Byzantium's Crown (27 page)

Women's voices grew louder as they approached where he stood. He heard Stephana's voice and listened harder. Then, hearing the urgency in it, he slipped behind one of the enormous pillars to allow her privacy.

"You would willingly resume a place on the Wheel, daughter?"

"Say that I have not enough courage to escape it," Stephana said. "I need more time . . . another life . . . "

"You are lying to yourself!" The priestess' voice was sharper than Marric had ever heard it.

"Very well. Here is the truth. I do not wish to lose—"

"What can you lose?"

"Please be still," Stephana whispered. "He might overhear."

Hushed words, then a blessing followed. Finally Stephana came in search of him.

"You were not bored?" she asked, raising her voice slightly as she walked toward Marric. Her hands adjusted a white veil about her hair.

"Not severely." Marric smiled at her, and nodded to Daphne, who flushed and looked away. "Assuming that you're not tired"—Stephana laughed at him—"we might look in at the Hippodrome. One of the plays rehearses there. Would you like that?"

Stephana's eyes sparkled. "You too, Daphne? Come then. I assume that for such a short journey I need not be carried like an image in a procession?"

"Not if you would prefer to walk." The streets were well scrubbed this close to the palace.

Marric knew the hippodrome well, from the kathisma, or royal box, down to the ring he had driven about during the chariot races all the young nobles loved. But the women with him had never seen it. Their admiration of the rows of tiers, the elaborate spina, and the stage erected on the sands was unfeigned.

With Nicephorus at his elbow, Marric watched the performance carefully. The actors were testing machinery by lowering on
it first a heavy sack, then a performer.

"To pass name and scepter to his trueborn son," recited the chorus.

The actor swung aloft in the concealed harness of the machine as the chorus mimed first awe, then adoration of the god. In this part of the old play, the god descended before the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, to tell the hero,

"You are Ion, who will conquer Asia."

"There," said Nicephorus. "If we could only exchange the mask that the god will wear for one bearing your features—"

A hiss distracted Marric. His guards tensed, hands darting to weapons concealed about them. One of Audun Bearmaster's men beckoned.

"How did you get in here?" Marric whispered.

"No time, lord. Listen to me. Word has come from Jomsborg: the reaver refuses the red empress."

Irene would be enraged, Marric thought.

"My lord bids you look to our kinsmen in the Guard," whispered the bearmaster's man.

With Jomsborg hostile and Audun camped outside, the Aescir among the Varangians might well be considered suspicious by a queen whose fears and ambitions outweighed her reason and right to rule.

"You cannot stay here," Marric said. "Get away now!" This very evening he had to speak to the officers sworn to him.

The Aescir vanished into the shadows.

Playing indolent escort, Marric sauntered over to Stephana. "I am quite bored now," he told her and laid a hand on her shoulder. His touch and gaze alerted her, and he cocked his head to indicate that they should leave.

Stephana brought Daphne back to the here and now. Casually they made their way outside.

"Quickly!" Marric whispered. He waved Nicephorus away. He would return Daphne home by a back route.

Outside the Hippodrome a party of Irene's special security officers rode up and down. From time to time, they cut someone out of the crowd of passersby, detained him, and then either released him or had him marched off—usually the latter.

"My lord," Stephana smiled brightly at Marric. As she intended, her voice carried. "May we go to the perfumers' stalls?" They would provide one way of getting through. Isis certainly had answered his love's prayers for courage.

"Let us simply ease through this crowd. I hope you do not fear the press of such a rabble?"

"With you with me?" But the hand Stephana laid on his arm trembled from her efforts not to clutch him.

They inched their way along the Mese. A hand suddenly fell on Marric's shoulder. Stephana stifled a gasp.

"I will just be detaining these people," announced an underofficer.

A little too quickly Marric turned. He thrust Stephana behind him. For once, he hoped, she went armed, but he doubted it. His hand dropped to the hilt of his dagger.

Sunlight sparkled on the carved stone of the buildings and danced on the blue waters of the Horn. Is this the last time I will see this?

"I thought I should stop you, my prince," whispered the officer.

"Marcellinus sent you?"

"Aye. Thank all the gods I was on duty."

"I will also thank you. Rest assured, I do not forget my friends. What news do you bring me?"

"From Jomsborg, my lord. The reaver returned Irene's ambassadors in very damaged condition. He says that—save his grand-dam—he will permit no woman on his island. Least of all the red empress."

"Why this cordon?"' Marric gestured at the line of cavalry, which was an effective blockade.

"The empress has decided that the Varangians are disloyal. She wants them taken into custody." The officer's voice was flat, expressionless. Not for him to criticize where he might be overheard: his service to Marric showed what he really thought.

"You will never take them unless they consent to their arrest. Osiris' death, they are loyal, man!" Marric thought of a battle between the axe-wielding Northerners and imperial cataphracts, and felt sick.

"We hope that they will consent." Understandably enough, the man looked uneasy. Like the Jomsborgers, the Varangians had a reputation for ferocity. "Now, lord, I have to appear to release you, then go arrest my brothers-in-arms, Horus aid me." He shouted at another officer. "This one's safe; the lady went to the temple to pray for a son!"

"Irene has gone beyond love of power," Stephana whispered. "Now she craves destruction. If the Varangians resist—"

"They could tear the city apart."

As if led there by a perverse fate, several Varangians sauntered by. At first they reacted to their arrest with disbelief, then with bellowed outrage. Two indeed handed over their weapons to Irene's officers. But the others shouted defiance and reached for their axes.

Blood stained the scrubbed stone of steps, buildings, and columns.

"They're mine," Marric groaned. "And they're killing one another."

Stephana flung her arms about him. "You cannot help it yet, beloved. You cannot!" Her touch restrained him as well as gave comfort, yet she seemed the picture of a woman long protected and suddenly thrust into violence.

"They have broken through—ah! stolen the men's horses, have they? They will ride for the gates and join Audun, I wager. I hope they make it. But wait! One man is down—he waves the others on."

Imperial troops secured the wounded mercenary and stripped him of his weapons. Blood from his scalp clotted on his braids and ran down his armor. He staggered as he walked, but they propped him up before their commander. Marric remembered the man from their days as recruits together. He liked pain, liked it altogether too much for Marric's taste.

"Kill this one," he ordered.

"In the temple precincts?" one of his men protested. "That's sacrilege."

"Do it or die with him!" shouted the officer. "Then one of you can cut—what do they call that trick of the Jomsborgers?—the bloodeagle on him. We will prop him before the walls."

Marric tightened his arms about Stephana. He could feel her power radiating out to the condemned man: faith, compassion, strength. As long as she thought she could help, she would not move. The Varangian stood frozen in shock. His eyes scanned the crowded forum absently, as if he did not see the people who stared and whispered.

"Stephana, can you give him an easy death?" Marric asked. He ached at the man's pain and confusion. And just when the bearmaster had asked him to look to his kinsmen!

"He fights to live. I cannot interfere with that," she said. "You can help him, though. Let him see you, watch you, know that his death matters to you." She looked up at him earnestly. "You have the power to do it, love. I promise."

Marric summoned the undervoice and sent his message as strongly as he could. Trust, respect, sorrow. You are seen, Guardsman!

The man straightened almost to attention. He glanced over at Marric, then quickly looked away. Watch how I can die, prince, his expression seemed to say. With a yell as ghastly as any Jomsborg berserker's war cry, he hurled himself at the commander and seized his sword.

"For the prince!" he screamed. "Marric!" He drove the blade into his own heart. The shock of his death hit Stephana, and she screamed. The commander turned to look at her. Then he saw Marric and gasped in amazement.

"Run!" Marric ordered. The compulsion to watch, to watch carefully this latest of Irene's atrocities vanished. He had been recognized.

Her white veil trailing from her hair, Stephana ran. She lifted her skirts with both hands so that she could run faster. The veil fluttered free.

"This way!" Marric pulled her into a cross street where they stopped, panting for breath. This part of the city, near the stalls of the perfumers, was sweet-smelling, tranquil, but blood stained it too.

Marric knew he had just run out of time.

He tightened his arms about Stephana. "Can you walk now?" he asked. Seeing them huddled in the shadows, anyone would have taken them for lovers stealing a moment together, not plotters who must gamble their lives on their schemes.

Stephana raised a hand to her hair and discovered that her veil was missing. She began to laugh. "So much for defying one's fate, beloved! Come, let us go home."

When Marric rose slightly before dawn, Stephana kissed him sleepily. The familiar, beloved touch conveyed no awareness that she knew where he was going.

He walked to the Temple of Osiris. During the night the pavement before it had been sanded clean of blood. Still, Marric found himself avoiding certain places. Here a foot soldier had fallen, his throat cut. Here an officer had stabbed his own horse to prevent a Varangian from stealing it. And here—Marric recoiled from the memory—was the place where the Varangian had met his eyes, saluted him, and killed himself.

Rest easy, brother. Marric glanced at the horizon. The sun was rising.

By now Audun would have received word of the man's death and would honor him. When Marric won back his throne, he would attempt to find and compensate the man's family. He would never forget his sacrifice.

Marric thought that his unwillingness to walk over the blood-polluted stones augured well for his purpose. Today he would seek initiation from the priests of Osiris. Once he received whatever power it might confer, he could be about the empire's business again.

He walked up the shallow stairs between the porphyry lions that a long-ago emperor had brought back from Egypt and given to the temple.

One land, one lord. If Marric's land required him to take initiation he would. What was it? Nicephorus and Stephana had never disclosed any details of their ceremonies. Yet they had power they could draw from. The shaman in the Huns' tents: he had a different sort of power. So too did Audun Bearmaster. It was past time for Marric to acquire power, too.

He strode more boldly than he felt within the temple. Incense prickled his nostrils and woke strange sensations and stranger memories of a life . . . lives . . . Priests, underpriests, and acolytes preparing for the dawn service observed him in silence and without surprise. His entire life might have been spent in arriving at this place.

An ancient priest, even his bald scalp wrinkled, pointed out a corridor painted with symbols that were old when the stone was first laid in the ancient Temple of Osiris at Heliopolis.

"The high priest will see you."

Marric's footsteps echoed as he walked down the corridor. Hieroglyphics were painted on the sloping walls; they made the place look like a tomb. His mastery of the old tongue did not allow him to read the signs.

The corridor angled sharply and ended in a tiny chamber. In it sat the high priest on an ivory stool. He did not rise or otherwise greet Marric. The gold serpent crown of his priesthood glittered on his shaven skull. Arched brows framed narrow, deep-set eyes as dark as Marric's own, eyes that pierced him. And above them, the gemmed eyes of the serpent stared at him, too.

As Marric stood there, the centuries seemed to roll back. No longer was he a prince of Alexander's line, uniting Egypt, Greece, and Persia. No longer did he live within a Byzantium that sickened under the rule of a madwoman they called witch and Red Empress. He was not a prince who had been a governor, slave, and now an insurgent. He was not Stephana's lover nor Nicephorus' friend. Very simply, Marric was just one in an age-old procession of supplicants. And the high priest was what he had always been since the first temples rose by the Nile: the intermediary between mankind and the gods who dwelt at the horizon.

Both men studied one another. Marric shook off his awe and remembered his boyhood, fidgeting at his father's side during endless rituals. This same priest had always glared him into silence and stillness, overmastering him when even his father could not.

He didn't seem any older now than he had then: he still looked like the oldest man in the world—and one of the strongest. What was his name? Marric should have known. It troubled him that he could not remember. The priest had always been just that—the high priest.

Since he was evidently prepared to sit silently forever, Marric spoke. "I have come to take initiation."

"Many seek initiation. Few are found worthy. Why do you seek it?"

Marric shrugged. He looked into the high priest's dark eyes and made a plea of the empire's need, his own dawning awareness that he might serve it better if he were more than a warrior king. Under the man's unrelenting gaze, even his love lay revealed. Would the priest understand that too?