Shards of Empire

by Susan Shwartz

  Light flared, and he spun about.

  “Father Meletios knows we are here!” Theodoulos cried. “You must all come now!”

  Despite his limp, he started up the twisted narrow path to his master's retreat. Three slabs of rock that looked as if some giant had untidily piled them framed a dark entrance.

  “Looks like a barrow,” Nordbriht muttered.

  Leo chuckled. “And do you think that monsters from the ice will leap out at you? Here, in a Christian land?”

  Nevertheless, he peered ahead, as if trying to see the holy man before he actually was admitted to his presence. Like an Emperor, this man had power of life and death—not only over his future in this world, but in the next. Qualms, such as he had felt before battles, made him glad he had eaten very little that day.

  “I don't think that anything is beyond belief among you Romans. I am a stranger here in a strange land.” As he probably intended, the scriptural allusion brought Theodoulos around in shock. The boy had the wit, though, to laugh at himself as he beckoned to them from outside the cave.

  Shaking his head, Nordbriht followed. The sunlight glinted on his pale braids.

  A deep voice rang out from the cave, echoing from the valley walls. “There are no evil spirits here, man of the north.”

  Nordbriht's hand went to his axe, and Leo's to Nordbriht's wrist. Although the voice from the cave carried out to them, it nevertheless preserved the peace of the valley that its owner ruled. Assurance rang in it, but no false pride, as if, like the rocks of the ancient cliffs here, sun and wind had honed the voice—and its owner—into some essential form.

  Theodoulos’ face lit, and he rushed inside the hermitage. More slowly, drawing himself up as if before entering the palace in New Rome for an audience with the Basileus, Leo followed. Nordbriht waited until Leo had passed, then fell in at his shoulder. His guard of honor: for once, Leo did not object.

  They bent their heads to enter the cave, then more deeply yet in reverence to the old man seated on a slab cut from the side of the rock wall. Sunlight beamed out at them from a highly polished shield he had no doubt set to draw them in.

  “Kindle a lamp, my son,” the holy man told his servant. He pushed a small oil lamp toward Theodoulos, who took over the small task, then knelt for his master's blessing. A long hand cupped the boy's head, then slid down over his eyes.

  “And did you find your honeycakes, my son?” asked the monk.

  “They made me bring some back for you, Father,” said the boy.

  “Will those women never stop trying to tempt me? If I had not packed them all off back to their homes, I would be as wide as this valley by now. Well, the birds will be thankful.”

  Leo glanced away from the light of day outside the cave and the column of light that flared from the shield that had been the old monk's beacon, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the softer light of the small oil lamp. It was very old, almost as old as the pots and bowls neatly stacked upon the rock tables and shelves hollowed into the cave walls. Some of the bowls bore faded paint. And at the table by Father Meletios’ side lay not holy words, but ... no, it was not a statue of some blessed saint, but an image, blank-faced, rich of breast and belly, such as he had seen other monks smash as abomination.

  The mellow oil light was kind to the austere dwelling. Its flickering shadows hid the scars of chisels and torches where they had carved out and hardened the rock into rough corners. But they could not conceal the man himself. Wind and years had left him sere, brown, flensed of all but essential flesh to house a spirit that glowed of its own strength. But not in his eyes: they were dull, had been dull for years, Leo would guess—burnt quite dead by the pitiless ancient sun of Egypt's deserts.

  “Welcome, my sons,” said the monk. “I am Meletios, the younger of that name and quite unworthy to share it with the blessed saint. And your names? You, man of the North?”

  Nordbriht came to what salute he might in the tiny compass of the entryway, then knelt. His head was still level with Father Meletios'. “I am called Nordbriht.”

  “But you have other names. If you seek admission here,” Meletios raised a slender eyebrow, “I shall have to know them.”

  The big man's face, even in the dim light of the cave hermitage, paled, then reddened, and the expression of horror on his face drew a laugh from Theodoulos.

  “I but accompany my...”

  “I am Leo Ducas.” Best cut Nordbriht off before he ran through Leo's full panoply of names. No parade of family, loyalty, or titles for him. Leo knelt at Father Meletios’ feet. He would have bent his head to the rock floor in the full prostration he had wanted to refuse his kinsman the new Emperor, but the monk's hand went unerringly to his brow and restrained him. From the dry fingers, their pads callused from decades of sweeping them across stone to guide himself, Leo felt a surge of vitality akin to standing out in the open, thunder rumbling from afar, before a storm strikes.

  “And this is Theodoulos, whose father's name we do not know. Except that he is my son, as are you: both worthy in the eyes of God. Theodoulos has proved his value and loyalty to me over the years, young Ducas. What will you do, young Ducas, to be equally valuable to me—and, of course, to God?”

  “I seek entrance to this community.”

  “As monk or priest?”

  Leo shook his head. “Until I know how I am called, I am content to be a hewer of wood, a drawer of water. Father Demetrios said you were a holy man. I have need of holiness. And healing.”

  Meletios's hand slid over his brow, down his face, “seeing” him. It awoke a memory of his emperor's hand, blessing him or reaching out in an appalling need for comfort, before fever snatched his wits and life away.

  “You, who bear the name of an Emperor's ruling house?”

  “In my own Emperor's memory.”

  Leo was weeping, he knew it. The long, bony fingers wiped his tears away, then withdrew. Leo bowed his head now, resting his brow on the rough floor. It smelled of cleanliness and age. Immense age.

  “You seek a refuge, do you? But there is danger in Peristrema, young prince. And danger in too great humility. We are not simply penitents here, but guards. If you live among us, or even if you do not, you will learn that.”

  “Nordbriht says there is danger all around us.”

  “Your friend who hides his name? Let me see you too, warrior.”

  Nordbriht edged closer, side by side with Leo, to the blind man. He had feared neither Turks nor the Wild Hunt, but he tensed visibly—"Be easy, son,” said the old man who could not see the sudden tautness in shoulders and neck—although Meletios’ hands “saw” him as clearly as they had seen Leo and Theodoulos.

  “Yes, you have need of the mercy, haven't you, my son? And of forgiveness, too. At least once, you have sought to lay violent hands upon yourself...”

  “Paws,” Leo heard Nordbriht whisper under his breath, but Meletios gave it no attention.

  “...but you did not. You must not. There is mercy; there is always the mercy for sin if it is truly repented of. Go and sin no more.”

  Nordbriht almost snorted.

  “King David was a warrior, and he sinned mightily. Yet, the Lord loved him because he was always so wholehearted in his repentance. It may be that we will need your sword. And I see you have no desire at all to be a monk.”

  Nordbriht's laughter at Meletios’ complete acceptance was surprised, and, even more surprisingly, found an answer in Meletios’ own.

  Then, the monk turned grave. “I didn't think so. But what do you seek? One last battle against the curse that stalks you so you do not have to take your own life? Oh yes, I do see that a curse lies over you—or what you perceive as a curse. Try a little harder, and rest in the mercy. Yes, I know it is a paradox, just the sort of thing that sacred madmen spout and that a man like you cannot wait to escape. But one last fight? Seek, and ye shall find. Once, I thought otherwise, but now I fear me that this is a time for warriors. It may be that your mercy may bring us all w
hatever hope we have.”

  Was it the darkness of the cave, or did Leo actually see the old man ruffle Nordbriht's hair as a man might dismiss an unruly lad? The oil lamp made the long braids seem to glow.

  “Now, walk outside in the sunlight, away from shadows. And let me speak with your companion, who will not permit you to call him master.”

  Shaking his head, an animal freed from the pain that has been gnawing at him, Nordbriht rose. Light from the entrance to the cave cast the shadows of his head and shoulders, immense on the painted wall behind the old priest, almost the shadow of some monster from the harsh, cold North. Outside, birds sang, and the air that blew into the cave was fresh and sweet. Nordbriht's shadow dwindled, and Father Meletios nodded as if he could actually see it shrink to the size of a man.

  “Now, for you, Leo Ducas. Please be seated. Theodoulos will serve you wine. And, if he has not gobbled them all, some of the honeycakes from the women in town. Excellent women; but let them bide there, not here.” Meletios blessed himself. “Never here again.”

  Leo accepted rough wine with the thanks due a far finer vintage and sat, his thumb caressing the cup. When he looked down at it, he saw that it was ancient pottery, incised and painted, red, and black, and white, with what looked like a butterfly. He had seen monks outside Hagios Prokopios smash such things; Meletios put them to use instead.

  “This cup is very old,” politely, he gave voice to his thoughts.

  “Trash, they call such things, and worse names in the village, but I see no need to waste what has been given. Like us, it is wrought from the dust.”

  The statue lying on a rock shelf glinted in the lamplight like the eyes of a willing woman: gleaming obsidian, a black Aphrodite perhaps as old as the world itself. As Leo stared at it, the statue seemed to take on added luster.

  “She knows you admire her, my son,” said Meletios, uncannily perceiving where Leo looked. He laughed. “I was a young man once, with wine and fire in my blood, hard as it may be to believe it. And the sun of Thebes can strike sparks even from the coldest chastity: look at Thais—or do not look, as I learned. Never look.”

  Leo turned his eyes to the roughly cut and painted walls. Here too were figures of men and women. Again, odd: twice now, Meletios had spoken of how he had driven the women from their own worship in this valley. And yet, the women's faces on the walls were as cleanly painted as any of the men's, not scratched out.

  “You are curious, my son,” Meletios observed. “You do not simply accept, submit. And you are still so very young. Are you certain that the life here is what you seek?”

  Leo swallowed and muttered what sounded like assent.

  “Truly? Let me hear you. A temporary anger with the world is no reason to renounce it, you know. Here is no place for men to hide in preparations for eternity. Oh, they may stay long enough to find some peace and to know where it is; but in the end, it is back to the world such men must go.”

  “Was I wrong to come, sir?”

  Meletios was silent for long enough for Leo to hear the poplars’ leaves brush against each other in the wind, to hear the river ripple over the stones, to hear Nordbriht's heavy boots scuff over the stone as he climbed toward the higher shrines. A bird sang overhead, and Leo's eyes filled with tears. Soon, the sun would begin its long decline toward the horizon. Night would come, and stars would sparkle, reflected in the swift river, until dawn. Or rain might muffle all other sounds and send rest to the community when their prayers were over for the moment. And then dawn would fill this place like a chalice. Day and night and day for the rest of all his life if he could but remain here.

  Meletios’ burnt-out eyes were blanks; the droop in the thin lips, the hollowed temples gave him his answer.

  “It is never wrong to give grief and faith and humility their proper play, but wrong to make of them little icons to blind men to their proper work. You are welcome to make such retreat as you will.”

  “Sir ... father...” Leo's eyes filled with tears.

  “My dear, dear son,” Meletios said. “I do not forbid you a retreat, a time spent dwelling apart. But to stay here forever? As well to cage a hawk. It is not in you.”

  “From touching me ... and listening, you know that?”

  “I saw that,” said the old man. “When the sun burned out my eyes, I found in the darkness another kind of vision ... yes?”

  “Psellus...” Even in this hallowed place, the name came out like an angry hiss.

  “Not a holy man for all his learning and his vows?” Meletios’ voice was fearless.

  Leo flung out a hand, as if beseeching the harmless old man not to speak words that might condemn him.

  “His writ does not run here: I do not fear your Psellus. Be easy, son. What did the man say?”

  “He told my emperor that he had been deprived of the light of his eyes in favor of the light of heaven!” It was the cruellest thing, the unbearable savagery of Psellus’ cultivated Greek; and it had torn Leo as if each letter had been a poisoned fang.

  “I found it thus. But I was priest, not Emperor and warrior.”

  Leo looked up sharply. Father Meletios's voice had changed, hollowed out as if spoken from the bottom of a deep well; and his burnt-out eyes seemed to stare like the eye-sockets of a skull upon a fearsome eternity. The bones beneath the spare flesh seemed to light: Meletios was not so much man, but a lantern for the spirit that possessed him.

  “You breathe a word you dare not say, young sir,” Meletios said. “Haunted? This very place, the land itself is haunted, and you have seen it. Once this land was part of the seabed; now, above it, it is like a shoal upon which ancient castaways wash up. Some die where they lie; others would rise and walk, were we ... were I ... to let them. The desert sun blinded me, but when the anguish faded, I looked into the darkness, and I saw a deeper, truer light. If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out...”

  Leo stiffened. Oh God, Meletios was going to prophesy, to share that lightning that had replaced his ordinary sight. I do not want to know warred with How can I write this down? in Leo's thoughts.

  “For the sins that I have sinned against Thee ... oh, Lord, what is Thy will now? I drove out the nuns, imperfect as they were, servants of darkness. God forgive me that I was not strong enough to restrain the men who might not resist them. Yet I, who am blind, may stand before the leopard altar and see not, fear not—how is that a woman's task, a woman's place? And yet, I thrust those worthy ladies from their ancient homes, oh woe...” Meletios raised his voice in a soft wail that reminded Leo of the wind blowing about the stone chimneys of this ancient land.

  The saintly old man seemed to age before Leo's eyes. Then he shook himself, as if dispelling some long-held grief. Light filled his sunken eye-sockets, and his voice tolled like the music in the Church of the Holy Wisdom.

  “The time may come, the time will come when the Wolf and the Lion's Cub sink beneath the earth to the lair of the leopard altar. The earth itself shall shake and split asunder. Then shall light emerge from blood and darkness.”

  The light faded in the blind eyes the way Leo might snuff out a lamp. Father Meletios jerked forward, his mouth opening in a huge gasp for air, almost a death rattle. Leo leapt forward to catch him.

  “Bring wine!” he ordered Theodoulos. His own breath came as if he had been running. Meletios’ sere frame shuddered, the tremors passing into Leo's body as he tried to keep the old man from falling.

  “He doesn't drink wine, except for the sacrament!” Theodoulos protested, even as he poured the thin stuff into Leo's cup. Together, they got the wine into him. With the last drops, Meletios flailed out, and his bony hand dashed the painted cup against the wall. Along with the crash came uneven footprints.

  “If he's not used to it, maybe it will put him to sleep. Ah ... will he remember what he said when he wakes?”

  “This way, sir; his pallet is here.”

  “That's never warm enough, not for a man who spent so many years in Egypt. Give him my cloa
k, too. No, Nordbriht, there is no trouble. Father Meletios had a vision, that is all.”

  Even in the shadows, Nordbriht's face showed what he thought of “all.”

  “Shall I carry him?” he rumbled.

  “There is not room enough for all of us in this cave,” Leo replied. “We would suck the breath from him.”

  They settled Meletios on his pallet and covered him warmly. Underfoot, the ground shuddered slightly. When Leo looked out the entrance to the cave, from Mount Argaeus rose a faint plume of smoke. Light flickered on the last of the wine, still beading the shards of pottery where it had fallen. Leo picked up one shard and tucked it into his pouch. He would toss it into the niche at Hagios Prokopios, trying his luck like the other pilgrims.

  But what would he wish for?

  The sun beat on Leo's back in rhythm with the blows of his hammer on the crumbling stone of the rock face. A chunk dropped free at his feet, sending up a plume of dust. He stepped back, coughing and wiping his eyes.

  When his sight cleared, he paused to check on his progress in turning cliff into cave. So what if he were covered with dust, except where sweat runnels washed him clean? The rock face he was attacking looked somewhat more as if, one day, he might even be able to hollow out a cell within it. A very small cell.

  Behind him came the crunch of heavy footsteps and the welcome gurgle of water in a leathern bottle. Water or perhaps, and better yet, wine: at this point, Leo did not care.

  He wiped his hot face on his sleeve. The coarse fabric stung it where rock shards and dust had nicked him more shrewdly than a razor. Stone dust and sweat marked the cloth. He could not remember having labored so hard.

  He straightened to spare his back and barely escaped banging his head on the ceiling-to-be. Still too low. After his hours spent hacking at the rock, then bending over, grubbing out the rubble, carrying it out of the burrow that was taking form with agonizing slowness, then repeating the process, he ached as if he were eighty. Offer it up? Leo choked off a grumble that showed appalling signs of turning into a moan. Or a curse.