“An exiled teacher should not mock a Queen,” she said with some asperity.
Ahmet shook his head and gathered her into his arms. He had put aside the tunic and his broad chest was bare. She sighed and leaned back against him, her fingers curling around his forearms. The western horizon was a glorious display of orange and red and deep blue-purple.
“I was not mocking you, O Queen. They took heart from it, and how shall they know different? By the time it becomes clear that Rome will not come to our aid, it will be too late.”
“True,” she whispered. “They will fight to the last for the city.”
“And for you,” he said into her ear, “and for you.” She clutched him close and buried her face in his shoul-. der. The sun slid down beyond the western hills, and the sky alone retained its memory. The garden, built out from the top of the palace, fell into darkness. Below it the lights of the city brightened, ten thousand fireflies in the night.
TAURIS, PERSIAN ARMENIA
Heraclius and Galen picked their way through the rubble of the gatehouse. Their guards stalked through the ruins beside them. Smoke and fumes rose from the wreckage of the bastion, fouling the air. Beneath their boots the bricks of the inner courtyard steamed and cracked as they passed. Legionnaires with cloths bound over their mouths and noses were dragging bodies out of the buildings and piling them into wagons. The great middle gate had been torn from its hinges; it lay across the entrance to the city at an angle. Heraclius climbed up over a drift of fallen masonry and saw that there were several Romans standing in the shade of the gatehouse.
One of them was the tribune who had commanded the III Augusta in the attack. He saluted the two Emperors as they strode up, ignoring the scattered bones and rotting limbs that were washed up against the wall like driftwood. The tribune was a heavyset man, with a short salt-and-pepper beard. One side of his face was badly burned and a raw red color. He saluted smartly, though his left arm was bound across the front of his body with strips of cotton cloth.
“Ave, Augustus. The citadel has been secured and the city as well. Most of the Persians are dead, though many surrendered and are being held in the square beyond the gate.“
“Good,” Heraclius said, his sharp eyes roving over the others who stood behind the tribune. None of them was familiar to him. “And these men?”
“Our… allies, Augustus. They broke through to the middle gate when my men were trapped in the central courtyard. If they had not driven the Persian archers off of the wall, we would have all been dead men.”
Heraclius nodded sharply. The assault on the gate, even with the destruction wreaked by the thaumaturges, had been a near disaster. Though the cohorts of the Third Augusta had rushed past the first gate, the inner yard was a trap, covered on all sides by Persian archers. Over four hundred men had died in a struggling mass, unable to retreat due to the pressure of new cohorts crossing the bridge. The Eastern troops had failed to carry either of the outer walls, suffering heavy casualties in the attempt. Only the unexpected appearance of friends had broken the trap.
“Good work, men,” the Eastern Emperor said to the soot-stained and bedraggled men who stood behind the tribune. Their armor was battered and dented. Their swords were nicked and dull. All five were coated with black ash and the ragged remains of cloaks and leather armor. None seemed to have escaped injury. Heraclius’ eyes narrowed, focusing on the leader, the tall red-haired man in the middle. There was something familiar about him…
The red-haired man stepped forward, favoring his left leg, and made a military salute. Heraclius’ eyebrows raised, for the man had faced Galen, to his right.
“Ave, Augustus Galen. Thyatis Clodia of the Sixth Vic-trix reporting as ordered. I am sad to report that nearly all of my men perished in the effort, but the objective was secured.”
Galen, keeping a smile to himself, returned the salute. “Well done, centurion.”
The red-haired man turned smartly to face Heraclius and saluted as well. “Augustus Heraclius. If I may, it is my pleasure to present to you our ally, the Prince of Tauris, Tarik Bagratuni. Without the aid of his clansmen, our effort would have failed.”
Heraclius frowned at the short man who stepped forward, his chain mail torn from many blows. The little man grinned, his teeth bright in the sooty darkness of his face. The Armenian bowed and hitched his thumbs into the broad leather belt that supported a profusion of knives and a stabbing sword.
“Well met, Bagratuni. We shall have to speak…”
Thyatis turned back to the Emperor of the West. He was smiling lopsidedly, his hair cropped shorter than she remembered. His armor was immaculate, the gilded eagle emblazoned on the front glittering in the sun. Germans with great swords and suspicious eyes crowded behind him. He reached out a gloved hand and wiped some of the grime from the side of her face.
“I did not think to see you again, Clodia. I am sorry about your men. Get cleaned up and a messenger will come and fetch you to my tent. We have things to discuss.”
The Western Emperor surveyed Nikos and Jusuf and Dahvos. They looked worse than Thyatis, ground down and exhausted from fifteen hours of battle. Nikos had taken an arrow in the arm and was nursing a slowly clotting wound. The Bulgars looked like they had crawled out of a muddy sewer behind a butcher’s shop. Dahvos looked particularly good; his right eye was oozing yellow pus from between crude stitches.
“Centurion!” Galen shouted back through the hovering ranks of his guardsmen. “Take these men to the baths and then the healer. See that they are well treated.”
Thyatis sagged into the wall, and the Emperor was there, holding her up.
“I am very proud,” he said quietly to her. “I will not forget your service.”
The gruff-voiced centurion bustled up with several men in tow. Thyatis allowed herself to be led away, through the shattered gates and across the bridge. It was fouled with reddish-brown mud that clung to their boots, and fogs and mists still hung over the river. Behind her parts of the city were still burning, filling the sky with trails of black smoke.
Steam hissed out of a copper pipe, filling the wooden bathhouse with a delicious fog. Thyatis sank into the water with a groan of pure pleasure. A Greek manservant stood by, carrying a kettle filled with hot water. She motioned for him to add more to the tub. He tipped the kettle and very hot water joined the steaming water in the wooden-sided bath. She closed her eyes and submerged, luxuriating in the clean water. The manservant left the kettle and some soap behind, along with a curved bronze strigil. She spent an hour in the bath, scraping herself clean.
There were towels too, though the cotton weave was a little bare. It did not matter to her; to be clean and have her hair free of grease for once was“ reward enough. She sat in the little wooden room for a long time, toying with the strigil and thinking of the dead. In the steaming room, no one could tell, should they enter, that she was crying.
Finally there was a polite knock on the door and Thyatis looked up. She sniffled and blew her nose, then scrubbed her face vigorously with the towel.
“Come in,” she said, wrapping the towel around her thighs.
Jusuf ducked into the room, then saw her, naked from the waist up, and blushed a bright red.
“Pardon.” He gasped and stepped back out hastily, closing the door. Outside he slumped back against the wall of the. bath, his breath a white puff in the chilly air. He closed his eyes, still flushed with the sight of Thyatis almost naked, and then they snapped open again. He ground his fist into the wooden planks of the wall. Whenever he closed his eyes she was there, her breasts dewed with steam, rich red-gold hair tumbling around her pale freckled shoulders.
“Well?” Thyatis’ voice was querulous from inside the bathhouse. “What is it?”