"That bastard!" Irene spat, anger and alarm banishing fatigue. She scrambled up, fumbling for the ring of keys. The lock answered to none of them.
Irene withdrew in frustration. "Damn. We can't get in."
Andi bent and rummaged in the satchel, emerging with a farrier's hammer and horseshoe pry. "Bugger that," she said flatly. She planted the wedge of the pry against the lip of the door hasp and struck down hard with the farrier's hammer, once, twice. The hasp plate tore away from the wood and the whole lock assembly swung free.
Both women pushed through the doorway into a small antechamber. Irene lifted the lantern to illuminate the barred cell beyond.
Andi gasped. "Mistress Irene. What is it?"
"I have no idea," Irene said softly.
The creature was a lithe darkness against the grey stone, eyes shining an eerie green in the light. It was built like a lion the size of a Kilbanophoros steed, with a sleek scaled head atop a powerful, graceful neck that reminded Irene of horses. Then it arched its back like an enormous cat, and a series of bladelike scales rose like a clattering phalanx of spears along its spine. Lamplight spilled over scales and claws scratched on stone as the creature wheeled to face them head-on. It tried to shriek, but only a faint and angry hissing escaped its beaked and muzzled jaws.
"I see you found my prize," Tulius said from behind them.
"And I so wanted to surprise you."
Irene turned furiously. "This is an exotic, Tulius! It belongs in the Imperial Mews, not in the arena!"
"Oh, yes?" Tulius's posture was confident, his eyes and voice amused. "Now, Mistress, I have a long, long list, written in your own hand, of creatures you may take from me in the Empress's name." His voice went low with sudden hatred. "I know that list as well as you, you dwarfish bitch, and that creature is not on it. Therefore, it is mine."
The Black Beast lunged at Tulius, crashing against the bars of the cage. Talons snagged on iron and scraped parallel grooves in the stone floor.
Tulius laughed, an honestly joyous, happy sound. "A prince of the Vandals comes to the City, and I promised the Empress a fitting entertainment for her barbarian guest. My Black Beast will kill until the sands are red, and he will die magnificently." He grinned and leaned over Irene's small frame, his predator breath hot in her face. "I and my Black Beast will be remembered when you are a long-forgotten joke, Mistress Irene."
"The Empress takes no pleasure in such things!"
"But the prince does," Tulius said with confidence. "And your precious Empress values a treaty with his father more than the life of this beast."
"Left to your care, the beast might not live to see the arena," Andi said. Irene and Tulius turned. Andi knelt beside the bars of the cage, the beast scant inches away on the other side of the bars. Its chest scales rattled as it struggled for breath. "At least take the muzzle off it. It's overheated. It needs to pant, like a dog or a lion. It also has untreated wounds." Andi addressed Irene. "It must have been caught with wire snares. There are lacerations, one high on the right hind leg, another just above the wrist joint of the left fore. They're underneath the lap of the scales, so I only saw them when the beast leaped at the bars."
"Any sick animal is under my jurisdiction," Irene reminded Tulius sharply.
Tulius laughed. "The Black Beast isn't sick. You want to take its muzzle off, they're your hands." With easy arrogance he took a key from a cord around his neck and handed it to Andi. "Bandage him up while you're at it, if it will make you happy. But the Empress knows about the beast-and she has said I may use it in the arena."
"I can't believe that," Irene said, stricken. "I'll go to Theodora myself. She won't-she can't-let something so rare and beautiful be destroyed."
Tulius grinned. "Ask her." He tossed Irene a salute and sauntered out of the chamber.
The Black Beast raised its head to watch him go, rumbling with impotent hate.
Andi fetched their satchel. She took something from it, then slowly knelt before the bars again, her eyes locked with the beast's baleful glare. Slowly, the muted growl died. From amidst the scales, graceful ears lifted. Andi held her right hand motionless, cupped just before her chin.
"Shhhh," she whispered. The creature arched its graceful neck toward her. At the base of the muzzled beak, nostrils flared wide to take in her scent.
Andi's lips puffed. The soporific powder smoked through the bars, drawn deep into the beast's throat and lungs.
The long neck swayed as the beast drew back; the heavy, beaked head sank down onto the armored breast. In a little bit, it slumped onto its side, unconscious.
Irene set her hand on Andi's shoulder. "Well done."
Andi turned her eyes to Irene's, and Irene saw in them a reflection of her own despair. She turned her eyes away, and, taking the key, opened the door of the cage.
Irene hoped she'd be allowed to see the Empress before she'd sweat-soaked all three layers of her court clothes. Her costly cotton tunica was more forgiving than silk, but the wide-sleeved underdress was amber-colored samite, her overdress russet silk trimmed in shades of yellow and amber. Her cap and superhumeral, the wide formal collar, matched the underdress and were trimmed in seed pearls and amber drops.
She felt like a courtesan's bed-curtain.
One of Theodora's secretaries, a small, slim eunuch named, inappropriately, Herakles, came out of the Blue Chamber. "The Empress will see you now, Mistress Irene," he said, "but be quick. She's tired, and she has much more to do before she will consent to rest."
Irene nodded. Wishing she could calm her fluttering stomach, she drew a deep breath and followed Herakles into the Blue Chamber.
The Empress Theodora VI was seated in a highbacked chair behind an elegantly simple wooden table. On a stool beside her mother sat the seventeen-year-old Princess Helena, frowning over a wax tablet as she nibbled an apple slice. A platter of cold chicken and fruit and a water jug were wedged in between piles of documents. A half-dozen secretaries worked at low desks or glided to and from the table and racks that held maps, books, and parchments. A high window admitted air without making enough of a breeze to trouble the papers.
Irene prostrated herself, awkward in her unaccustomed clothes, then moved forward to kneel on one of the cushions scattered before the table, to wait for the Empress to acknowledge her.
Helena noticed her first. "Mistress Irene! I'm sorry I've been too busy here to come to the aerie. How is my Goldie?"
Irene felt relief that she could honestly give a good report. "She is better, Highness. She fed well yesterday."
The Empress put her signature to the paper before her and handed it off to a secretary. Helena hastened to move the platter of food beneath her mother's fingers before she could select another document. Theodora spared a smile for her daughter, and took a piece of food without looking. "Mistress Irene," Theodora acknowledged. She inclined her head. "You may sit." She ate a bite of chicken while Irene settled more comfortably. "I assume you are here about Tulius's Black Beast."
Irene's heart sank. "Yes, my Empress. Tulius means to have it torn apart in the arena." She looked up at the woman she had served all her adult life and found herself pleading. "My lady, please-it is unique, perhaps the only one of its kind. It is-it is beautiful, perhaps intelligent as well. You can't allow it to simply be destroyed."
"One does not say `can't' to one's Empress, Irene," Theodora said sharply. Irene quailed, and the Empress went on more gently. "I understand. You are as passionate in your calling as I am in mine. But my concerns are larger than yours. I have intelligence that this Vandal princeling has a barbarian's taste for a bloody show, and I have need to please him." She made a face. "As little as I like it, his people control trade routes that we need. I learn from my ancestress: treaties are better than war. I'm sorry, but unless circumstances change, the beast belongs to Tulius." The Empress took another document and turned her eyes to it. "You may go."