by Mia Marlowe
Erik felt as if he was before the lawspeaker, about to be convicted all over again. He hung his head and tightened his grip on Valdis's hand. He never should have stayed to fight this last battle. He should have stolen her away in the confusion and let the Greeks sort things out for themselves.
“Then you placed your craft between us and danger and sacrificed your entire crew to save our royal neck.” The emperor's face split into a wide smile. “We thought you dead with the rest of your gallant Northmen. And today you have risked yourself for us again. It is not often we receive loyalty from a man who has already died once in our service. How shall we reward you?”
Erik blinked in surprise. He'd expected punishment, but instead the Lord of the Byzantines was offering him whatever he wanted. He could think of only one thing.
"My lord, I have served you for many years. Let my release from your service be my reward. I have already secured passage to Ravenna on a ship leaving with the evening tide. I desire nothing more than your permission to leave this city with my woman.” He turned to Valdis and cupped her cheek. “My wife, if she'll have me.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes and she whispered the word he longed to hear: “Yes.”
The emperor studied Erik for a moment, chin in hand. Then he shook his head. “We give you permission to leave the Empress City, but not to withdraw from our service. We have even more need of loyal men at the far edges of the Empire than we do here. The garrison at Ravenna is in want of a new prefect. Consider yourself promoted.” He turned to the captain of his guard. “Now let us return to the Imperial Palace to consider what must be done with our purple-born nephew. Take a detachment and bring Leo to me with all speed.”
“If the worst happens, I instruct Lentulus to deliver this written account of my thoughts and actions to my wife, Calysta, with regrets for the man I was.
And even more for the one I have become.”
—the last entry in the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus
Chapter 37
* * *
Valdis and Erik stood at the gunwale of the Imperial drommond, watching the spiky skyline of Miklagard slide past them. They were still bound for the distant port of Ravenna, but the emperor insisted they go in style to Erik's new position. Lights from the Imperial Palace danced on the choppy waters of the Sea of Marmara, streaks of silver on the purling surf. Erik slipped his arm around Valdis's waist. She shivered.
“You're not sorry to be leaving, are you?” he asked.
“No, there's nothing for me in the city.” She cast a quick glance up at him. He was glad he'd made sure to have the good side of his face toward her. Even so, he rarely caught her looking at him. She probably couldn't bear to.
“From what the Bulgar-Slayer tells me, there's plenty waiting for us in Ravenna. Aside from the hefty rise in pay, the prefect's position comes with a fine home in town for winter and a summer villa in the nearby mountains.” Now that Valdis was free, nothing stopped her from returning to the North. He hoped she wouldn't regret coming with him to yet another southern city. “Ravenna's not home, but Hauk said the mountains and the narrow sea reminded him a little of the North when he was there last.”
She smiled at him. “Anywhere I'm with you, I'll be home. I'm sorry if I seem preoccupied, but I was just thinking about Damian,” she said as she turned to stare at the disappearing metropolis. “‘Everything has happened just as it should,’ he said. It's still hard for me to believe he willingly took my goblet. He knew he had drunk my death, and he actually smiled at me.”
“We made a deal. Damian convinced me he knew how to save you and would do so, if I guarded the emperor. I didn't know exactly what he was planning, but he was driven to protect the Bulgar-Slayer at all costs. And he kept his word to you as well,” Erik said with admiration in his tone. “He knew exactly what he wanted to accomplish and he was willing to do whatever it took. He may have lived a eunuch, but he died a man.”
“It would have made him happy to hear you say so,” Valdis said with a sad smile. Then she turned her gaze on him and the smile changed to a look of unmistakable invitation. The pale brow arched above her dark eye. “Perhaps we can name our first son after him.”
“Damian Eriksson.” Erik tested the name on his tongue. "If we're blessed with a son, nothing would make me happier. But that assumes I get you with a son. The sooner the better.” He took her hand to lead her to the sumptuous cabin below decks that had been reserved for them.
From the luxurious appointments, Erik guessed this was the cabin the emperor himself used when he sailed on this vessel. A row of windows looked out over the stern, and the room even had its own private head. An oil lamp swung from a hook above an ebony commode fitted with a brass basin for washing.
Loki had already claimed a corner and curled up in Erik's discarded cloak. The little dog finally seemed to accept Erik's place in his mistress's life and had ceased growling at him at every opportunity.
The only complaint Erik had about their quarters was that the space was designed with the much smaller Greeks in mind. The cabin ceiling was so low Erik had to stoop to avoid knocking his head. But the room boasted a fine bed, even if it were somewhat short by Nordic standards. It was a bed Erik hoped would see hard use during this long passage.
A swell made the ship rise suddenly and he narrowly missed banging his forehead on a low beam.
“Sit down,” Valdis urged him. “I don't want to spend my wedding night with an unconscious groom.”
“Let me douse the lamp first.”
“No, leave it,” Valdis said with a hand to his forearm. “I want to see you.”
Erik sank onto the end of the bed and studied his hands. She was so beautiful. A light-gilded elf maiden could scarcely be fairer. While he'd never thought of himself as a particularly handsome man before, now his injury rendered him ugly as a troll. He shook his head.
“How can you bear to see me?”
She sank to her knees between his legs and forced him to look into her seductively mismatched eyes. “How can you bear to hold me when the Raven comes for my mind and I know not who or what I am?”
“You can't help your malady.”
“And you can't undo the past,” she said softly. “Do you have any idea what it was like for me when I thought you dead? I'm so grateful to have you back from the water and the flames, I'll not complain over a few changes.”
A few changes. Erik had seen children stare unabashedly at his ruined visage, pointing and nudging each other, till their mothers bundled them out of his sight. Even battle-hardened men had trouble meeting his gaze without wincing. He was hideous and he knew it.
“A wise woman told me once that a life cannot be judged by what is lost, but by what remains,” Valdis said, reaching up a tentative hand to touch his ravaged cheek. “Shall I tell you what I see, Erik? I see a man who swears to his own hurt and does not change. I see a man who will not abandon his duty even in the face of death. I see a man of honor and courage.”
“You must see what no one else does.”
“We are not just flesh and bones, you and I. I see your soul, Erik.” A single tear coursed down her cheek. “And it is dazzling in its strength and beauty. I see the man I will love with my whole heart till I am but ashes.” She lean forward and kissed him.
He tasted the salt of her tear at the corner of her mouth. His tongue slid in to play with hers, a quiet seeking game. Her fingers tightened where she rested them on his shoulders. When he released her mouth, she smiled at him, and for a moment, he saw his reflection in her eyes. His face was whole in the warmth of her love.
They took their time. With unhurried delight, he undressed her and allowed her to tug him out of his clothes as well. He traced every crevice: the crook of her elbows, the hollow between her breasts, every curve of her luscious body with his fingertips. Then when she pressed against his chest, he lay back and surrendered to her exploration. She handled every bit of him, kissing the scarred flesh and touching with love his most unlovely parts.
Under her uncritical acceptance, his healing was complete.
Their leisurely loving woke a deep hunger, a raw emptiness. When their bodies finally joined, it was with the sweetness and completeness of a homecoming. The North might be forever barred to him, but he found his home in Valdis's welcoming arms. He buried himself in her, wrapping himself in her love and giving his with equal measure. Not until her body spasmed around him did he allow himself release. He called out her name, cried out his love for her, his longing and loneliness fading in their oneness.
“O my heart,” she said, cupping his cheeks with both palms. “Life is a short journey. While we travel it together, let us choose joy.”
“Every day,” he promised. “Every day.”
“Neither let the eunuch say, 'Behold, I am a dry tree.’”
—Isaiah 56:3
Chapter 38
* * *
The man crested the rise and looked down into the village of Sardica. It seemed smaller than he remembered, shabbier, but tears welled in his eyes anyway. He sank onto the lush grass to catch his breath. The last climb was steep, and for one who had recently cheated death, foot travel was a weary business.
Damian Aristarchus, one-time chief eunuch to the Imperial household, took out his waterskin and brought it to his lips. By mid-morning, he'd refill this skin at the well in the center of his hometown. He couldn't summon the courage to think further than that.
He was still suffering from the aftereffects of the dose of spotted corobane, but his precaution, the flask of olive oil he'd downed just before joining Mahomet, coated his insides enough to protect him from the full malevolence of the draught. Mahomet was not so lucky. Damian had watched him die in agony, shortly before losing consciousness himself.
Even with the oil, it had been a near thing. By the time Damian recovered enough to ask Lentulus what had transpired while his spirit hovered between worlds, the emperor had already dealt with his nephew. Leo Porphyrogenito was given a choice of punishments— blinding or gelding. Either debility would exclude him from succession to the throne.
Leo chose darkness.
Damian thought the choice showed a lack of courage. A blind man was still a man.
Below him, the village was coming to life. A woman came to the well, bearing a clay pot on her shoulder. When she set it down to draw water, Damian caught a clear view of her face—dark laughing eyes, her nose perhaps a shade too long, lips like an angel slightly turned up at the corners by a trick of musculature than gave her a perpetual enigmatic smile. There was no mistaking her. Calysta.
His heart hammered in his chest and though he'd just taken a drink, his mouth went dry. Coming home to his wife seemed a much better idea when he was back in Constantinople than it did now. But despite his trepidation, he wanted his life back. He wanted to know his son. He wanted to love his wife.
Or try to, anyway.
And if Calysta couldn't accept him as he was?
He brushed away his doubts. If he didn't try, he'd never know. Damian shoved the bung back into the waterskin. He raised himself to his feet and started walking down the switch-backed goat track. He picked up his pace.
He'd already died like a man. It was time to start living like one.
The End
Thanks so much for reading Silk Dreams. I hope you enjoyed it.
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Silk Dreams is a stand-alone Viking romance, but if you love those bad boys of the North, I have a trilogy of books for you—The Songs of the North series.
Maidensong, Erinsong, and coming November 2013 Dragonsong. I hope you enjoy them all!
If you’d like taste of Maidensong, please read on.
Maidensong excerpt
* * *
by Mia Marlowe
(available now)
The babe wailed again.
“There, lamb,” Helge whispered as she sponged the last of the slick fluids off the enraged little body. Flickering light from the central fire kissed the newborn and danced across the smoke-blackened beams of the longhouse.
The old midwife sighed. However difficult the babe’s entry into the world had been, she was at least a healthy child, perfectly formed with all her fingers and toes. A crest of coppery hair was plastered to her damp head.
“Hush you, now,” Helge coaxed.
The wrinkled little face puckered and the newborn shrieked as if Loki, the trickster godling, had just pinched her bottom. Helge wrapped the child snugly in a cat-skin blanket, crooning urgent endearments.
“Shut the brat up,” Torvald said, his voice a broken shadow of its usual booming timbre. All the souls sheltered in the longhouse went expectantly silent. As if she sensed menace in the air, the child subsided into moist hiccups.
“Will you not hold your daughter?” Helge offered the small bundle to Torvald. “She’s a fine child, fair and lusty.”
“No, I’ll not.” Torvald knuckled his eyes. “She’s killed my Gudrid. I’ll have naught to do with her.” When he looked at the mewling babe, his face was a mask of loathing. “Put her out.”
Helge flinched. “But, my lord—”
“Don’t argue with me, woman. Am I not chief over my own house?” Torvald’s gray eyes blazed with a potent mix of fury and grief. “I said, put her out.”
Helge’s shoulders sagged. She couldn’t remember the last time a healthy child had been exposed. But Torvald was master here, so there was nothing for it but to do his bidding.
Still, it didn’t seem right to consign the babe to Hel empty-handed. It was bad enough that she’d go unloved and unmourned to that shadowy, icy place. Even worse, she’d arrive there as a pauper.
Helge laid her little charge on the bedding, and untied the thin strip of leather from the dead woman’s slim neck.
The pendant was a simple little amber hammer, its only distinctive mark a tiny purple orchid trapped forever in the glowing stone. Perhaps Thor would mark the child for his protection if she met her death wearing his talisman. It wasn’t much, but it was all Helge could do for the mite.
She bundled herself against the cold and left the longhouse bearing her whimpering burden. The stiff hairs in her nostrils froze with each breath.
The thought of leaving the child for the wolves made Helge’s chest constrict smartly. She decided to let the sea take her. It would be clean and quick. There’d be less chance of hearing the child’s keening death wail on the wind. And the unhappy little soul would find it harder to trouble those who’d disowned her with malicious tricks later, as some malevolent ghosts were known to do.
Snow crunched underfoot as Helge trudged down to the shore where the fjord was choked with ice. Armed with an ax she picked up as she passed the woodpile, Helge carried the babe as close to the edge of the floe as she dared.
“Good-bye, little elf,” Helge said as she placed the newborn on the smooth, cold surface. “Thor keep you, for I cannot.”
She brought the sharp ax down with a thwack. The brittle ice shattered in a jagged line and separated from the main body of the floe. Helge gave it a nudge with the ax handle.
She watched with a gathering heaviness in her chest as, bobbing and dipping, the tiny bundle on the ice sheet floated out with the tide.
Want to find out what happens next? Maidensong is available now!
Other books by Mia Marlowe
The “How to” Series
How to Distract a Duchess
How to Please a Pirate
How to Vex a Viscount
The “How to” Book Bundle (All three novels in one!)
The Touch of Seduction Series
Touch of a Lady (novella prequel)
Touch of a Thief
Touch of a Rogue
Touch of a Scoundrel
The Spirit of the Highlands Series
Plaid to the Bone
Plaid Tidings
The Songs of the North Series
Maidensong
Erinsong
Dragonsong (Coming November 2013)
The Royal Rakes Series
Waking Up with a Rake
One Night with a Rake
Between a Rake and a Hard Place (Coming January 2014)
Not in a series
Stroke of Genius
Lord of Devil Isle
Sins of the Highlander
Lord of Fire and Ice
Novellas
A Duke for all Seasons
My Lady Below Stairs
Improper Gentlemen
Author’s Note & Acknowledgments
* * *
Though Silk Dreams is a work of fiction, several actual historical persons are mentioned—notably the Emperor Basil II. His nephew Leo Porphyrogenito is a product of my imagination, but his niece, Zoe, is not. Zoe succeeded her Uncle Basil to the Byzantine throne and was married to no less than three subsequent emperors. Rumor has it she helped more than one of her husbands to early graves, but that is fodder for another story.
