A young woman opened the door. She was pretty, and Yosef smiled and paid her handsomely for the wine she poured. But he was unmoved by the blatant exposure of cleavage as she leaned over him, and one glance at her dull eyes told him she would not possess the answers he sought. He looked about the tavern, searching the faces for one that held the key.
Then his hand clenched the wine cup so hard it almost fell from the table. Athanais stared at him across the tavern, one long, slender-fingered hand going to her throat, fingering the winged amulet there, the Zoroastrian symbol, colour draining from her face. Yosef stood, his heart beating a flurried tattoo. Her face made the very air swirl with memory and doubt, so he was both the man who stood now in possession of a fortune and the boy who had last seen her after fleeing his home, alone and terrified.
The curtain behind her parted to reveal a tall, lean figure, and all sense, every fragment of the self-control hard won in the Wudang Mountains, fled from Yosef’s mind. His cup dropped to the floor, wine spattering like blood on the stone. “Theo,” he whispered.
The man looked up, eyes narrowing, one hand going instinctively to the spatha at his hip. Then he saw Yosef and froze, the tall body tense as a wound coil. Theo took a hesitant step forward. His hand came up in a half gesture, then fell to his side. Piercing green eyes searched the face before him: the rich foreign robes, the pointed shoes, the hat that spoke of lands far away.
“Yosef?” he said hesitantly.
“Yes.” Yosef found his voice cracking on the word, and he paused, clearing his throat. He realised he was smiling, felt the odd sensation of emotion breaking through the careful mask, so unexpected and powerful that tears pricked his eyelids. “Yes, Theo – my God.”
They stepped haltingly forward and then met in a fierce, almost violent embrace in which both felt the unknown years that lay between the boys who had bid one another farewell on a rocky desert shore and the men they had since become.
Yosef felt the corded muscle and steel strength beneath Theo’s tunic, but more than that, he felt the tremor of emotion that had always drawn him to Lælia’s betrothed, the quiet depth of feeling that made Yosef feel unaccountably comforted, as if he had, in some profound way, found sanctuary.
“Come,” said Athanais, her voice not quite steady. “We will be more private in the back.” She smiled at Yosef, her beautiful brown eyes misty. “Khosh amadid, Yosef,” she said softly. “Kheili vaghte ke azat khabari nist.”
He reached out and took her hands, pressing them firmly. Drawing a deep breath, he drew from his memory the words he had memorised during the long miles he had walked, hearing them said by Sogdian merchants at every pause.
“Zãmchā asmanemchā yazamaidé,” he began.
“Vātemchā dare-shîm Mazda-dhātem yazamaide.
Taé-remchā harai-thyāo berezo yazamaidé.
Bûmîmchā vîspāchā vohû yazamaidé.
Apãmchā frakhshao-strem yazamaide.
Vayãmchā fra-frao-threm yazamaidé.
Atha-uru-nãmchā paitî-ajãthrem yazamaide,
yoi yéyã dûrāt asho-îsho dakhyunãm.
Vîspãschā Ameshãn Spentãn yazamaidé.”
We praise the earth and the sky.
We praise the strong wind created by Ahura Mazda.
We praise the peak of Mount Harîti.
We praise the earth and all its gifts.
We revere the flowing waters.
We revere the flight of birds.
We revere the return of priests
who go to remote countries to promote righteousness.
We revere all the eternal holy laws.
Athanais put a hand up and touched his face.
“Yegheh h ātãm ā-at yesneh paiti vangho,
Mazd āo Ahuro vaeth ā ash āt hach ā y āonghãm-ch ā.
Tãns-ch ā t āos-ch ā yazamaideh,” she responded softly.
Ahura Mazda, on account of His Holiness, is aware
of all the acts of good worship of all the living beings.
We revere all such men and women.
The words of praise passed between them in a slow moment of murmured reverence, flowing like water from the sacred grotto at Yazd, like the energy Fei Hong had taught him to feel in his own body. To hear them again, to feel the power of Ahura Mazda and the ch’i he now knew in the very blood of his veins, seemed to connect all his past and future in a glimmering circle of power, and Yosef felt held by it.
“Come,” she said and led them through the curtain.
“Then you are bound, now, for Constantinople?” Theo raised his wine cup, his eyes searching Yosef’s face. Theo’s gaze was both fascinating and unnerving, Yosef thought. When Yosef had last seen him, Theo had been a young man still, his face a mass of livid red welts. But now the scars were stark, white ridges, and the man he had become was fearsome, broad, and tall. With his piercing green eyes and white hair, Theo looked, Yosef thought, like the Titans of old, a mythical god with the coiled power of a wild beast.
I would not face him on the field, thought Yosef. And I doubt he would hesitate once there.
There was a shadow behind his eyes, an odd reticence in his manner that Yosef did not recognise. War, Yosef knew, changed a man. He could imagine at least some of what Theo had endured. It was no wonder, he thought, that those experiences had left their mark.
And there lingered still a trace of the Theo he had known, in the gentle smile he bestowed on Athanais, the quiet understanding he shared with the tall, ferocious-looking man who came through the door in search of him. The man halted at Theo’s brief gesture, looking at Yosef with open curiosity.
“Are you,” Theo repeated, “bound for Constantinople?”
“Yes,” Yosef said, trying not to be disconcerted by the close scrutiny of Theo’s companion, whom he vaguely recalled from Africa, a man so big and black he was like a mountain in the room. “I have business there that cannot wait.” He looked at Theo, an unspoken message in his eyes. “Do you know of any who will pass that way?”
The black man beside Theo shook his head and folded his arms.
“No ships will sail to Constantinople now,” said Theo, and Yosef read the truth in his eyes. “No matter the reason. I am sorry, Yosef. The last left some days ago. We are treading perilous ground. At any minute it threatens to open beneath us.” He looked at Yosef closely. “You will have passed through the mountains,” he said. “Through the Arabic lines, if you came from Sogdiana. You must have word, then, of their number? Perhaps even knowledge of their plans?”
The room swirled and darkened. Yosef heard the teachings of the Dao in his mind: “It is easy to dodge the arrow of an enemy but difficult to avoid the spear of a friend.”
But who is my friend? Yosef thought. Is it Mohammed, to whom I gave my word, or Theo, to whom I owe my life?
“Yosef is tired,” Athanais interrupted them gently. A girl came forward to pour wine, and Yosef saw her hand rest lightly on Theo’s shoulder. It was the merest press, but he saw the colour steal into Theo’s cheeks, the quick, surreptitious glance he threw in Yosef’s direction.
So that is how it is, Yosef thought. He wanted suddenly to tell Theo all he had seen and been. But he did not know who Theo was anymore, nor how to begin explaining.
“Of course,” said Theo, standing and pushing his chair back. “And we have duties of our own at the docks. Athanais will give you lodging and food. We will speak again when you are rested, Yosef. You will be here?” He turned those disconcertingly penetrating eyes on Yosef once more, and Yosef found himself nodding even though he knew with everything in his well-trained mind that this was the very moment he should flee.
“I will be here,” he said.
Theo nodded once. He leaned forward and gripped Yosef’s shoulder with one hand. A sudden, brilliant smile lit the scarred face, so blazing it warmed Yosef to his toes and brought the same odd sensation of heat just below the skin. “It is good to see you, friend.” And then Theo was gone, and the room seemed odd
ly empty without him.
Yosef looked up to find Athanais watching him, not without pity. “Rest,” she said quietly. “I do not need to guide you in this.” She smiled, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “You have all learned to guide yourselves,” she said. “Although at what cost, I wonder?” She made to leave, but Yosef reached out and caught her hand.
“Theo is changed.”
She turned her hand over in his, studying it, not looking at him. “As are you,” she said softly.
“Is he bound, still, to Spania – to Lælia?”
“Ah.” She smiled, but there was a sadness to the tilt of her mouth, and she did not meet Yosef’s eyes. “Bound he most certainly is. Though the binds are no longer simple. And Theo, I think, believes himself unworthy now, both of her love and of the Spania he left behind.”
“Unworthy?” Yosef frowned. “Because he took a whore to bed?”
“No.” Something dark stirred behind Athanais’s eyes. “Because he feels he has whored himself.”
Though Yosef waited, she said no more, and eventually he left.
It was twilight when he walked into the streets, needing cool air to soothe the temper in his body, seeking a place in which he could find peace from the town. He walked from the port limits and found the hill beyond, climbing up a narrow goat track, passing an old ruin that clung to the side. He stopped there and sat, watching the hub of the port below, allowing his mind to still. He disciplined his breathing, bringing himself under control, feeling the gradual quiet steal through him with each breath.
A soft movement, a cry in the distance, made him turn his head. A group of men rode on a distant hillside. Their horses were fine, better than any Yosef had seen even in the Arabic camp. A man rode at their head, his horse clad in rich armour, the men surrounding him riding in a phalanx that was oddly familiar, though for a moment Yosef could not place it. Then they turned, and the dying sun lit their faces and the design on their shields, and Yosef gasped.
It was the Chrismon insignia of Spania on a blood-red flag. One only the King of Spania, and his envoys, might fly.
There was only one man arrogant enough to hoist that standard above his head, and the last time Yosef had seen him, that man had been watching with flat black eyes whilst one of his men raped Sarah.
Instinctively Yosef slipped behind the stones, becoming the water he had learned to be, invisible to all unknowing eyes. He examined the men before him, realising, as he did, that their phalanx was familiar because they rode in the Gothic formation – like a thiufa – with Oppa at the head of the diamond.
How? he thought savagely, his hand going to his waist, fingering the jewelled hilt of the knife Mohammed had once given him back in Damascus. How is it that he lives? And how is it that Theo is here – and Oppa also? He was gripped by a passion he had not known still existed within him, a rage so deep and visceral he felt the knife in his hand like it was his own skin. I could take him from here, he thought coldly. None would know from whence came the knife, and I would be gone before they knew I existed.
But even as he crept forward to throw the blade at the angle that would mean death, Yosef knew he would not.
No action born of such impulse could be right. To kill in such a mind would bring a balance unwelcome to his soul, and Yosef, hungry to feel Oppa’s life flow from his body, almost cursed his knowledge of the inherent evil of his wish. He sank down behind the rock, watching long after the thiufa had passed.
Because he feels he has whored himself. Was that what Athanais had meant? That Theo had found common cause with Oppa, the same man who had taken everything from Yosef – his home, his family, his country, the woman he loved?
When finally he stood, night had fallen and Sebastopolis was coming alive. Yosef walked very slowly down the path. There were choices to be made. Choices between friends. Between his heart and his duty. Choices that would result in men dying. And despite all the miles he had walked, all the ways in which he had learned to understand God and his own soul, Yosef had no idea what the right choices now were – nor if he could even consider the options evenly.
The smell of his father’s burning flesh hung in the air with the meat roasting below, and Sarah’s violated body walked like a spectre beside him.
The waning moon hid in the night, and darkness filled his soul.
44
Athanagild
July, AD 692
Toletum, Spania
Toledo, Spain
“To be sending a messenger directly to my quarters! Have I been teaching you nothing?” Shukra stood stiffly in the bathhouse, dark eyes flashing. “Even now, I am not being certain I was not followed!”
“Your quarters are in a brothel on the river in Hispalis.” Athanagild raised sceptical eyes to his mentor. “I doubt very much a messenger would rouse suspicion by entering there after a long ride.”
“Perhaps! But still it rouses suspicion when a man such as I leaves in a hurry. Perhaps you are unaware, Athanagild, but war has made spies of good men and traitors of friends.”
“As if,” said Athanagild drily, “I could forget.”
“Hmph.” Shukra eyed him. “Well, what is it that is so important you have me exchanging a perfectly nice pleasure house in Hispalis for this terrible one by the river in Toletum?” He cast a disapproving glance at the closed door separating the deserted bathhouse from the brothel, through which came the muffled sound of female laughter and the clatter of wine cups. “And with not even the distraction of the women themselves.” He folded his arms and looked at Athanagild, his expression softening slightly. “What, aziz-am, is so urgent that I must lie to Laurentius – again?” He attached particular emphasis to the last word, and Athanagild noticed the lines about his mouth, the strain by his eyes. Disloyalty comes uneasily to us all, he thought, no matter what form it takes.
“This.” Athanagild held up the vial. It was small and innocuous, made of pewter with a latched stopper easily removed with a thumb push. It was designed to be easily hidden and even more easily emptied into an unsuspecting wine cup. “I received it today.” Gingerly Athanagild handed it to Shukra. “Be careful. It is dangerous.”
Shukra thumbed the latch and wafted the open neck beneath his nose. He glanced up at Athanagild, his face dark. “Where did you get this?”
“Sunifred’s messenger. I have been charged with administering it.”
“Do you know,” Shukra said quietly, “what this is?”
Athanagild tilted his head. “I know it can kill. What I need to know is if you can alter it.”
Shukra frowned. “Alter it? You hold in your hand a decoction of henbane – one of the most swift and deadly of poisons – and you wish to know if it can be altered?”
“Liuvgoto and her daughter must drink it,” Athanagild said. “They must be seen to drink it and to suffer. But they must also live. It must appear that the poison itself is inadequate. No suspicion can occur that it was not given. Nor can I apply an antidote. The poison must be rendered faulty.”
“Liuvgoto and her daughter.” Shukra stared at him. “You have been tasked with poisoning Queen Cixilo and her mother, the old queen, Liuvgoto?”
“Yes,” said Athanagild, so caught in his thoughts he was oblivious to the shock on Shukra’s face. “I have already written to Felix that I suspect Sisebut and Sunifred of conspiring to do so. After all this ends, when Toletum is fallen and a reckoning is made, he will know who plotted this.”
“And the women themselves?” There was an acid note in Shukra’s voice. “Are they aware they are to be poisoned – by Sunifred, their own cousin, and with the blessing of the Church itself?”
Athanagild’s face paled. “Why do you think I called you here? Do you think I agree with this?”
Shukra searched his face. Gradually, the hard light in his eyes faded to resignation and then to a sadness that hurt Athanagild almost more than the deed before him. “No, aziz-am,” said Shukra tiredly. “I know you do not.”
Athanagild swallo
wed on the hard lump in his throat. He looked down at the vial, then back at Shukra. “Can you alter it?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes.” Shukra pursed his lips. “Yes, I can alter it. I add frankincense, a little mulberry leaf soaked in vinegar. Enough of the two and the poison will make them ill, very ill, but it will not kill them.”
“Can you do it tonight?” Athanagild heard the relentless note in his voice but it was too late now to stop. “I do not know when I might be forced to use it.”
Shukra’s face seemed to grow even more tired, the lines at his eyes deepening. “Yes,” he said resignedly. “I can do it tonight.”
“Good.” Athanagild turned. “When it is done, return here. I will wait; I cannot risk you being seen at the monastery.”
Shukra walked to the door and paused. “Is there not another choice, Athanagild? For it is certain that Laurentius would not approve of this. Nor your father. Nor any true man of God, however God is understood to them. No man should be forced to such action.”
Athanagild turned slowly, his heart thudding painfully. “I act now because if I do not, Liuvgoto and Cixilo will both die. If any know I thwarted Sunifred’s wishes I, also, will die. And if I die, who is left to protect them?” He stared at Shukra. “When this is done, this rebellion, this chaos, who will see some form of order return? Sunifred? Egica? The nobles who squabble over every stade of earth?”
Shukra’s eyes narrowed. “And so now you are thinking, good priest that you are, that it is the Church who is being the ultimate authority? That your bishops and monks will be Spania’s saviours? After what you have suffered at the hands of Sisebut, how can you still believe so?”
“I have written to Felix, told him of Sisebut’s plot with Sunifred. I may yet lose my life. But Felix is a good man. He will guide the Church, and Spania, without corruption.”
“Did you tell Felix what Sisebut has done to you since first you entered his holy company?” Shukra’s tone was uncharacteristically harsh. “No,” he said grimly, without waiting for Athanagild’s response. “I did not think so. And nor, I think, are you confessing that it is you who has been tasked with the poisoning. You know that if you said either of these things, your Church would intervene and Sisebut be instantly condemned, the matter made public.” He stepped closer to Athanagild. “Why would you be protecting such a man as Sisebut? Or this Church of yours that thinks so little of debasing its young men?”
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 35