I walked behind the king, beside the bishop Sisebut, the man who will now succeed Julian. The man to whom I am clerk and closest companion. A man I know to be corrupt at his core. One who will destroy Spania and all that has taken centuries to build. A man more dangerous than even Egica himself, though I had not thought such a thing possible.
Sisebut trusts me, for reasons that would offend you, God, and all men. Should Laurentius discover what manner of man I am, he could not accept the only worth I may offer, which is the information that Sisebut’s trust allows me access to. You, who do not follow our God nor bow to our customs, are better able to understand the value of information. I am grateful you accept my offerings and pass what I may send you to Laurentius without disclosing the source of your information. I can send these letters amidst Church documents and ensure they reach you with the seal untouched. None so far suspect we meet – as you suggested, none question a priest who visits a pleasure house by the river. It is, sadly, far more common than men might wish to believe.
Perhaps it is only you to whom I may speak openly, now that my brothers are lost to me and Lælia is gone. Of Theo, we have no word other than the coin he sent Lælia as a reminder of their promise to each other. He is far away, fighting on foreign shores, where only my prayers may be of aid to him.
Lælia herself is gone to Septem, to Ilyan’s court. She knows it was Giscila who killed her mother, and now she sails to the very shores where his dromons lie. I cannot believe she does not mean to search him out. Lælia is as wild and fierce as she is determined. Her presence in Africa is meant to be secret, but the Church has eyes everywhere. Strange that men do not see the man who wears a cross and browncloth. We are the most invisible of creatures, and yet it is to us that all men – even kings – must bow. It is a dangerous privilege.
Of Alaric, I have heard little. I fear that in following Sunifred he seeks to replace our father, who cannot support this rebellion, believing as he does that it is destined to fail. Even if Alaric, too, believes that, his love for Rekiberga, Sunifred’s daughter, means he cannot shun the father. He and I must both work with forces we know to be corrupt. He at least has the fleet, your company, and Laurentius to console him.
I envy him that.
It sometimes feels that all have a destiny, a purpose, whilst I, who am privy to the most destructive plots man in his hubris might devise, must rot in brown homespun amidst prayers and old parchment, unable to so much as carry a sword in defence of my family or country.
For God, family, and Mater Spania,
–Athanagild
Lælia
May, AD 690
Septem, Mauretania
Ceuta, Morocco
“Ilyan.”
The tall woman strode brusquely through the great wooden doors of the palace in Septem, looking neither left nor right as she approached the dais. “Your men said it was urgent. I must hope they did not lie, for the Arabs land to the east, and fighting season approaches.”
Lælia, sitting in an alcove to one side of the dais, stared at the woman in amazement as Ilyan stood, reaching out his hands in welcome. “Dahiya. You honour me.”
Making an impatient sound, the woman seemed about to sit when she caught sight of Lælia. The almond-shaped eyes narrowed, their colour deepening to liquid amber. “You do not customarily bring your whores to our council, Ilyan.”
Ilyan opened his mouth to reply, but it was Lælia who spoke. “My grandfather, Count Paulus of Illiberis, says all men see what they expect to see when they look at a woman. I had not, however, thought a woman herself would do the same – particularly one who commands many thiufae of men.”
“The Count of Illiberis.” Dahiya did not offer an apology, but she looked at Lælia now with curiosity rather than hostility. “Yes, I see the resemblance. I met your grandmother once. Did she tell you?”
Lælia nodded. “She did.”
“I take it this is the reason for your summons.” Dahiya’s eyes swivelled back to Ilyan, who was watching the exchange with the detachment of the consummate diplomat. Lælia, who had been in Septem and Ilyan’s palace for a quarter of the moon, had yet to decide what the man’s true nature was. Tall, thin, and restless, Ilyan seemed as mercurial as the winds that blew across his rocky port, his wild shock of hair seeming a direct representation of the thousand thoughts he juggled in his mind every day. He strode now across the room, turned, and strode back, whipping his robes behind him as he did so.
“It was the reason,” said Ilyan, his stress upon the second word indicating other events had taken precedence. “Until I discovered a certain friend of ours has re-entered my waters.”
Dahiya frowned. “Do not give me your riddles, Ilyan. You have more friends than I do enemies. What is it now?”
“Giscila.”
The name fell across the room like a shadow. Lælia felt the old tightness squeeze her throat in the place where her words had once been stilled by her mother’s dying whispers. It was by Giscila’s hand her mother had died. Giscila, uncle to Egica, the present King of Spania, though long exiled from his home for his crimes. Giscila, of whose existence and pivotal role in her life Lælia had only recently learned.
Dahiya’s eyes flickered to her once again. She must know, thought Lælia. Of our history, and what he did. She met the older woman’s gaze unflinchingly. I know the stories of the revenge you took on the man who killed your father, Lælia thought. Look at me and know that I, too, am capable of such rage, granddaughter of a Spanish count though I may be. A quarter moon in Ilyan’s court had taught her the fear and awe with which men regarded Dahiya, Queen of the Jerawa, the fighter who so terrified her Arabic enemies that they called her Al Kahinat, the Sorceress. Lælia felt both compelled by Dahiya’s legend and painfully unequal to it. Lælia might have faced enemies across the battlefield of the Toletum court, but at the same age, Dahiya had already gathered an army and led it to victory in battle.
“And what business do I have with Giscila?” Despite Dahiya’s disdainful tone, Lælia, who had lived too long in silence not to see what was unsaid, felt the tension and interest behind the words.
“It is not Giscila alone who sails close to my port. He comes to meet another, one who does not dare land on my shores but who travels even now to meet his kinsman. A man even closer to the Crown of Spania – Oppa, King Egica’s bastard son.”
The name sucked the tightness from Lælia’s throat, replacing it with a cold, hard fury. “You did not tell me this,” she said in a low voice, staring at Ilyan.
“I did not know it myself until this morning.” Ilyan shrugged and waited whilst a slave poured Dahiya wine, putting a plate of olives, dates, and nuts before her, another with bread and oil. Cross legged, her spine perfectly straight, Dahiya swallowed the wine, ignored the food, and stared at Lælia.
“You know the king’s bastard,” she said.
“I do.” There was so much more Lælia wanted to say: that it had been Oppa who forced Yosef, her childhood friend, into exile; who had pursued Theo, the man to whom she was betrothed, far across the seas; who had tried to force Lælia to marry him. Despite her skill in masking her emotions, some of what she felt must have shown on her face. Dahiya’s mouth twisted in a strange smile.
“Yes,” she said, watching Lælia closely. “I see that you do.”
“If Oppa is meeting with Giscila,” Lælia said, “it can be for no good purpose.”
“I am inclined to agree with you.” Ilyan paced the room again, turned, and strode back. “The last time the two entered my waters together, an entire fleet of the Karabisianoi’s new recruits were attacked, most of them lost.”
“Most,” said Lælia sharply. “Not all.”
Ilyan gave her a small smile. “Not all. Your Theudemir of Aurariola, I believe, made a rather miraculous escape.” Lælia’s heart thudded and caught, then began beating again, more rapidly than before.
“Only you, Ilyan,” said Dahiya dryly, “would call being discovered in a slave mar
ket in Carthage a ‘miraculous escape’.”
“I would most certainly call it that. The boy could have died in chains.”
“Chains?” Lælia’s voice felt rough in her throat. “Theo was enslaved?” A glance passed between Dahiya and Ilyan that made her throat tighten. “What?” She looked between them. “What is it you aren’t saying? Is Theo…?” She swallowed, unsure what she wanted to say. “Was he hurt?”
“He was enslaved, child.” Dahiya’s tone was brusque. “One does not survive enslavement unharmed. But he is whole. He fights now in the Karabisianoi, the imperial fleet, beneath one of the Greeks’ greatest commanders – Apsimar. He is fortunate.”
“Fortunate indeed,” agreed Ilyan, a small smile playing around his mouth. Dahiya looked studiously out of the window, oblivious to Lælia’s shock.
“You’ve seen him.” When Lælia found her voice, it sounded as if it belonged to a stranger. “Theo. You’ve actually seen him.”
“Barely six months past.” This time when Dahiya met her eyes, there was an understanding in them. “I fought beside Apsimar at the Battle of Barca. Your Theudemir was there.” She nodded, remembering. “He fought well,” she said simply.
Ilyan raised his eyebrows at Lælia. “Praise indeed,” he said. Questions churned inside Lælia, all the things she had wondered in the long years since Theo had been taken from her, when everyone – everyone except her – had feared him dead. Now that she had a chance to ask them, she didn’t know where to begin.
“We can speak of this later.” Ilyan caught his robes behind his back in a tighter twist. “Now, however, we must discuss what is to be done with you.” He nodded at Lælia.
“Me?” She looked between them. “What do you mean?”
“You cannot sail back to Spania,” said Ilyan bluntly. “All of Septem knows you are in my palace. By now, Giscila does too. We do not know why Oppa is here. Little more than a year has has passed since you humiliated him in his father’s Toletum court by refusing to marry him. That wound is unlikely to have healed. It is very probable he comes in search of you – and his family does not have a good history when it comes to yours.”
Seeing Dahiya shoot Ilyan a warning glance, Lælia interrupted: “I know Giscila killed my mother. Acantha, my grandmother, told me the story.” After I discovered it for myself, she thought, but did not say. Her resentment at being lied to for so long had yet to entirely fade.
“Then you can see why I would prefer not to have you on open water,” Ilyan continued. “Capturing you would achieve a great many of Oppa’s goals. He would have a bargaining tool with which to discover the real destination of your Jewish friend, Yosef, and why your betrothed, Theo, was prepared to die to protect it. No matter even if I could rescue you. By the time I did, you would be reeved, ravaged, and married, with Illiberis in the hands of Oppa’s father – a fate I am certain we agree is an unacceptable risk.”
Lælia nodded silently. She could not argue with anything he said, even if his words raised questions she was forced, for now, to swallow.
“In Spania, too, you are vulnerable.” Ilyan frowned. “If all you have told me is true, rebellion is growing on your shores. Illiberis is the most powerful latifundium in the south. That makes you a target – one reason, I imagine, why your grandfather took the rather unusual step of sending you to me in the guise of a tribeswoman from the horse herders.”
“You bring horses from Illiberis?” Dahiya seemed far more interested in this than anything else said thus far.
“Almost a hundred,” said Lælia, her pride in her family’s famous bloodline undimmed despite the serious nature of their discussion. “I trained many of them myself.”
“Almost a hundred?” Dahiya’s eyes gleamed with unmistakable longing.
“Then that is decided,” said Ilyan briskly, striding across the room again. “You will ride with Dahiya into the sands, Lælia, and show her your horseflesh. Like this, you will be safe, and I can send word when I know more of what Oppa does here.”
Dahiya and Lælia stared at him with equal surprise.
“I can’t leave,” said Lælia. “I came for news of Theo, and Yosef. I must take it back to my grandfather. Rebellion in Spania grows. Illiberis needs me –”
“Yosef rode with Dahiya.” Ilyan cut her off. “And it was Dahiya who last saw Theo. She is better suited than I to answer your questions and undoubtedly will take more pleasure in doing so.”
“I have already played nursemaid to one Spaniard for you, Ilyan.” Dahiya’s eyes flashed. “The last time it resulted in my sending my own two sons to accompany Yosef into enemy territory. I have no more sons to give, Ilyan – and even less patience.”
“I don’t require a nursemaid.” Lælia was indignant. She turned to Dahiya. “And nor do I need your help. If I decide to enter enemy territory, I will do it at night, and none will see me.”
At the anger in her voice, a low growl rose from behind the lectus. Dahiya looked around warily, her hand going to her knife. The long, sleek body of a lynx prowled into sight, head lowered and tail swinging slowly behind her. Lælia made a silent gesture and the cat dropped to its belly, staring at Dahiya with wary topaz eyes. “Her name is Jadis,” said Lælia defensively. “I raised her from a kitten.” At Dahiya’s raised eyebrows, Ilyan tilted his head and lifted one shoulder, his wry smile answer enough.
“So.” Dahiya shook her head in grudging acceptance. “I take another of your Spaniards into my sands, Ilyan. At least this one brings gifts my men will understand. And what then? Do I swathe her in the tasuwart of our women and leave her in the adwwar whilst they make henna patterns on her feet?”
“I don’t –” began Lælia, her eyes flashing furiously, but Dahiya held up one hand, her gesture so imperious, and so terribly reminiscent of Acantha’s command, that Lælia subsided despite herself.
“What you think does not, at this moment, concern me.” Dahiya pinned Ilyan with a stern eye. “Well, Ilyan?”
“Ride to your mountains, and then for Carthage. I will send word by sea to the port there.” He nodded at Lælia. “I will also send envoys to Spania to tell your grandfather what occurs and to discover what business Oppa has here. If I learn anything before you arrive, I will send riders to find you and bring you back.” The look he gave Lælia was not unsympathetic. “I understand this is not what you had planned. But I do believe it to be the safest course.”
Lælia had lived too long under her grandparents’ grim command not to recognise it when she saw it in another. In truth, even had she been given the choice, she knew she would have followed Dahiya, and not only for news of Theo and Yosef, though the thought of speaking of them to one with recent news was as seductive as a kiss.
Lælia would have followed Dahiya because in her company she sensed an adventure that as the heir to Illiberis, the granddaughter of a count, and the desired wife of greedy men, she would never have the chance to live.
Dahiya met her eyes, her mouth twisting in that same wry smile. “You think it will be an adventure,” she said, reading Lælia’s mind with uncanny accuracy. “But you have never lived in the sands. Drink your wine, child, and eat your meat – for tomorrow there will be neither.”
Yosef
Ad 689
Tripolitania, Libya
Ténéré, Libya
Even at the beginning of the hot season, the incessant desert wind had a malevolent will of its own. Yosef could barely see Bagay’s camel in front of him. He peered through slitted eyes at the sun, red and angry behind the swirling sands. Swathed within the folds of his turban, hot wind roaring in his ears, he felt detached from everything he had known, lost in a yellow world of sand and heat. The only reality lay in the swaying gait of his camel and the dim shadow of the figures before him. They had been riding hard through the big sand seas for days now, and the camels were tired.
“We cannot delay here,” Khanchla had said tersely when the dunes first came into sight. “We must be through the dune sea before the moon m
akes a half cycle, or we and the camels both will be dead. Nothing lives here.”
Yosef had crossed dune seas before, when they rode with Dahiya’s army, but none like this. After three days he had ceased to have any sense of direction. At night he could pick out the constellations, the glittering carpet above him like an intricate tapestry, clearer than he had ever seen. But during the day, when the wind roared and the dunes climbed up and down in an endless, treacherous pattern, he was lost. There was no wood for a fire on which to cook. They had eaten the last of their bread by the fifth day. By the seventh the last of the dried goat’s meat was gone. Now they had only nuts and dates. Yosef found he wanted little else. His appetite was fading, just as his camel was grown thin and tired. He felt scoured down by the wind and sand, as if the very flesh were fading from his bones. Often he wondered if they would ever make it out of the tall walls of sand.
“We will be through the dunes by tomorrow.”
He had grown so accustomed to the silence that Yosef was startled when Khanchla spoke. The stars shone so brightly they cast a shadow on his friend’s face and found a reflection in the dark eyes watching Yosef. “How do you know?” Yosef’s voice rasped.
Khanchla nodded toward the east. “The sand has changed,” he said. “Can you not see it?”
They spoke in Tamashek. Yosef found the smooth clicks and whirrs of the dialect soothing and oddly simple to understand, particularly here in the dune sea. He wondered, in the strange recesses of his mind that opened here, amidst the nothingness, if languages belonged to different geographical areas just as animals and plants did. Perhaps he would forget Tamashek when he was no longer amongst the sands that were its home. He picked up a handful of grains and let the sand filter back to earth, admiring the smooth pattern it made. “It feels the same to me,” he said.
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 4