Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce: Book 13 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Myranda Kalis

  “Excellent. Since it is too late for me to suggest no politics at table, I will instead suggest no religion.” Lord Ilias, Rosamund realized, was the only Cainite she had ever met whose default expression actually seemed to be a smile.

  “I believe we all find that suggestion agreeable.” Lord Vykos interjected, dryly, with another bow from the neck to the two knights. “It is the custom among my people that guests receive first rights to sustenance. Choose as you will.”

  Both knights glanced at Rosamund and she, realizing their deference in this matter was wholly appropriate, examined the offerings. While they were all somewhat young, none appeared to be fearful, and none showed any obvious signs of maltreatment or deformation. In fact, they had the definite look of being well fed and freshly scrubbed and, in several cases, almost excited. Impulsively, Rosamund chose one of those, a well-favored young man with crisp brown curls and smoke-gray eyes, who in no way resembled or reminded her of her lord. He slipped beneath her fur with a slightly crooked smile and a bow from the neck, though he did not speak. Sir Gilbrecht curtly motioned to a tall frost-blonde boy, who joined him with extraordinary grace and dignity, and Sir Landric selected a plump girl whose black hair and smooth brown skin suggested a foreign origin. Lord Ilias chose a small, slender, dark-haired boy, apparently a favorite of some standing, for he quite boldly laid himself across his patron’s lap. Ilias laid a hand on his hip and murmured something to him that made him smile. Lord Vykos also appeared to prefer blondes, as his selection was a girl with sun-golden curls who sat herself very carefully at his side, neither touching him nor making any effort to do so. The remainder bowed politely and filed out without comment.

  “A blessing, I think, is in order.” Lord Ilias suggested genially, tracing a pattern on the white flesh of his companion with the tip of one finger. “We give thanks to all the gods who care to listen for the presence of our guests, their safe journey and joyful stay, and for the service of those who offer themselves for our sustenance, in the name of Earth and Sky, and the Waters of Life and Death.”

  A heartbeat passed, then, making the best of it, Sir Landric uttered, “Amen.” Rosamund and Sir Gilbrecht echoed him an instant later. Rosamund’s companion proved to be both enthusiastic and helpful, silently offering her a variety of areas from which she might feed, though she required him to leave his tunic on. She drank lightly, once from his throat and thereafter sipped from the veins in his wrist, being careful not to take too much. His blood was beguilingly sweet and unusually strong. His warmth pressed against her beneath the furs was almost as pleasant as tasting him. A moment passed in which no conversation passed as everyone sampled the fare. Sir Gilbrecht bit deeply and without ceremony into the wrist of his ice-colored companion, who closed his eyes as though enduring stoically rather than experiencing the pleasure of the Kiss. Sir Landric’s pretty brown girl giggled, the first sound to escape any of their companions. Lord Ilias’ boy quivered and moaned softly, his cheeks flushed rosy, visibly aroused and pleasured before fang pierced flesh. Rosamund had no idea how Ilias accomplished it, since he did nothing but keep a hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder. Lord Vykos’ companion offered a wrist with an air of ceremony and, just as formally, he drank lightly of her, let her take her hand back, and did not touch her again.

  “I trust our humble offering suits?” Lord Vykos asked, pitching the question to the table in general and receiving a chorus of quiet affirmatives in reply. “Excellent.”

  “The only thing we seem to be lacking is appropriate dinner music,” Lord Ilias observed, in a tone of one musing aloud. “If I recall correctly, Lady Rosamund, your honorable brother, Sir Josselin, has quite a lovely voice.”

  “That he does.” Rosamund admitted, thinking, Would that he were here.

  “Would that he were here,” Lord Ilias echoed, and Rosamund had to physically suppress a start of surprise. “I had hoped to see him again under civilized circumstances.” And, so saying, he finally took his companion, bending to suckle gently at the boy’s throat. Sir Gilbrecht’s companion’s eyes locked on them and refused to let go until Lord Ilias leaned back again, licking a rich red drop from the corner of his lips. “And I heard, just recently, a song that would suit his voice perfectly.”

  Rosamund cast a quick, quelling glance at her knightly escorts and replied, evenly, “You may yet meet him under civilized circumstances, my lord. No one knows what the future may bring.”

  “You are, indeed, a diplomat, cousin.” Lord Ilias twined his fingers in his companion’s hair and stroked gently. “But even you must admit that the future is unlikely to be scattered with rose petals and filled with song. Especially given your mission to us, which I doubt was motivated by any happy circumstance.”

  “I admit, the cause of my mission is not entirely… pleasant… but that does not mean the end results must be destructive. I seek, in fact, to avoid a breach in the good will that exists between the Obertus Order and my Lord Jürgen.” Which was, she thought, one of the finest bits of extemporaneous deceit she had ever managed. “My Lord Vykos, if it pleases you…”

  He made a slight gesture of assent. “Say on.”

  “The cause that brings me here is simply this: my Lord Jürgen, operating under information from a source he deemed reliable, was forced to assail the walls of an Obertus monastery in Ezerelis.” Lord Vykos’ posture stiffened, subtly but unmistakably, and Lord Ilias sat up fully. Across from her, Sir Gilbrecht looked grimly pleased at that reaction, and Sir Landric kept his own face as still as possible. “Intelligence had come to him that this monastery had been suborned in service to the voivode of voivodes, and was passing information on the movement of my lord’s men in the area, thus placing them at great risk. My Lord Jürgen determined to remove this threat and, lacking the time necessary to contact my Lord Vykos, raided the monastery and took it.”

  “I see.” Those two words held a world of knowledge, indeed. Rosamund could nearly see the thoughts running behind the Tzimisce’s eyes and she wished she dared look at his colors.

  “My Lord Jürgen wished to give the Obertus Order as a whole no insult, nor do it any harm, but he had no choice other than to act.” The look that Lord Vykos gave her in response to that was utterly opaque; Lord Ilias’ mouth was set in the wryest of smiles, as though the disaster he’d been expecting had finally struck, and now he could relax. “And, in truth, he found something quite interesting at the monastery itself.”

  “Proof of rampant Obertus perfidy, justifying his action, perhaps?” Lord Ilias asked and earned himself a glare from Sir Gilbrecht.

  “Hold your tongue,” the knight growled, only barely managing not to add a string of descriptive epithets, Rosamund was quite sure.

  “Sir Gilbrecht.” Rosamund layered equal parts steel and reproof into her tone. “Lord Ilias is one of our hosts. If we expect the laws of hospitality to be honored, it is best that we not breach the laws of comity, do you not think?”

  Sir Gilbrecht tendered a relatively graceless apology, which Lord Ilias accepted with the slightest inclination of his head. Rosamund continued. “What my Lord Jürgen found was a high-ranking Cainite heretic who had, evidently, suborned the monastery and its residents to his service.” She paused to allow that time to sink in. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lord Ilias casting Lord Vykos a genuinely startled look, before he disciplined his face. Lord Vykos himself inclined a single inquiring eyebrow, for him a dramatic display of surprise. “In fact, the Heretic was none other than the Archbishop of Nod himself, Nikita of Sredetz.”

  Chapter Three

  Myca Vykos read the letter Jürgen of Magdeburg sent along with his envoy for perhaps the fifth time, as though another repetition could extract more sense from it. He was, frankly, perplexed by the entire situation—the sudden arrival of Rosamund d’Islington with the torpid body of Nikita of Sredetz literally in tow, the delicately worded half-accusation he held in his hand, vis-à-vis the presence of a known Cainite heretic in a monastery belo
nging to the Obertus Order. It took all his self-control not to grind his fangs as he considered it. He could almost picture, could, in fact, feel, the satisfaction with which Jürgen had dropped this problem in his lap. That satisfaction was rendered doubly obnoxious by the fact that the grasping self-righteous bastard had the unadulterated gall to squat in the very monastery he had seized on the thinnest possible pretext, sending forth letters and envoys like a prince in truth and not the minion of a creature even more avaricious than himself; namely, his sire Hardestadt. The strength of the sudden antipathy was breathtaking and, for an instant, Myca allowed himself to savor it, enjoying the sensation of hot, perfect loathing churning beneath his breastbone and the desire of his Beast to smite the arrogant little warlord and remind him of his place.

  Perhaps later, he promised, and the Beast subsided into a quiet contemplation of the havoc it might be permitted to wreak. Jürgen of Magdeburg’s envoy was defended by traditions far older than the present conflict but Myca had no doubt that his sire, Symeon, would be at least as displeased by this current turn of events as he was. And Symeon was a past master of the sort of protracted personal and political vengeances that would make even Hardestadt, who dared name himself monarch, yield rather than continue suffering them.

  The door thudded quite deliberately against its stops, drawing him from his contemplation of the missive laid out on his writing table. Ilias smiled faintly and shrugged out of the tunic he’d donned in deference to their guests’ modesty. “I somehow feel, my flower, that Lady Rosamund’s bodyguards do not like me very much.”

  “They are Teutons, Ilias. They have no taste. Pay them the same heed you would an ill-mannered lout of our own blood.” He refolded the letter and set it aside for the moment. “Our guests are settled? The accommodations are to their liking?”

  “Our guests are settled. Lady Rosamund, at least, accepted the bed-servant warming her sheets in the spirit that the gesture intended.” Ilias rolled his eyes heavenward, in a silent plea for strength and tolerance in the face of stiff-necked vampires of few redeeming qualities. “I suspect our knightly friends were offended that we didn’t strip the guest quarters to bare walls and floors, and provide them with a rock for a pillow.”

  “I have never claimed to understand the manias of the desperately righteous.” Myca extended a hand and Ilias took it, allowing himself to be drawn close against the side of his lover, bending to claim the kiss he had denied himself all evening. When they broke apart, Myca took up the letter and handed it over. “Here. I crave your thoughts on this matter.”

  With great ceremony, Ilias seated himself on the comfortably padded bench and leaned a bit closer to the candle lamp to examine the missive, reading it once through quickly, then going back over it again, more closely. After a long moment of consideration, he looked up and remarked, conversationally, “I think it quite obvious that Lord Jürgen has sold his soul.”

  Myca felt the corners of his mouth twitching and sternly told them to behave. “Dare I ask what brings you to that conclusion?”

  “Only a man gifted with the most diabolical fortune could break a treaty on a pretext this thin, and still find a provocation like Nikita of Sredetz to justify his actions. Therefore, his soul can no longer be his own. It is the only logical explanation.” Ilias refolded the letter and placed it in the open correspondence chest, shaking his head. “That, and I marvel anew at the rampant ignorance of the Ventrue. You, Rustovitch’s vassal? The man has spent the better part of the last twenty years at war with the illustrious voivode of voivodes. One might think he would learn something from that.”

  “I fear that Lord Jürgen’s logic has always been rather susceptible to the sway of self-interest.” Myca replied, dryly. “And while I cannot speak with authority concerning the disposition of his soul, I think you are fundamentally correct. Lord Jürgen felt himself unduly constrained by the strictures of the treaty he and his honor agreed to uphold, and so found an excuse in his own mind to justify breaking it. It is either diabolical good fortune on his part, or malignant poor fortune on ours, that put Nikita of Sredetz there for him to find. What, precisely, the Archbishop of Nod was doing in our territory is a… separate and distinct consideration.”

  “Your sire will no doubt be thoroughly displeased.”

  “No doubt. I shall write him tomorrow, after I have interrogated Lady Rosamund more fully. May I rely on you, my heart, to entertain our other guests while she and I speak privily?”

  Ilias smiled, his cat-smile of greatly anticipated pleasure. There were, Myca knew, few things Ilias enjoyed more than tormenting the sanctimonious minions of the Black Cross. “I am quite certain that I can provide some appropriate activity to while away the long winter hours. And, speaking of appropriate activities…”

  “Yes?”

  “Nico and Sergiusz are keeping the bed warm for us. I, for one, would like to end this evening in a much more pleasing fashion than it began.” He offered a hand, and a smile of invitation.

  Myca accepted both, with a small smile of his own. “Lead on, oh my teacher.”

  Myca Vykos knew this was a dream. He had never walked the streets of Constantinople by day.

  The dark waters of the Marmora shimmered in an endlessly shifting pattern of golden radiance, rushing past the Blachernai sea walls, beating against the marble breakwaters, throwing gilt spray and churning up gilt foam. Beneath his long-fingered hands and his silk-slippered feet, the stones of the sea wall were warm yet with the captured heat of a high summer day. They shone, as well, pale marble veined with gently pulsating golden light. He looked about, and found the Blachernai palace garden spread around him, every plant and every fountain, every graveled path and exquisitely placed statue, burning from inside with a fierce and holy light that should have wounded him, but did not, that should have reduced him to ash, but left him whole.

  He walked, each stride consuming miles. He passed harbors filled with ships and bustling with their passengers and crews, he passed quiet piers where fishermen dragged ashore their catches. He passed monuments to imperial glory that had endured since the fall of Rome and the humblest tenements in the poorest corners of the city and the houses that belonged only to God. He passed through the marketplaces great and small, and he walked the length of the Mese, from one end of the city to the other. He saw everything there was to see of it—everything sacred, everything profane.

  And all of it was perfect. It burned from within, so perfect was the city and all who dwelt in it. Its light shone through the skin of stone and the skin of flesh—imperishable, eternal. He knew it for absolute truth when he came before the great walls of the Hagia Sophia, and saw its dome shining with the light of the rising sun, filling the arch of the heavens with the city’s glory.

  He wept then, and fell to his knees, and bowed down in homage that he would offer to nothing and no one else.

  Myca came back to himself slowly, warned by the heaviness in his limbs and the sluggishness of his thoughts that the sun was not yet below the horizon. The bedchamber was wholly dark, the night lamp no doubt extinguished hours before by the bed-servants. All around him, darkness pressed in, thick and damp with winter chill. His cheeks were wet, and his skull swam with equal parts uneasiness and exhaustion. He felt as though he had not slept at all. It took all his concentration to raise his free hand and wipe away the tears. His lover slept pressed against him beneath the bed-furs, head pillowed on his shoulder, golden-red curls spread across his chest and throat. His hand found those curls and tangled itself in them; despite the inner disquiet that woke him, he found himself soothed by their softness, the gentle scent of linden blossom that rose at his touch.

  Ilias stirred slightly in response, curling closer, his face tilting up though his eyes still refused to open. After a moment’s effort, he managed to form words. “Myca? Is something wrong?”

  For a moment, Myca seriously considered lying, and lulling Ilias back to sleep with a kiss, but such a thing was unworthy of the bond betw
een them. Ilias knew, with perfect certainty, when someone he loved was in pain, and when he himself was being deceived. “I dreamed again. It is nothing. Truly.”

  A ripple of tension ran through Ilias’ body, shaking away his lethargy; he lifted his head and whispered, “Do you remember what you dreamed?”

  “No.” He paused, reconsidered, answered again. “No, that is not wholly true. I remember that there was…light. A great light, terrible and glorious. Not the sun. It was not a death-dream. It was… something else.”

  “Something you feared?” Another whisper.

  “Yes.” Until Myca spoke the word aloud, he had not realized it was true.

  “My flower.” Ilias caught the hand tangled in his hair, and brought it to his lips. “Sometimes dreams are only dreams. Here and now, you have nothing to fear.”

  It was an attempt to distract and soothe him, and Myca knew it without the need for thought. Within himself, he was unsettled enough to do as Ilias wished, and let himself be comforted. A line of cool kisses crept up his arm and across the flat planes of his chest; a small, strong hand stroked his ribs gently, coaxed him to shift himself over, to lay on his side. It took a moment of effort, for daylight lethargy was only just leaving him, but once it was managed, he found it wholly pleasant to lie with his face pressed against a mixture of silken pillows and impossibly soft furs, while Ilias kissed every inch of his body between throat and navel. Ilias, Myca thought, was exceedingly fond of his navel and paid it generous attention with lips and tongue and jewelry when given permission. Ilias knew precisely where and how to touch him to arouse first the ghost of pleasure and then its reality. Ilias knew how to turn mere pleasure into blinding, soul-consuming ecstasy, a union of blood and spirit, flesh and mind.

  This evening, pleasure was enough, comfort was enough. Soft kisses, gentle caresses, the delicate pressure of fangs behind lips and the sweet pain as they pierced his skin, then Ilias holding him as he sobbed quietly in reaction. Gentle words of endearment that he did not quite hear. Silence as they lay tangled together, furs and silks and naked skin blending.