The Shadow of Ararat (66 page)

She patted Jusuf on the arm and hand-signed that he should lead. The Bulgar nodded and crept off down the tunnel along a narrow ledge. The main body of the tunnel was filled with a gurgling stream of dark water, its surface clogged with a thick crust. The smell was truly horrible here, but Thyatis closed her nostrils and followed Jusuf. Soon she would be able to breathe easily again.

Her Bulgars crowded into the little attic that Thyatis had been living in for the past week. The house was a big one. The lower floors were crammed with the Boar's Immortals, who had been billeted in the Armenian quarter. The owners had been forced to move upstairs into a partially completed floor and the attic. The Persians downstairs spent most of their time drinking and carousing, so the gradual disappearance of the original family and their replacement by Thyatis, the Bulgars, and Bagratuni's cousins had gone unremarked. There was a new entrance, broken through a wall of stiff-fired bricks, from the rooftop into the attic. Thyatis and her men moved mostly by night, save for the activities of the nominal owners.

The ceiling was low and crossed with beams made from unfinished logs. Thyatis squatted at one end near a small circular window that allowed some breath of air to enter the stifling room. Outside, the sun was setting and the Bulgars were rousing themselves for the night's work.

Thyatis scratched a map in the dust of the floor. "...the prisoner is in the building on the other side of the garden. I intend to get him out, alive, before anything happens to him. Unfortunately, he is privy to my Emperor's wishes, and if they break him, then the jig will be up for all of us."

Jusuf sighed and leaned a little toward his brother Dahvos, who was squeezed in beside him. "See?" the taciturn Bulgar said in a wry tone. "She
will
get us all killed..."

Sahul spared a short glare for his brother, then spread his hands to Thyatis.

"So," Thyatis continued, "I have a plan to get him out, alive, without—if the gods smile on us—anyone noticing."

Thyatis laughed at the sour expression on Jusuf's face.

She expected disbelief from them. She had conceived the plan during the hours she spent lying on the rooftop opposite the old palace. It had a very low chance of complete success, but she repressed her dreadful urge to attack the palace from the square and slaughter everyone within. By Bagratuni's latest count, there were nearly two thousand Immortals in the city, and she counted only twelve men to her hand.

"There are three things that we need to make this work, however, and all three will be difficult to acquire. First, we need to know the layout of the inner building. Bagratuni?"

The dapper little Armenian shrugged and then scratched his nose in sorrow. "Lady Roman, my cousin's sister's daughter risked plenty to bring us word that a Roman was held in prison! If we ask her for more, her nerve will fail. She is young and not as strong-willed as my cousin's sister." He paused, thinking.

"Maybe," he said slowly, "we could find a guard or servant, and bribe or threaten them...?"

Thyatis shook her head. "No, there isn't enough time to find one who is weak enough to take a bribe and malleable enough to keep from getting greedy or betraying us to his superiors. We need to move within the next four days." She sighed. Without some idea of the guards and rooms, the chance of success dwindled to almost nothing.

"How tall," she said, "is your cousin's sister's daughter? Does she wear a veil when she is in the building?"

Bagratuni smiled lopsidedly and shook his head in negation. "She is almost a foot shorter than you, Roman lady. Her hair is brown and she wears a veil. You are not her!"

Thyatis rapped her knife on the floorboards in frustration.

"If only Anagathios were here," she muttered. "No matter! Speak with your niece, Bagratuni, and gently, gently, see if she would help us just one more time..."

"Who is Anagathios?" Jusuf's voice was quiet, but Thyatis snapped her head up at the tone. Jusuf stared back at her with hooded eyes. Inwardly Thyatis groaned—all she needed now was suspicious jealousy on the part of her confederates.

"A friend," she said, her voice clipped. "A mute Syrian with a talent for the theater. He was short enough, and slim enough, to pass for a girl with the proper paints. He died on the road here. Satisfied?"

Jusuf bowed his head and did not meet her eye.

Sahul tapped on the dusty floor for attention. His face was quizzical.

Thyatis stared at him. "What is it, Sahul?"

The Bulgar signed to his brothers, though only Dahvos was paying attention. Thyatis watched his fingers flit into foreign patterns; she had been trying to decipher the signs that Sahul used for days.

The youngest brother looked puzzled and then a smile flickered over his face like sun through the clouds. "My brother says, Lady Thyatis, that he has seen a mute actor in the marketplace by the northern gate. He juggles and does tricks. He never speaks but is quite accomplished. He says that this fellow is a foreigner and only came to the city within the last nine days. Sahul says"—there was a pause while Dahvos followed the flickering procession of hand-signs—"he says that the fellow is very pretty and could pass for a girl."

Thyatis whistled, a long soprano note.
Could it be? No, that would be too much to ask. But perhaps this foreigner could act the part as well as her friend...
"Find this actor and bring him to me. Bagratuni, take your cousins out for a walk."

The little Armenian grinned, his teeth flashing in the dim room, and then crawled off to the trapdoor that led down into the living quarters on the unfinished floor.

Thyatis motioned for the three brothers to close up the space around her. "Sahul, you have the most critical task. You will have to go out of the city and as far away from here as practicable. I need a..."

Each brother was entrusted with a task, and Sahul in particular gave her a long look before shaking his head and leaving through the entrance onto the roof. Dahvos was equally puzzled with his assignment, but he went willingly anyway. Jusuf was the only one inclined to argue.

"This won't work," he said. "To put it mildly, you're insane to think they won't notice. Chances are exceptionally good that every man you take into the old palace will die or be taken captive, and then the rest of us will follow."

Thyatis smiled at him and gestured out the window with the twig she had used to draw on the floor with.

"In five days," she said, "the moon will be fully dark. According to Bagratuni, the fire priests of the Persian god have a great ceremony then. All of the important men in the city and the garrison will be in the temple. The guard on the prisoners will be lax without the commanders to keep them on their toes. It is our best chance. If it works, and I believe it will, then we will have greatly improved our situation in the city."

"And you," he shot back, "will have gotten your
friend
back! How much is he worth to you? Is he that good?" Jusuf's face was flushed.

Thyatis' lip curled in anger at his insinuation. "Nikos has been my second for almost two years. He's like a member of my family. If it were Dahvos or Sahul in that cage, what would you do? Hmm? Would you let the Persians put Dahvos on the rack, or put red-hot irons to the soles of his feet? If that happened, you would be here, now, in this attic, tearing your guts out with worry that delaying four days might mean his life."

She slid forward on the floor and was nose to nose with the Bulgar. He had a sharp, musky smell about him, redolent of horses and sweat and iron and blood. He matched her gaze, tremendously angry himself. Thyatis' hand snaked out and grabbed his hair, turning his face from her.

"Would you let your brother," she softly whispered in his ear, "die in that square under the axe to preserve your precious skin?" He shuddered at her closeness and pushed her away. Thyatis rolled back on her heels and laughed bitterly. The Bulgar turned, his face a mask, and crawled away to the trapdoor. Thyatis drummed her fingers on the boards, staring after him, and then squeezed out the opening onto the roof. The sun had vanished over the mountains to the west, leaving only long streaks of orange and purple in the sky and a gleam on the ice that capped the peaks.

Clad from head to toe in a layered black gown, headdress, and veil, Thyatis stood in a recessed doorway on a side street near the northern market of Tauris. It was cool and dim, for much of the street was blocked from the sun by hundreds of wash lines strung between the buildings. Bagratuni, dressed in the pantaloons, shirt, and vest of a lower-class Armenian, sat on the steps at the entrance to the building, a blanket covered with cheap copper trinkets laid over his knees.

"Well?" she said, her voice muffled by the heavy garment.

"It's not such a good view from here, you know—a bad location! I can only see down the street when there are no people in the way." His voice raised. "Bracelets! The finest to be had! Bracelets!" A pair of Armenian women bustled by, their laughter echoing down the close walls of the little street.

"Ah!" he continued, "I see now. He acts a play of some kind—now he is a seaman, or so I'd say from the roll in his walk; now a maiden on the blush of womanhood. Say, my lady, this fellow is rather good! The seaman is giving the girl some kind of bracelet. Ah! He is quick to toss the bracelet to himself like that! I don't see either of my cousins, though... Ho, some kind of a miser has made an appearance, he wants the girl to come with him!"

Thyatis tapped her foot impatiently. The play, much slowed by the actor having to play all of the parts, dragged on. Bagratuni kept up a running commentary throughout. His cousins did not make an appearance.

"If this is Anagathios, I'll skin him myself..." Thyatis' patience was wearing thin. All she needed now was for some nosy
aedile
to come snooping around and find her in this getup in an alleyway. She'd be locked up for prostitution for sure...

"Roman lady, I think that he's done. Yes, the people watching are giving him a few coins. He bows, he does a flip, he bows... there are my cousins. Oop! He's a quick one all right, but they have him by both arms. Here they come."

Bagratuni slid to one side of the step, keeping the blanket on his lap.

"Which play do you suppose it was?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at Thyatis.

"Eyes front! Sounds like the
Girl from Miletus,
which is about right for Anagathios. Just the kind of play to get him thrown in jail by some straitlaced Persian garrison on the edge of nowhere."

The actor was hustled into the doorway by Bagratuni's two cousins, who bounced him gently off the right wall a few times to settle him down. The actor, free of the arms of the two heavily built men, brushed off his tattered motley and produced, with a flourish, a knife with a serrated edge. Thyatis stepped forward and raised a hand. The man in front of her crouched down and found the wall behind him with the heel of his foot. At the entrance to the doorway, Bagratuni moved back into the middle of the steps.

"So, actor, do you have anything to say to your critics?"

The man's head jerked up, showing a dusky olive skin, a fine-boned nose, high cheekbones, and liquid brown eyes with long eyelashes. The knife wavered in his hand. Thyatis unhooked the veil and demurely drew it from her face. The Syrian's face split with a huge grin and he bowed his head to the flagstones without bending his legs. The knife disappeared into a sleeve in the process. Thyatis wrapped him a huge hug.

"Hello, old friend," she said in a warm voice as she sat him down. "I was afraid that you were dead." Anagathios shook his head no, but his eyes were sad. His ringers sketched in the air and Thyatis sighed.
I was separated from the others and hid in the bushes until the soldiers were gone. I did not see them take any prisoners. Sorry.

No matter,
she signed back.
Time is short. I have work for you to do.

The Syrian smiled again, his perfect face glowing. Thyatis grinned back.

Stripped down to only a loincloth with a cotton bandeau twisted tight around her chest, Thyatis stood thigh deep in the rush of the sewage tunnel. Jusuf and two of the other Bulgars, clad only in short kilts, were just downstream of her, a stout log slung on their shoulders. A flickering light illuminated them from a lantern hung on a hook set into the ceiling. Thyatis caught the end of the log with her right hand, halting them. Sahul peered around his arm, then turned and gave a sharp whistle. Behind him, in the long tunnel from the river, the whistle was repeated.

The sound of thirty men moving in the tunnel was drowned by the rushing passage of foul water down the sewer. With the logs stopped, Thyatis reached above her head and found, by touch, a heavy leather collar that was dangling at the end of a long rope.

Sloshing through the muck that swirled around her legs, which left them coated with grease, she dragged the collar down to the level of the log. She knew that up above, in the clerestory of the temple, Bagratuni and his cousins were anxiously watching the upper end of the rope slither through the pulleys that they had embedded in a heavy wooden framework at the top of the shaft. A heavy leather bag slapped at her waist, filled with iron rods. Reaching the log, she dragged the collar over the end of it, which had been cut out into a cross shape by a hand axe and adze.

"Isn't this a bit much?" Jusuf wheezed, his muscular shoulder straining under the weight of the log. "A ladder over the wall would do as well to get us in."

"A ladder in the street would be seen by a passerby," she said, shaking her head. "This way gets us in and out unseen. With your brother's package safely delivered, it could be days or weeks before the prison guards realize that anything is amiss."

Once the collar was past the cutout, she fumbled in the bag and drew out an iron rod. One end was bluntly pointed, while the other was flattened into a mushroomlike cap. She pushed the blunt point into one of a pair of matching holes drilled through the cross-section of the end of the log. It stuck partway through, and she cursed under her breath at the delay. She tapped Jusuf twice on his shoulder and stepped back to the little ledge on the edge of the sewer tunnel. The water was cold, even with the steaming offal that drifted past, and her legs were beginning to go numb.