She poured him a cup. Theo drank it, then another.
“Is that what you wish for?” Theo asked harshly. “To return to Athanais, and to your sister?”
“I wish to be with you.” Her hand rested on his chest, a touch so gentle it broke something inside Theo. “For as long as we have, Theo, I would be near you.” Her eyes slid to the low cot by the wall, and back to his. “But for tonight,” she murmured, “can we not simply have this?” She took his hand and placed it over the curve of her breast, moving so she stood between his legs. “Can you not take this one night for yourself, Theo?”
His arm slid around her and she settled herself across his lap, her lips grazing his throat. “Let me be your comfort,” she murmured in his ear. “You, who do so much for others and never ask the price – this once, let me be your comfort.”
This time, when her mouth sought his own, Theo did not turn away.
But even as he sank into the welcome oblivion of her flesh, he knew himself lost finally to the abyss he had so long feared, gone far into a darkness from which he knew he would never again be truly free.
I made my choice, Apsimar, he thought bitterly as the night closed around them and Elpis’s body drew him into the place where all sense was lost. Gods help me, but I made it.
37
Alaric
April, AD 692
Hispalis, Spania
Seville, Spain
Alaric –
All men know that Sunifred marches north, and you with him.
I know you have no choice. From the moment, perhaps, that you saw Rekiberga, there was no choice.
I pray for you, my brother.
–Athanagild
Alaric folded Athanagild’s letter for the tenth time, placing it inside his tunic where it gave him an odd feeling of comfort, as if his brother’s hand on the page could steady his own heart. Taking a deep breath, he stared at the stone wall that surrounded the private garden of Sunifred’s villa, shadowed in the dark of the moon. Tomorrow they would ride out. Alaric knew he could not leave without seeing her before he went.
He scaled the wall with the help of a low fig branch and found the servant he had bribed earlier waiting for him at the door. “Hurry,” the woman breathed in his ear, ushering him inside and looking about fearfully. “If either of us are caught, it will be our lives.”
Silently, Alaric followed her through the corridor to the arched wooden door. “Enter,” said Rekiberga’s low voice. The servant pushed him inside, then closed the door discreetly behind her.
Rekiberga sat at a low table, her back turned to him. Her hair was unbound, falling in fiery ripples to her waist, the brush still in her hand. She was clad in no more than a thin linen shift, through which Alaric could see the elegant curves of her figure. It felt almost terrifyingly intimate to be here, and it took a moment before he found his voice.
“My lady,” he murmured. “Forgive me for coming to you like this.” The brush fell from her hand and Rekiberga swung around, her mouth a perfect O of surprise, eyes gleaming cobalt in the low light. “Do not be afraid.” Alaric put out a hand, then let it fall to his side. “Only your servant knows of my presence, and Teudolfo tells me she can be trusted.”
Rekiberga’s mouth curved. “Since the worthy Teudolfo has been enjoying my servant’s charms for the best part of the winter, I imagine he would say that,” she murmured, but Alaric, seeing the hectic colour at her neck, knew she spoke to cover her own discomfort.
“If you wish me to leave, I will,” he said. Holding his eyes, Rekiberga shook her head slowly but did not speak. Heartened, Alaric took a step closer. “I cannot leave as you asked me to do,” he said, and even to his own ears his voice sounded harsh. Rekiberga watched him but did not answer. “Not because I do not want to,” he went on, “or because I believe in your father, or his cause, for I do not.”
“Then why?” Rekiberga stood, and her form was silhouetted in the light of the fire beside her. It took all of Alaric’s willpower not to cross the room and pull her against him. He forced himself to keep his eyes on her face.
“Because if we run now, we are fugitives forever, no matter which side of this cursed war is victorious. I would not have you condemned to that fate.”
“And if we stay, you might be dead, and I taken by the king as a prize to be married as he chooses – or simply taken.” She did not flinch from his grunt of hurt at her words. “All know that the daughters of a defeated nobleman are become no more than concubines at court.”
Alaric’s fists clenched at his side. “If we run,” he said in a low, fierce voice, “I may still die and you be taken as you fear. But we will be without friends to fight for us, or recourse. Rekiberga –” He took a step toward her, and she to him, so no more than a few feet parted them. “I know you would face that fate without fear, for you are as brave, and more, than any woman I have ever known. But I cannot live with myself if I ask it of you, just as I cannot live with myself if I leave Spania now as it teeters on a precipice I have helped bring it to.”
Rekiberga took the final step toward him, her hand coming up to hold his jaw, her thumb stroking the tension there. “I know,” she whispered, her eyes holding his. “I do not like it, Alaric, but I know.” Her hands gripped his face. “Promise me this,” she said fiercely. “When this is done – no matter how it ends – promise that if we both live still, you will come for me, and we will leave all of this behind.”
“I promise.”
She stepped forward into his arms, and as they came around her, Alaric groaned. “I cannot bear to let you go.” He kissed her, feeling the wonder of her lips opening beneath him, every inch of his body hard and longing for her. She moaned against his mouth and he drew her to him, the long lines of her body and the sweet crush of her breasts against him, kissing her on and on.
“Please,” she gasped when he let her go. “I cannot say goodbye without knowing you are mine – truly mine.”
“I cannot.” Alaric’s voice cracked, and he knew in another moment he would lose the last vestiges of control. “What if I should not live through this? How would you then face your father – and your husband?”
“If you do not live through this,” she said fiercely, “then I do not wish to face either.”
He kissed her again. All that existed was the feeling of Rekiberga in his arms, the waterfall of bronze hair falling through his fingers.
“Alaric.” She held his face, and there was something in her eyes that made him pause and frown. “I know my father will not prevail,” she said softly. “I know he cannot. I saw your face the last time he gave you an ultimatum. I have known for a long time he is not the man you need him to be. When first I realised it, that knowledge broke my heart.” She searched his face. “But it also set me free. Now I need you to set yourself free also.”
“Rekiberga –”
“No.” She pressed her lips to his with an urgency that made him groan, then pulled away and bent her forehead to meet his. “I know what he is, Alaric, and so do you. I will no longer be the bait he dangles to catch men and swords. I need your assurance that you will not needlessly throw your life away in his service. What happens after this farce of a war is done is beyond the control of you or me. For now, we must both play the parts he has set us, but I would face whatever the coming days bring knowing that I am yours. That if there is a future left to us at all, we will face it together.”
He took her face in his hands. “If we survive this,” he said roughly, “you have my word, Rekiberga: nothing – not your father or mine, no king or country – will ever divide us again. And if I cannot return to you,” he said, stilling her protest with a finger on her lips, “then I will send men for you. If you are in danger, Rekiberga, go with them to Illiberis. You will be safe there, so long as it holds. Let my blood and my friends be your shield. I swear they will protect you, as long as they may.”
She nodded, her tears threading through his fingers, and that was when he was lost, gatherin
g her close and losing himself in the taste of her lips, the sweet fragrance of citron and jasmine that always clung about her. When she tugged with one small hand at the laces binding his tunic, he could no longer fight himself. He took her then, in the light of the spring fire, over and over, until the first streaks of dawn threaded the sky and the clamour of war called him as he kissed her goodbye.
38
Yosef
Spring, AD 692
Sogdiana
Uzbekistan and the Steppes
Yosef had approached Serica haunted by echoes from the past, exhausted in body and soul. Now those same echoes seemed to pull him forward with an inexorable strength as he crossed the great plains and the Roof of the World. He felt invigorated by the sense of being called by those he had once loved, and consequently he moved at a pace he could not have imagined on his way to Serica.
Every morning, long before dawn whilst the other men slept, he rose to perform the flowing sequence of movements he had learned in the mountains. As he moved slowly, feeling the energy course through his body, he felt the land itself seep into his bones. The morning ritual not only brought him back to himself. It made him part of the land he woke in, wherever that was.
The weary loneliness had left him. The changes wrought by his time in Serica became apparent to him when he returned to the company of merchant travellers. Yosef was no longer searching, for all he had sought was now contained within. He found he did not seek company or need it, though he found it easy to be in if he must. He did not delay at trading posts but sought the fastest caravans, moving on when they stopped to rest or trade. He covered ground far more rapidly than he ever had on the way to Serica. Knowing the route, he discovered, made its passing less burdensome.
For a time, he travelled with a merchant named Omar. An Arab diplomat from Damascus, Omar had been overjoyed to discover that Yosef not only spoke his language but had visited his lands.
“You are accustomed to this mode of travel?” He gestured disdainfully at the long, slow caravan of the Sogdians’ double-humped camels.
Yosef inclined his head. “You find it uncomfortable?”
Omar clicked his tongue in annoyance. “These people are peasants. Their language is like the barking of dogs, and they have no God.”
“They believe in the One,” said Yosef. “In Ahura Mazda.”
“Infidels.” Omar’s face darkened. “And they do not pay the tribute they should for the right to trade in the caliph’s lands.”
“No, they do not. The Sogdian lands are a bridge between the Circle of Lands, the world shared by the Arabs and Greeks, and Serica, a world apart, with its own traditions and history.” Yosef waved behind him. “A bridge no Arab or Greek army could ever take, even had they the inclination. The Sogdians own the one thing we all need – access between the worlds that rule.”
“You admire them?”
Yosef shrugged. “I can work with them.”
Omar looked at him curiously. “You have been a long time in foreign worlds, my young friend, have you not?”
“I have.”
“Then perhaps you may know of the man I ride to see now, to whom I carry word from our allies in Serica. Mohammed bin Marwan, brother of the Khalifatul Mu’mineen, Abd al Malik.”
The name brought such a flood of memories that Yosef fell silent for a moment, allowing them to wash through him. Bagay and Khanchla: The Arabs do not concern themselves at all with any threat we may pose, because they know already that our defeat is guaranteed.
Mohammed: You are here to decide whether the caliph is a man to your liking – to judge our society, no? … Will you stay the turn of a moon or so?… I would enjoy your company.
It was in Mohammed’s company, Yosef thought, that first I questioned my people. My God. My purpose on this journey. It was with him that my true journey began.
“Yes,” he said aloud, none of his thoughts showing on his face. “I was previously honoured to be in the company of Mohammed bin Marwan for some weeks.”
“Ah!” Omar clapped his hands in delight. “Then you know the welcome that awaits us in his camp.” Chattering eagerly, the discomforts of his journey forgotten in his delight at discovering common ground, Omar spoke of the great victories of Bin Marwan, and the miles drifted away just as Yosef’s mind itself wandered across the sands.
They reached the Nur Mountains in late spring, when tamarind pods hung fat and heavy on the trees. They released a faintly rank cinnamon scent that mixed with the chalky soil and sea salt from far below, lending a thick pungency to the air.
The Arab encampment was on a plain near a lake. Arab forces occupied the nearby city of Antioch, barely half a moon’s march from the famed trading port of the Greeks at Sebastopolis, where Yosef intended to pay his passage by sea to Constantinople. Mohammed himself disdained the city walls. The warrior Yosef remembered welcomed them instead from a voluminous tent, stitched inside with rich silks in a multitude of colours. His camp was as lavish as Yosef recalled his palace had been, yet it retained the efficient discipline of the military. Every item within was of superb workmanship and quality. No item was superfluous, grandiose, or a meaningless luxury. Mohammed was first and foremost a warrior, and almost as importantly, a man of God, a scholar of the Qur’an.
“Yosef!” His eyes widened in surprise and he paused in his greeting, taking in the long, rich robes made in the Sogdian style, the pointed boots and carefully stitched travelling cloak. He kissed Yosef’s cheeks lightly, the merest touch of flesh, his skin cool. His robes gave off the vague scent of musk Yosef recalled from Al Sinnabra. “You are much changed, my friend,” he said, regarding Yosef thoughtfully. “I am glad indeed to meet you again after the journey you have had. We will have much to speak of, no?”
It was not for several days, however, that the opportunity came to speak together.
Skirmishes were a frequent occurrence in the mountains beyond the Arabic camp. Yosef, long accustomed to perceiving the subtleties in atmosphere, sensed trouble brewing beneath the surface. The men were tense and on edge, resentful of the forays they were forced to make into the mountain wilds.
“For every journey to collect taxes, we lose almost as many men as the coins we take.” Mohammed was tired, his face drawn and lined. Despite returning that day from another foray into the mountains, he had nonetheless taken the time to wash, dress in white robes, and pray before joining Yosef for dinner. After his time in Serica, Yosef noted these small disciplines, the subtle habits rigidly enforced even when unobserved. It was these same habits, he understood, that made Mohammed the formidable commander he was. “These are Christian lands. The Greeks promised they would subdue them. Thousands were moved to make way for Muslim settlers. But the Christians remain – and they do not submit.” Mohammed’s face darkened and he ate in silence. When he had finished, he washed his hands and looked at Yosef. “The Greeks have not paid their share of the tribute,” he said bluntly. “It was not skirmishing that took me into the mountains this time. It was a meeting with envoys of Emperor Justinian II under their commander, Leontios.”
He sipped water flavoured with mint, served in a delicate glass cup encased in silver filigree. It was, Yosef thought, typical of Mohammed’s attention to detail, and love of beauty, that the glass had somehow survived the rough roads from Al Sinnabra to here.
“We meet to exchange tribute every quarter,” Mohammed went on. “The treaty between my brother the caliph and Justinian II states we are to share the taxes from Armenia. Taxes we risk both men and resources to collect from our respective parts of that nation.” He sat cross legged on cushions, straight backed and upright, robes perfectly draped over his lean figure. His eyes beneath the carefully wound turban were dark and implacable. “The Greeks have defaulted on their part of the payment for two quarters now. Not only defaulted – they have retaken Cyprus, claiming that we have not paid the portion we owe.”
Yosef willed his emotion not to show on his face. He was so close to reaching Consta
ntinople, so close to bringing the secrets he had learned to those who needed them, to fulfilling the destiny his father had set for him. And now, it seemed, he had walked into a war. One in which he could not easily avoid involvement if he honoured his friendship with Mohammed.
“What will you do?” Yosef thanked his long months in Serica for his composure, the steadiness of his hand. He remembered a lesson he had learned in the mountains: To understand a man, watch him drink tea. And if you wish to keep your secrets, look to your own cup and the hand that holds it.
Mohammed was scrutinising his face closely. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw there, he leaned back against the cushions and rolled the filigree cup in his hands. “We will go to war,” he said calmly. “In reality, we were always going to war. We conquered these mountains. We need Sebastopolis if we are to take Constantinople, and we will take it, Yosef. This treaty” – he waved his hand in contempt – “was never destined to last, on either side. But the Greeks, under that arrogant fool Leontios, have made a fatal mistake, one they still do not recognise.”
Yosef raised his eyebrows politely. He allowed disinterest to flow through his body, felt it in his fingers and breath, allowed it to spread over the distance between them so Mohammed’s musings became internal, less guarded.
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 30