble. He was nearly overcome with the urge to plant kisses on the slim imprints.
Bah! That cinched the matter. She was undoubtedly an adept at the dark arts of seid and he was well clear of her. The last thing he needed in his life was a woman. A witch would be even worse.
He needed a drink, that's all. He followed his friend away from the market, congratulating himself on his narrow escape. After all, he'd nearly beggared himself for her and she didn't even look back.
The beauty of a truly artful plan is its seeming artlessness."
—from the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus
Chapter 2
* * *
As if through a gauze panel, Valdis watched the soldier advance. He was dressed in the style of the Varangians — a long byrnnie draped over his muscular form, his calves bared above regimental hobnailed boots, an ax tilted from a shoulder baldric, its razor edge thirsty for blood-wine. She couldn't see his face beneath his conical helmet. Only his eyes blazed above the bronze cheek pieces, pale and glittering with the early stages of the madness called berserkr.
Even though the man moved with the sturdy grace of a blooded warrior, Valdis sensed danger hovering about him like a silent corbey circling a carcass. He slid catlike along the corridor, appearing and disappearing as he stepped from fading sunlight to shadow. The space he traversed had many windows on one side and was indented with several niches on the other, the homes of secret trysting places for lovers. On came the soldier with single-minded doggedness. Valdis’s chest tightened.
He doesn't know, she realized. He doesn't feel death stealing over him. Valdis sensed the gaping blackness reaching for him.
A dark figure emerged from one of the niches and clubbed the warrior from behind. He crumpled to the flagstones with a clatter of mail. The blow was hard enough to knock off his helmet.
Valdis pushed back the gauze obscuring her sight and looked at his face.
I know this man, she thought.
His eyes stared sightlessly at her, the pupils so enlarged they nearly swallowed the icy gray of his irises. Then she remembered who he was and gasped.
The sharp intake of breath woke her. For a moment, she hovered in the thin veil between the waking world and the land of shadows. Valdis lay still, trying to orient herself. This was the third time the same dream had plagued her since her arrival in Miklagard. She looked up into the swirl of gossamer curtains splayed over and around her sleeping couch.
It made no sense. She'd only seen the man during the brief time she'd stood on the slave market dais. She didn't even know his name. Why should she dream of the Varangian? Even though two men vied for her, the Byzantine was the one who bought her and now frustrated her days with his attempts to teach her the Greek tongue. Why could she not banish that Norse soldier from her dreams?
And why was she tormented by his danger?
The soft brush of sandaled feet brought Valdis to full wakefulness. The Greek, or one of his many servants, was stirring. She parted the bed curtains with one finger and peered out from her filmy cocoon.
It was the Greek himself, newly risen from his sleeping couch in the adjoining chamber. Even though he'd made no sexual overtures toward Valdis, she knew he slept in the nude not a stone's throw from her. He seemed unaffected by their proximity, and if he cast furtive glances in her direction, she'd yet to catch him at it.
He was turned from her, his tight buttocks dusted with fine dark hairs. A body slave scurried to his side and lifted a linen robe of obvious quality over the Greek's head. The soft fabric draped his broad shoulders and tapering torso, falling in creamy folds till the hem brushed his ankles. When the man turned to perch on the bed so his servant could lace his sandals, Valdis let the curtain drop.
While she was grateful the Greek hadn't forced himself on her, she was puzzled by his indifference. She knew she was desirable. Early on, her parents marked her as comely, the one whose unique beauty would secure the family's fortune. She was destined for a grand match, her mother always told her. When she caught the eye of Ragnvald, the jarl's oldest son, her father spent himself into poverty preparing for her wedding.
Then the unthinkable had happened.
Even now, she was unable to conjure her parents' faces without seeing pinched expressions of confusion and suspicion. She had no clear memory of that awful morning before the assembled gathering at the jarlhof. She could only trust the account of her younger sister before she was bundled o
ff to the flesh market at Birka.
Some malevolent spirit had taken hold of Valdis and thrown her to the ground, thrashing and raving. She was obviously cursed. The jarl was relieved the malady had shown itself before his noble house was ensnared in a misalliance. Her parents claimed to know nothing of the ill wish stalking their daughter.
Only Valdis suspected it wasn't the first time evil had swirled its bony finger in her brainpan.
The spells had started with the appearance of her woman's moon. Valdis hadn't taken much notice of them in the beginning. They were flickers of inattention, she told herself. Then she realized she would fade out of normal family conversations, losing snippets of stories told by firelight and coming back to awareness only at the end of jokes, when everyone else was doubled over with mirth and she was left to wonder what she'd missed. Once, her mother scolded her for batting her eyes too much. She hadn't realized she'd done so.
Then there was that day in the forest when she was herding geese one moment and lying in a tangle of gorse the next, scratched and disoriented, her chin wet with her own spittle.
She was undoubtedly witched.
The Greek was talking now, low-pitched instructions to the body slave, who responded in deferential tones. Valdis watched them through the thin curtain, hazy forms without distinguishing features.
Just like my dream, until the last terrible moment.
She pushed back the sheet and reached for her own palla before the body slave could hustle over to assist her. She hadn't been dressed by another since she was toddling. It made no sense to revert to such helplessness now.
Once she was clothed, the Greek approached her, bearing a silver tray. He set it down on the low table near her sleeping couch. The ebony table was inlaid with ivory and far finer than anything in Ragnvald's home, and his was the best in the fjord.
Valdis was still in awe of the Greek's grand apartments. Sleek marble floors of moss green, thick damask wall hangings depicting jewel-toned birds whose fanlike plumage was surely an artist's fantasy, and everywhere the imperial golden eagle of Byzantium—on the caps of columns, on the strange two-tined implement with which the Greek encouraged her to eat, and on the gold signet ring that never left the man's right forefinger. Sometimes, the grandeur became more than Valdis could bear and she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut to let her mind rest.
“Day-mee-uhn,” the Greek said, his long-fingered hand splayed across his chest. He gave her a hopeful nod.
Valdis just looked at him. She knew he was telling her his name and encouraging her to reciprocate. But why should she? The longer she kept him from realizing she was picking up much more of his language than she voiced, the longer she'd be able to live in this silken gaol without any other duties than to eat and sleep unmolested while she uncovered a method of escape.
The Greek didn't seem to want her body. Why then did he want her to speak to him so badly? And if all the man wanted was conversation, why hadn't he bought a Greek girl?
She picked up a slice of fruit and bit into it, the unusual combination of tart and sweet making her mouth water.
“Orange,” he said.
She filed the information away, but didn't repeat the word as he clearly wished for her to do. She swallowed the delightful bite and grinned at him. There was no need to be unpleasant just because she was being uncooperative.
A muscle twitched along the Greek's smooth jaw, but though he scowled darkly, Valdis knew she was in no danger. A man capable of doing a woman real harm had a hardness about his eyes, a glint of steel protruding from his soul. Though her captor carried himself like a warrior, something in his face spoke of an intimate acquaintance with suffering. In some men, pain begat cruelty; in others, an empathetic spirit. The Greek would not beat her. However, the guards stationed outside the door of his chambers assuredly would if he gave the word.
But this man would not give such an order.
Valdis took another bite of the orange, licked her lips, and smiled once more.
* * *
Damian let the door slam behind him. How could he have miscalculated so badly? He was sure he'd found the right woman for the task, certain he'd seen the requisite spark of intelligence in her unusual eyes. He treated her with kindness, almost deference. How could she be so slow in grasping his desire that she master his language?
It was probably not a mental defect, despite that moment on the dais when her eyes seemed to glaze over strangely. No doubt she suffered from shock after the bastinado was applied to her feet. The rapid fluttering of her eyelids made her mismatched eyes seem all the more supernatural. It was just the thing to convince the superstitious that she communed with the spirit world. It would certainly increase the plausibility of the ruse he intended.
She was being stubborn, as only those cursed barbaroi could be.
He could be just as stubborn. Though he'd hoped not to involve another party, he was going to have to bring in one. Quintilian was sending over the best Greek speaker from among his Norse officers first thing this morning.
He could see no other course. Even so, it galled Damian to have to use a Varangian. He was enough a student of history to mistrust them. After all, years ago a flotilla of five hundred dragonships attempted the sack of Constantinople itself. Even with the advantage of the weapon known as Greek fire, the ferocity of the Northmen nearly prevailed. The emperor, in his divine wisdom, had deemed it expedient to hire the barbaroi and incorporate the Norse pirates into the body politic of the Empire. Since the first Northman donned a byrnnie stamped with the Imperial eagle, the Varangian Guard had pledged their honors and their lives to the service of the Byzantine Emperor.
But Damian was a skeptic at heart. Loyalty bought with bezants couldn't compete with the devotion of a native-born Roman. Technically, he admitted to being Greek, as nearly everything in the great city was, from the culture and architecture to the people themselves, but in his heart, he was Roman—a defender of the glory of the fallen West, a jewel of hope for mankind that still glistened in this eastern setting.
Hadn’t the same sort of godless barbarians as the Varangians toppled the first Rome?
Damian followed the labyrinth of corridors to his office, deep in the bowels of the Imperial Palace. Even in this remote place, far below ground where it was unlikely any foreign dignitary would ever tread, the love of beauty led designers to fashion a pleasing space. Damian slid the key into the lock on the silver-plated door and let himself in.
The scent of leather bindings and musty parchment greeted his nostrils. Light shafted from a row of clerestory windows. The wells that brought sunshine to his lair were narrow and deep and grated at the surface with iron bars. No one could venture down the constricted tunnels to gain entrance to his vault by that route, and Damian possessed the only key to the door.
It was good that the door was kept locked. One entire wall was honeycombed with cubbyholes filled with scrolls and bound manuscripts. If Damian were the type to be motivated by greed, he possessed enough secret information in this small space to blackmail most of the Byzantine nobility into threadbare poverty.
But his concern was not gain. It was for the emperor's safety and continued reign. To ensure that end, he was not above using either subtle means or brute force.
Someone pounded on the door.
“Speaking of brute force,” Damian muttered, then raised his voice. “Come.”
The Varangian swung open the door and stomped in with typical barbaroi disregard for decency and decorum. Better to let this underling know his exact position from the start, Damian decided.
He didn't spare the man a glance, making a great show of studying the missive spread before him. It was an inconsequential report. He employed numerous spies throughout the great city and frequently paid for drivel, but one never knew when a nugget of pure gold might be found among the dross.
The hardened leather of the Northman's chest piece creaked as the barbaroi shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Damian shuf
fled a paper or two and signed his name with a flourish to the last one before deigning to look up.
He recognized the man immediately. It was the Varangian who drove the girl's price so unconscionably high. Obviously, the Northman remembered Damian as well because that same sneer creased his lip.
“There's been some mistake,” Damian said. “What are you doing here?”
“I am under orders,” he answered in flawless Greek. The man handed over a scroll bearing the seal of the general. “I was told to report to the office of the chief eunuch. However, if there's been a mistake, I'll be more than happy to return to my unit. I've fought many campaigns to win my centurion eagle. This reassignment is likely to cost me my command.”
Damian returned the Northman's scowl and ripped open the scroll. He ran his gaze over the familiar, precise curlicue script and read:
Hail Damian Aristarchus,
Greetings.
Before you stands Erik Heimdalsson, a centurion under my command. In truth, I am loath to lose him, but you demanded our best Greek speaker from among the Tauro-Scythians.
Damian was mildly surprised to see the leader of the Varangians use this epithet for his troops. Tauro-Scythian was even less kindly meant than barbaroi. Then his time in armed service rushed back to him and he remembered his old commander swearing the air blue and denigrating the heritage of his favorites. He read on.
I assure you that Heimdalsson is the best. He has an infallible ear for languages and can ape several different accents, Horn Cretan to Paphlagonian. He is quick-tempered and should be deemed dangerous, but there is no officer among this pack of wild dogs I'd rather have at my side in battle. Tell him I'll have him hung upside down in the barracks if he fails to please you.