by Mia Marlowe
The Northman crumpled to the marble floor with the remains of the sculpture in scattered shards around him. Damian stepped over his inert body to resume his journey to Mahomet's box. He was mildly surprised that Erik had been so easy to subdue. Perhaps the injury he sustained in the fire was even worse than it looked.
Then a grip strong as a crocodile's bite grabbed Damian's ankle and he fell headlong. Before he could collect his wits, the Northman had dragged his body back and plopped astraddle the small of Damian's back. Then the man grasped a handful of Damian's dark curly hair and pulled his head back to bare his throat. Damian felt the sharp kiss of the Varangian's horn-handled blade nick his flesh.
“Let me go,” Damian demanded.
“You've used Valdis in your schemes for the last time, eunuch.”
“Wait!”
“Give me one reason why you should draw another breath,” Erik said.
“Because if you kill me, you kill Valdis,” he spit between clenched teeth. “She's about to give Mahomet a poisoned drink.”
“Good,” Erik said. “It'll save me the trouble of gutting him.”
“You don't understand,” Damian said. “I know how he thinks. He has a taster for everything. He won't drink anything unless she drinks first. If she refuses, he'll know something is wrong.”
Erik eased the tension of the blade at his throat. “You're certain of this?”
“You should know by now there's very little of import in this city that I am not privy to. If I'm lying, you can kill me at your leisure,” Damian suggested. “But if you want Valdis to live another day, release me at once.”
Erik clearly didn't believe him, as he still didn't move.
Damian tried another tack. “I know what you did to the Blues and I approve. Your plan showed more subtlety than I gave you credit for, but the herbs you used were too strong. The horses are already incapacitated, and it's not yet time for the race,” Damian said. “A spy came tattling to Leo Porphyrogenito and the purple-born’s plans have changed. He won't wait for the results of the race to signal his attack. His men will strike as the chariot teams are making their entrance, when all eyes are focused on the long dark tunnel where they'll appear. The emperor is vulnerable.”
“That no longer concerns me,” Erik said, tightening his grip on Damian's hair with a twist of his wrist. “I'm only here for Valdis. She's all I care about.”"
“I thought you Varangians held your oaths sacred.”
“So we do, but the dead are no longer bound by an oath. I died for the Empire with my pledge-men in the harbor. I suspect you had a hand in the lion's attack that day as well. You've woven your last web, you Byzantine spider.”
Damian felt the bite of the blade again.
“And what of your friend, Hauk Gottricksson? He's in the Emperor's detail. Would you wave away his life in your hurry to end mine?”
The knife at his throat again eased a bit.
“You can still aid your friend if you use the back entrance to the emperor's box. Warn them of the attack while there's time, and I swear on the soul of my only son, I will see Valdis comes to no harm.”
“Why aren't you warning the emperor yourself?”
“Because saving Valdis from her own trap is something only I can do.” The strange Norse woman with mismatched eyes had ceased being a tool to be used for him some time ago. “I know you love her, Northman, but Mahomet is surrounded by his bodyguards. You might kill them all, but can you do it in such close quarters without endangering Valdis? I'm the only one who can save her life. I will send her to you. Trust me.”
“It seems I must.” The big Varangian helped him to his feet. “But if you've lied to me and she comes to harm, I will kill you. And I'll take my time.”
“Fair enough.” Damian gave Erik a fisted salute.
The Northman smiled grimly at him, his pale brows raised. “You salute a barbaroi?”
“A moment of weakness,” Damian said, surprised at the respect he'd come to feel for the Varangian. “Save the Bulgar-Slayer for the Empire. She is not ready for him to die.”
“Save Valdis for me or nothing else matters.”
“God speed you, Varangian.”
“Luck in battle.” Erik grasped Damian's forearm for a moment, then turned and set off at a dog-trot back down the corridor.
“Perhaps he deserves her, after all,” Damian murmured. Then he hurried down the corridor in the opposite direction. There was one more thing he must do before he joined Mahomet and Valdis. He only wondered if it could be done in time.
And if it would work.
* * *
Valdis squirmed in her seat. Loki must have sensed her agitation, for the little dog leaped from her lap to sniff around the corners of Mahomet's private portico. Her master had instructed her to open the hamper of food Agrippina had prepared and ordered Valdis to peel grapes for him as he watched the mock battle being enacted on the oval below. When one of the soldiers was spitted on a pike, he smiled in morbid enjoyment of another man's dying screams, chuckling low in the back of his throat.
Valdis despised him with terrifying thoroughness. If ill-wishes could kill, Mahomet should already be dead. However, he made no move to uncork the amphora of juice, and Valdis didn't trust her voice to suggest it. Even though she could think of a hundred reasons why her master must die, the actual doing of the deed was much harder than she expected.
“Are you not enjoying the spectacle?” he asked.
“I find no joy in the misery of others,” she answered truthfully.
“That is because you are attuned to the spirits. No doubt it is disruptive for so many new souls to cross over to their punishment or reward all at once. For me, the scene holds a particular charm. Watching the deaths of others while I am surrounded by luxury and comfort helps me deny the truth that I am myself mortal,” he said with surprising insight as four men with a stretcher ran out onto the blood-soaked sand to gather up the fallen combatant's body. “The illusion of immortality is a vapor, but a pleasant one. Pour us a drink, my oracle.”
Valdis's heart lurched against her ribs. Finally, the moment was upon her. She murmured her obedience and stood to do his bidding, praying furiously that her hands would not shake.
Agrippina had packed two delicate Frankish glasses in the food hamper. Valdis unstoppered the amphora and poured the golden liquid into a pale green goblet. The tang of citrus tickled her nostrils. Sunlight sparkled on the cup of death, lending it a glow of false vitality. With utmost care, Valdis knelt to place it in her master's hand.
“Cook tells me you made this drink for me yourself,” he said, his dark eyes boring into her. Valdis was sure he must see her soul quaking. She forced herself to smile at him. “I'll not imbibe alone. Pour a glass for yourself as well and let us drink to the time when I no longer require your services as a seeress and can sample you as a woman. I will see you enjoy that time as well. Never let it be said I am not a generous lord.”
“None would deny that.” Her false smile went even more brittle. She had a distinct sense of unreality, as if she were watching herself from outside her body as she poured the last of the poison into an amber goblet.
So this is the God of this city's sense of justice, she thought as she held death before her. I am allowed to kill him but it will cost me all.
She could not bear to think of Erik. Instead, Landina's face rose before her. And Fatima, whose teeth had been yanked out to suit her master's comfort. And all the women of the zenana who endured this man's use and abuse. A few professed to love him, but even they feared him. If she could rid the Middle Realm of Habib Ibn Mahomet only by her own death, so mote it be. She decided it was a fair exchange. Valdis lifted the goblet toward Mahomet in silent pledge, then brought the rim to her lips.
But before she could drink, Damian Aristarchus bullied his way past Mahomet's guard and strode into the private box.
“Thank you, Valdis. I'm absolutely parched,” Damian said as he swiped the cup from her hand and
knocked back the contents in a long swallow that would have done an ale-house patron proud. He belched loudly, the time-honored compliment of pleasing fare, when he finished. “Pure nectar,” he declared. “Is there any more?”
“No,” Valdis mouthed, shocked to have her poison go so badly astray. Even though she suspected Damian of conspiring with the very men he'd professed to oppose, she never intended to catch him with her toxin. Shock rooted her to the spot.
“Pity,” he said with a shrug, and turned back to Mahomet. “Drink up, my friend. I bring word that all our plans are proceeding nicely.”
“That indeed is cause for celebration.” Mahomet brought the green goblet to his lips and drained the bowl.
Valdis expected to feel jubilation at the sight, but instead her stomach heaved. She'd killed her friend along with her nemesis. How long before they showed signs? Would it be painful? These were questions she hadn't thought to ask the apothecary.
Damian swiped sweat from his forehead. “Hotter today than expected. I don't suppose you thought to ask Agrippina to pack any of that Macedonian wine?”
Mahomet shook his head and leaned forward to get a better view of the carnage on the oval. “Leave the fermented grape alone, my friend, or it will be the death of you.”
“Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to risk it,” Damian said cheerfully. He tossed a leather pouch to Valdis. “Take this, my dear, and see the vintner by the camel gate. He's hawking a passable Etruscan, and you look like you could do with a glass yourself.”
“Valdis cannot wander the Hippodrome alone,” Mahomet protested.
“No, of course not,” Damian agreed. “My man Lentulus is waiting in the corridor. He'll watch over her for us and see her safely where she's bound.” He turned to Valdis and startled her by switching to Norse. “Go quickly and do not return. Everything has happened as it should. Trust me.”
“What was that?” Mahomet asked.
Damian laughed. “I just told Valdis that she wasn't the only one who could learn a new tongue. I've been working on a few Norse phrases. Look at the surprise on her face. Hurry and fetch that wineskin for me; there's a good girl.” He waved her away and turned back to his host. “You might find this amusing. I was reading a new scientific treatise the other day that proves women don't get as thirsty as men. Just like camels, they store water in ...” Damian made a breast-shaped gesture on his own chest.
Valdis heard Mahomet's salacious laugh as she walked unhindered out of the sunlight into the dim corridor with Loki at her heels. Lentulus was nowhere to be seen. Valdis picked up the little dog and ran, putting half the distance around the Hippodrome's oval behind her before she stopped.
Everything has happened as it should.
What did he mean? Did Damian know he drank death when he snatched that goblet from her hand?
She looked in the leather pouch and found enough coin to buy an entire shipload of Etruscan wine as well as a document. She unrolled the scroll and ran her gaze over the parchment.
It was a certificate of manumission, signed and witnessed, complete with Mahomet's own seal. It was surely a forgery, but such an artful one, Valdis didn't doubt it would prevail in any court. She'd never seen Mahomet without his signet ring. How Damian managed such a thing, she couldn't begin to guess.
Valdis's knees buckled and she collapsed to the smooth marble with a sob. Damian Aristarchus had kept his word. He'd set her free.
And she'd killed him.
“The endgame is never a dead certainty. Sometimes, it’s just dead.”
—from the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus
Chapter 36
* * *
A guttural roar erupted from the Hippodrome, a wall of sound that roused Valdis from her tears and raised her to her feet. She wobbled to an opening to the arena and looked down at the oval track. The chariot teams burst from the dark tunnel and thundered across the sand, the Blues conspicuously missing from the lineup. Erik had been successful in undoing Mahomet and Leo's trickery.
A fresh growl rose from the crowd as a band of armed men a hundred strong followed the chariots out and turned midway in the field to climb into the stands. Spectators who lingered too long in their seats were cut down as the mob made its way toward the emperor's box.
Swords flashed from the Imperial guard as they prepared to make their stand against a larger force. Panic sent the crowd stampeding to the exits, trampling underfoot those too slow to get out of the way. Valdis pressed herself against the wall as the fleeing populace surged past her.
Over the din, she heard an unearthly sound, a feral howl bursting from myriad masculine throats as if from a single raging beast.
A berserkr cry.
Only a troop of Northmen, a decade of Varangians could make that noise. She fought against the tide of people to see what was happening. Jabbing with her sharp elbows, she worked her way further into the stadium.
The armed insurgents reached the defenders and the fight was enjoined in deadly earnest. A man standing in front of the emperor bellowed an order and another ten men threw off their cloaks to reveal the Varangian byrnnie beneath.
Valdis's hand flew to her heart.
The man standing in front of the emperor, laying about him with his battle-ax, protecting the Bulgar-Slayer with his own body, was her Erik.
* * *
In some ways, every battle was the same—the same dry mouth, the same queasiness that disappeared the moment he first drew his weapon. Erik was acutely aware of the drumbeat of his own heart pounding in his ears. It dulled the sharp cries of injured and dying men around him. A thousand tiny details clamored for his attention: the glint of sunlight on an opponent's blade, the cloying reek of blood and entrails, an occasional whiff of urine, the whoosh as a sword sliced the air near his good ear, the black mole on an enemy fighter's misshapen nose. Each image, scent or sound would haunt him later with knife-sharp clarity, but he dismissed them now while he hacked away in the melee.
Power surged through his limbs. The ax handle became an extension of his arm, its swing a study in deadly grace. He breathed in rhythm with each stroke, not taking time to tally the fallen. Only one thing was necessary in battle: keep moving and make sure your opponent stops.
A berserkr roar burst from his lips as another insurgent came within the arc of his ax. A man was never more alive than when he was but a finger-width from death.
But Erik never had so much to lose before. One misstep, one slow turn and not only would he be done for, but he'd miss out on a life with the woman who made breathing worthwhile. He shoved all thought of Valdis away as he ducked beneath a scything blade.
Time expanded and contracted around him as the rebels kept coming. His arm grew heavier, but he kept swinging. Someone yelled that more rebels were coming up the back tunnel, closing off the emperor's escape. From the corner of his eye, he saw that the Bulgar-Slayer had thrown off his jewel-encrusted crown and picked up the sword of one of his fallen guards. The Lord of All the Earth's hair might be iron-gray, but he still had the grit to show men how he'd earned his nickname. Erik pivoted to face the new threat, placing himself between the fresh enemy fighters and the emperor.
The clatter of steel on steel echoed around the emptying arena. The battle flared up to a white-hot inferno, a conflagration from which it seemed none would escape, and then just as suddenly, burned itself out. The last insurgent was stopped by Erik's double-bladed ax.
No more rebels charged up the stadium stairs or out of the dark tunnel. Erik straightened and looked around. Hauk and a handful from his command were still on their feet. Many more were clutching wounds or staring sightlessly into the pitiless sun. Unspeakably weary and bleeding from a dozen flesh wounds, Erik pulled his ax blade from the chest of his last foe with a squelching sound.
The emperor was upright and unhurt. Though his snowy palla was blood-spattered, none of it was his. Erik breathed a sigh of relief.
“Erik!”
He turned to see Valdis runn
ing toward him with that silly little dog of hers yapping behind her. Fresh life surged through his limbs and he leapt over the fallen bodies to meet her on the steps of the Hippodrome.
“You're alive!” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around him and peppered his jaw with kisses, heedless of the battle grime. Even Loki clamored around his knees, excited to see him for the first time.
He held her close and inhaled in her scent, the cleansing breath an affirmation that there was truth and beauty in the world after all. The eunuch had kept his promise. Valdis was alive and she was his. Her body pressed against him left Erik with an aching erection, but right now it was enough just to hold her and let the world slide by them.
But the world was never content to do anything so benign as that.
“You there, Varangian!” Erik heard the emperor bellow. “Return to us this instant.”
Erik trudged back to the carnage in the Imperial box, leading Valdis behind him, loath to release her hand for a moment.
The aging potentate narrowed his eyes at Erik for the space of several heartbeats. “We know you. You captained the pirate dhow in the Harbor of Theodosius.”
Erik nodded. “Your Majesty came very close to removing my head from my body that day.”
“But not close enough. You crippled my ship,” the emperor accused.
Erik hadn't known the Bulgar-Slayer was onboard. He wanted to give the fleet a taste of true battle. A thousand excuses leapt to Erik's lips, but he knew none would satisfy. “Yes, my lord, I crippled your ship,” he admitted.
“You deviated from your orders and made us appear weak before the populace,” the emperor continued, his black eyes snapping. “You placed our Majesty in danger from our nephew's minions on the lion ship.”
