The Shadow of Ararat (20 page)

The creak of the door and a flood of blue-white light into the room interrupted further ruminations. Squinting and raising a hand to shield his eyes, Dwyrin quailed to see that the figure outlined in that harsh glare could only be the dead man.

"Come, my young friend, dinner is set upon the table." The half-hidden mockery present in that dust-dry voice did nothing to assuage Dwyrin's fears. Still, there was nothing else to be done at the moment. Wearily, for his body seemed very weak, he levered himself off of the bed and crouched down to crawl out of the tiny space. Beyond, a cabin held a table bolted to the floor, a profusion of carpets and bric-a-brac, two chairs, and a number of plates and bowls. The smell of dinner slithered across the Hibernian like a snake, the prospect of food twisting his stomach but the subtle smell of carrion clogged his throat. Dwyrin took the smaller of the two seats gingerly, clinging to the side of the table as the ship rolled a little.

Even as the Hibernian seated himself, the dead man was already composed in his larger chair. A spidery hand lifted a pale-white bowl and drew back a cloth laid over it, offering it to Dwyrin.

"Bread?" the voice whispered from its bone-filled well. "You should start easy, do not take too much at once." The bowl was placed at the side of the platter in front of Dwyrin. The boy took a piece of one of the cut-up loaves. It looked and smelled like way-bread, heavy and solid. It was not fresh. He bit at it gingerly, his tongue checking for the small fragments of stone that often survived the sifting at the end of the milling process. The bread was nine or ten days old, but still it was edible. He chewed slowly. His host watched him with interest.

"You may call me Khiron," said the dead man, drawing a bronze goblet toward him. "You are my or, rather, my master's property. You seem an intelligent youth, the more so for having spent time in one of the myriad Egyptian schools." The thin black line of an eyebrow quirked up at Dwyrin's sullen gaze. "The signs upon you are quite unmistakable, you know. The calluses of the fingers, caused by a reed pen. The inkstains on the same hands, obviously of an Egyptian source. The meditations that you summon to calm yourself, to try to exert your will over the hidden world. All of these things point to such a conclusion."

Dwyrin did not respond, continuing to slowly chew the bread. Khiron looked away for a moment, his thoughts composing themselves. His profile was that of a hawk, with a sharp nose and deeply hooded eyes. For all his appearance, however, Dwyrin was unaccountably sure that he was not Egyptian. With his othersight gone, Dwyrin had to look very closely to see any of the signs that had convinced him before that this creature was a dead man. The skin was pale, but not with the chalky texture and graininess that it had shown in his true-sight. The long dark hair, lank and a little oily, still hung down from his shoulders, but now it did not coil with the glowing worms of power that it had before. His dark eyes were still pools of vitriol, but now they did not swim with living darkness. In his lips, there was the slightest trace of a rose blush. Then the creature smiled at him, and Dwyrin shuddered to see the pure malice and hatred in the thing for him, a living being.

"We will be in the great city in another three days," Khiron said, "and my master will take you into his House. You will be well cared for there. You shall not want for food, or drink, or attention of any kind." The dead man leaned a little closer over the table. "But you will not have your precious freedom, though you may walk freely in the city. No, the master will be delighted to add you to his collection." Khiron drank again from the goblet, and Dwyrin felt a chill settle over him as the touch of rose in the dead man's lips flushed and began to spread into his cheeks.

"Eat and drink my young friend, there is more than enough for both of us. Delos is always most accommodating in providing me with provisions." Now the creature laughed. The sound was like babies' skulls being crushed between iron fingers, one by one.

Dwyrin continued to chew the bread.

The ship rolled up over another swell, its sails filled with a southern wind. North it drove, through a dark sea, its oars shipped, only the hands of dead men upon the tiller.

Thyatis stood on the bow of the
Mikitis
, the north wind in her face, her hair, loose, streaming behind her in a gold cloud. Though the wind off of the Sea of Darkness was chill, the Aegean sun was hot, and she had stripped down to a short leather vest and a thigh-high skirt. Her normally fair skin had bronzed under the
Mare Internum
sun, and she ignored the sidelong glances of the ship's crew as she had for the three weeks of their journey from Ostia. Nikos was watching her back, a silent presence on the foredeck where he sat, sharpening one of his many knives. Like a knife itself, the sleek merchantman that the Duchess retained for her "work" sliced through the deep-blue waters of the Propontis. Around her the narrow sea was broad and open, its waves gentle. Before her, between twin dikes run out from the towering walls of the capital of the Eastern Empire, the military harbor was a great confusion of sails, masts, ships, and longboats.

The
Mikitis
banked over and the crew ran to furl the main sail. The steering oars bit the water, and the ship shivered as the captain lined up to pass between the two hulking towers that stood watch on the entrance to the harbor. Beyond the profusion of sails and rigging, the granite walls of Constantinople rose up: height upon height topped with sharp-toothed crenellations and the jutting shapes of massive towers. Even from the deck of the ship, one hand holding easily to the forward guy-line, Thyatis felt the brooding power of the fortresses. Beyond them she knew from the Duchess's notes, a thriving city of close to two million souls bustled about its daily business. All this despite the six-month-old siege by the Avar barbarians and their Slavic and Gepid allies. Coming up the Propontis the signs of the nomads had been clear on the northern shore—burned-out farms and distant pillars of smoke. Now the
Mikitis
entered the harbor and the walls loomed even greater above her.

With a practiced eye, she surveyed the flotillas of short-oared galleys, crimson sails furled, drawn up on the slips of the harbor, their bronze beaked prows gleaming in the afternoon sun. Hundreds of merchantmen crowded the harbor as well, swarming with sailors, laborers, and a vast confusion of supplies, materiel, and men. Under the aegis of the walls, the wind died and the sailors aboard the
Mikitis
unshipped the long oars. The splashing of their first strokes was overborne by the sudden beat of a deep-voiced drum. Thyatis swung around on her perch and saw one of the galleys nose out of a shed built on the western rim of the harbor. Like a great hunting cat, it surged forth from concealment, a hundred oars on each side flashing in the sun like a thicket of spears. The drum beat a sharp tattoo and the ship leapt ahead as the oars, rising and falling as one, cut into the water.

The galley strode across the low chop of the harbor like a great water spider, each beat of the drum a stroke. The wicked shape, the glaring eyes on the prow, the unison of the rowers brought a lump to Thyatis' throat.
To command such a creature of war!
she exulted.
To be like a god, speeding across the waters...
In too few moments the galley had crabbed out of the harbor and into the open waters of the Propontis. Sadly she gazed after it.

Within the half hour the
Mikitis
had slid into its assigned space at dock, and Nikos and the other men in Thyatis' command were unloading all of their gear with practiced ease and speed. Thyatis had changed back into her nondescript garb, with the voluminous hood of her heavy cloak brought up, though now she had added a shirt of closely woven iron links underneath her other garb. The weight on her torso, and the close feeling of the padded cotton doublet that underlay it, gave her a comfortable feeling. Now that they were on land, she rationalized that its weight would not be a detriment. Besides, this was an unknown city—at least to her, though Nikos had been here before—and that meant it was more than usually dangerous. She moved through the crowd of men, speaking to them individually, double-checking that no one had forgotten anything.

Finishing her inspection brought her to the landward end of the dock and a young Imperial officer in a light boiled leather cuirass, a red cloak, and strapped leather boots. He wore a short fringe of beard in the eastern manner, though his hair was cropped short. He was peering down the dock while fidgeting nervously. A message pouch was slung over his shoulder and a bored-looking horse was tied up to a post on the dockside.

"Can I help you?" asked Thyatis, guessing that he had to be their guide into the city.

"Ah, well, perhaps... I'm looking for the centurion commanding this, ah, detachment. I have orders for him as well as quarters for his men." He continued to peer past her, though she had moved to place herself directly in front of him. He suddenly turned to her, apparently seeing her for the first time. "Do you know which one he is? They all look kind of, well, scruffy."

Thyatis smiled and pulled a leather orders pouch from one of the pockets on the inside of her cape. She handed it to him, flipping back the waxed cover. The sun flashed for a moment on the Imperial Seal and the smaller, though no less ornate, blazon of the house of de'Orelio.

"We all look scruffy.
Optimate
, it's our job. I'm the centurion in command, Thyatis Julia Clodia."

The
optimate
stared at her, the mill wheels in his head obviously jammed for the moment. His mouth opened, then closed. Then he shook his head and made a short salute. "My pardon, lady, my brief did not include the gender of the commander. I apologize for any insult I may have given."

Thyatis looked him up and down for a moment, then shook her head. "I'm not in the mood for a duel today, and getting to quarters sounds pretty good. I've got twelve men instead of ten, will that be a problem?"

The
optimate
shook his head, relieved to have avoided a problem with the odd-looking Western officer. His tribune had taken great pains to impress upon him the necessity of keeping a steady ship with all the new crew aboard. Getting on the wrong side of a "special" unit was a quick way back to the farm with his head on a platter. He looked over the Western crew as they hauled what seemed to be an inordinate amount of kit up to the end of the dock. Their appearance did nothing to allay his sinking feeling that the junior officer had gotten the biggest hassle in this muster. None of the men was well kept at all; their beards were straggly or far too long. Their clothes were a jumble of rag pickings and armor, without any semblance of uniform. All of them had a villainous look, none more so than a quartet of short, bandy-legged men with long mustaches and slanting eyes. With a start the
optimate
realized that they were Huns, or at least Sarmatians.

Looking around, he realized that there was a serious problem. He turned partially away from the crew standing around behind the young woman, gesturing for her attention.

"Milady, I'm afraid that I was told that this was an infantry detachment—I didn't think to bring any horse transport, or wagons, and your men have far too much to carry. Can I beg your indulgence to wait here for an hour or so while I round up something to carry your gear in?"

Thyatis tugged at one ear, glancing back over her shoulder at Nikos, who drifted toward them in his customary, silent manner.

"Well..." she said, dragging it out, "all this kit is awfully heavy to carry. I wouldn't want to wear my men out, they have too much drinking and wenching to do later."

She gently took the
optimate
by his elbow, her thumb digging into the pressure point behind it just enough to get his attention. Then she leaned close and whispered into his ear. "My men and I can carry this gear twenty miles in the hot sun without animals. Your city is barely two miles across. I think that we can make it. Now, if you're too busy to give us directions, I'll just let them follow their noses—they do have an instinct for finding someplace to stay, whether the locals like it or not."

The
optimate
did not flinch, which bought him a point of favor with Nikos, who had come up on his other side. The Greek idly removed the orders from the waxed leather pouch at the young under-officer's side and began leafing through them.

"Ah... milady," the
optimate
said, struggling to keep his voice even, "you misunderstand. My orders are to give you and your men all assistance in getting to your quarters and you to the staff meeting this evening. If you want to walk all the way to the..."

"...Palace of Justinian," Nikos said, finishing his sentence. "The royal treatment, as it were."

Thyatis grimaced at her second.

"What is it now," she said, "a prison? Fallen down in ruins? They're not going to put us up in a palace, for Hermes' sake." Nikos grinned and passed her the orders tablet. She read it over and shook her head in amazement, handing it back to him. The
optimate
sighed in relief as she let go of his elbow.

"We'd really better walk then," Thyatis said with a resigned tone in her voice. "Best to get everyone settled down before they start breaking things."

Martius Galen Atreus, Augustus Caesar Occidens, stood in the window embrasure of the suite of rooms that he occupied while in the Eastern capital. From the third floor of the Palace of Justinian, now commonly referred to as the "Other Palace," he could see out over the rooftops of the Imperial precincts. The bulk of the "Great" Palace loomed almost due north, blotting out the skyline save for, beyond it in turn, the huge dome of the Temple of Sol Invictus. To the west the gardens filled the space between Justinian's old brickwork palace and the rising wall of the Hippodrome. Beyond that the city, a vast teeming hive of people, three-, four-, and five-story apartment buildings, forums crowded with merchants, the great Mile Stone, and the rest of the sprawl of the Eastern capital. Leaning against the sill, Galen was stricken by an unaccustomed despair. By the count of his secretaries the precincts of the Constantinople held almost as many people as lived in Rome, Ostia, and their surrounding provinces. The plague had devastated Italy, but it seemed to have barely touched the East.