by Lisa Cach
“Remigius sent me a long letter about you,” Sidonius said, and then cast a questioning glance at Terix, as if seeking permission to speak in front of him.
“Terix is as a brother to me,” I said.
“Is that all?” Terix said.
A smile curved my lips as I looked at him. “You’re right: a brother is only a tie of blood, whether wished or not. It says nothing of friendship, of trusting another with one’s life, and of knowing that in all the world, there is one person who has never betrayed you.”
A rare blush touched Terix’s cheeks. “I suppose that will have to do.”
Sidonius watched us, bright-eyed. “Hmm.” He refilled his glass, took a sip and winced, then shrugged and took another. “As I was saying, Remigius sent me a letter; several letters, actually, to persuade me to leave the comforts of home for this journey. He fears that his lack of foresight and caution were to blame for the mistreatment you, Nimia, suffered at the hands of Sygarius. Worse than that, he feels that his errors have caused you to step off the path you were following toward salvation through Christ.”
“He takes too much upon himself,” I said, unable to keep the dryness from my tone.
Sidonius’s eyebrows rose, and then he chuckled, a twinkle of appreciation in his eyes. “That’s what I thought. He also wrote of your child.”
I stared at him, waiting for what he would say.
“A difficult situation, there, for you and Clovis, yes?”
I forced my face to stillness. I would not respond to this sensitive topic.
“Yes. Well. A difficult situation. And exactly what are you to Clovis? Not his wife. Something more than a concubine . . . Remigius writes that Clovis believes you to have the gift of prophecy.”
“You don’t believe that, surely?”
A quick, false smile pulled at his lips. “I believe that Clovis believes, which must be a troublesome point for Remigius. How will Clovis ever follow Christ, if he sees power in other gods?”
“I make no claim of reading the will of gods.” True, in its way. Gods were no part of my visions.
“Can you tell the future?”
“Can you? If you tell me that tomorrow will find us still upon this river, I will believe you. If you tell me that by sunset we three will have emptied that flagon of wine, I will believe that, too.”
He raised his goblet to me. “Beauty and intelligence. A rare combination. Rather a dangerous one,” he added beneath his breath. “My point is that I have heard one tale from Remigius, of a good woman greatly wronged. I should like to hear another tale, from Sygarius—though I admit it looks black for him.”
“He ordered her killed,” Terix burst out, “so he could escape. Killed! I was there; I saw it all.” He nudged Bone with his foot. “Look at that scar. Even a dog knows when there is evil to be fought, and will give his life for what is right.”
“The wisdom of the beasts is not to be disputed,” Sidonius agreed. “I, however, claim no such higher instincts. I should also like to hear what Alaric thinks of all this, and what his aims may be in giving sanctuary to Sygarius.”
“I thought you were here to plead my case,” I protested. “Not to hear all points of view, and then choose which side to take.”
“That’s the trouble with age. The vision clouds, and nothing is so clearly right or wrong as it was in one’s youth. One has seen too much of good men doing evil things, for reasons that seem sound; more confusing still is that occasionally evil men do good things. Eventually you wonder why you bothered to care, either way; the right and wrong blend together into an endless sea of gray. Though I do hope I have not quite reached that point. I would not like to see such a talented kitharede as you suffer, for any reason. I sometimes think that Art is the only true goodness in this world.”
I picked up the cithara and plucked a chord. “Then perhaps I should resume playing. It may be the only way to persuade you to help me bring Sygarius to justice.”
He settled deeper into his cushions, and rested the base of his goblet against his belly. “Do play on. And call me Sid. I think we’re going to have a marvelous time upon this river, we three. Four with that beast of a dog. Good music, wine that isn’t good but becomes tolerable by the third glass, and my cold has gone away. Tolosa and the troubles waiting for us there can go hang themselves.”
“Easier to say when the troubles aren’t your own,” I said, plucking a gentle melody.
“I am here on this journey, so they are mine. If my lightness distresses you, Kitharede, you may blame my age again. I’ve learned to let tomorrow’s troubles remain in tomorrow. Today, we have warm air and a calm river. It is enough.”
I strummed my cithara, and tried to believe that he was right.
I wished that I had listened better to Sid’s words about enjoying the days on the river. Those easy afternoons and evenings, talking and playing music, now seemed like a dream from which I’d woken too soon.
I stood, perspiring and sick with nerves, with a throng of murmuring applicants outside the throne room of King Alaric’s palace. Somewhere under this same roof, Sygarius lurked; he might even be in the throne room. The thought of seeing him filled me with dread.
Sid stood beside me, while Terix, Bone, and the two maids waited several rooms back, with other retainers of low rank. My bodyguard was outside the palace, foreign soldiers not being allowed inside the Visigoth palace. Fenwig was not happy to have me out of his sight, but there was no helping it. I wished Terix were at my side.
We had arrived last evening in Tolosa, and taken up cramped lodgings in the house of yet another bishop, Valarius. For all his lackadaisical air on the galley, Sid proved himself energetic onshore, prying what information he could from Valarius about the moods and nature of Alaric, and insisting that we come this morning to begin our negotiations with the king. After so many slow days on the river, the sudden rush of activity and the imminent confrontation with Alaric—and possibly Sygarius—had set me off balance. I felt unsure of myself, and bewildered by the unfamiliar people, buildings, and voices around me. This was a foreign culture and I didn’t know how to behave, or what was expected of me. I didn’t know what to do, yet so much was riding on me doing everything well. I didn’t know how I would react when I saw Sygarius.
My clothing had been chosen with care to show off my assets: soft ivory cotton heavily embellished with crimson embroidery, the fabric caressing my figure. A wide belt round my waist drew the eye to its smallness, and made my hips look full in contrast. The front of my hair was drawn up, and the rest left to hang in a silken river down my back. I had thought I looked my best when we left Valarius’s house. The few women in this crowd were dressed in shapeless gowns of dull color, as if to avoid attention; many wore veils over their hair. Even those who had wealth and wore gold at necks and wrists and ears, had chosen concealing clothing. I felt like a woman dressed for a Roman orgy, mistakenly brought to a fish market.
“Perfect,” Sid whispered in my ear. “Do try to keep that wide-eyed look of being about to faint.”
I blinked at him, my breath coming in short pants. It was stifling in the throng, and I could feel a rising panic at being hemmed in by the press of bodies.
“If Alaric is as noble a soul as Valarius insists—unlikely, but one does like to assume the best, however unwise that may be—then such a display of feminine weakness will gain his manly sympathies. Men love to be in a position to help a helpless woman.”
“I am neither weak nor helpless,” I said.
“Aren’t you?” He affected a look of shock. “And yet you let yourself be abused by Sygarius. You let Clovis hold your child hostage while you come here to face what will surely be a quick dismissal by Alaric. What need has a king to listen to a bit of nothing like you, or to care of your plight? You have no strength to press against him. Better to wilt before him and hope he takes pity on you.”
“You—” I started angrily, my color rising, but was interrupted by the opening of the great, heavy doors.
An official called our names off a tablet, and we stepped through the doors into yet another waiting area, albeit a blessedly cool one. Soldiers in red wool, short capes of fur, and ornate bronze belts and buckles lined a wall of curtain that separated us from the throne room. I could hear voices from the other side, probably courtiers talking among themselves as each applicant said their piece and awaited the ruling of their king.
“You have no right to say such things to me,” I whispered angrily to Sid, my fists clenched at my sides.
Sid grinned and pinched my cheek. “No, I don’t, and I didn’t mean a word. But you look so much livelier for my having done it. I never could abide a fainting female.”
“Oh! You rotten old man!”
He chuckled in delight.
After a few minutes, someone on the other side parted the curtain, and the official led us through. We emerged into a basilica-like space of local stone and pale red brick, probably built by the Romans long ago. As we were led up the central aisle, I gawked at the people milling in the aisles to either side, wearing everything from brocade to homespun, silk to leather (and all of it depressingly modest), their faces ranging in shape and color from narrow and as dark as aged wood, to wide and pale as the moon. I even saw one man with the same smooth, dark-honey skin and narrow eyes that my mother had had.
Nowhere among them did I see Sygarius. Thank the gods.
I was so busy gaping at the array of humanity, I nearly walked into the official when he stopped. He stepped to one side and announced us: “Bishop Sidonius Apollinaris. Lady Nimia of the Franks.” I curtseyed low, with all the grace that a dancer can bring to such a motion, and as I rose I lifted my gaze and laid eyes on King Alaric II of the Visigoths.
Gods help me, but he was a beautiful man. Younger than I had expected, too: only about a half dozen years older than me. He sat with the knees of his long legs apart, his feet planted firmly on the floor of the dais beneath his fur-covered throne. His arms rested on the arms of the throne, his large hands dangling off the ends, leaving a clear view of his trim waist and broad chest, covered in a maroon tunic with gold bands along the edges. The V at the neck revealed a luscious strip of tanned skin only slightly marred by the jeweled cross that hung from a gold chain.
But it was his face that stole my breath. A strong jaw and wide mouth, black slanting eyebrows like splashes of ink, and the biggest dark brown eyes I’d ever seen on a man, with eyelashes as thick as crow feathers. Black wavy hair was combed back from a widow’s peak and cut bluntly just below his ears.
By the time my eyes reached his, his gaze was already sliding away toward Sid. If his expression had held any reaction to me while I curtseyed, I was too late to see it; indeed, in the conversation that followed I began to wonder whether he could see me at all, or if I had become transparent as a spirit.
“Sidonius Apollinaris,” Alaric said in Latin, a smile lighting his dark eyes. He rose and stepped down off the dais, his hands outstretched to take Sid’s. The watching people shifted and murmured; such warmth of greeting must be unusual. “Your visit to my grandfather’s court is a family legend, repeated so often as I grew up that I almost feel as if I was there myself.”
“It was such a pleasure for me, I could not resist the temptation to re-create it at your court, my lord. I have long been curious what changes I might find upon a second visit to Tolosa,” Sidonius replied.
“I hope none, for your praise of my grandfather was such that any alteration could only mean a degradation in our virtues.”
“First impressions are serving you well: I believe you have your grandfather’s eyes.”
“Let us hope I also have his wit and honor.”
This was all lovely and boded well for our reception at court, but I was beginning to feel like a dog left outside a shop. The only advantage of being ignored was it gave me a long chance to lick my gaze up Alaric’s tall frame, and wonder what he looked like naked. I wanted to climb him like a tree, and nestle my face in the hollow of his throat. I wanted to smell him.
Gods, he was handsome.
The mutual love went on for some bit longer, and then Sid took my hand and lifted it to Alaric’s. The king twitched, but allowed my palm to rest in his. His eyes flicked to mine, then back to Sid, who was saying, “The lady Nimia. She comes in search of justice for wrongs done to her by Sygarius of Soissons.”
Alaric dropped my hand. “Nimia of the Franks? I received several letters from Clovis, and gave him my decision about Sygarius.”
I found my voice. “Nimia of the Phanne, my lord. I am not of the Frankish tribe.”
He dragged his attention back to me, though he seemed unwilling to look me in the face, his gaze moving from my hair to the labyrinth necklace I wore. “I do not know these Phanne. Where do they live?”
“We once lived in the mountains to the east, the Alps,” I said, and felt a spurt of frustration. I wanted him to look me in the eye; to see me. I dredged up the Gothic tongue I had learned as a child, and continued in it. “I could not say exactly where”—ah, victory! His eyes flew to mine—“for I was a small child when we left, and then my mother and I were enslaved by a clan of Visigoths.”
“I—” He hesitated, clearly surprised. I then saw him take in the finery I wore, and knew he wondered how a slave could rise to such wealth. Or perhaps he was wondering if I was a whore. I probably looked it, in comparison to the other women.
I went on: “Sygarius and his army wiped out the clan, and he took me as a prize. It was nine years before I could gain my freedom from Sygarius, and even then he was not finished with his abuse of me: he abducted me and forced himself on my body.”
Alaric blushed.
Blushed.
“Over and over,” I said, and watched the color deepen. “For weeks.”
His big eyes looked away, and he cleared his throat. “That is a serious accusation, and if true, then you have been mistreated in the worst way a gentlewoman of modesty and virtue could endure.”
I didn’t see what modesty had to do with it, especially since I had none. I charged onward. “Clovis of the Franks understood my cries for justice, and sent me here that I might plead my case to you, and receive”—my eyes went to the cross at his neck—“your Christian help in righting the wrongs done to me.”
Alaric sighed, and looked to Sidonius Apollinaris. Switching back to Latin, he said to him, “Do you know her tale to be true?”
Sid tilted his head. “I have it on the word of a fellow bishop that it is.”
“This is too great a problem to be settled without deeper consideration.”
“I was hoping you would say so,” Sid said. “We will take any excuse to spend more time at your court—and not just because Bishop Valarius’s house is overrun with spiders, the mattresses smell of mold, and the quality of his wine is beyond forgiveness, even by our Lord.”
That prodded a laugh out of Alaric. “I will be happy to have you stay to eat with me, Sidonius Apollinaris. I am sure a room in the palace with better bedding can be found, as well.”
I noticed that I had not been included in that invitation. As did Sid.
Sid took my hand and made a show of patting it. “You see, my lady Nimia? I knew that Alaric would prove as gentlemanly a king as his grandfather. Tonight you dine at his table, and rest your head upon a down pillow in the great Visigoth palace at Tolosa. I think I shall have to write a poem about the gracious greeting you have received.”
Alaric’s brows rose higher with each of Sid’s words, until his inky brows had nowhere else to go, and collapsed, taking his resistance with them. “It will be my honor to host such distinguished guests.” He gestured to a man I took to be a steward, and continued to Sid, “Return in the late afternoon, and your rooms will be waiting.”
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The steward’s mouth pursed in surprise, followed by a grimace. I guessed that he was going to have to evict a few unwilling guests to make room for us.
Sid bowed to Alaric and I curtseyed, and we left the throne room with the steward trailing behind us.
“Thank you,” I said softly, for Sid’s ears only. Alaric wouldn’t have heard a word I said, if Sidonius hadn’t been with me. It undercut my confidence, to have a man so obviously ignore me.
“I did it for myself more than you: I wouldn’t want to stay in this palace without music, Kitharede, no matter how much better the food and drink may be.”
“I wasn’t talking about the lodging.”
He placed my hand in the crook of his arm and patted it. “I know.”
“He didn’t even want to look at me; he thought I was distasteful.”
Sid looked at me funny. “What gave you that idea?”
“The fact that he didn’t look at me! Not until I forced him.”
“Are you truly so naïve? His so carefully not looking at you showed how very much he wanted to. He is, however, as virtuous a man as Valarius told me, and would not dishonor you by gazing upon your beauty with lust in his eyes.”
“That makes no sense. He’s a man: he’s supposed to look lustfully on women.”
“No, Kitharede. Pagan Sygarius may have done so, and your Franks, but a true Christian man is master of his low desires, and does not indulge the sin of lust. Nor would he soil the virtue of a woman by inflicting his base passions upon her.”
Soil? I didn’t know anything in this life so pure as the passionate joining of one person’s body to another’s.
Both Terix and I had sensed on the river journey that Sid, for all his lightheartedness and indulgence in wine, food, and anything even hinting at luxury, did not much enjoy tales of sex. Terix’s vast repertoire of bawdy stories was saved for the soldiers and oarsmen, who showed their thanks by never letting his cup go dry. We had assumed that Sid’s lack of interest was because he was celibate, and out of consideration for his unnatural, unhappy state we had kept the conversation to less moist topics.
