“Now,” she said, pulling a waxed tablet out of a pocket sewn into the inside of her cloak, “tell me about the life of a soldier in the army of Rome. Spare no detail-the sun is still high.”
Dwyrin sighed and arranged himself cross-legged on the rock, the hooked fish carefully laid in the stream. They twitched, trying to escape the line through their gills, but could not. He felt much the same.
Well after nightfall, Dwyrin trudged up the hill, through stands of birch and cedar, to the edge of a meadow where his five had made camp the day before. He scratched at his shoulders, sunburned again, and muttered darkly to himself about the nosy nature of young Greek ladies. He had retained the fish, at least, and that would make dinner far more palatable than the hardtack and salt pork they had lived on in the mountains. He passed through a sentry line, giving the password of the day to two long-bearded Armenians leaning on their spears. The tents of his five were couched under tall red-barked trees, and a little fire was going in front of them.
Zoe looked up with a murderous expression as he shuffled into camp and flopped down next to the fire. Odenathus looked guiltily at him too, making him surmise that the five-leader had been holding forth upon his unprofessional behavior and the extent to which it merited punishment. He smiled weakly at them.
“I found some fish,” he said, mumbling. A cooking stick was near the coals in the fire and he began gutting his catch. “A noble lady saw me in the stream and called me over- then she pestered me with questions all day! I couldn’t leave, it wouldn’t have been polite…”
Zoe, her expression thunderous, toyed with a knife, one of the several that she carried in her belt or thrust into the uppers of her boots. The side of the blade caught the glow of the fire, shimmering with red and orange.
“A noble lady…” The scorn in her voice cut at him. “A poor lie. A penny-hatiera in the baggage train, more like. Did you bring her fish too, to pay for her time? Was it worth it?”
Dwyrin stiffened at the vitriol in the five-leader’s voice. Unconsciously he sat up straighter, his eyes narrowing. “She was a noble lady, well mannered and she could write. She asked me all about our lives in the service of the Emperor-what we eat, how we march, who carries the axes to fell trees, everything in the world, it seemed! In my country,” he finished, glaring back to Zoe, “we are polite to strangers and accord them honor.”
Zoe half sat up, her face stilling at the implied insult, the knife in her hand sliding forward toward him. Dwyrin felt the air chill, but he did nothing, keeping his balance- though it was hard! Part of him, some thing that lived in his gut, wanted to jump up and smash the Palmyrene’s face with his fist or call fire to burn her. But he did nothing. He knew that he was telling the truth.
Zoe breathed out, calming herself, and sat back down.
“I suppose that she was very beautiful,” she said, her voice weary and bitter.
“Well, no,” Dwyrin replied, accepting the olive branch- if that is what it was. “Very pregnant, though! My mother would guess only a few weeks before she births, I imagine.”
Zoe’s eyebrow crept up at this, a procession of unreadable, but marked, emotions crossing her face. She slid the knife back into its sheath and put it away in the back of her belt.
“Pregnant?” she asked, her voice a study of innocence. “A noble lady, you say?”
“Yes,” Dwyrin said, now suspicious that she believed him. “Richly dressed, though the paints not overdone, with green eyes, long brown hair, and soft skin.”
Odenathus hissed in delight, leaning over the fire, eager to catch every word.
“Did you touch her?” His voice was touched with a lurid amusement. “What else happened?”
“Nothing, Macha be praised!” Dwyrin said, making a sign for good luck. “We talked by the stream is all.”
Zoe‘ curled her arms around her knees, watching Dwyrin over the light of the fire. “Your noble lady, did she have a name? A house perhaps? A bevy of maids? A glowering chaperone? Bands of guardsmen?”
“No.” Dwyrin sighed. “More’s the pity-if she had, I would have made my escape much easier and been back here hours ago. Why should anyone care how the spearmen lace up their boots, or that we have sour wine one day in three?”
“Well,” Odenathus said slowly, unable to contain himself, “did you kiss her?”
Dwyrin turned a freezing glare upon the Palmyrene boy, which made Odenathus sniff and poke industriously at the fire.
“I think,” said Odenathus said, when Dwyrin said nothing, “that our barbarian friend was too polite to take such advantage-among his people it is not done, or so I surmise… this is why there are so few of them!” He laughed, but Dwyrin laughed with him too. It was good to sit all around the fire like this, sharing the events of the day.
“And, you say, this noble lady was pregnant too.” Zoe’s voice cut in from the side. “You did not say whether she had a name or not?”
“Oh,” Dwyrin said, scratching his head, trying to remember if he had managed to get a question in amid the flurry of hers. “Yes, Martina-if my memory serves. Her husband is an officer from Africa-from Carthage, I think. I’m not a bard or druid, you know, to remember every little thing that happens…“
Zoe shook her head, then stood, staring up at the stars peeking through the crown of the trees above. She hooked her thumbs into her belt and turned, warming the backs of her legs at the fire. The nights were growing colder, even down here, out of the mountains. “I suppose that you were polite to her.”
“I was on my honor,” he snapped back, bridling at the implication of poor behavior in her tone. “I treated her as one of my aunts, or my mother-though she is neither or young nor so nosy as that one.”
“Good,” Zoe said, looking over her shoulder for a moment. “The penalty for such familiarity, you know, is blinding, I believe, or perhaps just torture and death. But still, I suppose that the tribune will understand. He is a caring and forgiving soul.”
“Do you think trouble will come of it?” Odenathus tapped a long stick on the rocks at the edge of the fire, watching Zoe carefully. “I have heard that she is rather wise, even for her young age. Surely she saw what a lack-wit our Hibernian friend is…”
Zoe cut him off with a motion of her hand, turning back to the fire. Dwyrin looked from one to the other, a damp chill percolating in his stomach.
“The Empress is not my concern,” Zoe grated, “but rather the temper of her husband.”
“Empress?” Dwyrin squeaked, feeling dizzy and faint. “What Empress?”
Without sparing him a look, Zoe continued: “The Emperor of the East once had a man cut to bits and fed to swine for insulting her. Granted, he was an enemy of her house and a lying fool, but still… Or the matter of the usurper Phocas-there was a grisly death! He is a man, with a man’s rages. He loves her too much, I think, to be as good an Emperor as he might be…“ Zoe’s voice trailed off.
“Lady Martina is an Empress?” Dwyrin laid down on the cold pine needles. He felt quite faint.
“Yes,” Odenathus said, sighing as he removed the trout, now crisping in the heat of the coals, and slid them off the stick onto a wooden platter he had stolen from the ruin of Tauris. “I fear so. The only pregnant noble lady in this army would be the Empress Martina, the young and scandalous wife of the Emperor of the East, Heraclius of Carthage.”
“Scandalous?” Dwyrin perked up, leaving off from nervously chewing on the end of his thumb. “I didn’t hear! What did she do? Did she cavort with stableboys? With gladiators, shining with oil?” Maybe she talks to young barbarians all the time!
Odenathus cuffed the Hibernian gently on the head. “No, you idiot… she is his niece. These Greeks are beside themselves with outrage that the Emperor should follow his heart-it is said that he loves her, and no less because they have known each other for years. Some odd concept that they should spread their seed afar…”