The King's Coin: Ambition is the only faith (Visigoths of Spain Book 2)

by Paula Constant

  Bagay and Khanchla, disconcerted, mumbled their thanks, colouring at the visible amusement of the guards.

  Standing abruptly, Mohammed addressed his guards. “Take them to guest quarters and show them every courtesy.” Glancing at Yosef, he said, “You will wish to bathe before we eat. My guards will show you.” He nodded dismissal, then left.

  Mohammed’s home was within the palace walls but far less formal than the great reception chambers. Slaves served them whilst they sat on comfortable cushions on the floor, about a low wooden table inlaid with ivory. Yosef was conscious that he had not yet seen a woman in the palace, though he had heard their soft laughter through the lattice screen that separated the women’s section of the palace from the men’s. It was, he knew, haram – forbidden – under Islam for women to meet and talk with strange men. He found it strange to be aware of their presence yet forbidden to speak with them.

  “I would like to learn Arabic,” said Yosef.

  They were eating delicate pastries of pigeon meat cooked with spiced fruit and almonds, drizzled with honey. Yosef could not recall ever eating something so exquisitely flavoured. It was served with a salad of pomegranate seeds, cucumber, and mint, washed down with goat’s milk spiced with honey and cinnamon. The absence of wine at a meal was odd to Yosef, but it was something he was rapidly becoming accustomed to in the lands of the Muslims. Although the dhimmi communities could drink alcohol and trade it as they pleased, the Muslims he encountered did not touch a drop.

  Mohammed nodded. “Whilst you are here, we will speak together. You will need, also, to learn some Persian, if you are to travel through the lands of Eran. That, too, you may learn at my brother’s court.”

  “Your brother – Caliph Abd al Malik – is he here, currently, in the palace?” Yosef asked curiously.

  Mohammed nodded. “But his time is heavily weighted,” he said. “We have, only this past summer, ended a long war that has divided our people for many years. Now my brother is caliph, and he must work hard to unite the lands we have already won, and to win more.”

  “Where will you go?” It was Bagay who spoke. There was a challenge in his voice, and he coloured slightly as he met Mohammed’s eye, defiance on his face.

  Mohammed laughed softly. “We have already troops in Africa, my little nomadic friend,” he said, smiling not unkindly. “But myself – I go into Persia, and Armenia, to subdue those who would contest the caliph’s rule.”

  “And why can those countries not rule themselves?” Bagay persisted. “Why must they submit to your rule?”

  “If they could rule themselves, they would.” Mohammed shrugged. “But it is the will of Allah that all should live in peace, brethren in His name. And they submit, as is their destiny and the destiny of all men. The corruption of the old regimes rotted them. The persecution of peoples like your own” – he nodded at Yosef – “is wrong, and cruel. All those who accept the One True God should be united, sharing their culture and learning, creating a more prosperous society in which all – not only the few – can thrive.”

  “And what of those who do not accept the One True God?” Khanchla, emboldened by his brother, interrupted. “What of those who serve other gods?”

  “They are pagans,” said Mohammed flatly, “and little better than the animals they ride. Worship of pagan gods is the root of human ambition. To believe there are gods who act on behalf of men, savage gods who delight in cruelty and war, this is to deny the magnificence and benevolence of the One and to revel in the corruption and ego of man. Accept Allah and become equals beneath our laws, marry our women, and share in our prosperity. Allah is almighty and will conquer all. Our role is merely to worship Him and live in accordance with His law.”

  They continued to speak until late into the night. Once their questions were unleashed, Bagay and Khanchla found an unceasing flow of them, all of which Mohammed answered with patience and respect – but nonetheless, Yosef noted, with implacable certainty in the rightness of his words.

  Yosef wondered, as he listened, why his own people had never felt the same urge to conquer and rule. His entire knowledge of his own history, he realised, was one of escape and persecution, one where his people survived rather than conquered. When they had taken up arms, it had been for survival rather than conquest. Even in Spania – where his own people had settled long before anyone in the Empire had even heard of the Goths – when Visigoth invaders came, defeating the old Roman regime, his own people had simply adapted rather than fighting for the land. Could we have ruled Spania? Yosef wondered. For a moment, he allowed himself to imagine the possibility: his own father ruling in Illiberis rather than Lælia’s. A Jewish king sitting upon the throne.

  Immediately he felt a stab of guilt, and the colour rushed to his face. He imagined the harsh words his father would speak if he knew of such a thought. Such ambition is unpleasing to God, he imagined Arun’s stern voice saying. It is not glory, or thrones, our people seek; it is true wealth, that of the soul, and family.

  Yosef looked about him surreptitiously. Even here, in Mohammed’s own quarters, the sense of luxury and opulence was unmistakable. From the intricate carvings in the plaster walls to the mosaics inlaid in the floor, the silver ewer from which water was poured over his hands before eating to the delicately wrought plate from which they ate, everything spoke of riches and prosperity. He felt a sudden surge of resentment that his own people should hide their wealth, should need to bury it in a secret cave in the hills near Garnata. Should have to send their children in supplication to beg the assistance of other, more powerful men in order simply to conduct trade.

  Why do we not take what we desire? Yosef thought. Why not take up the sword and command our own armies – take a land for our own and demand other men kneel before us?

  But even as he thought it, he knew the answers, knew no Jew who followed the path of God would ever consent to conquering another people, to willingly take up arms.

  And Yosef, to his own discomfort, felt anger and contempt for his own people and himself, for the fatal weakness that meant he must leave his home and travel the length of the Circle of Lands merely so his people could acquire wealth that would never become riches. It seemed to him that on a linear scale, where success lay at one end and failure at the other, in all things that truly mattered – protecting Sarah, his friends, his family – he sat firmly on the side of failure. Success, he imagined, was already gone from his grasp. Success belonged to the man who could have found a way to defend those he loved from harm, and who would know what lay ahead and how to manage it. Success belonged to the man he could never hope to be.

  “You are very quiet,” said Mohammed, smiling at him. “Is our conversation so boring?”

  “Mohammed is to lead his armies into Persia and Armenia,” said Khanchla. “Did you hear, Yosef? More than twenty thousand men he will command. I have never seen an army of such a size.”

  Bagay and Khanchla had dropped all traces of timidity, and they were now flush faced and smiling, perfectly at ease in the company of one they both recognised as a warrior worthy of their own respect. The fact that those very same armies could just as easily be deployed against their own people seemed not to matter to them at all. It was war, just as the wars they fought, and war was their business.

  “I was thinking,” said Yosef slowly, “that I have a very long way yet to go. And that I must keep moving if I am to reach Serica.”

  The faces of his companions fell. “Must we leave so soon?” Bagay asked. “There is much here to learn.”

  But Mohammed was watching Yosef’s face. “Perhaps,” he said gently, “your friends might care to remain here for a time. I think, beyond this point, the road is your own, my young friend, is it not?”

  Bagay turned to Khanchla, frowning, but Khanchla’s eyes could not meet Yosef’s. Yosef remembered Dahiya’s words, and he knew his friend must also be thinking of them: If we are to defeat them … we must also understand them.

  “It is better, I t
hink, for you to stay,” said Yosef, trying to force a smile. “From here, my work becomes more difficult – and I must become invisible.”

  “At least,” said Mohammed quietly, “allow me to help with that. Will you stay the turn of a moon or so – until my armies march out? Like this, I can help you.” He smiled at Yosef, genuine warmth softening the hard face. “I would enjoy your company,” he said simply.

  Yosef felt the road before him yawn like a lonely cavern of dark unknown, the daily effort of pack up, move, find shelter, and sleep; a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over him.

  “Yes,” he said, unable to find a smile. “I would like that.”

  11

  Theo

  November, AD 690

  Sebastopolis, Anatolia

  Elauissa Sebaste, Cilicia, Turkey

  “Where is bastard’s dromon?” When Theo didn’t answer, Leofric nudged him. “I cannot see from here. Can you see it? He is here?”

  Theo did not turn his head, and his voice was flat when he answered: “He is here.”

  “Xristus jap Tyr,” muttered Leofric.

  “I doubt appealing to either will help.” Theo’s face was expressionless when he turned back to face them.

  “We should have tell Apsimar to cut throat in Gortyn,” said Leofric. “Or done ourselves.” He directed this last at Silas, who made a low noise of annoyance.

  “And what would that have achieved, wenkai?” He nodded at Theo. “What the boy told us we have seen to be true between Gortyn and here. Oppa has made a deal with Leontios. His coin bought horses, and men to ride them, all in the name of the Spanish king, and all under Leontios’s command, at no cost to the emperor.” Silas spat through the oarlock, his face dark. “How do you think it would have aided us to kill Oppa, after that?”

  “I think one look at schnecke’s face is good enough reason,” said Leofric stubbornly.

  “We have argued it enough.” This time it was Theo who spoke, and both men subsided at the ice-cold anger in his voice. “Leave it – and Oppa – to the gods.” And to me, he thought but did not say.

  “We will land soon.” It was Leofric who spoke again, this time in a low tone. “You can give me death stare all you wish, boy. I was there when he lay those stripes on your face. How you can sit here and tell me to leave to gods? Ne,” he said, glaring and pushing back at Silas’s restraining hand. “He meant to kill, and not only Theo. You think he does not come here to finish job?”

  “He may not know we are here,” said Silas.

  “Ah!” Leofric made a furious noise of dismissal. “He know. You know it as well as I.”

  Neither contradicted him. Theo stared out of the oarlock at the merchant ship pulled into the harbour alongside the long, bustling dock that ran before the defensive wall. He knew Oppa’s dromon by now as well as he did his own feet. He had watched it at every camp between Gortyn and Sebastopolis, could pick it out easily amongst the dozens of vessels in the harbour. Even if the low belly, built to hold horses, had not given it away, Oppa alone amongst the fleet flew his own standard – the bright red Chrismon insignia of Spania, the same emblem Theo had trained beneath in the grounds at Emerita, where his father had once overseen the king’s military headquarters.

  Theo instinctively touched the coin at his chest. Geila, his grandfather, whose face the coin bore, had fought beneath that flag. Had been king beneath it, as had his brother before him.

  Raised his whole life to revere the Chrismon and peacock as the twin symbols of Spania, the very thought of Oppa carrying it as if by right made Theo want to rend the corrupt king’s bastard from limb to limb, then feed every part to one of the mountain cats high above Illiberis.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and pulled the oar with unnecessary strength. He did not answer Leofric. Both men fell silent. Theo knew they were worried. He couldn’t help them, nor make it easier for them. The fact was that Theo wanted to kill Oppa so much he could taste the copper of blood on his tongue at the thought. Yet if what Apsimar had said was true, Oppa played games that had wider implications than his own need for revenge, which meant that he could not kill him, or at least not yet. The knowledge goaded him and made him feel disloyal to Lælia.

  It wasn’t only Oppa’s continuing existence that made him feel disloyal to Lælia. In Sebastopolis, Athanais would open a new tavern, one Theo must establish a pattern of visiting if he was to play his part in Apsimar’s schemes. Every time he thought of visiting it, unwelcome recollections of Elpis crept into his mind, until the soft curves of her body as he had seen it on the docks in Gortyn had begun to haunt his waking moments as much as Lælia did his sleeping ones.

  “Ease oar!”

  Theo closed his eyes and lowered his head to his arms, feeling the slow, steady beat of his heart. It was only in his dreams, he thought, that Lælia was real. So real that he often woke sweating and trembling, her deep bronze eyes seared like fire on his soul. In his dreams he saw her riding hard, a large animal of some kind at her side. Her figure was vague. It was the emotion within her he remembered upon waking, a wild, almost savage loneliness and longing. The answer it prompted made his whole body ache with the need to both comfort her and seek his own comfort in her presence. When he woke, often to darkness and the sound of others sleeping, he would lie in the quiet and imagine what she must look like now, who she might be. He would take the memories out, one by one, and examine them privately, turning them over in his mind and wondering if he had imagined their power.

  Doubts lurked in those dark hours, doubts Theo knew were unworthy of himself and unfair to Lælia. Fears that his memories were deceptive, the emotion between them a fantasy belonging to a time now past. But the thought made him so furious and sick he could barely breathe, and so he would pack the tumult away again beneath the careful layers of self-control so that when the others woke, he would row and train and fight harder than any of them, for there was one thing Theo knew above all else: one day he would return to Lælia and know the truth for himself.

  And what manner of man would he be, Theo thought grimly, when he returned to her? With every day that passed, it seemed he must compromise another part of the man he had been. Sometimes, Theo feared that when finally he returned to Spania, all trace of the boy who had once been Theudemir of Aurariola would have been sheared away, his flesh left rotting on the tails of Oppa’s whip, his heart lost in the darkness of a sordid tavern, and his soul spent wielding his sword for more powerful men.

  “Stroke!”

  “Pull your oar, damn you,” grunted Leofric beside him. “Since you decide you want us all suffering that evil bastard’s attentions again, the gods dock us beside him.” He glared at Theo, but it was a glare tinged with concern, and Theo saw Leofric’s hand touch his knife as if to reassure himself that it was still there.

  As the boat glided into port, Theo squinted through the hard sunlight. The sun glittered from something, and Theo saw Leontios walking toward him along the dock. Heavyset, with none of Apsimar’s lithe grace, the gleaming gold on his breastplate and tunic nonetheless proclaimed his seniority. It was not Leontios who held Theo’s eye, however. It was the man beside him, head bowed in polite attention, clad in the rich green robes of a wealthy lord – or a king’s son.

  Theo’s heart slowed to a thick thud. Oppa’s dark, venal eyes raked the fleet from stern to bow, as if he were looking for something.

  I’m here, you bastard, thought Theo savagely. The eyes swept the fleet once more. Theo stared out over the water, almost willing Oppa to look his way, for Theo had learned something about himself during the long months he had fought in the Karabisianoi.

  He had learned he liked the game of war. Liked playing it – and winning.

  Perhaps, he wondered as he watched Oppa and Leontios converse, it was his experience under Oppa’s lash that had truly birthed his love for war, and his talent for it. Perhaps it was the torture he had endured that made him determined never again to be helpless, to do what he must to ensure victory fo
r himself and his men. And if I must fight in wars I do not understand, Theo thought, for men I do not know, then so be it. He had decided, in the days between Gortyn and here, that he would play Apsimar’s game. Whatever plot Oppa contrived with Leontios, Theo thought bitterly, there was none more experienced in the man’s ways than he, none better placed to uncover it.

  The dromon shifted slightly. Oppa’s eyes fell on Theo at the same moment Leofric and Silas noticed him.

  “Wenkai,” murmured Silas urgently.

  “Kill him,” Leofric muttered.

  Theo did not hear either of them. His eyes were locked with Oppa’s, a strange dance occurring in the space between them.

  I know you want to kill me, said Oppa’s eyes. Yet still I am here, showing myself to you.

  I know what you are, said Theo’s. Today, tomorrow, it matters not. I will discover what you mean here. And one day, though I may not know when or how, I will watch you die.

  Perhaps. Oppa raised his shoulders in a curious gesture, as if acknowledging Theo’s fury but not meeting it. His eyes cut sideways to Leontios. There was something almost conspiratorial in the small smile on his lips. There are things you do not know, his eyes seemed to say.

  “Theo!” Leofric’s voice hissed in his ear. “I do not like the look on the bastard’s face, schnecke.”

  Oppa held Theo’s eyes, then, as Leontios made a gesture of dismissal, very deliberately he turned his back. For longer than necessary, he stood with his back bared to Theo’s dromon, an open target.