Leontios certainly looked it, Theo thought. The strain of recent months, added to by the increasingly aggressive attacks closer to the port, had made the strategos both volatile and vicious. Never a man to tolerate even mild criticism with equanimity, the thought that he might be facing renegades in his own ranks had made Leontios paranoid and vindictive, willing to kill however many it would take to re-establish his ascendancy.
“My lord.” Theo tensed as Oppa stepped forward. His tone held the perfect blend of deference and authority designed to calm Leontios, and the strategos paused and looked at him.
“Speak, Spaniard!”
“My lord – perhaps we should honour Neboulos’s wishes,” said Oppa quietly. “He knows these men better than any. It is he who has led them into the mountains these months past.” He glanced at Neboulos. “As he says, nothing happens in his camp without him knowing of it.”
Neboulos paled.
“Tyr!” cursed Leofric, tense beside Theo. His fists clenched, and he took a half step forward. Theo saw Oppa’s eyes flicker between Leofric and Theo and something gleam in their depths. It triggered something inside him that made him instinctively grip Leofric’s arm with an iron strength.
“Do not move,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Whatever you think to confess, do not.”
“Confess?” Leofric turned startled eyes to him. Theo, grim faced, stared straight ahead. For a moment he thought Leofric would speak. Hoped, even, that he might. But then his old friend stepped back quietly, his arms folded and face impassive, and Theo felt the last of his hope flee.
Leontios was staring at Neboulos, his face creased with the same dark suspicions that had churned Theo’s gut these past weeks.
“The Spaniard is right.” Leontios stared at Neboulos. “You must know who it is who betrays me. You must have known before this!”
Neboulos was white faced, but his voice was steady when he answered: “It is true that I have my own suspicions, Strategos. But I would not condemn a man without proof – and this, I do not yet have.”
Theo could not look at Leofric. Every word, he knew, condemned his own actions.
“Do I understand that to mean you are seeking such proof?” demanded Leontios. “What do you do to ensure the loyalty of your men?”
Neboulos inclined his head. “I do not wish, any more than you do, to face an Arab army with thieves – or traitors – at my back.”
Oppa stepped forward again. “Perhaps, though,” he said in a low voice to Leontios, ignoring Neboulos’s presence, “you could make an example of these men.” He indicated the white, set faces of the men who knelt behind them, waiting for the executioner’s blade. “Do not kill them,” Oppa said softly, fingering the whip at his side. “Make it clear, though, what awaits any who dare to steal the emperor’s coin.” He nodded at Neboulos. “And begin with making it clear that even the highest rank is not immune from your power.”
Surely, Theo thought, Leontios could not be such a fool as to whip Neboulos. He felt rather than saw Leofric go rigid at Oppa’s words, his fists clenched.
The men moved uneasily, eyeing one another, fingering their weapons. Neboulos looked out at the restless ranks, then up at Oppa, who watched him with a small, unpleasant smile on his face. Neboulos stepped forward. “If there is treason in my ranks,” he said, in a voice that carried across the field, “then the fault is mine alone. And I, alone, will take the punishment.” He met Leontios’s eye. “I will swear on my men’s loyalty,” he said quietly to the strategos. “And you may whip me so they see I will swear on it.” He tore the shirt from his back and turned, passing it to Oppa in a curiously insolent gesture. Leontios, looking suddenly disconcerted, glanced uneasily between Oppa and Neboulos.
“Do it,” muttered Neboulos through his teeth.
Oppa stepped forward and raised the whip. “Behold,” he said, dark eyes glittering across the field, “what happens to those who would betray our emperor.” The lash came down, and the Slavic ranks watched, their faces dull with resentment.
The moon was sickly yellow on the horizon when Theo made his way to the tavern high on the hilltop. He had left the drill ground the moment it was over, unwilling to face either Leofric’s explanations or Silas’s questions. Leofric’s betrayal sat inside him like an open, festering wound, one Theo doubted would ever truly heal. He had known Leofric to be many things: uneducated, crude, occasionally shockingly brutal. But he had never imagined him a traitor. Not even for his own countrymen.
I am a fool, Theo thought despairingly as he climbed the hill to Oppa’s tavern. I did not see it because I did not wish to believe it possible. How many men had died, he wondered, for Leofric’s loyalty to his homeland? He thought of Kyros, dying in his arms, and rage and pain surged through him in a bitter torrent.
The man who opened the door to him narrowed his eyes suspiciously when he recognised Theo. “What do you want here?” he asked rudely. “All know your coin is spent in the Persian woman’s house.”
“I do not want what you sell.” Catching sight of a girl no older than Pelagia bearing a wine cup, Theo’s face twisted in distaste. “I am come to see your master.”
“My master will have nothing to say to you.”
“That is not entirely true.” Oppa’s voice interrupted his slave smoothly, and the man stepped back, bowing his head deferentially, his eyes on Theo no less hostile. “Perhaps you will join me, Theudemir?”
With every appearance of courtesy, Oppa gestured Theo inside, walking him through the rooms to a private chamber at the rear of the house. Seeing Theo’s expression of distaste as he took in the extremely young age of the girls there, Oppa smiled as he closed the door. “You do not approve,” he said, nodding. “Ja. I understand your revulsion. You are a man with normal appetites, cannot fathom the darkness that drives such desire. But I was raised in a whorehouse, not a villa. I learned long ago to suspend judgement on such matters and instead derive a profit from them.” He waved Theo to a seat. “The more depraved a man,” he said conversationally, “the more vulnerable he is. Every desire he sees fulfilled is another debt he owes. Over time his desires become darker until eventually he finds himself in a place where no coin can pay for what he does. That is when he becomes my creature.” He shrugged. “It is an art form I mastered early. One I have had much opportunity to practise since coming here.”
“With Leontios, you mean.” Theo’s voice was harsh. “He comes here. Is this how you twist him to do your bidding? Is it young girls?”
“Ah.” Oppa turned his wine cup between long fingers, looking at Theo with detached interest. “It began with young girls, yes. But it appears Leontios has a rather more… violent turn of mind. He enjoys suffering, you see.”
“Is that why you whipped Neboulos?” Theo stared at him, unable to hide his revulsion. “For titillation?”
Oppa tilted his head to one side. “Not entirely. Although it did serve to excite Leontios. It took several of my best girls, and two whips, to satiate him afterward.” At Theo’s grunt of disgust, Oppa’s face grew hard. “Leontios was intent upon making a show of strength. Whipping Neboulos saved the lives of a dozen men, maybe more. Had I not intervened, the entire Slavic army might well have rebelled today.”
“You cannot truly believe that was the only course.”
“It was the course I saw, and I took it!” Oppa stood and strode restlessly across the room. “As it is, we may still have a chance to salvage this. And if we can, we must, Theo.” He pulled out a parchment and handed it to Theo. “I have news from Spania. From my father.” He nodded at the parchment, which bore the unmistakable seal of Egica Rex, a seal Theo had himself seen often in his father’s study. Theo unrolled it, almost unwilling to read the familiar hand upon it, whilst at the same time terribly conscious that he held in his hand the writing of Spania’s king – of his king.
“Sunifred’s army marches upon Toletum,” he muttered, as his eyes travelled down the page. Then he froze. He raised his eyes to f
ind Oppa’s resting on him. “And my brother rides with him,” Theo said hoarsely. “With the men of Emerita – my father’s men.”
Oppa nodded slowly. “It worsens,” he said quietly. “The north is in open rebellion, under the command of Favila, a son of Chindasuinth. My father believes that Favila’s brother, Theodefred, Duke of Corduba, may be plotting to betray him.” He held Theo’s eyes. “With the Count of Illiberis.”
“Tyr!” Theo pushed the parchment back into Oppa’s hands and gripped the chair back so hard it marked his hands as he stared into the fire. It was all he had feared, and worse. His brother in open rebellion, Illiberis not far behind, and his father forced to commit both Emerita and Aurariola to a war he had never wanted.
“You see, now, why we must act decisively.” Oppa’s voice was relentless. “Sebastopolis will fall, Theo, sooner or later. Before we are lost with it, we must both return. Or there may well be no Spania left for us to return to.”
Theo barely heard him. Alaric. He closed his eyes and his chest seized in pain at the thought of the choices his brother must have had to make, at the agony his father must be feeling.
Then he thought of the choices he himself had made, was making even now, standing in the room with the very man who might well be held responsible for his brother’s rage, and he knew, more than at any time in his life, that he was unutterably lost.
“Do not forget what we discussed.” Oppa’s voice drilled into Theo with painful precision. “When we return, I can ensure you survive, Theo. I will ensure my father knows what we did here to help one another. But you must be prepared for what is to come. For Illiberis to be lost.”
Theo made a harsh noise and pushed the chair hard enough to topple it. “Leofric,” he said roughly, staring into the fire. “The Slav who fought at my side. You were right. He was taking the Arabs’ coin.”
Oppa nodded. “I thought as much. I am sorry, though. Betrayal is never easy when it comes from those closest.”
“He was my friend.” The words rasped in his throat.
“Do not judge him too harshly. You of all men know the curse of a choice between friendship and country.”
“You would defend him to me?” Theo stared at Oppa. “Why?”
Oppa’s head tilted. “You see the world through the eyes of the past,” he said quietly. “Through the tales of the victors. You see the Spania your father’s father helped win. You have been raised the son of a legend.” He stared into the fire. “I was born the bastard son of a disgraced line,” he said quietly. “The lowest of creatures, with only shame as his lineage. Your world has been one of clean lines. Black and white. Evil and good. Honour and betrayal. Mine has been one of shadows, of nuance. I have not the luxury of judgement, Theudemir of Aurariola. I know too well that all men walk both sides of the line at some point in their lives. You look at your Slav and see a traitor. I see a man caught in an impossible pincer between his heart and his soul. I do not judge him, no. Perhaps you, also, should not.”
Theo met his eyes, reading the unspoken rebuke there: perhaps you should not judge me, either.
“We no longer have time to live in the past, Theo.” Oppa laid two rolls of parchment on the table beside the letter from his father. “Read them,” he said quietly. “I will leave you to make your decision.”
He left the room. Theo stared at the parchments side by side on the table. He read King Egica’s letter again, his blood racing at the thought of his father and brother, possibly even now fighting for their very lives. I should be there, he thought. And what of when he did return? Would Leofric have been at his side, even before this? Would Silas? He paused for a moment and allowed an even more painful thought to enter his mind: would Yosef?
He thought of landing, without money, army, or friend, on a hostile Spanish shore. To a land where he was traitor, where Lælia was held captive by Egica. He would have nothing with which to bargain, none to fight for him at court. Nobody would care for his story of Oppa’s attack on the fleet. Those who might have stood behind him would have been defeated, part of Sunifred’s failed rebellion. Even if he might wish to believe Sunifred could succeed, Oppa’s blunt assessment had held the chilling ring of truth.
So absorbed was he in dark musings that he barely heard the door open behind him. It was only when a soft voice said his name that he swung around, his heart thudding.
Elpis looked frail and uncertain, her eyes wide and luminous in the dim light as she held her hands out toward him. Theo found himself holding them tightly before he thought of what he did. “Have you been harmed?” He searched her face. “Are you captive here?”
Colour washed her cheeks. “I am well,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I believe it is you I have to thank for that.”
“I would never have seen you brought here,” said Theo fiercely. “It was Oppa’s doing –”
“No,” Elpis interrupted him, her voice low but sure. “You misjudge him, Theo. Oppa saved me. He could have let the Slav have me. All know the man to be a brute. But Oppa heard of it and intervened, at great cost, I believe. And I have met with nothing but kindness here. He has even promised to ensure Pelagia is safe, should Sebastopolis fall.
“Theo.” One small hand came up and cupped his cheek. “I know you do not trust him. But, perhaps, is it not possible he has changed? Have not the years far from your homeland changed you?”
Theo covered her hand with his own, his heart thudding at her nearness, feeling the abyss beckoning. She stepped closer, the heat of her body so intoxicating he trembled. “I know your heart belongs to another,” she said. “It is not your heart I ask for, Theo.”
Her eyes fell to the table and the parchments there. She raised them to his again. “What do they mean?” she asked quietly. “What does Oppa want from you?”
Guilt twisted his belly. “He wants my help,” he said curtly, stepping away from Elpis but forcing himself to meet her eyes. “And in return, he promises to protect the one to whom I am betrothed.” He touched the coin and amulet at his neck in an unconscious gesture.
“Is it such a terrible thing?” Elpis asked gently. “To protect her, whom you love so much?”
Theo made a harsh noise. “It is a trade to which she herself would never agree. And if I make it, I am Oppa’s ally. For that, too, she will never forgive me.” He could not bring himself to name Lælia, here, in this place, to Elpis.
“And if you do not make it?”
“She will die defending her home.” Theo made himself say the words aloud. They had swirled within him for weeks; they must be said. “And if she should somehow live, she will find herself captive of the king, forced to marry a man of his choosing – if she is fortunate. If not, she will be alone, penniless at court, with neither title nor power. She will have even less control over who takes her than –” Realising what he was about to say, Theo bit off his words and looked away from Elpis.
“Than a whore like me?” Elpis smiled gently. “You can say the word, Theo. It does not frighten me, nor make me ashamed. I live the life that a roll of the dice gave me, and I do not resent it. But this girl of yours, raised as a fine lady on a large estate – Theo, she cannot possibly understand what such a life would truly mean for her. Do you honestly believe she would make the same choices if she did?” She stepped closer to him once more, and this time he did not move away when her arms snaked around his neck. “How would you face her,” she murmured in his ear, “knowing that you could have saved her from that fate?”
For a moment Theo imagined Lælia, the plaything of men drunken and triumphant after the fall of Illiberis, her wild pride beaten into sullen defeat and then into abject terror. He saw himself, standing in the great palace at Toletum, begging Egica to spare Lælia. If, he thought bitterly, we both live long enough to make such a plea – and are permitted to do so.
Perhaps, he thought, Elpis was right, and Oppa was changed. Even if Oppa had bought her as a means to ensure Theo’s goodwill, was that in itself not some kind of evidence
that the man was no longer the impulsive, angry boy he had once been? And was not his upbringing, by Oppa’s own admission, reason enough for at least some of his behaviour? Oppa’s battle to make his father see sense had undoubtedly changed him, just as Theo himself had been altered by all he had seen. And even if none of it was true and Oppa was the same monster he had always been, what choice, in the end, did Theo have? Any day now, Sebastopolis would fall. If it did not, Theo would have time to undo his agreement with Oppa. But if it did, and they both fled to Spania, he could not risk returning without some kind of surety. No matter the cost to his own pride or soul, he would not see his father’s sacrifices, his brother’s, or Lælia’s, come to nothing.
“Elpis,” he said, and now his voice was suddenly clear, once more the commander whom men had followed into battle. “Tell Oppa to return. And to bring his witnesses.”
Elpis touched his cheek, her eyes soft with understanding. “They are lucky,” she said quietly. “This girl of yours. Your family. To have a man who prizes them so.”
The door had barely closed behind her when it opened again, this time to admit Oppa, followed by two black-clad priests. Theo recognised them both from his time in Toletum. They were from good families, had once been acolytes in the same monastery that his brother Athanagild now attended.
“These men have been in Constantinople these past years.” Oppa made the introductions. “They came here because they heard word of my presence and thought to carry word of me back to my father. They leave tonight, on a merchant dromon. Do you agree to trust them to witness our agreement?”
Theo drew a deep breath. He nodded curtly, not trusting himself to speak.
The rest of it was done in a matter of minutes, his signature marking the parchment below Oppa’s, the two priests fixing their own marks on the other side. The deeds were sealed, and Oppa handed Theo one of them. “Yours,” he said quietly. “I will hold the other.”
As if sensing he had pushed Theo to the limits of his endurance, he nodded at the men to leave and moved toward the door, where he paused. “The girl, Elpis,” he said gently. “She does not need your coin. She was yours before ever I took her from the street, and I have ensured she has coin enough, now, to make her own choices. If you wish her to leave with you, she is free to go, or to return to the Persian woman, if she chooses.” He did not wait for a response but went from the room, and when Theo turned, it was to find the door closed and Elpis in the room, holding a jug of wine.
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 29