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

by Paula Constant

  Theo was gone and she was alone in the storm once more. The only thing that felt real was the earth beneath her. It felt warm and alive. When Lælia dug her fingers into the sand, it was not the desert she felt but the rich soil of Illiberis, pulsing around her like a living thing, calling her home.

  She glanced back across the dim sea and felt the savage bolt of longing pulling her toward the shadowy figures there. Women must master the art of sacrifice early, whispered the wind. Lælia drew the hot desert air into her body and with it the fierce desire back into herself, away from that dim sea. With an act of will, she turned her back on the shadowy figures and her face toward the pull of her homeland. Thrusting her hands deep into the sand, she felt desire shift inside, pulling her not to Theo now but toward the land she had sworn to protect.

  I am yours, Theo, she thought, but first I was of Illiberis, and it is to Illiberis I will forever belong. The amulet at her neck pulsed with the heat of the desert, but whilst she could feel the coin beneath it, now it seemed the metal was warmed by the amulet itself.

  Lælia lay in the sand as the wind howled overhead, and she knew it was time to find her way home.

  When dawn came, the wind was gone and the sand lay in perfect ripples, all trace of Dahiya and the camels gone from it.

  At first Lælia stared at the unfamiliar ground and knew only that she was lost with no means of finding her way. But the wind had taken all that did not belong in her mind, and as dawn grew, she found the emptiness left behind allowed her to perceive details that had previously escaped her. She saw where the sun rose on the horizon and recalled where it had risen the day before, and the day before that. She looked at the sand beneath her and saw the direction and flow of the ripples, seeing that in their pattern lay a story. She noticed an acacia tree in the distance that seemed to call her, though she could not say why. She took a sparing mouthful of water and set off.

  Only as she drew close to the tree did she see the bare branches that had been stripped by camels, the recent droppings partially covered over by sand. She felt a surge of strength. I am not helpless, she thought fiercely. I can survive, and I can find my way.

  From the tree, she found a crop of sabay that had been trodden down. Further, in a depression between small dunes protected from the worst of the wind, she saw where an animal had couched. Each new discovery unfurled a seed of self-reliance inside that fed her, empowered her to find another sign, and another. To know herself as part of the world and the world itself as a benign thing that could help, if only she knew where to look.

  She found her camel by mid-morning, snatching feed from grasses as it wandered. It took her longer still to catch it, but when she did, she thought she knew, if not where exactly she was, at least where she should be going.

  Her guerba had barely two mouthfuls of water left.

  It was mid-afternoon when she saw the first tracks, and long shadows fell across the sand as she crested a dune and looked down upon Dahiya chewing a stalk of grass, Jadis lying peacefully at her feet. She paused for a moment, savouring the warm glow of triumph within, then slowly approached. Jadis flicked an ear lazily in her direction but did not stir.

  Lælia couched her camel. Squatting in the sand by Dahiya, she returned the woman’s greetings courteously, then removed the top from her guerba and passed it to her, as was the custom.

  “The gods have given me enough,” replied Dahiya quietly, but there was a light in her eyes that gave Lælia a warm sensation inside. They sat in silence for a short time.

  “I must go home,” said Lælia finally. “To Illiberis.” Jadis stretched and rolled onto her belly, staring unblinking at her mistress. Dahiya nodded but did not say anything. “If war is coming,” said Lælia slowly, “it is my responsibility to fight it.”

  “What do you need from me?” asked Dahiya simply.

  “My grandfather will never let me take command of his forces.” Lælia shook her head. “I fear that I will return to find I have no part to play.”

  “Then,” said Dahiya, “I shall teach you how to become the part around which the play revolves. It is a story we tell ourselves, that the game occurs and we must find our place in it. The reality is that our part determines the play – no matter what the game. You have been training in your part for long enough. It is time, I think, that you make this game your own.” She stood decisively. “It is time we met with Ilyan.”

  22

  Letter from Athanagild to Shukra

  April, AD 691

  Toletum, Spania

  Toledo, Spain

  Shukra –

  My letters to you have gone unanswered since Laurentius’s unfortunate arrival at the monastery.

  My position as Sisebut’s clerk allows me unprecedented access to his affairs. Access that may prove invaluable in the days to come, for I fear it is behind God’s walls that Spania’s fortune will be decided. I implore you not to cease communication now. I must know I do not risk all in vain. This information is the only gift I have in my power to help you all. Do not take that from me.

  Sisebut grows daily more anxious. He drinks late into the night, and his tongue becomes careless. As yet, all believe him Egica’s creature – all, I suspect, but Egica himself. Egica is no fool. He comes rarely to the monastery and says little of importance to Sisebut himself. With every indiscretion of Sisebut’s I become more nervous that he will be discovered. He conspires with priests in the north, men drawn from the tribes who are barely literate themselves. He pays coin to these men to launch attacks on Egica’s nobles in the mountains of Gallæcia. They attack all but Favila, the youngest son of Chindasuinth, and now the nobles begin to whisper that it is a rebellion made by Favila, in support of Sunifred’s. Soon it will not matter who began it – Favila will be forced to war. Egica sends men to support his allies, strengthening his forces in the north whilst Sunifred prepares in the south. Sisebut believes he acts in secret, imagines himself the mastermind of all. I do not believe Egica so gullible, but I have yet to know his games. Meanwhile in Toletum, Egica chastises Theodefred, Duke of Corduba, for his brother’s seeming rebellion and holds his son Roderic close to ensure he does not join it.

  It is clear Egica must eventually ride north himself. When he does, Alaric tells me that Sunifred believes he will march into Toletum unchallenged, be anointed by Sisebut, his tame archbishop, and take Spania for himself.

  None of it feels real, or possible. And amidst it all, Liuvgoto writes her letters and rallies her supporters. She is not forgotten. There are those who remember her father was the greatest of Spania’s kings, the man who united our nation for the first time. King Suintila was our own father’s uncle and namesake. Even his name evokes patriotism in the hearts of men, a memory of a more innocent time. Liuvgoto plays on this. She does not intend to die in that monastery, a shadow of the queen she once was. She is the grandmother of the king’s son. Her daughter Cixilo might be cloistered at Liuvgoto’s side, but she is still the king’s wife, and mother to his son. In these gifts Liuvgoto sees her path back to power. Whether that path lies with Sunifred, her cousin, or Egica, her son-in-law, I believe she has yet to decide. I write this to you now because I know Sunifred corresponds with her and heeds her advice. Warn him not to do so. Liuvgoto plays her own games.

  Sometimes it seems all in Spania at this time play their own games.

  You are the only person to whom I may tell these things. I hope you may find use for them, even if Laurentius, I know, is disgusted by my manner of gathering them.

  –Athanagild

  Letter from Shukra to Athanagild

  Athanagild –

  You know Laurentius less than you think, aziz-am. But on this I can say no more.

  On your role as Sisebut’s “clerk” I will say, again, that I cannot accept your suffering. I will hear your news, but I do not like these games. I fear for all the children lost amidst them. But for you, aziz-am, I fear most of all.

  My heart is heavy.

  –Shukra
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  23

  Yosef

  April, AD 691

  Eran

  Iran

  By the time he left the palace at Al Sinnabra, Yosef felt wearied by the games of men and trade. He had learned much from Mohammed, but he had grown tired, also, of the endless cut and thrust of their conversation, which always left him feeling he had been bested in a game he did not quite understand. He left in the predawn, before the call to prayer woke the palace. He had said his farewells the previous night and had eaten lavishly in the palace, surrounded by musicians and friends and merriment. He had not slept after. The prospect of the road ahead kept him taut and awake, calling him from his bed and urging him away. Yosef had learned that to slip away was best. Farewells only dragged out the inevitable and became wearisome in the end. People, he was learning, came and went. If he was meant to see them again, he would.

  He turned his horse eastward and joined the steady flow of humanity on the road toward Damascus. He would pass through there into the lands of Persia and onward, to Serica.

  At Damascus he paused before the great stone walls, watching people pass through the giant arched gates. Once, he thought, he would have felt a surge of excitement at the delights of the city before him. Now, though, he simply gritted his teeth, hunched low in his cloak, and handed over to the guards the paper from Mohammed that ensured not only his safe passage through the city but his right to negotiate with the merchants there.

  He stayed with merchants who were distant relatives of his family, bargaining politely – and seemingly endlessly – for the fabrics and goods in which they traded. Accustomed now to the variety of hands through which any negotiation must pass – the Jewish merchant, Arabic official, Greek importer, and any other number of steps on the ever-turning wheel of commerce – he found himself switching between languages and manners with an ease his relatives found disconcerting.

  “You are a strange Jew,” said a cousin one night, looking at him over wine with a not altogether friendly eye. “Even the dress you assume distinguishes you from your people.”

  “It is necessary, on the road,” said Yosef quietly, “to become invisible – to be unseen – rather than known for what one truly is. Not everyone is disposed to help a Jew.”

  “For you are a holy people to Hashem your God, and God has chosen you to be his treasured people from all the nations that are on the face of the earth,” quoted his companion. “We have a duty to be who we are, Yosef – even when to do so rests uneasily.”

  Yosef slipped away from the conversation with the diplomacy he had mastered during his travels, but the conversation left him uneasy. Part of him admired such uncompromising faith, even mourning the loss of it in himself. But the traveller in him had become the greater voice, and that man knew that in rigid faith lay a man’s weakness.

  Yosef nonetheless recalled the conversation as he rode onward through the dry, rocky wastes and sudden lush valleys toward Persia. It was now a wilderness of lawless men without rule, subdued in theory by the Arabs but where resentful mutterings lingered in the streets and men still worshipped at the fire temples Yosef passed on his way. Through it all, he considered what his relative had said, and his own home, now so very far distant.

  I do not feel chosen, he thought. Nor do I believe God cares much at all that I should proclaim my identity so, amongst those with whom I ride. His thoughts became bleaker and more frightening as he went. After so long abroad, Yosef found miles no longer seemed to have the same meaning, nor the places he arrived at very much appeal.

  In the shattered streets of Ctesiphon, the once-magnificent city of the Sassanids, he found others of his kind and negotiated for carpets and rugs with a detached cynicism that surprised even himself. He saw no point in staying any longer than he must. Telling stories of his homeland had lost its novelty value. Yosef was tired of being amusement for men who would wake up tomorrow knowing who they were and what they worked for. He began to feel that to give up the stories of his own life was to lose it piece by piece, and he had already grown so thin that he no longer recognised the bearded, thin-faced stranger with hollow eyes he saw when he washed in the rivers and puddles he passed on the way.

  The language of trade in Ctesiphon, which marked the true beginning of Persia, was Sogdian. When trade with his own people was done, Yosef made enquiries that in turn led him to a quiet district in an old part of the city, where he handed over one of the scrolls he had carried from Spania to a man who served him delicate pastries and spiced hot wine in a richly decorated townhouse close to the River Tigris.

  The man, whose name was Farzin, studied the document carefully and looked at Yosef through deep-set eyes that gleamed with intelligence over sharp cheekbones. He was a tall, proud man who spoke with dignity and reserve – nothing like the quick-eyed traders to which Yosef had become accustomed. “I will write you another,” said Farzin in his calm, cultivated tones after reading it. “This one will ensure you are not killed in the passes my people ride. Arabic rule does not extend there. It is my people who will determine what you are. The scroll will not ensure your safe passage to Constantinople when you return, however. You will need to navigate that yourself.” His mouth twitched slightly. “If you return,” he said evenly, holding Yosef’s eye.

  Yosef nodded politely but didn’t react. So many had given their warnings before now. So many times, already, he could have died.

  “You laugh,” said Farzin, eyeing him curiously. “You are not afraid of death, then, my young friend?”

  Yosef took a date from the silver tray and chewed it meditatively. Beyond the walls of the garden a donkey and cart clattered past, the scent of cut mint from its load wafting to where they sat. Night was falling, and the tempting smell of cooking meat permeated the air, dotted with spices as yet unfamiliar to Yosef.

  “You are wondering how to answer without insulting me.” Farzin nodded. “This I understand. But you must not concern yourself. I am not a man inclined to take offence.”

  Yosef gave a half smile, which he knew did not reach his eyes. “It is only that men easily fear that which they do not know,” he said quietly. “And – forgive me – men in cities seem to fear the unknown more than any other. I have seen merchants tremble with fear to spend a night only miles from the city gates, certain they will be set upon by marauders. And yet the truth is, the greatest dangers to man are faced in the cities themselves, and usually by those they know. Once on the road, and away from the familiar, all men are companions and brothers in arms. I have found nothing to fear in the wastelands I travel but much of which to be wary once I return to the places of men.”

  Farzin sat back on his cushions and considered his words. “It is true,” he said at last. “My own father, who hailed from the very passes you will attempt to cross, was wont to say the same thing.”

  He moved the tray, and an engraving on its base caught Yosef’s eye. He leaned forward and touched it – an eagle, wings outstretched about a blazing sun, legs streaming away. Athanais had shown him the same symbol before he left for the sands. “That symbol,” said Yosef. “Where did it come from?”

  Farzin touched it. “My father brought the tray back from his travels,” he said. “From a place called Pir-e-Sabz, in Yazd. He said it lay beyond a wasteland and that it brought him hope when he had none within.”

  Yosef recalled Athanais showing him a scroll with the same symbol: This one bears the mark of Ahura Mazda, of the Zoroastrian faith. It will be trusted by the Sogdian merchants who control the passes.

  The memory forged a comforting connection between past and present. For a moment at least, Yosef’s journey felt less lonely.

  Farzin, ignorant to his thoughts, looked at Yosef with a somewhat wistful smile. “I shall never see such wastelands as you cross, or as my father travelled,” he said. “And nor will most. Perhaps, then, it is easier for men to disparage that which they cannot understand.”

  “Perhaps.”

  They sat together in silence, and in
the morning Yosef was gone.

  24

  Lælia

  April, AD 691

  Septem, Mauretania

  Ceuta, Morocco

  Septem, Lælia thought as she rode through the tall gates, felt different to her after so long in the desert. People hurried in a way they did not in the sands, their faces tense and suspicious. The scent of coin permeated everything. She could see it in men’s eyes and in the scrutiny of a hundred avaricious faces as they passed, each weighing the new arrivals for what opportunity they might present. She saw it in the fine embroidery of robes that had never seen desert sand, and the soft hands that had never tied a rope. She saw coin in the fat man served by thin slaves. After the desert simplicity, Lælia felt, as she inhaled the mingled stench of rotten waste and fine cooking, that the city showed her man’s greed and cruelty in stark relief.

  The bulk of the Riders they left camped outside the walls. Dahiya entered with Zdan and Igider, her two oldest lieutenants, on either side. They were dark-faced men with wary eyes who rode silently behind their amgar. Lælia rode behind them, swathed in turban and pantalons as Dahiya was, through busy streets teeming with merchants and wares. People whispered as they passed, staring at Dahiya with barely disguised awe. Dahiya and her men rode through the crowd without looking right or left, untroubled by the stir they caused. None looked at those who rode behind her. In Septem, there was none more famous than Dahiya, Queen of the Jerawa, the warrior Arabs called Al Kahinat, the Sorceress.