Byzantium's Crown (12 page)

How could Marric sense her terror so clearly? If he ran after her now, she would panic. So he doubled back to cross her path. As she came up beside him, he caught her in his arms. For an instant she straggled against him, reliving the old nightmare of kidnapping and enslavement.

"It's Mor, Stephana. Mor. What troubles you?"

"Did you see it, too?"

"See what?"

"In the water, Mor. Ships, pirates, oh, Isis, and they had terrible curved swords . . . horses jumping over broken walls. Burning . . . "

Men with curved swords; pirates or Berbers attacking overland? Had Stephana seen an attack on Alexandria?

"This land is guarded," Marric tried to reassure her. "Foot soldiers. The city guard itself. And the great houses have their own trained men." Stephana's silvered hair was very soft against his mouth.

Light danced in its tangled strands as she shook her head vehemently. "Not so, Mor! What if the guards are withdrawn?"

"Where do the soldiers go, Stephana?" Her fear compelled him to believe, little as he liked it, and he stared at the lake as if he could see troop transports assembling.

"She . . . she cannot hold what she has seized. Mother Goddess, help!"

Exhausted by her vision and the violent backlash from it, Stephana slumped. Marric supported her, welcoming the slight weight of her body against him.

Why would troops be withdrawn from Alexandria, the gateway to the Nile? There could be only one reason: Byzantium itself was in danger. Had Irene recalled . . . ?

"You would really choose this as a meeting place?" Sutekh's voice was heavy with sarcasm. In his weeks of house duty Marric had forgotten how much he hated that voice. The way Stephana shuddered made him hate it worse.

Marric turned so that he stood between her and the overseer. Now she was out of the man's reach. Up by the house, people were stirring. The labor gangs trudged off to the fields. Marric had a sudden vision of nail marks on Stephana's body, another vision of Sutekh striding across the fields, brandishing his whip at laboring slaves.

"Run back swiftly, Stephana. I'll keep you safe." He released her, and she darted up to the gates. When Sutekh would have stopped her, Marric stepped forward with his arm outstretched to block him.

"Walk carefully, hero. What I did to you once, I can do again. Want another lesson to add to the ones you already wear on your back?"

"Find a willing woman!"

Sutekh's fist drove out, but Marric was prepared. He caught the man's wrist and twisted it, a grip that would have brought a smaller man writhing down on his knees. They faced off, almost as close as brothers embracing after a long parting. Each struggled to upset the other. Finally Marric threw the overseer off balance just slightly.

Drawn by the struggle, the crocodiles were crawling out of the water. Marric glanced at Sutekh's whip coiled at his belt. If he could only wrest it away.

But Stephana, who hated violence, was safely beyond Sutekh's reach. She had tried to tell Marric of a vision of war throughout the empire. That was more important than a personal grudge. Emperors had no right to personal grudges. Let the man live, then.

"You have your duties, as I have mine," he said quickly. "Perhaps your labor gangs will escape while you tend to me. Or do I go tell Strymon that once again you're adding slave murder and rape to your tasks?"

Marric turned his back on the overseer and walked toward the house. At any moment the whip would curl agonizingly about his tender shoulders. If Sutekh struck him now, Marric was afraid he would fight until one of them died.

Master of no man, least of all yourself.

If Marric couldn't master himself, how could he hope to win his rightful place? Sutekh was unimportant.

"You'll pay, slave!" the overseer shouted at him. "By my name, you'll pay!"

Decently attired in a plain tunic, Marric searched the house for Nicephorus. As always, he ignored the slaves who scuttled along the sides of the corridors and strode boldly down their centers. He found him in the accounts room.

"Nicephorus?"

His friend laid down tablets and scrolls. He turned to face Marric, who leaned against the lintel. Then, as he saw that Strymon was also in the room, he straightened politely.

"Why this disturbance, Mor?" Strymon asked.

The man was old and shrewd; Marric thought fast. "I walked by the lake shore this morning, master. I observed how low the water line is. This year's crops will be meager. Perhaps I could suggest that the house buy supplies now—for use and possible resale. Prices will rise."

Nicephorus stared at Marric. Well, let him. How could he explain in front of Strymon that Stephana's vision had disturbed him—or even that she had had a vision. Nor could he say that a trip to Alexandria gave him the ideal chance to escape alone. Even Nico would slow him, and be had to get back to Byzantium.

"How is this your concern?" asked Strymon.

"I have been a soldier, master." Marric gave him part of the truth. "An army is only as good as its source of supply."

Strymon rubbed his chin, rose from his stool, and opened a bound volume of grain records.

"Well thought. Even if we do not need the grain, we can, as you said, Mor, resell it. Excellent. In fact, you might reap a reward yourself for your forethought. Nicephorus, you will take the wagon into the city to market today."

Marric looked earnestly at Nicephorus. Ask for my help.

"I'll need someone to carry the sacks," Nicephorus said. "How about Mor here?"

Strymon stared narrowly at Marric, who forced himself to assume an expression of earnest docility, eagerness for an outing, and a future reward. And he thought courtiers had been servile! Finally Strymon unlocked a chest and tossed a purse at Nicephorus. "Mor," he said, "you will consider yourself under Nicephorus' instructions. Watch that you do not strain yourself; I understand that you are only recently returned to duties."

Marric bowed his head just deeply enough. With luck this would be the last time he would have to bow to any man.

"May we leave now?" asked Nicephorus. "The noon sun will be like hammer on anvil."

They walked side by side down the corridors, Marric moderating his long, impatient stride to the shorter man's pace. From a side room Stephana emerged. She parted her lips as if to speak, then turned away. Marric forced himself not to look back at her.

Nicephorus wiped his eyes, which streamed from the dust on the road into Alexandria. "Grain," he said in disgust. "What devil in your skull made you drag us both out of the house on a hot day?" He glanced up at the huge sun.

"Strymon agreed," said Marric. He shook the reins. "You've seen the water levels. And the wharf rats are thin. It's only prudent to fill the storehouses."

"And you're just the prudent soldier, are you? Surprising that you haven't turned your warrior's training toward escape. I had expected you to be long gone by now."

"With this collar on me or a raw back?" Marric laughed shortly.

"You are healed now."

Marric shrugged. "Not all sickness is of the body."

Nicephorus looked over at him. Marric saw a slight, indoor man with weak eyes. Marric might topple him from the wagon into the ditch, might kill him for the silver he carried. Nevertheless, the scribe sat relaxed, unconcerned.

He laid a hand on Marric's arm. "I cannot go home. I am as well served here as anywhere."

"But if you were a freedman—"

"Who among us is truly free? You, Mor? Since the moment they tossed you into the hold beside me, you've been like a wing-clipped hawk. Doubtless I will contrive to protect myself after you . . . "

Marric drove on in silence. He was ashamed. What if he did take Nicephorus with him? The scholar had been tough enough to survive the crossing. And he was shrewd, or he would have died in the fight with the pirates. But brave as he might be, he hadn't the instincts of a fighter born and trained. And if he thought remaining a slave might help his family, he would refuse to leave, and Marric would have to abandon him.

When I rule, I will restore you to your home, Marric promised him silently.

"Tell me, Mor," Nicephorus asked after a long silence, "did you see Stephana this morning?"

"Saw her, yes, and prevented Sutekh from doing more than that. Why do you ask?"

"Something distressed her badly, besides Sutekh. I thought you might know."

Now the truth could come out. Nicephorus must suspect that Stephana had had a vision that had propelled Marric into action.

"She said she had a vision," he began cautiously.

"Then she did."

"As you say. She saw guards withdrawn from the city, soldiers summoned from this entire region to the capital."

"Do you believe her?" Nicephorus asked.

"I believe in my observations. She is worth observing, too."

Nicephorus laughed pleasantly. High above his head a bird circled in wide, lazy swings, scanning for prey. "Always the soldier, Mor. You felt you ought not to trust, so you invented this errand as a way of arranging a reconnaissance."

Marric let the reins fall and looked at his friend. He grinned in a way he had not done for a long time.

"So look about and content yourself, brother."

The bird dived, a burning gold arrow's flight in the sky. With a shrill cry of triumph it stooped upon its prey.

I shall miss you, Nico. And Stephana too. But if I took you with me, what help would you be? A party of two men and a woman, especially a woman with that hair of hers, would be suicidally conspicuous. She is lovely, gentle, but she fears my touch, and I am leaving here. Why think of her at all?

He slapped the reins against the sleepy oxen, and they plodded on. Ahead gleamed the faint silver ribbon of the Delta waters and the city walls loomed before them.

Marric identified the market, swollen with people, in which he had been sold. Again it was a blaze of color, a tumult of "come, buy!"—beasts lowing, children crying, and smells that assaulted the nose like a blow. Above the market circled a spark of gold.

Sun poured down upon battered awnings, weakening them even further, when Marric and Nicephorus entered the tidal rush of shoppers.

"Way, make way!"

A horseman shoved a lance against people who crowded from all the demes of the city into this narrow place. They flattened against the wail where an eye had been painted. A troop of peltasts followed the rider. That was not the first such troop Marric had seen. With so many men shipping out, he could slip away, take service on a boat, and cross the Middle Sea to Byzantium.

Sullenly the people waited until the soldiers had passed, then poured back into the marketplace. They were thinner and more ragged than Marric liked to see. He glanced at the stalls. Unless he counted wrong, there were more stalls of old wares—rugs, furniture, cheap jewelry—being sold than stalls with cheeses or bread. Samian wine was selling at a price Marric considered outrageous; the other prices matched it. No one shopping here could afford such prices for long. Frequently, bargaining broke off prematurely in a spate of insults. To Marric's left a thin man harangued a seller of cheeses from Chios. Even staples like dried peas were in short supply.

"The granaries?" a ragged boy answered Nicephorus' request for directions. "That way, near the harbor. Little enough they'll give you unless you have ready coin. The factors cry bad crops and raise the prices day by day."

These market urchins were an uncertain lot—doubtful of parentage, of morals, of their next meal. Marric had never looked at one longer than to make sure of his aim with a coin. Unlike Marric, the boy had his freedom; but he was scrawny and ill-cared for, while Marric went decently clad and fed. Famine was harder on the free poor than on slaves.

"The grain sellers cannot charge so much that I will not repay you for your help," Nico told the lad. Marric saw the glint of silver.

"You'll have every mangy brat in the bazaar down upon us," he warned.

"The boy is starving, Mor. As a father myself, could I do less for any child?"

"Thanks, master!" The boy was off, leaping boxes, caroming into a donkey tethered against a building.

"Not so fast, gutter rat!" shouted a merchant. She was a thin, harsh-faced hag with one eye. As the boy's hip struck her stall, pots toppled loose from their careful stacks. Three broke on the ground. The woman set up an outraged howl, her hands lifting the green-glazed fragments to show passersby how she was abused.

A man stuck out his foot. The boy sprawled over it. His fist opened and the coin spun out of his hand. He flung himself after it, hating to abandon his assurance of a day's food. But others had seen the money, too.

"My good silver!" screamed the potter. "See, he steals my coin! Catch him!"

A howl went up, and people started after the boy.

"He'll lose his hand for that lie. And I gave him the coin," Nicephorus muttered. "I gave it to him!" he shouted at the mob. He started to climb down from the wagon.

Marric started to haul him back, then thought better. Now, while Nico could honestly say he was distracted, he could get free. And blame wouldn't fall on his friend—at least not too much. Just a moment longer. The crowd would part Nicephorus from him, and he would run free.

The boy too darted for freedom. Someone else tripped him. This time he fell against a stall, overturning it into some nearby crates. Splintering wood added to the uproar. Over all the noise rose the boy's agonized shriek. "My leg, my leg!"

Nicephorus—a white tunic flashing among drabber clothes—pushed to the thick of the mob and shouldered people aside with a strength born of anger. "I gave him the coin, I gave it him," he repeated, as stubborn as he was rash. He hurled another coin at the potter. "Go away! Maat curse you for a liar, but get out of here!"

He flung himself down beside the boy, forgetting grain, wagon, Mor, the purse hidden in his breast because of a brat that reminded him of his own lost family. Marric slipped down from the wagon. Good-bye, my brother.

He heard a new clamor, the jangle of harness, the clatter of hooves, and the yells of a crowd trapped before armed troopers.