“Do not make excuses for me!” Theo pounded the stone with one hard fist.
“They are not excuses.” Yosef put a hand on his shoulder and forced Theo to turn. “Do you think I have not doubted?” Yosef gave a short laugh. “In the years since we parted, I have found allies amongst enemies and myself a stranger to my own people. Do not think I judge you, Theo.”
“But you no longer trust me,” said Theo flatly. It was not a question. “Though you do Athanais.”
“Athanais and I have business together that relates to the mission I left Spania to carry out. After we sail from here, I will share it with you. But before then, there is one thing I do know, and you must, also.” He gripped Theo’s shoulder. “Oppa has no allegiance to any but himself. He is more dangerous than the Arab army and more treasonous than any rebellion. We may not know where Spania’s future lies, Theo, but we know this: it cannot be allowed to fall into Oppa’s hands.”
The sounds of night pressed in upon them, and the hour of war grew close.
“When this battle is over,” said Theo roughly, “I must return to Spania, Yosef. I cannot stay away any longer.”
Yosef nodded. “I know,” he said quietly. “I know, Theo.”
“He has my name on his parchment.” Theo’s voice cracked. “I gave him Illiberis, Yosef. That cannot be undone. And Lælia will never forgive it.”
Yosef gripped his shoulder. “We will deal with it when we must,” he said. “We will manage it together.”
Theo shook his head. “I will not allow anyone else to suffer for my mistakes.” He drew himself up and met Yosef’s eyes. “When I return to Spania, I will go alone. You have no reason to land on those shores again. Go to Septem, to Ilyan, and manage your affairs from the safety of his court. Leave Spania, and Oppa, to me.” He turned to face the horizon, where a dirty dawn glimmered.
“Where are you going?” Yosef asked.
“To the Slavic camp.” Theo was already walking away. “I wronged a good man based on the whispers of a bad one. I do not deserve his forgiveness, but I hope he might heed my warning.”
Theo approached the Slavic camp whilst dawn was still a distant thread. He handed a coin to the boy on watch and settled against the wall. He did not wait long.
“You are lucky I do not drink as my brudders do. They are not yet abed.” Leofric shot Theo a bleary, resentful glance from an unshaven face. His swarthy features were tired and lined. “If you come for absolution, Spaniard, you waste your time.”
“I do not come seeking forgiveness,” said Theo quietly. “I come with a warning.”
“Oh?” Leofric’s eyes narrowed.
“Oppa has been negotiating with the Arabs,” said Theo without preamble. “I do not know the nature of the deal he has made with them, but I do know he is the architect of the division between Neboulos and Leontios.” He held Leofric’s eyes steadily. “Oppa does not just believe Sebastopolis will fall,” he said slowly. “He knows it will, which means he knows something we do not. I thought you should be aware of that, before you lead an army onto the field tomorrow behind his flag.”
“Why would he ride onto a field he plans to lose?” Leofric was regarding him beneath lowered brows, his arms folded and expression forbidding.
“I do not know.” Theo shook his head, frowning. “But ride he will, which should concern us all. I don’t know what game he plays, only that he plays it. Now you know too.” Theo turned to leave.
“Why tell me this?” Leofric said as Theo began to walk away. “Why not tell Neboulos?”
Theo paused but did not turn around. “Because,” he said, the words painful in his throat, “it is you who once stood beside me. I know the man you are. I betrayed your trust once. I would not see you betrayed again.” He began to walk away. “Tell Neboulos if you think it is right,” he said over his shoulder. “You know better than I, Leofric, what should be done. I leave the choice with you.”
“Where do you go now, Spaniard?” called Leofric after him.
“To a hell of my own making,” said Theo quietly. He walked along the path that led to Oppa’s tavern, unsure if Leofric had heard him or not.
46
Oppa
July, AD 692
Sebastopolis, Anatolia
Elauissa Sebaste, Cilicia, Turkey
The tavern was dark and shuttered against the growing dawn. Oppa sat in the gloom, pondering the day that was to come.
He had planned as well as he could, managed all that could be managed. He thought he knew how the day would go. But when it came to humans there were always unknowns, and in those grey areas, Oppa knew, plans could easily become unstuck.
Theo’s face passed before his eyes, and Oppa tensed. Theo, he knew, was yet a grey area. The contract would bind him whether they remained allies or not. Should the truth of Oppa’s role in Sebastopolis become known to Theo, however, Oppa knew the contract would be all that remained of their understanding. Time was short and the risk of discovery great. He thought once more of the dromons he had already sent on their way to Spania, and of the one that still waited for him to board – the one flying an Arabic flag in place of the Greek beside his own standard. Should Theo still be his ally at the end of today, he, too, would be aboard that dromon.
Oppa permitted himself a brief, tantalising vision of him and Theo sailing together toward Spania’s shores. Such moments were a luxury he rarely afforded himself, for Oppa knew better than any the pain of dashed hope. But still the dream clung, a golden world he may yet, should today unfold as he hoped, inhabit. He had wished Theo might choose to leave earlier, before all the pieces Oppa had carefully manoeuvred came so close to touching. But he had known, somehow, that it would come to this, the pieces resting dangerously against one another, at any moment jeopardising the entire game. So much rested on this one day.
He was startled from his thoughts by a heavy pounding at the door. He let it go for a moment, but then, when it showed no sign of abating, he called Nicalo to see who it was. His old companion shot him a baleful look as he went to the door. Nicalo had wanted to be gone many months past. He did not trust Theo, and he feared Oppa’s games. Nicalo was, Oppa knew, reaching the end of his usefulness. He had yet to decide just when that end would come. Then he heard the voice at the door, and Nicalo was forgotten.
“Fetch him.” Theo’s tone was curt, and a thrill of tension sang through Oppa’s veins. “Now.”
“You give orders freely, Aurariola, for a man who has sold his soul,” sneered Nicalo. A moment later, Oppa heard the sound of Nicalo being flung hard against the tavern wall.
“Fetch him,” snarled Theo. “Now.”
“There is no need for brute force, Theo.” Oppa stepped into the room, glad he had thought to dress in his finest robes. Theo released Nicalo and swung around, his eyes a hard, piercing green that held nothing of the clouded uncertainty Oppa had seen in their previous discussions.
“Nicalo,” said Oppa smoothly. “Leave us.” Nicalo, giving them both a resentful look, left.
“What deal have you made with Mohammed bin Marwan?” Theo demanded without preamble.
“Ah.” Oppa’s heart skipped, but his face, he was certain, betrayed nothing of his disquiet. “The Persian’s spies are better than I gave her credit for.” He watched Theo carefully, but the hard green eyes gave nothing away, the scarred face grim and inscrutable as it had ever been. Oppa would have given a great deal to know how Theo had come by his information. There had been a whisper that the Jew, Yosef, had slipped through the Arab lines into Sebastopolis. If that whisper held truth, matters were complicated indeed. Theo, though, did not comment, and eventually Oppa continued. “But you misjudge me, Theo, just as you once did your Slavic friend. Again, you see only lines rather than the shades between them.”
“The lines are clear.” Theo’s voice was flat and hard. “The Arabs are our enemy, whether here or in Spania. And you are dealing with them.” He searched Oppa’s face. “Why take the field against an enemy with
whom you also trade?” he asked, and Oppa heard the genuine puzzlement behind the question. “What can you possibly hope to win by so doing?”
“Ah.” Oppa kept his expression opaque. “Appearance is everything, Theo. And nothing is certain until it is won.”
Theo made an impatient noise. “You speak in riddles. If you plan to betray the men at your back, then do not take the field at all.”
It was time, Oppa realised reluctantly, to play his other hand. He raised his eyebrows politely. “I promised my father’s standard would ride upon that field, and it will. But do you truly believe the Arabs to be our enemy, Theo?”
Theo glared at him. “Today I and my men will face an Arabic army who want to kill us in battle. If the Arabs win, they are one step closer to Spania’s shores. You said yourself we cannot afford to allow them to gain another toehold. Yes, they are our enemy. What other truth is there?”
“Mohammed bin Marwan will take Sebastopolis,” said Oppa flatly. “You know it, Theo, just as I do. Do not pretend that you face today with the hope of victory in your heart. Your mind is already planning how you will reach Spania.”
The implacable features did not soften. “It is one thing to know Sebastopolis cannot stand,” said Theo. “It is quite another to actively plan its destruction with the same enemy you would have me believe we are allied against.”
“We are allied for Spania, Theo.” Oppa held his eyes, still feeling the tension of hope under his skin. “I told you once that you can never match me in the game of war. Since it became clear the treaty between emperor and caliph could not stand, I have had cause to reconsider who, or what, might best serve our homeland. The day may come, Theo, when being allied for Spania means reconsidering who our enemies are.”
Theo’s mouth curled contemptuously. “If that day comes,” he said softly, “you will no longer be fighting for Spania, Oppa Egicason. You will be fighting for power – as you have always done. As you do here, though I was too blind to see it.” He moved closer to Oppa, his eyes glittering like shards of green ice. “I came for your copy of our contract,” he said, fingering the sword at his hip. “Consider this conversation an end to our alliance.”
“You are angry.” Oppa regarded him evenly, not without effort. So much rested on this moment. “I understand your anger. I wish I could have confided in you regarding my conversations with our Arabic opponents, but it was not feasible. Surely you must see that?” He raised his eyebrows as if explaining a basic truth to a particularly slow student. “You are a man of honour, Theo. Men of honour need others to do the shadow work they themselves disdain. We do not need to like one another’s methods, but I believe we might yet work together. If you had been party to the same information I was, you would have felt compelled to share it with your leadership; and that, I am afraid, would have served nothing.”
“What information is that?” Theo ground out.
Oppa allowed a smile to play on his mouth. “If our alliance is at an end,” he said softly, “I would be a fool to tell you. And besides – should you take that field, you will discover for yourself soon enough.”
The first light crept through the window. “We do not have time for this,” Theo growled. “Give me the contract and let us be done.”
“You know I will not do that,” said Oppa quietly. “You knew that before you came.”
There was a pause, and a momentary shadow of something that might have been regret crossed the scarred face. “I had hoped,” Theo said slowly, “that at least some of what you said was the truth. That you were not entirely lost to honour.”
Seized by a sudden, visceral anger, Oppa moved with lethal swiftness, close enough to touch the gnarled runnels his whip had once carved into Theo’s face. “I meant every word I said to you,” Oppa said fiercely. “Soon Spania will face the Arabs. There is no man that I would rather have beside me when that day comes than you, Theo. Whether we receive them as friends and equals or face them on a battlefield, I would face them beside you.” Despite his effort at control, Oppa heard the longing in his voice, and, tasting the acid burn of humiliation, cursed his weakness. He drew a deep breath and fought to keep what he felt from showing on his face.
Theo regarded him with a scrutiny that sliced brutally through his effort at concealment. “A wise friend,” Theo said slowly, “once told me that all a man has, in war and in life, is the man at his side.” His eyes bored into Oppa’s. “I have lately come to learn the truth of those words. It is a lesson that has made me choose carefully those whom I stand beside. You are right,” he went on. “I knew you would not relinquish the contract, though I hoped.” His mouth twisted. “I truly did hope. But your refusal has made it easier to say now what I must.” Theo leaned close to Oppa. “Spania may indeed soon face an Arab army. Perhaps it is even possible that one day the Arabs must be dealt with as allies, not enemies, for we have both seen enough of war to know such things are possible. But alliances are the result of negotiations made in the open, where all can see. They are not contrived in a sordid tavern, over the bodies of whores, with blackmail and stealth, by stealing from one and deceiving the other. I would never see the Spania I know traded as if it were no more than a plaything. The Spania I fight for is a country you have never known, for it exists only in the hearts of men who believe in it; and you, I know now, do not possess such a heart.”
Anger gripped Oppa as Theo stepped back from him, the hard contempt on the other’s face more cutting than any sword on his flesh could ever be. “I will never stand beside you, Oppa Egicason,” said Theo coldly. “You may wave that parchment at whomever you choose. You may take my land and my title and throw your father’s might at Illiberis. I will fight for both until my body can fight no more – just as I know Lælia will.”
In the charged silence that followed his words, Oppa felt the air between them shift, taking with it the golden dream that had glimmered in his subconscious for years now, the alliance he had barely dared allow himself to believe in. The fragile threads of that alliance fell away cleanly as if a knife had sliced them through, and in the shearing away of the hope they had offered, Oppa felt a strange, almost welcome relief. The cut threads twisted and snarled into the tangled knot of enmity once more, one made more dangerous than their former hatred had ever been by the corrosion of failed hope.
Darkness deepened behind Oppa’s eyes, and he saw its answering shadow on Theo’s ravaged face.
“You will never leave these shores without my help,” said Oppa coldly.
Theo’s eyes gleamed. “You of all men should know I have a knack for escape. And you will not kill me. If you do,” he said, “that contract you hold will be worth nothing. I am more valuable to you alive. So know this: where you go, you will find me. And enjoy the feel of that parchment in your hand whilst you still may. It will mean nothing at all when my sword slits your throat.”
A queer thrill rippled through Oppa’s body. “If you are so eager to see me dead,” Oppa said, smiling silkily at him, “why not take your chance upon it now?”
Theo’s mouth twisted. “You and I both know there are a dozen men listening to every word of this conversation who would never let me leave this room. I have been your prisoner once, Oppa Egicason. I will never be so again.” He smiled grimly. “Besides, I have men who depend upon me to lead them into battle today. Unlike you, I will not betray them.”
Oppa’s eyes narrowed. “You had best hope to die upon that battlefield, Aurariola. For should we both live to return to Spania, you know as well as I that such a betrayal will be the least of your concerns.”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Then the door opened, and Theo was gone.
47
Lælia
July, AD 692
Illiberis, Spania
Granada, Spain
The men who had arrived with Theodefred had been camped in Illiberis for a quarter moon, and yet still Paulus did not ride north. “They came to fight,” Lælia said abruptly one evening as they sat
to meat. The heat of the day had been stifling. Even late into darkness the night felt close and hot. “Why do you wait here? For what?”
Paulus stabbed the meat before him and glared at her. “You do not lead the Illiberis thiufae yet, child.” Acantha, who had taken to eating an occasional meal with them, suppressed a smile that served only to deepen Paulus’s frown.
“No.” Unmoved by his anger, Lælia ate calmly. “But you have taught me to ask when I don’t understand. And I don’t understand this delay. Messengers tell us daily that Sunifred does not have enough forces to hold Toletum. When Egica returns from his battles in the north, the rebellion will fail, and we will undoubtedly be condemned as traitors whether we fought at Sunifred’s side or not. Why not fight, if we are to be damned anyway?”
Paulus came to his feet in an agitated push. Stalking away from the table, he stared out of the lattice window, through which floated the sounds of the encamped men, raucous with wine.
“The men grow restless,” said Lælia quietly.
“Do you think I need your instruction on the perils of a thiufa with no war?” Paulus snarled with his back turned. A long silence ensued, during which Lælia looked at Acantha, and her grandmother gave an imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.
“I have written to Suinthila,” said Paulus finally.
“Suinthila?” Lælia was taken aback. “I had thought him abed, close to death even.” She remembered Suinthila as she had last seen him, white faced and devastated in the Toletum court as Alaric had walked away from his father, choosing to follow Sunifred’s rebellion over Suinthila’s diplomacy. “Why do you write to him now?”
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 38