“Who else will see order restored to Spania when this is done?” Athanagild flung at him. “Who else will be the voice of moderation amidst chaos?”
“The ‘voice of moderation’!” Shukra’s voice was derisive. “I am coming from a country in which the priests believed so strongly that they were the only authority that they stood about the flames as their country and people burned, believing until the last that their wisdom would prevail. And now you would stand before me, you, who have been more a victim of the corruption of those who espouse God than any man I know, and have me believe that those same men will be the voice of moderation?” He stepped closer to Athanagild, his eyes burning dark fire. “This Church you so revere,” he said, the concern in his voice hurting Athanagild more than his words, “would condemn you, and others you love, by your very nature. Would see you die for what you are. And yet you would poison two women at the archbishop’s bidding and lie to protect him? Sisebut, a man from whom your God Himself must surely turn away?”
When Athanagild did not answer, Shukra’s eyes grew dark with sadness. “I will do what you ask,” he said heavily, “for I have sworn to protect you.” He flung open the back door that led from the bathhouse into the street, pausing for a moment in the frame. “But do not think I love you for it, Athanagild. For I do not.”
He banged the door against the wall with violence and strode through the brothel into the night. Athanagild stared blankly through the open door after him.
It was only as Shukra’s cloak swirled into darkness that Athanagild noticed the cowled figure standing in the doorway opposite, almost concealed by the shadows. Athanagild gave no outward sign of his awareness but instead closed the door slowly, turning away as if unaware of the watcher opposite. As soon as the door touched the frame, he moved swiftly to the thin crack at the side, invisible from the street but able to look out unnoticed. The figure moved from the shadows, and in the brief touch of moonlight on his face, Athanagild recognised the monk who had previously brought messages from Hispalis and Bishop Felix.
So he is watching, Athanagild thought grimly. But what he searches for, I do not yet know, nor if he believes what I wrote or suspects more treachery. He retraced his conversation with Shukra in his head, wondering how much of it the monk had overheard.
Finally, Athanagild turned for the monastery. He could not recall anything said that discredited the account he had sent Felix. But as he walked through the darkened streets, the recollection of the monk’s cowled face left a cold foreboding in Athanagild’s chest and unrest in his mind.
He was still pondering the matter when Sisebut sent for him later that night, anxious to hear of the plans he had made to carry out Liuvgoto’s poisoning.
“I know what to do.”
Sisebut, Athanagild thought, was unusually irascible, pacing his chamber agitatedly, picking fault with every detail of Athanagild’s plan. “If anyone suspects you of Liuvgoto’s death – or if you should fail – it will mean our end, do you understand? You can have no confidants! None must know even a breath of what you do. You are the only one I trust, Athanagild. You will not betray me?” He came close, taking Athanagild’s face roughly in his hands, his body rank with sweat and tension. Athanagild forced himself not to recoil.
A knock came at the door and it pushed open before Sisebut moved. The monk from Hispalis who had but recently lurked in the shadows entered the room. Athanagild felt the earlier sense of danger clawing more urgently at his chest and strove to maintain a neutral expression as he moved away from Sisebut.
The monk looked between Athanagild and Sisebut, curiosity plain on his face.
“You are only recently come from Hispalis,” said Sisebut harshly, turning away. “So I will forgive you not yet knowing our rules. But in future, if you wish to enter my chambers, you will wait until you are bid.” The monk bowed respectfully, but a knowing expression lurked in his eyes, and he did not look at Athanagild as he presented some papers to Sisebut.
Athanagild watched the door close behind him with growing unease. “You must be more careful,” he said curtly to Sisebut, shrugging on his cloak. “When this is over, men will look to you as the head of the Church in all Spania. You cannot afford any hint of corruption linked to your name.”
Sisebut looked at him with a surprisingly hard eye. “Is it my reputation you are concerned with?” he asked abruptly. “Or have you found other ways to amuse yourself?” Athanagild felt his heart miss a beat. What does he know? He met Sisebut’s eyes with the bland disinterest cultivated over years of practice.
“What is your meaning?”
“I know you are meeting someone. That friend of yours – the one with the accent.” When Athanagild still looked uncomprehending, Sisebut gestured impatiently. “The one who trains men with your uncle.”
“Ah!” Athanagild allowed comprehension to light his face. Not by the merest flicker did he betray the dread Sisebut’s words struck in his heart. “Shukra.”
“Shukra.” Sisebut tasted the name as if it were an unsavoury dish. “What kind of friend is Shukra that you must meet him in a brothel? I saw the way you took this evening. That road leads to a low pleasure house by the river. And a guard I know told me this Shukra frequents it when he is in Toletum – and that he is here now.”
Athanagild laughed. “If you knew anything about Shukra,” he said lightly, “you would know he makes his home in a brothel in Hispalis and craves the attention of whores wherever he goes. The brothel by the river here is his favoured house in Toletum.”
“And you crave the company of whores?” Sisebut came closer. “Or is it,” he said softly, “the attentions of the pretty foreigner you crave?” He reached out and stroked Athanagild’s face possessively. “If it is the former, you commit a grave sin against the Church, and you will be punished. But if it is the latter” – his fingers tightened on Athanagild’s face in a sudden, vicious grip – “then you have sinned against me. And that, I must advise you, will result in punishment far more dire than any the Church fathers may think up.”
Athanagild’s first thought was one of passionate relief: He does not even suspect the reason for our meeting. It was a measure of his obsessions and his arrogance, thought Athanagild, that Sisebut’s only thought was for jealousy and possession. And you must keep it that way, he thought, with sudden realisation. He allowed a tremor to creep into his voice and dropped his eyes from Sisebut’s.
“I admit that I have… curiosities,” said Athanagild in a low voice.
“Curiosities?” Sisebut forced his face up, shaking Athanagild’s head. “About women?”
Athanagild shrugged. “Women. And men.”
“I knew it!” Sisebut threw his face to one side and strode angrily across the room. “Does this Shukra share your interests?”
“I don’t know.” Athanagild bowed his head as if in shame. “I don’t even know,” he whispered, “my own nature.”
“You are a man of God.” Sisebut waved a hand carelessly in the air. “What happens in these walls, with your brothers in Christ, occurs with God’s understanding, and forgiveness, for we do God’s work in all things. But outside these walls” – he gripped Athanagild’s shoulders and shook him gently – “you lie with no one, do you understand?” He caressed Athanagild’s cheek, his touch covetous and possessive once more. “Make no mistake, if the foreigner is meeting you in a brothel, he desires you. And I know, better than any, how desirable you are, Athanagild. For even now, all these years since you came to me, I desire you more than any man I have ever known.”
He gripped Athanagild’s face hard, turning it toward his own. “Do not betray me,” he whispered. “For if you do, I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.”
45
Theo
July, AD 692
Sebastopolis, Anatolia
Elauissa Sebaste, Cilicia, Turkey
The new moon hung in a cobalt-blue sky, gleaming like a thin, curved blade above the violent flame of sunset. T
he night was warm, and the smoke over Sebastopolis was scented with roasting meat. It would have been festive had the city not been preparing for war.
Theo was surrounded by the crew of his dromon.
“It is certain, then?” one of the men asked. He and the others looked at Theo, their faces lit with the edgy excitement men felt when they knew they must face death. Silas stood slightly apart from them. He remained amongst Theo’s men, but the distance between them was marked in contrast to their former intimacy, and Theo knew it would remain that way so long as Silas knew him allied to Oppa. It was no way to go to battle. Theo, who knew the schism was of his own making, had no more idea how to heal it than he did how to manage Oppa’s shadowy presence and dark bargains. He had not met with Oppa again. The bastard, as if sensing Theo had been pushed as far as he might go, had not tried to find him. Oppa’s shadow, though, lay over Theo’s every moment. His dreams were haunted by images of Aurariola and Illiberis in flames, of his father and brother fighting a war they were doomed to lose, just as Theo felt his own was. Theo tried to imagine Lælia amidst it all and could not, for if he allowed himself to think of her defending the mountains of Illiberis, all he could see was Oppa’s hooded eyes as he watched Theo sign an agreement that would trade Lælia away like horseflesh. Even the memory of that conversation left him rent asunder in such a way that he would wake from the dreams more lost than when he sought the refuge of sleep.
Elpis had been his last refuge from such dreams. But after Yosef’s unexpected arrival, Theo had gifted her a purse full of all the coin he had and sent her away. He had said nothing to the querying look she had given him, for he did not know what to say. He felt guilty lying with her, and guilty leaving her. Yosef’s arrival had brought Lælia’s presence into his every waking moment. The potency of her memory had eliminated his desire for Elpis as effectively as if it had never been. Yosef’s presence had done more than that. It had jerked him out of the abyss so abruptly that Theo felt as if he were waking from a dark, disturbing dream only to find the reality more terrifying than the nightmare. He longed to speak with Yosef as much as he feared it. He had gone in search of Yosef the day after his arrival, intending to lay his sins bare and damn the consequences. But Yosef had disappeared as abruptly and mysteriously as he had arrived, leaving Theo with the unnerving suspicion his old friend had somehow learned of his alliance with Oppa.
“Is it certain? Is battle here?” asked the man again, bringing Theo abruptly back to the present.
“It is certain.” He looked at Silas as he answered the man’s question. “The Arabs sent envoys today with a message for Leontios: ‘Pay what is owed under the treaty, or Sebastopolis will fall.’” He shook his head, face dark. “Leontios laughed.”
Silas made a low sound of contempt. “That man will see us all die – for what? A few coins?”
The first man frowned. “Surely we will prevail,” he said, looking at Theo. “We have the numbers, do we not?”
“It would seem so.” All eyes were on Theo, except Silas’s. Theo tried not to feel the pain of his old friend’s distance. “But Mohammed bin Marwan is no fool. The man has taken cities with far greater defences than Sebastopolis. He would not attack without certainty in his victory.”
“So you think he knows something we do not?”
“I think he has a plan of which we have not yet been apprised, yes.”
It was Silas who asked the question Theo dreaded: “What news from the Slavs?”
“I cannot say.” Theo strove to maintain an even tone. “Neboulos I have barely seen, not since the lash bit his back and the Arab army made camp barely five miles from us.” He met Silas’s eyes. “I have no other friends in the Slavic camp to bring news,” he said quietly. Silas stared at him for a long moment, then released a long, low breath. When he looked up, his face was tired and resigned.
“What of the Jew?” he asked. “Your friend? He knows the Arabs, no? What does he say?”
Theo shook his head, unwilling to confess that he did not know Yosef’s whereabouts. He looked away from Silas, swallowing the bitter shame he carried as constant companion in the place where Leofric had once stood. He knew he could never forgive himself his betrayal of his friend. Time had served neither to dull the pain nor soothe his conscience. Every day that passed deepened a sense of loss and devastation unrivalled in all the time since Theo had left Spania, one made all the more savage by the knowledge that the loss had been both entirely of his own making and entirely preventable. Silas had not broached the subject again, but his silence spoke louder than any rebuke could.
His realisation that Yosef, too, was gone had jolted Theo to the core. He could not help but wonder if the two losses were linked. He wanted to ask Athanais, but to do so would mean confiding to her the details of his own deal with Oppa, and Theo could not quite bring himself to do that. Every time he thought of his signature on the parchment, his blood ran like ice through his veins and he felt a terrible, dark awareness that he had done wrong. The mere thought of Yosef brought the darkness closer, swirling about him until he could not see out.
“What will Athanais do?” Theo jumped, though Silas spoke in a low tone. The others were moving about the camp with the jittery movements of men who knew they would ride to face death: going over and over their weapons, sharpening steel that could need no further edge. Theo’s mouth tightened.
“I have told her to stay close to the harbour.” He looked at Silas. “If it comes to it, make certain she is aboard our dromon when it sails, with as many of the girls as we can take. She knows which it is.”
Theo didn’t mention that Athanais had seemed peculiarly detached when they had spoken of her leaving, barely heeding his instructions. Nor did Silas say the obvious – that if it came to leaving in the heat of battle, passengers would be the least of their priorities. Theo had sent word to both Pelagia and Elpis to come to the dock and remain there. He knew he could not abandon either of them. But if Elpis should sail with him – if he took responsibility for her – what then?
He shook his head impatiently. The eve of battle was no place for such thoughts.
One large hand settled briefly on Theo’s shoulder, gripping it hard. Silas did not speak, and the moment was fleeting, but the gesture gave Theo more comfort than any of the preparations he had overseen all day.
As dusk grew, the Slavic camp was closed and uneasy. Leontios had summoned Neboulos to his quarters for a conference. Theo and his men saw the Slav pass from a distance. Neboulos did not hail them, though, and they respected his privacy. The Slavic commander walked with a slow, bowed gait, as he had since Oppa’s whip cut him. Theo thought it was more than that, though. In recent days, all sounds of revelry had disappeared from the Slavic camp. They huddled behind their stone barricade in ominous, sullen stillness that reminded Theo of an ocean sky waiting upon a storm.
Theo had earned the rank of komes and commanded a detachment of three dromons. He captained one himself, with Silas kentarchos of another. Whenever Theo looked at the third kentarchos in his command, a man relatively new to his detachment, all he saw was the place where Leofric should stand, and he felt the now-familiar shame and loss.
When the strategos called a meeting, it was Theo, as komes, who attended. Leontios had commandeered the church that stood at the centre of the agora. Theo passed the lion fountains, touching the head of one as he did, a habit he had adopted from the local people. It felt smooth beneath his touch, still warm from the sun. The floor of the church had a mosaic pattern, which had been covered in sand to protect it from damage. Theo thought they might as well not have bothered. The church was so full of steel and armour he imagined the mosaic tiles beneath would be torn to shreds by the time it was done. Leontios sat on the lone chair in the church, the commanders of his forces standing about him.
Oppa stood close by the strategos’s chair. His eyes narrowed when they found Theo. For a brief moment the two stared at each other.
First, we win this. Theo answe
red the unasked question in the black eyes.
Oppa’s mouth curled. He lifted a shoulder in a careless gesture that sent a visceral fury coursing through Theo’s body, accompanied by a sudden urge to stride across the room and thrust his blade to its hilt in Oppa’s flesh. It was not the first time since he had signed the parchment that he had felt rage and frustration at the impossible choice Oppa had laid before him, the desire to lash out. But there was something about the knowing gleam in the dark eyes that sent a tremor of true unease through Theo. Then Leontios called them to attention, the moment was gone, and Theo moved to stand amongst the others of his rank, deliberately removing himself from Oppa’s line of sight.
“Do not get too excited,” muttered one of the other kometes as Theo moved into place. “Leontios’s strategy is best described as: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll win’.” Theo’s mouth twitched. He composed his features and kept his eyes away from Oppa. It would not do for any to know of their alliance. Battle was coming, and whether they won or lost it, Theo would give his men no additional reason to fear it.
“The cataphracts are ready,” Leontios began, nodding at the heavily armoured horsemen. “None can match our horse and armour. Our men are well trained. They have had months to accustom themselves to the terrain and are well placed to hold off any Arabic attack beyond the walls of the city. They are backed by the horse archers, our well-mounted friends from Spania led by our ally.” Oppa smiled in acknowledgement, inclining his head.
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 36