Theo gripped his arm, his touch saying what he did not trust his voice to. “We cannot take them,” he said instead, his tone rough. “I have asked every merchant on the docks – even offered them coin, though we have little between us – but they have all been bought.”
“I have bought the services of that dromon.” Yosef nodded at the largest of the merchant ships, a wide, flat-bottomed vessel. “And loaded it with cargo. What space is left will go first to Athanais’s girls and then to any others we can fit aboard.” His eyes met Theo’s. “But it will leave now, not after the battle.”
Theo stared at him, questions swirling in his mind with no time to have them answered. “Where is Athanais? Elpis?”
“Elpis I have not seen. Athanais, though, will not be joining us.” As Theo barked brief orders to his men to load as many as they could onto the dromon, Yosef took him aside, out of earshot. “She left last night, by an overland route, under protection of those loyal to Apsimar. She must travel to Constantinople, on business I can trust to no other and that cannot wait. She asked me to bid you farewell and said that she will see you again – in time. She entrusted the care of her girls to me – to us.”
Theo looked at him. “Us? Then you will sail with me when this is done?”
“If we do not board that dromon now, Theo, we may not sail at all.”
When Theo did not answer, Yosef gave him the ghost of a smile. “If we live,” he said, “then, yes, Theo, we will return together.”
“Return?” Silas shifted dark eyes to Theo. “What is it that you plan now, wenkai?”
“You need worry only for what I plan today,” Theo said. “If we survive that, where I go will no longer be your concern.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed as he looked between Theo and Yosef. “To Spania, is it, that we sail now?”
“Not you,” Theo said bluntly. “You were right, Silas, just as Leofric was. It was Oppa behind the missing coin. The price of my mistake is one I will pay for the rest of my life – but I will not allow any other to pay it with me. After this day is done, I must find a way back to Spania, for if Oppa is not on that field, then even now he sails for home.” He held Silas’s eyes. “This is not your fight,” he said quietly. “You will not travel at my side.”
Silas stood with his arms folded silently for a long moment, then he made a rough noise. “Ho!” He gave a low cough of laughter, gripping his sword hilt. “And is it your place, now, to tell a man which fight to choose?” He clapped Theo roughly on his shoulder, his eyes saying what his words did not. His eyes rested doubtfully on Yosef, taking in the rich merchant’s robes and urbane appearance. “You, however, should perhaps reconsider your decision.” He tilted his head at Theo. “Where this one leads, trouble usually follows.”
“If you do not cease talking,” said Yosef dryly, “trouble will already be here.”
“Theo!” Sanyi’s shout returned Theo to the chaos around them. The docks were a swarm of panicked townspeople rushing from dromon to dromon, begging for help to escape the city. Theo’s men, grim faced, were boarding all they could onto the merchant dromon, holding others off their own dromons with lance and spear. The crowds pushed at them dangerously. “Take ten good men and ride to the walls,” Sanyi called to Theo. “No messenger has returned. We cannot hold them off much longer. I do not know if we are making ready to sail or staying to fight. Go.”
Theo was turning for his horse when a long wail rose from somewhere in the city and Ergan tumbled to a stop beside them, breathing heavily. Theo grasped his arms and the boy looked up at him, his face pale. “The Spanish bastard is not there,” he said. “I saw a man wearing his armour, riding under the Spanish standard, but he fell and his helmet came off, and it was not the bastard. It was an Arab.” Theo felt the blood drain from his face. Behind him Silas swore quietly. “But that is not important, not now!” Ergan went on, fear in his voice. “The Slavs,” he said. “They have turned. They have betrayed us. They have joined the Arabs.”
As he finished speaking, from the western end of the wall came the sound of hoofbeats. A small contingent of Slavs swept around the corner, Neboulos at their head. He was covered in blood, his horse blown and enraged. Ergan scurried away as Sanyi and Theo’s men drew their swords, grim faced.
“Hold.” Theo’s voice was steady. “If they come here, it is not Neboulos who betrays us.” He faced Neboulos’s approach with a wide-legged stance, his hands clearly free of weapons. Theo’s heart jolted as he recognised Leofric’s swarthy, blood-covered figure at the commander’s side.
Neboulos rode directly to them, reining abruptly in front of Theo. “I did all I could,” he said thickly, leaning from his horse. “But I was too late. I’ve lost them. My army have joined the Arabs. They ride for the walls now, slaughtering everything in their path. Every man, woman, and child who remains in the city is as good as dead.”
“You knew!” said Sanyi angrily. “You knew they planned this, and still you did nothing to prevent it!”
Leofric spun his horse and swept the tourmarchai aside with one heavy, brutal blow. “Neboulos did everything to prevent this!” He leaped to the ground, glaring at Sanyi. “My brudders would have turned months ago, or weeks, at least, if not for Neboulos. But he held them, and he might have prevailed still.” He shook his head. “Your warning was welcome, schnecke,” he said, meeting Theo’s eyes. “It just came too late.”
Neboulos turned to Theo, his face black with rage and his accent thickening. “Oppa, that bastard son of whore, never even took the field. He sent imposters to ride on his Spanish horses under his own banner. And it seems he’d already bought half of my army. It did not take much after they turned for the rest to either betray us or run. I’d lost them before we ever set foot on the field this morning.” He glanced darkly around. “There are those who are still unaccounted for. Some at least will be coming for your dromons, Theo. They, too, seek to escape this damned port.”
But Theo was not listening. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Where is Oppa?”
“Does it matter?” Neboulos looked around at the milling chaos on the docks. “It is lost.”
A small hand tugged at Theo’s sleeve. He frowned when he saw Ergan, pale and trembling. “What are you doing here? You should be aboard, preparing to leave.”
“It’s Pelagia.” Ergan’s eyes were wide. “The bastard’s men have taken her, and they say he has her sister too.”
Theo thought of Pelagia’s impish smile, then of Oppa fingering his whip. He felt something cold grip his heart.
“Theo!” Sanyi was already moving away. “We have no time for this. Ready your men. We sail now.” He nodded at Neboulos. “I wish you well,” he muttered, but he did not offer to board the Slavs.
Neboulos’s face tightened, but he did not look surprised. He glanced briefly at Leofric’s burly figure. “Mount up. We ride.” He nodded to Theo as he turned his horse. “I wish you well,” he said.
“Go,” said Theo curtly to his men as he returned Neboulos’s nod. “Follow Sanyi’s orders.”
“What of you?” asked one of them, frowning at him.
“Board as many as you can,” said Theo, ignoring the question. He glared at the man. “Go! And do not wait for me, or any man who rides with me.” He turned to find Leofric still standing there, looking after Neboulos’s retreating figure. “You should go,” Theo said curtly. “You might still make it to safety.”
Leofric eyed him. “You owe me a wine flask,” he said gruffly.
“A new one would serve you better.” Theo threw him the flask. “Go with Neboulos, Leofric.”
“Ah.” Leofric shrugged. “A man gets used to his wine a certain way.”
“I do not sail with the fleet.”
“I know that.” Leofric wiped the blood from his sword and thrust it through his belt. “You told me it was my choice,” he said quietly. “This is me making it, schnecke.”
Theo’s mouth tightened. He turned to the boy at his side. “Ergan,” he said r
oughly. “Where have Pelagia and her sister been taken?”
“The people who ran from the walls told me they saw the men carrying Pelagia toward the old ruins.” Ergan glanced fearfully at the crowd swarming down the hill.
“Good lad.” Theo released him. “Run for the dromon,” he said. “Go, now.” He reached for his horse, glancing at Yosef. “I know where he will be,” he said.
“No, wenkai!” Silas grasped Theo’s arm, his face dark. “Oppa does this knowing you will come. He plays you like a balladeer plays the strings! Every time he whistles, you run precisely where he wishes you to be. Leave the girls, Theo, no matter how hard it might be.”
Theo met Silas’s eyes. “No,” he said simply. He glanced at Yosef, who nodded and mounted up as Theo did.
“You!” Leofric said, glaring at Silas. “I leave the schnecke in your charge, African, and this is what you do? Have you not learned that Jew brings trouble wherever he goes?”
Silas gave him a sideways glance. “But then, he brings dromons and coin too, and that is more than you ever have, Slav.”
Leofric snorted.
Silas looked at Theo. “We must hurry. The walls will soon fall.”
“Is typical,” said Leofric resignedly, swinging himself onto his horse. “The women sail away whilst we ride toward a battle we cannot win.”
Still Theo hesitated. “When today is done,” he said, “Yosef and I return to Spania. If you both leave now you may still remain with the fleet.”
Leofric snorted again and rolled his eyes at Silas. “And now he thinks he can fight without us? It seems he is even more stupid than when I left.” Without waiting for an answer, he spurred forward, and despite the chaos around him, Theo knew a moment of fierce, painful joy in the Slav’s rough presence at his side once more.
They forced their horses against the panicked tide of humanity that poured down the hill and past the agora where people ransacked the market stalls, taking what they could carry. Theo saw a group of villagers leaving the church, carrying the tabernacle between them. Theo and his men rode hard through the streets, occasionally knocking people out of the way. They turned past the old theatre and up to where the abandoned walls stood.
“Run!” a wild-eyed woman called to them as they rode past her. “They are coming! The Arabs are coming!”
Theo leaped from his horse and flung the reins to one of his men. He, Silas, and Leofric scrambled to the top of the defence. The scene below them was one of carnage.
Barely a thousand men of the emperor’s force remained standing before the walls. They fought in a narrowing circle, the Arabs closing in around them, the Slavs fighting those who would have approached from the wings. Leontios himself had turned in an attempt to flee. Surrounded by his closest guard, he was hacking a pathway through the Slavs to the narrow trail leading down to the harbour. As Theo watched, he cut through the last of them, disappearing from sight.
“Cowardly bastard.” Leofric spat into the dirt contemptuously. But Theo was no longer focused on the strategos. He was looking uphill, beyond the battle, to the ruins high above.
“Wenkai.” Silas tugged Theo’s arm. He looked back over his shoulder to see the merchant’s dromon sailing out of the harbour, surrounded by dromons of the fleet that belched fire onto the docks where Slavic soldiers hacked their way through the crowds, trying to board those left. “The Slavs who did not betray us, trying to escape,” said Silas sadly, watching them. “They are as dead as any other now.” Even as they watched, the Slavs fell, screaming, beneath fire from the dromons. They stared in silence for a moment, watching as the fleet slowly pulled clear of the shore.
“Come,” said Theo, turning back to the battle and casting a wary eye on the approaching forces below. “We have to ride before the battle enters the city proper.”
They rode clear of the walls and up the rugged tracks that led away from the port. “Oppa will have men,” Theo said, reining in when they were clear. “Many of them. We cannot simply attack the place where he holds them. He will be prepared for that.”
“I have some men who can help us,” said Yosef. “I can fetch them, but you will need to buy me some time.”
Theo saw Leofric and Silas exchange a glance. “This is no place for merchants,” said Leofric finally, glaring at Yosef. “If coin and dromon you have, Jew, you should leave.”
“Oppa has taken more from me than you could ever imagine. I will not ride away.” Yosef’s grim expression softened marginally. “Though, of course, my merchants and I shall rely upon you to do the fighting, my estimable Slavic friend.”
Leofric gave Yosef his most savage glare. When the other regarded him with little more than faint amusement, he rolled his eyes. “All I ask,” he said resignedly, “is that you do not get in the way of my sword.”
Yosef nodded politely. “I shall endeavour to be no hindrance.”
“I will give you as much time as I may,” Theo said. “And wait for my signal before you attack, Yosef. Oppa will have men hidden, I know it.”
“Then you will need decoys, also,” came Silas’s calm voice. “He will not believe you attack alone.”
“And I suppose,” said Leofric resignedly, “that this is the part you plan for us, African.”
Theo crept toward the low, arched wall that guarded the ruins atop the hill. He heard the sound of voices and crouched low, listening.
“We will wait.” He heard Oppa’s voice, clipped and tense. “He will come, for me if not for the girls. If he wishes to have a life to return to, he cannot afford either to reach Spanish shores.”
“And we cannot afford to wait. We must leave now. There are many who wish us dead – not least Aurariola.” Theo recognised the voice as belonging to Nicalo, the surly-faced Spanish nobleman who had once held Lælia captive in the woods. Theo’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. “If he comes, it will be to kill you, not talk. You know it as well as I.”
“Perhaps.” Oppa’s voice was cold. “But he is also desperate to return to Spania, and he no longer has dromons in which to sail.”
“We must hope that we still do. Your dealings with the Slavs have made us dependent on the Arabs now. If they let us down –”
Oppa gave a hard laugh. “The Arabs owe me much.” Theo heard the snap of Oppa’s whip. It was, he thought, a sound he would know anywhere, a reminder of past humiliation that turned his tension to a cold, hard resolve. “I have delivered the Slavs to Marwan,” Oppa went on. “Given him an undefended port, the most strategic in all of Anatolia. My dromons are guarded by Marwan’s own men. We will be gone before sunup tomorrow, and I will return to Spania with a parchment in Aurariola’s own hand, and chests of both Arabic and Greek gold. Enough to buy what is needed if it cannot be won.”
“If Aurariola should return to Spania alive, and as an enemy, we are doomed, you and I.” Nicalo’s voice was fearful.
“As you have repeatedly reminded me. You become tedious, Nicalo,” Oppa said contemptuously. “Aurariola will return to Spania in my company. He will return as my guest, or as my captive – or as an unfortunate corpse.”
Theo smiled grimly and crept over the crumbling stone, flattening himself against the wall and peering into the room.
Pelagia and Elpis were tied to chairs. Oppa stood staring at Pelagia, fingering his whip, his back to Theo. He saw the hard set of Oppa’s shoulders and felt an answering tension. He had seen that stance before. Oppa was dangerous in this mood.
Where are the rest of his men? Theo thought. How many are in the villa? Theo could see only Nicalo and Oppa, but he was certain Oppa would not endanger himself by luring him here without backup. Silas and Leofric would take care of the guards placed strategically around the hilltop, but they were some way distant, and Theo had seen no others on his way in. That, though, Theo knew, meant nothing. He eased back from the wall and slid through the ruins and rocks, feet soundless on the broken stone. Far below, the battle raged, screams echoing up the hillside. The villagers were dying, and he could
smell the port burning.
He found only two horses, tied beyond the ruins. It feels wrong, he thought. There are others here; there must be. Then Pelagia screamed, a high, thin sound, and he knew that no matter what danger he walked into, he could no longer hesitate.
Theo heard the whip before he reached the door, the crude hum of the ropes as they cut the air. The sound roiled his gut.
Pelagia’s eyes widened when she saw Theo move into the room. Then he saw alarm creep into them and knew he had been right – there was something he had missed. Then Nicalo was coming for him, and he had no time to consider what it might be.
He met the burly man with a cold, hard rage, the memory of Nicalo’s crimes making his arm fast, ruthless, and lethal. It was not a pretty killing. Theo’s knife flashed across his neck and blood sprayed over the broken tile, then the heavy body slumped unceremoniously to the floor, where it twitched a few times before lying still. Theo stood over the body, staring at Oppa with hard eyes. “You should take better care of your friends.”
Oppa smiled at him, fingering the whip. “On the contrary,” said Oppa lightly. “You did me a service. Nicalo had served his purpose. In Spania, he would have been a liability.”
Theo eyed him contemptuously. “He knew too much.”
“Just so.” Oppa’s tone was careless, but there was a dark light of anticipation in his eyes. Theo was aware of every inch of the room. It was empty, but something was wrong, and he could not fathom what it was. Elpis and Pelagia, both bound and gagged, stared at him from their chairs with pleading eyes. Pelagia’s darted about wildly, as if trying to speak to him, but Theo could not make out her meaning.
“Let them go,” he said. “It’s me you want, and I came. There’s no need to hurt them.”
“But that is where you are wrong.” Oppa’s eyes were cold. “I have not got what I want. I had time to think after you left me last night. I had intended to sail without seeing you again. Another part of me would like nothing better than to see you bleed on this floor. But upon consideration, Theudemir, I have decided it will serve me infinitely better if you reconsider your position and return as my ally.”
The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2) Page 40