Mnenodatos
physician
3
By the time the Guard arrived to search her house, Niklos had managed to hide most of the incriminating volumes Olivia had not been able to be rid of; there were a few Roman objects that might be considered suspect, but Olivia had said that disposing of all of them might be construed as more suspicious than the possession of one or two Roman items.
"We are here on the order of the Emperor and the Court Censor," announced Captain Demitrios as he held out a scroll sealed in three places. "Your scribe will read it to you."
"My Greek is not so bad that I cannot muddle my way through your writ," said Olivia as she accepted the document. "You will watch me break the seals, Captain?"
Taken aback, Captain Demitrios exchanged glances with two of his men. "If you like. Your sponsor should be here."
Olivia regarded the Guard Captain evenly. "My sponsor is General Belisarius. If one of you will go to his house and summon him, I am certain he will come."
"General Belisarius," repeated Captain Demitrios. "He is your sponsor."
"Yes. I turned over my villa outside Roma to him during his campaign and for that he has consented to be my sponsor." She was reasonably certain that Captain Demitrios knew something of this, but she was willing to go through the ritual. "If you would rather, I will send one of my slaves to fetch him."
"He ought to be here," said Captain Demitrios uncertainly. "The General—"
Olivia clapped her hands loudly. "Niklos!"
He responded at once, coming from the smaller of the reception rooms. "My mistress?" He favored her with a full reverence that was not lost on the soldiers.
"These Guardsmen require that General Belisarius be here while they perform their duty. Will you ask him to join us. Perhaps, Captain, you will tell my majordomo what your errand is so that he may inform the General?" She did her best to keep the irony out of her voice, but did not succeed entirely. "I will ask one of my two cooks to give you wine and something to eat while you wait, Captain."
The Captain straightened up. "We will have to stand guard around the house until the General arrives. We cannot act until he has read the orders. It would be best if you did not break the seals; leave that to General Belisarius." He was clearly not satisfied with the arrangement but knew his duty.
"Just as you wish. My household is, naturally, at your disposal," said Olivia as she stepped back from the armed men. "Come with me, Niklos, and I will write a note to the General for you to deliver."
Niklos heard the anger in her tone and he hastened after her, hoping she would contain herself until they were in private. "My mistress," he said as he opened the library to her, "you have only to command me."
As soon as the door was closed, Olivia turned her blazing eyes on Niklos. "I am not allowed to authorize the searching of my own house! It is bad enough that they want to search it, but I cannot read the document! Hecate shrivel them, every one of them!"
"Hush," Niklos warned her.
"Don't you—" She broke off. "You're right," she admitted after a moment. "All right. Find me my ink tablet and something to write on. The mood I'm in, I'll settle for a torn rag." She sat down, her shoulders still angular with rage. "Hurry. I don't want the good Captain to get restive."
"Will Belisarius come?" asked Niklos.
"I hope he will send a simple authorization, if that's possible. The whole thing is already intolerable." She was working the ink cake, mixing a little water with the square block, rubbing it with a small oval section of ivory until she had enough to write with. She accepted the vellum Niklos handed her and began to write, forming the letters awkwardly since she was not entirely used to the Greek alphabet yet.
"I will tell him what's going on," Niklos promised her.
"Including, no doubt, my state of mind," she said, shaking her head slowly. "Here. Take this. Make sure you show it to that oaf of a Captain."
"I will," Niklos told her, folding the vellum once and tucking it into his wide belt. He left promptly, winking at her before he closed the door.
Olivia sat alone among her shelves, a third of them empty now that the suspect texts had been removed. She forced herself to become calm. There had been other times over the centuries when she had faced worse than this, she reminded herself sternly, and she had been able to win free. She would do it again. If five centuries had taught her nothing else, she had learned a knack for survival. Much as she felt hampered by circumstances, she knew she would find a way; she always had. By the time she left the library, she was in command of herself.
Captain Demitrios greeted her return with more respect than he had shown her at first. "We are truly sorry for this"—he paused, trying to find a delicate word for intrusion—"necessity, but a soldier is the tool of the state."
"Yes; I am aware of that," said Olivia. "Perhaps you might tell me what you are ordered to look for?"
"There are a number of things," he answered evasively. "It is spelled out in the writ. The General will explain it all to you when he gets here."
Olivia bit back a sharp retort and forced herself to say, "I trust that he will. I trust that someone will. For to be candid, Captain, I do not understand why I am being treated in this way. Everything I brought with me to Konstantinoupolis was on the shipping manifests, and they were approved when I arrived here. There were other items of mine that we found here being sold, which were identified as contraband. What else do you think I have?"
"Great lady, it is not for me to discuss these matters. I have no knowledge of the reason the Censor wishes to have your house searched." He sounded so wooden and formal that Olivia wanted to kick him, to find out if he would feel it at all.
"Then how will you know if you find what the Censor—" She interrupted herself. "I suppose all that is in the document."
Captain Demitrios set his jaw. "Precisely."
"Then, if it is acceptable to you, I will leave you to withdraw to my quarters. Post your guards as you must. I hope it is permissible for me to have one of my slaves attend me while my majordomo is on his errand?" She hated the sound of her voice and wanted to scream at herself for hypocrisy, at the same time knowing it was the most sensible thing to do.
"We will strive not to disturb you, great lady," said Captain Demitrios, relieved enough to show her a slight reverence.
"You have already done that, Captain, through no fault of your own. I am now going to strive to minimize the impact of your presence on my household." She gave him a brief, hard look, then turned and went down the hall. "Zejhil!" she shouted. "I want you to come to my rooms!"
Most of the household slaves heard Olivia's order, and three of them took it upon themselves to find Zejhil for her, so that by the time the Tartar slave reached Olivia's apartments, she was worried that something more dreadful than the soldiers had happened to her mistress.
Niklos returned a short while later accompanied not by Belisarius but by Captain Chrysanthos, who was visiting the General. "He has authorization from Belisarius," said Niklos, who had already given Chrysanthos the benefit of his view of the situation.
Captain Demitrios watched Chrysanthos open the document and listened while he read aloud the items that Olivia was suspected of having including a sizable list of banned books, several of which Niklos recognized as the volumes Olivia had found added to the ones in her shelves.
"This is quite an indictment, if it is accurate," Chrysanthos said when he had finished reading.
"There are those who have sworn that it is," said Captain Demitrios grimly.
"And if they are in error?" Chrysanthos asked, adding, "I am charged by General Belisarius to discover what will be done to anyone bringing false accusations against Olivia Clemens."
"I was not informed," said Captain Demitrios. "It is not for me to know of that."
"Then perhaps you will be good enough to deliver this note from General Belisarius to the office of the Censor. As the great lady's sponsor, he is obligated to ask these thi
ngs." It was one of Chrysanthos' gifts that he had a frank and open face, one that expressed good fellowship so easily that few noticed the acute, canny eyes that missed little.
Captain Demitrios took the note and looked at the seal. "I will report this to Panaigios when we return to the palace," he said, and was about to summon his men for the search when Chrysanthos detained him.
"I fear that the General has charged me with requiring you to deliver this to Kimon Athanatadies himself. You will do that, will you not?" He waited until the Captain agreed.
The search lasted until after sunset; in the end the soldiers carried away three ivory-inlaid chairs, two jeweled ikons, an antique table, a tall Egyptian lyre, four leather-bound books, two bolts of linen, and a marble portrait bust made more than three hundred years before of a man Olivia called her oldest friend.
"Things of value are always suspect," Olivia said to Captain Demitrios as he offered her a copy of the list of what had been removed. She made no attempt to hide her bitterness.
"I will provide Captain Chrysanthos with a copy of this list; he can take it to General Belisarius." Captain Demitrios paused awkwardly. "It is true that the General is not in favor now, but there are those who first served under him, and we do not like to see the way in which he is treated. I am sorry that this new disgrace had to come to him, after all the other slights and indignities he has had to endure. You will tell him that, will you not?"
"I?" Olivia asked. "Or would you prefer that Chrysanthos tell him?"
"It… He is your sponsor and we have taken things from your house, which he is responsible for, and it is—" He looked toward Chrysanthos. "Can you explain this to her?"
"I cannot explain it to myself," Chrysanthos said without losing his cordial manner. "I am hoping that the Censor will be able to."
The Captain of the Guard took the note as if he expected it to burst into flame. "I will deliver this. What the Censor will have to say, I cannot guess."
"He will tell you that it was necessary to do this," said Olivia. "And if it is done, then leave my house. My slaves are upset, I am upset, and you have taken some of my most treasured possessions on the pretext that they are dangerous." She indicated the door.
"The Emperor demands—" Captain Demitrios began, but Chrysanthos indicated the door.
"It is late, Captain, and there is not going to be a satisfactory justification of these seizures now. You have done what you had to do. It would be best if you departed with your men." He saw a quick gesture of approval from Niklos.
Captain Demitrios did not cavil. "I will see to your requests as if they came from Belisarius himself." He saluted Chrysanthos and left, signaling his troops to come with him as he strode away from the house.
"They're nothing more than brigands with permission!" Olivia accused the closed door.
"If you had said that to Captain Demitrios, he would have had to report it to the Censor, and that would have given him the excuse to summon you for formal questioning. I don't think that you want that to happen." Chrysanthos looked at her, waiting for her to master her temper. "I know that Drosos would not want that to happen."
She turned to him. "Drosos."
"You know what he has been like…" Chrysanthos said, his aplomb deserting him for the first time that day. "There has been nothing either I or Belisarius could say that consoles him. You are the only one. If I felt no obligation to you, I feel one to him, and I do not want you to fall into the hands of the Censor while Drosos is in such trouble."
Niklos indicated the hall toward the rear of the house. "I will see about getting the slaves fed. That is if Urania and Xanthos are not wholly overwhelmed by what's happened." He put his hand on Olivia's shoulder briefly. "Listen to the man, Olivia. He has good sense and he knows this place. You are a stranger here."
She closed her eyes in acknowledgment. "I will try," she said to her bondsman, and once he was gone, she indicated the smaller of the reception rooms. "Will you sit? I think there are enough chairs left for that."
Chrysanthos' easy smile had deserted him. "That was unforgivable. I will tell Belisarius to petition for the return of your goods at once."
Olivia looked weary as she sat down on the padded bench. "I have asked for permission to leave Konstantinoupolis; did you know? So far I've been refused, but I have continued to request permission."
"But where would you go? You cannot return to Roma, or Italy, for that matter."
"There are other places. I have a few friends left in the world and there are places I could go." She paused. "If you want something from the kitchen it might take a while to get it, but you are more than welcome."
He waved her offer aside. "There's no need. You have enough to do without worrying about me. But you sidestepped an answer, great lady. Where would you go?"
Olivia took a long breath. "I have thought I might go to Ptolemais. I have not visited Africa for a long time."
"The Copts are strong there," Chrysanthos pointed out.
"That doesn't worry me." She saw he was shocked and she said, "Your Orthodox ways are not Roman ways, no matter how hard everyone tries to deny it. The Church I… grew up with is not the same as the Church you have here. You are all Christians, but the… emphasis is different."
"But the Copts are heretics," Chrysanthos said.
"For a sensible man, Captain, you have a few blind spots—as we all do. It doesn't matter to me that there are Copts in Ptolemais; it is not likely that my friend's house there will be searched and looted."
"Looted is quite an accusation."
"Oh, very selectively looted, I'll give you that, but looted nonetheless, and in such a way that my objections place me in a worse position than complying with what the soldiers have done." The ire was back in her voice at last and she slammed her fist into the padded seat of the bench. "I wanted to fight them. I wanted to take one of the swords out of the stable, or the heaviest plumbatae I have and beat them, hurt them, for what they were doing."
Chrysanthos held up a hand in warning. "It isn't wise to say so, no matter how deeply you feel it, for there are times when such statements are repeated." He realized he had alarmed her, and he went on in a softer tone, "I will say nothing. I would not speak of what you say, for I am here as the deputy of your sponsor. I would not repeat your words, in any case, for the friendship I bear to Drosos."
Her expression softened. "You're almost a Roman in some things, Chrysanthos. I thought Belisarius and Drosos were the only ones, but you…" She reached out and picked up a small, bronze rushlight in the shape of a winged serpent. "I'm a little surprised they left this to me. I don't think they knew its value or they might have wanted it. It's Persian, very old." As she held it out, she said, "Take it, please, as a token of my thanks."
Chrysanthos was startled. "Great lady, you have no reason to do this."
"But I do," she corrected him gently. "You performed a great service for me and you've been willing to do more than you were required to do. Take the rushlight. You can use it as an oil lamp if you have a bronzeworker alter it a little."
"I would not think of changing it," said Chrysanthos as he took the rushlight. "I am… very, very grateful, great lady. I never thought you would make such an offer."
"It is my Roman nature," she said, shrugging off his thanks. "I was taught very young to acknowledge aid and service." She adjusted her paenula so that it enveloped her like a cloak. "It isn't cold, and yet I feel cold."
Puzzled, Chrysanthos asked, "Are you well?"
"In body, oh, yes. I am cold for other reasons. I am cold for desperation." She made a complicated gesture. "Until now, I have been able to hold off actions against me, but now, everything is different. It doesn't matter that Belisarius is my sponsor and that Drosos is my lover; the time will come when that will not stop the Censor from acting overtly against me."
"Surely it won't come to that?"
"It already has. You were here and you saw what was done. It is practice for what is to come. I will h
ave to visit Belisarius soon and find a way to gain permission to leave." Or, she added to herself, she would have to arrange to leave everything behind and flee.
"I can understand why you think this might be the way things might go, but I assure you that we are more orderly, more civilized than that. You have seen the barbarians attack Roma, and it's understandable that you confuse them with us." Chrysanthos looked toward the door. "Your majordomo—"
Niklos was standing in the door. "We've restored some order in the kitchen and the evening meal is being served. The slaves are upset."
"I am upset," Olivia declared. "Thank you," she said with less feeling. "I will need to talk to them in the morning, when it is less immediate in our minds. Tell them, will you? I will speak with them tomorrow at midmorning." She almost grinned at Niklos. "Find out what they're saying among themselves that they would not want to tell me."
"Of course," Niklos answered.
"I needn't have asked," Olivia agreed.
Chrysanthos took advantage of this interruption to make a departing reverence. "You have much to attend to. I will report to Belisarius and I will tell him what you have told me, and you may be certain that it will be held in the greatest confidence. Your gift is as generous as it is unnecessary." He started into the vestibule, Niklos coming after him.
"Captain," Niklos said as he opened the door for Chrysanthos. "Do you know where Drosos is?"
A frown appeared between Chrysanthos' brows. "Not today. He has often disappeared for hours at a time. I thought he might be here, but if that were the case, there would have been no reason to send for Belisarius, would there?"
"He has not been here for three days. I'm concerned for him. My mistress is worried. If you find him, tell him what has been going on here and ask him to come soon. It would mean much to Olivia." Niklos paused. "Tell him that…"
"What?" asked Chrysanthos when Niklos did not go on.
"Tell him that he has nothing to fear from Olivia." He held the door open and made a proper reverence.
A Flame in Byzantium aoc-1 Page 35
