Burning Shadows (8 page)

“All the more reason for you to leave,” he said with an element of regret. “If you stay here, things will change between us; you and I will no longer be able to lie together safely.”

“But it’s only been four times,” she wailed quietly.

“Six times and you will risk transforming to one of my blood when you die, and you have said you have no wish to do that. You recall what that would mean for you, do you not?” He spoke much more calmly than he would have done five centuries ago, and made no attempt to dissuade her.

“No. If what you told me is true, I wouldn’t want to become like you.” She touched the small, golden fish hanging from a hook on the wall. “The Bishop would condemn me if I should rise after death: it would be blasphemous.”

“And burning brings the True Death,” he said sympathetically.

“So you explained to me,” she responded, reaching from the fish to his hand. “But we have this one last chance, don’t we?”

“If it is what you want.” His nearly black eyes glowed blue in their depths. “You have only to tell me.”

“Oh, yes, it is what I want. We can say good-bye in the morning, but now, I want a farewell that will last for years to come.” She eased her hand into his and tugged to pull him down beside her, taking advantage of the confined space to embrace him. “Let this be something I will remember for all my life.”

“I will do all I can of what I can,” he pledged, and drew her close to him, kissing her lightly but persuasively, letting her warm to him, sensing passion rising in her.

She moved away from him as the kiss ended. “Wait. Wait while I send my serving-women away; I don’t want to be interrupted,” she said, breathing somewhat more quickly than she had before the kiss; she got to her feet and went to the door, half-opened it, and ordered the two women to tend to choosing the bedding for the wagon. “Make sure it is soft,” she said, and watched them depart before closing the door and coming back toward Sanctu-Germainios, untying her trabea and letting it fall to the floor as she approached her bed. “This will be more comfortable, Feranescus. There is more room and the mattress is softer.”

“As you like,” he said, rising from the couch and going to the bed, standing to face her at its foot.

She stretched up her arms. “Remove my palla, if you would.” The challenge in her mien was a mixture of desire and sadness.

Sanctu-Germainios unfastened the elaborately braided belt under her breasts, slipped his fingers under the pleated shoulders of the palla, and whisked it upward, swinging it to let it fall on the couch behind him. “What about your mani and fascae? Shall I—” She was already loosening her underclothes. “I’ll tend to them,” she said, and stepped out of her mani, leaving the fascae for last. “You can help me with this, if you want to.”

He stepped behind her and untied the flat knot between her shoulder-blades, sliding the Egyptian linen slowly free of her breasts. He felt a faint quiver go through her, and he put one knee on the bed. “Would you like to recline?”

“No. I’d like to make love,” she said, turned a little, and fell back, landing with arms spread on the lower half of the bed. She wriggled up to the array of pillows at the head, holding out her arms to him as she settled among them. “Work your way up from where you are. Begin with the soles of my feet.”

“The soles of your feet? Very well.” He sat down on the side of the bed, leaning as if reclining for a feast; taking her left foot in his hand, he bent and playfully kissed the sole, then lightly ran his tongue along her toes.

She gave a sharp laugh; she was ticklish. “That’s … fine.”

He rolled a little nearer to her and repeated his ministrations to her right foot; this time her toes curled in pleasure, and she gave a long, luxurious sigh. With a feather-light touch, he slowly moved his fingers up to her knee, shifting himself so that he could glide between her legs.

The disparate urgency that had been taut within her began to give way to an exhilarated repose. Her flesh seemed bathed in a warm tide of increasing passion, her skin growing more and more sensitive to his most minuscule attention. Because Sanctu-Germainios did not demand an intense reception from her, she began to feel one build within her; his gently coaxing kisses summoned an ardor from her that was greater than her sorrow at their parting. Her senses heightened, she all but held her breath as he continued up her body, finding centers of pleasure as he went, lingering where she responded most, anticipating his caresses to the soft folds at the joining of her thighs. She shivered as his fingers awakened the nub of pleasure between her legs, and as his fingers probed more deeply, she shuddered in anticipatory rapture while his tongue took the place of his fingers.

Continuing to arouse her with his hand, Sanctu-Germainios moved up her body, meeting her lips with his own, touching her breasts as she hovered on the edge of release. Answering her ecstasy with his own, Sanctu-Germainios nuzzled her throat as her first cries of fulfillment, hushed with awe, and her glorious spasms enveloped him in the gratification that exceeded all she had longed for.

“God and the Archangels,” she whispered as she came back to herself. She felt him slip off her, lying close beside her while her heartbeat and breathing slowed, and she succumbed to sweet languor, drifting at the edge of sleep. “Stay with me a while?”

“Yes; a while,” he told her, leaning to kiss her forehead. “Lie quietly.”

She pulled his arm across her body, smiling muzzily. “And you didn’t take off your clothes,” she said. “You never do,” she breathed, letting her attention float with her into delicious sleep.

By the time Sanctu-Germainios left Rhea’s bed, the room was deep in shadow and the air was cool. As he rose, he wrapped her blanket over her, then went and lit the single oil-l amp at the door before he left to bathe—his mind still full of her—and then to make the last arrangements for her departure.

Text of a letter from Priam Corydon of Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit monastery between Ulpia Traiana and Apulum Inferior to Gnaccus Tortulla, Praetor Custodis of Viminacium, Moesia, written on vellum, carried by a Roma-bound band of pilgrims and delivered sixteen days after being dispatched.

To the most esteemed Praetor Custodis, Gnaccus Tortulla, the respectful greetings and faithful prayers of the Priam Corydon of the Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit monastery in former Dacian territory, Ave, on this, the Autumnal Equinox.

I am grateful to you for your offer of a company of slaves to assist us in fortifying our walls, but I fear what is needed here are soldiers, not slaves. We have more than enough monks to attend to the necessary labor, but most of our Brothers are not trained in fighting, and if we must feed and house fifty men, we must require that they be capable of mounting a true defense of the monastery. We have good reason to think that we may have to sustain against an attack before long.

You, of course, must face similar problems, and I sympathize with your predicament, since if you are to supply us with soldiers, it means that you must reduce your garrison, and that cannot be a welcome notion. But without some kind of reinforcement from 
trained fighters with weapons of their own, we may face complete
destruction.

I have asked my brother, who commands a fort in Novae, if he is
in a position to dispatch soldiers to us, but I have yet to receive an
answer from him. I doubt that he will be able to aid us, which leaves
me to cast about for help from good Christians to come to the aid of
their fellows and to uphold the Church. If you refuse, then I will
have to look farther afield for soldiers, all of which means more delay during which time we will be wholly vulnerable to attack.

There are those within the monastery who claim that if God
does not provide the fighting men we need, then it is His Will that
we be destroyed, and that if we mount any defense, we defy him at
the peril of our souls. They may be right, and if they are, I will answer for it on the Day of Judgment. But to my mind, since I have the
guardianship of the monks, it is fitting that I do all that I can in this
world to preserve the Brothers and this monastery for Our Lord, for
Whom I hold it in trust.

I adjure you to consider our plight and to offer as much help as
you deem fitting, and to that end I and my Brothers will offer up
prayers.

Priam Corydon

Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit monastery

Gepidae territory, formerly Dacia Superior

4

When the courier from Porolissum reached Apulum Inferior at midday the town was already in an uproar: goatherds from their vantage- points on the mountain had seen the horsemen coming along the old road little more than a day’s fast ride away and had brought their animals back down the mountains, penning them inside the stout, wooden walls of the town, then had informed the leader of the Watch and the regional guardian of the approaching danger. They had barely completed their report when an official courier arrived on a lathered horse and hurried into the central villa, and was directed to the reception-room by the footman at the door.

“There are more than fifty mounted men heading this way; if they continue at their present pace, they may get here by midnight, and they could still attack; if they arrive after that hour, they won’t attack until morning,” the courier reported as he stood before the guardian and the captain of the Watch in the reception-room; he was tired, thirsty, and dusty, his buckskin paragaudion and femoralia were stained and torn; his temper was short. “The rest of their men have occupied Porolissum and apparently plan to hold it for their leader, possibly as a regional headquarters for him.”

“Would he be Attila?” Mangueinic asked, speaking the language of the Gepidae; unlike the courier, it was not his native tongue. He was of Gothic and Dacian heritage, a common blend in this part of the Carpathians, and he had made a place for himself in Apulum Inferior that marked him as a man to be trusted by all parties: as captain of the Watch, he was responsible for the security of the town until soldiers arrived to take over the task of protection. Short, blocky, and strong, he was open-faced and wore his red hair and beard trimmed close to his head.

“That is what they claimed,” said the courier. “I left hours before the Huns arrived, not long after the scouts brought their report from Ebussa, which was afire when Attila broke off their assault. Another six couriers were dispatched when I was, shortly after the attack began. Those of us sent out were given this mission because we can understand some of the Hunnic speech, and enough Gothic and Greek and other languages to comprehend most of what we hear when we stop to remount, or to deliver our messages.” He patted the satchel secured to his belt. “This is where I have the dispatch for you. It tells you much the same things that I have, but it has details and information I did not have the time to learn, since speed has been essential. You may have to fight as soon as tomorrow, so I have traveled as fast as my horse would let me.”

“You have done well,” said Sanctu-Germainios, and was about to go on when the courier interrupted.

“Coming here, I passed a group of foreigners,” the courier announced. “About thirty of them, with a flock of goats and a dozen carts coming, they said, from the north side of the Pontus Euxinus … I believe is what they said. Their language was unknown to me and only two had any command of Byzantine speech; they may have said the south side, but their location would make little sense if … Their village was destroyed by Huns and they are hoping to find a haven near Constantinople, where they might be safe, or so their leader claimed, and if I understood him correctly. They might have been Sarmatae, but I can’t be certain. There will be more of them coming this way.”

“This is a strange direction to take to get to Constantinople. Why should they climb the Carpathians when they might as readily have continued along the shore of the Pontus Euxinus.” said Sanctu-Germainios . In his black-silk pallium, black femoralia, and short, black Gothic boots, he was like a shadow in the room, which his reserved manner emphasized.

“They admitted as much; they were not on the road they planned to follow. They hadn’t wanted to scale the mountains. But there has been fighting along the edge of the sea, and they are not prepared to endure pitched battles, so they have gone around the combat and—” The courier fussed with his red, identifying shoulder-sash. “They may be bound for this town, or some other settlement in this region; they didn’t appear to have a specific destination in mind. It would be unfortunate if they should lead the Huns here. If the Huns come upon them before this town is in sight, that may delay their arrival here.”

“At the cost of those foreigners,” said Sanctu-Germainios soberly.

“That’s useful of the foreigners,” Mangueinic remarked with a jovial cynicism. “It’s better that they cause the Huns distraction than that we have to decide if we can offer any shelter to them.”

Sanctu-Germainios felt disheartened to hear such a callous remark, but stopped himself from making the outburst that sparked within him, knowing that it was as much fear as indifference speaking in Mangueinic; he addressed the courier. “If you will give us your dispatch, you may go to the kitchen; my cooks will give you a meal and wine. When you have eaten, you may go to the bath-house, or to bed, as you think best. Unless you are to ride on, in which case, I will provide you a fresh horse.” He nodded to Mangueinic while the courier pulled out the parchment, its author’s name, location, and office written in a cobbled version of Latin and Greek; he offered it to the master of the Watch.