“A reasonable fellow,” one of the other Persians commented. The two spears and the knife withdrew enough for him to stand, though the alertness of their wielders did not waver. Nikos climbed to his feet, the rush of adrenaline in his blood cutting through the muzziness of sleep broken too early. The cluster of brush that he had crawled into when the sun had begun to lighten the eastern sky seemed much smaller and sparser than it had in the night. Another Persian was on horseback, a distance from the litter of brush, a bow and notched arrow in his hands. Nikos turned slowly around, catching sight of the great bulk of the mountain to the northwest and another two horsemen. He clasped his hands on the top of his head. There was nothing to be done now.
The man with the dagger deftly removed the Illyrian’s shortsword, cooking knife, and the dagger he wore on his left leg. Quick fingers checked the folds of his shirt and his pants. Satisfied, the Persian handed the weapons off to one of his juniors and drew out a length of rope.
“Turn,” the sergeant said. “Hands behind your back.”
Nikos did as he was told. The sun was bright, cutting through banks of clouds. It might rain in the foothills of the mountains. He stared at the snowcap of Ararat.
Luck of the gods with you, girl, he thought.
After binding his hands, the Persians helped him onto the back of one of their remounts and then the whole band galloped away to the south, leaving a cloud of dry white dust to mark their passing. The tight cords bit into Nikos’ wrists. His hands were already becoming numb.
There was a weight on her chest when Thyatis woke. She shifted a little, off a rock lodged under her shoulder blade. A hiss stilled her, and then she felt muscular coils shifting between her breasts. She lay back, completely still, and slowly opened her eyes. A triangular head with beady black eyes stared back at her. A heavy, scaled body lay coiled across her chest and trailed down onto her belly. Thyatis barely breathed, testing her hands and feet. She could move them again. The head of the asp danced from side to side, its pale pink tongue tasting the air. It drew its tail in with a slithering rasp. It was under her tunic, close to her warm skin. She could feel the coolness along her cheek where its own head had lain against her neck.
Oddly, for she was in dreadful danger, she did not panic or scream. She watched the snake as it curled its muscular body up out of her shirt and down off of her shoulder. It was long-two or three feet in length-and its center was a tight bundle of muscle like the arm of a strong man. At last the tail tickled across the upper curve of her left breast and it was gone. She let out a long breath, still soundless, and turned her head to follow its passage.
It was gone. The dry dust of the overhang floor was unmarked, save for her own footprints. The three horses were cropping quietly at the leaves of the broad-leaf trees they were tethered to. She did feel as exhausted as she had expected, and sat up. The sun was high, shining down into the bottom of the canyon outside. A little tumble of ashy coals marked where her fire had been. Echoes of the strange dream were still ringing in her head. The man who had stared down at her seemed familiar to her-in a way, though he had not looked anything like him, he reminded her of her father. Thyatis shook her head wryly; there no sense in puzzling over it.
The horses were happy to see her, though she had no apples or biscuit to give them. She untied them, one by one, and led them down to the little stream to drink. The sun was high-it was nearly noon. She drank deeply from one of the rock pools in the stream and washed her face and hair. Looking in the shallow water, she grimaced at the peeling skin on her forehead and ears. The sun had never been her friend, her complexion was too pale, but her arms, legs, and stomach, at least, were tan enough to stand the sun.
Breakfast was hearty, culled from the rations in the riding packs of the two Persians she had killed the previous day. She sat on a broad, flat rock that jutted out over the stream near the overhang, in the shade of a broadleaf tree with white and tan bark. The personal belongings of the two dead men were spread out around her. Little amulets, knives, leather pouches of coin, wadded-up bits of cloth, flint, straw bound up in a knot, buckles, beads on a string, and last a crude map on poorly cured parchment. The map, compared to her own, showed the area around the city of Tauris. She wondered why scouts would have such a map.
They must, she thought, have been truly coming from the west rather than the east. The outriders of a larger force. An army, then, was making its way into the valley she sought, not from the south or east, as she would have expected, but from behind her, from the west. Some Persian force that had been harrying the plateaus of Anatolia, she guessed, called home. Nikos must have been right, the war has begun and the enemy is moving.
She finished chewing the strips of marinated lamb and drank most of the water in the skin. Then she refilled it. When her gear was repacked and the horses had their fill of the stream, she mounted again and gently kicked the bay into motion. If there was a good way out of this canyon, it was.upstream, not down. Tauris was still far away, and now she was alone.
|@0MOMOMQMQMQMQH()MQMOMOMOHQM()H()M()W()HOM()MOH(M)H()B|
THE HOUSE OF DE’ORELIO, THE QUIRINAL HILL, ROMA MATER
H
A bell tinkled in the darkness, a clear silver note. Anastasia’s violet eyes flickered open. A sliver of moonlight fell through the gauze curtains of the broad win dow across the room, only barely illuminating the furniture and the thick rugs that covered the floors. The lady sighed silently and raised herself up. Silk sheets slipped away from her body, exposing smooth bare skin to the cool night air.
“Yes?” she said into the darkness. Her voice was thick with fatigue, and she ran a hand through the unruly pile of curls on her head. At the sound of her voice, a shape stirred by the door and there was a clicking sound as the bar was drawn back.
“Mistress?” The door opened slightly, letting a ray of lantern light cut the darkness in the room. “The lord Prince requests a moment of your time.” The tentative voice was Betia’s, her new handmaiden. The little blond girl was still tremendously nervous around her mistress. The servants were sure that the “mysterious” disappearance of Krista had been the result of disobeying the mistress of the house.
Anastasia blinked twice and drew the sheets back up over her chest with one arm. The light from the lantern had fallen across her breasts and half of her face. “Lord Aure-lian, or Lord Maxian?”
“The Caesar Maxian, my lady. He is waiting downstairs.”
Anastasia sighed-some nights seemed to have no end. “Oh, bother. Well, send the young man up.”
“Here?” Betia squeaked, her voice filled with astonishment. “The bedroom?”
“Yes, dear,” Anastasia said dryly, “we mustn’t keep the Prince waiting.”
Betia scampered away, her little feet making a pitter-patter on the tiles of the hallway. Anastasia fluffed her hair with her hands and then rearranged the pillows on the bed to make a backrest. Sighing again, for she was very tired, she pushed the quilts off the bed, leaving only a single, almost sheer, sheet to cover herself.
“Tros,” she said to the slave standing in the shadows behind the door. “Be a dear and light half of the lanterns.”
The slave, a hulking Islander with long black hair, moved from lantern to lantern, lighting them with a smoldering punk. Anastasia lay back among the pillows, adjusting them slightly to better present herself. Footsteps fell in the hall- I way, the sound of heavy boots and a man’s tread.
“Hsst!” Anastasia motioned for the slave to leave. With an inscrutable look upon his face, the Islander slipped out the doors leading onto the balcony, drawing his gladius while he did so. The Duchess moistened her lips and raised an eyebrow as the door opened.