In private, to Ilias, he did not bother to conceal his irritation.
“I dislike the timing of this summons.” Myca paced the length of his study, a windowless room fully wide as it was long, lined in the bookcases that contained the documents and artifacts that he personally preserved from the Library of the Forgotten in Constantinople. It was a very satisfying room to pace in, with a fireplace to keep the mountain damp from the books, and a minimum of furnishings, creating a relatively warm and open space in which to work out tension. Myca paced when he thought, which Ilias found quite helpful when reading his lover’s occasionally opaque moods.
Ilias sat cross-legged on one of the few pieces of furniture, a backless padded bench next to the writing desk, and watched silently, waiting for his companion’s train of thought to come to its next utterance. After a moment, it did.
“It is almost too coincidental, given all the other factors at work.” Myca returned the way he’d come, the pearl-encrusted hems of his dalmatic swaying gracefully with the motion. “‘A matter of diplomatic importance,’ he said. Jürgen? There are nights when I believe that man was put in creation solely to vex me. The Tremere? Unlikely. Something else? The last Symeon wrote to me, he was playing peacemaker with Noriz’ little brood of monstrosities… Could that be it? Ilias, my correspondence chest.”
Ilias already had the little lacquered wooden box open and extracted Symeon’s most recent letters, which had arrived late in the previous summer. Myca accepted the bundle and began paging through it, scanning the closely written lines. “Lukasz and Rachlav. He was entertaining envoys from them last autumn. Do you know anything of either of them?”
“Childer of Noriz, both of them.” Ilias remarked as Myca paced back past him, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Lukasz, I do not know personally. Rachlav the Unquenchable I have… met. His name suits him.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at Myca, who had come to a complete halt. “He and his sire have a startling number of similarities in temperament, including the inability to hear the word ‘no.’”
Myca came back to his side and lingered silently for a moment, running a caressing hand through Ilias’ hair. “You served him?”
“For a time. He desired the honor that would accrue to him, hosting a koldun in his domains. That he believed his tastes matched mine was merely an added advantage, in his mind.” Ilias’ tone was coolly impassive. “Our desires were not as complimentary as he wished.”
Myca raised a handful of red-golden curls to his lips, and said nothing, not knowing what to say. After a moment, Ilias continued. “I departed his domains after a year and a night, as was my right, and he chose not to pursue me. In that, at least, he was wise.” He shook his head slightly, pulling his hair tight in his lover’s grip. “Rachlav is a favorite of his sire, inasmuch as Noriz actually has favorites, though it has not done him much good. He has been at war with his brother Lukasz since before my Embrace. There is some sordid little humiliation at the heart of it, something about a mortal favored by them both, and quite a bit of bloodshed and mutual provocation since. They detest each other thoroughly, of that I have no doubt.”
“But apparently they detest the Tremere more.” Myca laid the most recent of his sire’s letters in Ilias’ hands. “And are of the mutual opinion that not enough is being done on that front.”
Ilias shrugged slightly. “The impression I received while I was at Rachlav’s court was that Noriz himself found their little quarrel amusing, and had no intention of doing anything to halt it. Noriz favors bloodshed as an entertainment, so long as the blood being spilt is not his own.” A thoughtful pause. “Of course, if he wishes to regain the respect of the clan, and the honor he believes should be his, he is going to have to crack the whip on that revolting brood he has spawned over the centuries. It is all well and good to talk a fight against the Tremere—but that is no different from what Rustovitch has been doing for the last handful of years. Otherwise he will never reclaim what he lost.”
“Reclaim…?” Myca asked, an appalling revelation stealing over him. “Wait. Are you suggesting to me that Noriz was once considered voivode of voivodes?”
Ilias laughed out loud at the naked horror in Myca’s voice. “Once, a very long time ago, Noriz, Damek, the eldest childe of the bogatyr Ruthven, and Valeska, the priestess of Veles, were considered first among equals. And, for a time, the clan prospered after the fall of Rome and beneath their leadership. But Damek Ruthven turned to scholarly pursuits, Noriz fell to decadence and dissipation, and Valeska turned her back on the depravity he helped foster, passing her mantle to a veela shield maiden when the time came. Noriz was content to subsist on the honor owed him as an elder prince of the blood and tales of his past glories—and discovered the hard way that past glories availed him little in the face of a new foe.”
Myca shook his head. “It is almost beyond belief, but it does make sense, if Noriz truly cherishes some ambition of humbling Vladimir Rustovitch, to let my sire make peace between his childer. That way, if the effort fails, he can wash his hands of it, and if it succeeds, he can claim some reflection of the credit.” He resumed pacing as he thought. “The gods, I hope Symeon does not expect me to travel all over the mountains, making diplomatic sounds at the behest of Noriz. It would likely kill me.”
“I doubt it would kill you, my flower, but I cannot claim it would be very pleasant.” Ilias smiled wryly. “If you wish, I will accompany you, should it come to that.”
“No.” Myca addressed that answer to the far wall and its case of delicate papyrus scrolls standing against it. “No… I wish you to stay here.”
“Myca,” Ilias said softly, “you cannot keep your sire and me from meeting forever. The world is not large enough for it.”
“I know. But I am also not in a hurry to rush the arrival of that night,” Myca admitted frankly, turning around and pacing back toward the bench. “My motives are not entirely altruistic in this matter, my heart. I do not trust Malachite, and I do not wish to leave Nikita’s body unattended, even warded as it is. It… I feel that would be the wrong thing to do. I wish you to remain, and make certain that Nikita continues to rest peacefully.”
“This is not beyond my powers,” Ilias assured him, with a hint of wry humor. “Given that I doubt he will rise on his own any time soon. Do you wish me to do anything else, in the absence of our so very pious guests?”
Myca hesitated. “If your strength is recovered, and you feel the risk not too great, I would not object to your plan to discover what you may from the spirits of Nikita’s grave-earth. But I do not wish you to risk yourself unnecessarily.”
“My flower, I assure you, I never risk myself unnecessarily.” Ilias caught his companion’s hand, and brought it to his lips. “Some risks are necessary, after all, and worth the price one pays for them.”
“Yes,” Myca agreed quietly. “Some are.”
Chapter Eight
Oradea, like most of the towns along the edge of the Great Plain, made its living through trade. The city lay along the banks of the Crisul Repede, the river responsible for much of its prosperity, at the junction of the Great Plain and the low hills extending down from the high range of the Apuseni Mountains. Its location was fortuitous in all ways for the people who dwelt there and the merchants who traveled to do business there. Its marketplaces were bustling even into the night, and in its streets a dozen languages collided as folk came together from points all over the East, to converse, to trade, to drink and share tales.
Symeon’s haven lay a short distance outside of the town proper, perched atop a thickly wooded hill and reached by means of a steep, unpaved road that horses and pack animals traversed far more easily than even the lightest sledge or cart. By day, the party waited in the city itself. They took lodgings in a traveler’s hostel run by the sort of professionally uncurious landlord who thrived on the business provided by night travelers. Windowless rooms were available upon request, and adjoining chambers for body-servants. Lady Rosamund, of course
, slept by herself, on the finest bed in the establishment. Myca, Sir Gilbrecht, Sir Landric, and Malachite shared the chamber next door. When they rose in the evening, the mortal members of the party had already prepared for the last leg of the journey, procuring extra horses and pack animals, and shifting the majority of the baggage over in the hours before sunset. For an extra fee, and the knowledge that the lord of the house on the hill would reward him well for his services again, the landlord agreed to store their sledges and the carts. They departed Oradea an hour after sundown, outriders with torches and pole-mounted lanterns lighting the road, a letter having preceded them during the day via the best rider among the Obertus brothers. They did not pause to repair their hunger, in the knowledge that Symeon would greet them well, and provide for their needs before the night was done.
Despite the foul dampness that dogged them the whole of their journey, the road leading to Symeon’s house was, while muddy, not an actual bog. He had, in Myca’s opinion, made clear and thoughtful use of Obertus engineering expertise, improving the road’s drainage and, in some places, raising its level considerably above the surrounding plain. The area was prone to flooding as the streams that fed into the Crisul Repede rose in the spring with snowmelt and rain. Those streams were high now, and the night was full of the sound of rippling water as they rode. In the distance, lights occasionally came into view through the trees—torches, Myca thought—showing the way up the hill. As they came closer, his supposition was borne out. Stone pylons bearing torches heavily soaked in pitch stood at regular intervals, hissing and popping in the light rainfall.
As they reached the top of the hill, the steepness of the road leveled off and the forest thinned. Symeon’s house loomed out of the darkness, a Byzantine villa that appeared as though it had been lifted whole from Constantinople and placed on the hill by some giant hand. Symeon was prepared for their arrival. As the party clattered over the cobblestone courtyard, a dozen house-servants emerged and, with the sort of quiet competence Symeon favored, began assisting the travelers. Baggage was unlashed and carried inside, horses led away to the stables for appointments with dry blankets and warmed grain. After a brief consultation between Sir Gilbrecht and Lady Rosamund all but three of the mortal complement of Black Cross knights were led away to the guest quarters that had been prepared for them.
Myca dismounted for himself and handed his reins to the stable-boy who came to collect them, patting his great-hearted mount on the nose in passing. The most senior of the servants at hand, a man Myca recognized as the mortal seneschal, approached him and bowed deeply, speaking in Latin for the edification of the westerners. “My stapân Vykos, my lord stapânitor Symeon gives you his fond greetings and welcomes you home with all honor and felicitation. He asks that you and our illustrious guests, the Lady Rosamund d’Islington and my lord Sir Gilbrecht and my lord Sir Landric, as well as my Lord Malachite, forgive that he is not present to greet you. My lord stapânitor Symeon is detained by diplomatic affairs of a highly sensitive nature, from which he cannot yet separate himself. He asks that you accept his hospitality, in his stead, and quarters have been prepared for all, as well as comforts to ease the weariness of the road. Please, come with me.”
Lady Rosamund, her knights, and Malachite were accorded quarters in a guest-wing of the villa that had not yet been finished the last time Myca was in residence. They were not alone in it, Myca could not help but notice as he passed by. The doorways leading to the upper gallery staircases were guarded by two small mountains, giant Cainites in their zulo war-shapes, armed with weapons shaped of solid bone longer than Rosamund was tall. She recoiled at the sight of them, and Myca could hardly blame her. They had not been chosen for their comeliness to anything but Tzimisce eyes. The first was night-black, its skin rippling with a pattern of scales that caught the light of the torches and glistened as though wet, its vaguely reptilian maw set with such a multitude of tiny, sharp teeth its mouth could not close all the way. Its eyes were a flat yellow and slitted like a snake’s, and never seemed to waver from the object of its attention. It seemed to find Lady Rosamund quite magnetic. The second was salt-white and parchment yellow, its brittle-looking skin pierced by bony extrusions across the backs of its many-fingered hands, the lengths of its arms, the crest of its skull-faced head. Its shoulders, legs, and chest were massive with corded muscle, and it looked strong enough to swing the maul it held with mountain-shattering force. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed, as the seneschal unlocked the doors leading to the lower level guest chambers, during which no one spoke but everyone’s thoughts were clearly in evidence. Myca got the distinct impression that both the zulo guardsmen found the reaction they provoked very amusing, indeed.
Myca was escorted to his own apartments, which were kept for his visits, and as a silent invitation should he ever wish to dwell in Oradea permanently. The rooms had been cleaned recently and thoroughly. No trace of dust remained on any surface, the bed and bed clothing were both fresh with the scent of herbs, and a hint of lemon oil still hung in the air. When he checked, he found the wooden base of his bed filled with freshly turned soil, his own grave-earth, a generous supply of which Symeon always kept to hand. A wooden bath lined in linen waited for him in the next room, still steaming hot, next to the fire crackling in the grate. Myca thankfully shed his sopping and muddied traveling garb, and sank into the water for a long, soporific soak. He lowered himself until the point of his chin touched the water and closed his eyes as the warm, wet heat began chasing the chill from his flesh, inhaling the sharp scent of the steam, rich with bath-herbs.
Lavender was Symeon’s favorite bath-scent. It was traditional, conservative, entirely Roman. Much of his house reflected those values, from its rambling size and structure, to its magnificent Byzantine architecture, to the mosaics on the floor and the furniture and fabrics used in its decoration. Normally, Myca did not find this jarring at all, for he had dwelt in Byzantium for decades, and found its glories beautiful, as well. Tonight, however, he found that it robbed him of the peace he should have felt at what was, after all, a homecoming. He found himself violently, wrenchingly homesick for a place that was not Oradea. He ached for the sight of steep snowcapped mountains against the moon-washed sky, silent forests of evergreen on the hillsides, wide-spreading oak in the valleys, the misty plunge of waterfalls down sheer rock faces and mossy streams flowing through the narrow places in the mountains. He longed even more for a slender, strong body against his own in the bath, a body to twine with beneath the linen sheets and fur coverlets of his bed. It occurred to him, with a sharp pang, that he had not been this far apart from Ilias for more years than he could easily count. He wondered, with an even sharper inner pain, what his lover was doing tonight, and whom he was doing it with. He did not, he informed himself and the small, insidious voice in his soul that he knew to be his Beast, doubt Ilias’ faith; he was not jealous, for no such petty emotions existed in the bond between them. He was, however, lonely, and he no longer knew how to deal with his loneliness as easily as he once had.
He opened his eyes and found that soft-footed servants had come and gone while he warmed himself. Thick, warmed towels sat on the bench next to the bath, and clothing hung warming next to the fireplace. Simple clothing, of silk and richly colored, but lacking the elaborate decorative flourishes of garments made for public scrutiny. Myca surmised that Symeon would not call him, or the guests, into open counsel any longer tonight. He dressed himself and stepped into his bed chamber—and there, to his surprise, he found his sire waiting, seated in a low-backed chair next to his reading table, the candle-lamp lit, reading from a slender, leather-bound folio. Myca paused, and caught his breath, struck, as always, by the patrician beauty of the Cainite who had chosen him, the fine bones of his face, the dark eyes, the spill of raven’s wing hair, neatly confined in an enameled ornament, the elegant carriage of his body, even in relaxation. For many years, he had almost feared to look upon his sire with sensual eyes, to view him as a sensual bei
ng, but now he felt no such inhibition. A curl of desire wound its way through his belly and he wondered what it might be like to feel Symeon’s hands on him, rough with longing, and Symeon’s mouth against his skin, desperate with want. He knew that his soul was colored vividly with that fantasy when Symeon looked up and his thin-lipped mouth relaxed in a smile of pleasure and greeting. “My childe.”
“My lord sire.” Myca remembered his manners and bowed deeply, heartily glad he could no longer blush.
“Such formality.” Symeon sounded faintly amused. “Come… sit. You have traveled far to answer my summons and brought me a gift of great worth, as well. I am very pleased with you, Myca.” The praise warmed him more than the bath, and he rose from his bow smiling slightly, taking the chair across from Symeon’s own. “It pleases me that I was of service to you, my lord. I wish only that I might have accomplished more.”
“You will, I do not doubt, have the opportunity to act on that sentiment before all is said and done in these matters,” Symeon assured him, dark eyes playing over him thoughtfully. “You are very drawn, Myca. Have you dined yet?”
“No, not yet. My lord—“ Symeon paused in mid-reach for the brass bell, hidden on the other side of the lamp, that he might use to summon a servant. “There is a matter that I did not feel it safe to commit to parchment, which impacts closely on this situation. If I may…?”
“You may not. Not tonight. I do not wish to speak of politics and stratagems and incidents with you tonight.” He lifted the bell and rang it once with a languid flick of his wrist. “It has been too long since I last saw you, my childe, and tonight I wish only the pleasure of your company. I trust you do not object?”
Myca realized he was surprised by that sentiment, coming from his sire, and experienced a momentary tangle of emotions in response. “No, my lord, I do not object. It has, indeed, been a very long time since… we simply sat and spoke.”
Dark Ages Clan Novel Tzimisce: Book 13 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Page 7
