“If you had hit your head,” Nordbriht remarked, coming up behind Leo with water, “perhaps you would have knocked some sense into it. And asked for help, or given up the whole idea.”
“This must be my own work,” Leo insisted. He turned to take the bottle from his—what was Nordbriht? His friend? His sworn man? A comrade in arms? After so long squinting at the rock, Leo's eyes dazzled in the bright sun. Nordbriht appeared as a shadow crowned with that incongruously shining hair. A Varangian icon. He hid his grin with the water bottle.
“A rat digs its own burrow. Does that make us admire rat or burrow the more?” asked the Northerner. “We might have had lodgings in the town. Or the priest would have given you, at least, houseroom. But no, you will be holy if it kills you. You mortify your flesh, but must you also mortify mine?”
Such a fine, stubborn length of limb to mortify!
Leo shrugged, pleased that he had managed not to flinch at the gesture. You do not need to remain. Nordbriht ignored it, as he ignored the subject every time it came up.
Leo drank again. Faintly astringent, the faint sourness of wine mixed with water washed the dust from the back of his throat.
He turned back to the rock and began again to hack away at it. Nordbriht's immense height shaded him for a pleasant moment. And then, muttering barbarian imprecations that Thor's hammer could make quick work of this stupidity, the big man joined him in hewing at the rock. So much for “this must be my own work” or any other orders Leo might try giving him.
With the strength in Nordbriht's shoulders from years of axe drill, they would soon excavate a sizable room. And then would come the task of firing it, finishing the hardening that exposure to the air began. An interesting way to build, Leo thought. For himself, he was more used to the stone and masonry of Byzantium, of churches built on the pattern of Justinian's, bright with mosaics and all the colors of the rainbow shimmering to delight the eye and stir the soul. Here, they carved churches from caves and painted them in all the colors of the earth—reds and browns, golds, and dusty greens.
It was not only churches, though, and holy cells that the people here built in the living stone.
“Like digging a grave,” Nordbriht muttered. “A barrow ... which God the Father avert. Hew wood and draw water, indeed; but in the station to which God has called you,” he remarked. “Build your own habitation, if you must, but use the skills you already possess to serve these people.”
Toward the end of the day, Leo laid aside his hammer and traded his worker's tunic, if any worker would wear a thing that ragged, for one that was merely shabby. Nordbriht had found a tavern where, he claimed, the lamb was so tender that going meatless was like a sin—a dubious piece of theology to which Leo's belly growled fanatical belief. He allowed himself to be persuaded. Besides, he told himself, in Hagios Prokopios, he could buy the supplies that would mean he could spend less time away from his work.
People eyed him and Nordbriht as they rode in. Not that he himself was anything that unusual among the dark-haired Romans with their eyes, melancholy, as if contemplating their sins, until something—business or faith—caught their attention. Farmers, laborers, and potters from the next town pushed through the dusty streets, shoulder to shoulder with the tall, proud women Leo had noticed the first time he had come this way.
How many of the older ones were former nuns? he wondered. If he told them of his talk with Father Meletios, would they spit on his shadow—or the old monk's? He had done his best to obey the monk's instructions. When he was not carving out his cave, he rode back and forth between the town and his hermitage-to-be, his hermitage and the cave churches, even, once or twice, making the long trip to Father Meletios in Peristrema. He visited the sick, brought food to the poor (a blessedly small number), and even tried to help the halt bring in their flocks. He was not very good at herding sheep, he realized, but at least he made the lads who were smile at his clumsiness.
But I know enough what I saw. Quick those boys were, but not so quick that they could conceal from Leo what he expected to see—entrances to caves and to more than caves, a network of them lying beneath the earth. Malagobia, it had been called, the place where life was difficult, despite deep, deep wells.
Meanwhile, Leo sensed Nordbriht's impatience, honed by the smoky, fatty lamb they both could smell. They headed toward the center of the town, pausing frequently to greet people.
The younger women met his eyes, then looked away. Presumably not in shyness, but because a man in a drab tunic was hardly worth their attention, he thought. Not with a man like Nordbriht at his shoulder, his grin at war with his watchfulness. He treated them with the courtesy he would accord ladies in Byzantium—and a watchful eye out for nearby fathers or brothers.
Many of the younger men went armed, though Leo had seen not even so small a trace of a Turkish raiding party as a discarded bowstring. They swaggered in their weapons, thrust into new scabbards. But for all their unfamiliarity to arms, these men were fit, with an ill-concealed anger about them that reminded him ... where had he seen that? Where? Memory flashed behind his eyes; the young Jewish men in Constantinople had had that same sullen readiness for trouble.
Horse hooves pounded behind him, drew up fast. A man dismounted, bowing with precisely the degree of deference that Leo's former rank required. What a time for a courier to come and find him. His heart pounded. Nordbriht closed in. Surely, if they followed Leo's doings in the capital—he had declared himself dead to the world, but he would not be the first imperial to have been resurrected—they knew he did not go unguarded.
The courier's eyes were blurred, but fearless, even when he saw the former Varangian. No, if this were an arrest, the man would have been flanked by soldiers.
“The Esteemed Lady Maria Ducaina sent me with letters from her and your noble kin. She will be glad to know I see her son well.”
That was court courtesy; Leo knew he looked like a laborer, if a laborer to whom a courier from the capital must bow. Hagios Prokopios had one thing in common with Byzantium: the curiosity of a feral cat. Soon, a crowd would gather. Best send this courier on his way. Leo took the packet of letters, weighing it in his hand. You have been weighed in the balance and found ...
Who had written? His mother with prudent admonitions; his father, with his detachment and his trust; perhaps even Alexius, who must be training for a soldier about now. God forgive him, they seemed more real than the people he met here every day. He had not yet forsaken all attachments to his old life, had he? Another sin with which to barrage the priests, if he were ever to be one with them.
“Greet the Lady for me. And for yourself...”
He reached for his slender purse. Some gold was left; he could reward his mother's courier as the man had a right to expect.
“Sir, the Lady your Mother says you have given yourself to God. How shall I accept reward from a servant of God?”
Now that was a shock, Leo thought: a man of Constantinople refusing gold.
“Then give it to God in my name as in your own, with prayers for my salvation,” Leo intoned blandly.
The courier bent his head for a blessing. The idea was incongruous enough that Leo gave it and hoped the presumption would not be held against him at Judgment.
He moved on. Gradually, the knots of men, whispering intently, loosened and dispersed. One group, which did not, stood almost in his path.
Leo had no choice but to acknowledge them. And so he nodded respect at a knot of youths better dressed than the press of farmer's sons and junior merchants: minor nobles, he suspected. At home—no, now his home was here—they would be nothing to him; here, he must show them respect.
One, the youngest, the back of his neck shaved in imitation of the City's mercenaries, jeered after him. A lump of dried mud—or maybe dung—flew and shattered against a wall.
The pad-pad-pad of Nordbriht's tread paused. Deliberately, the Northerner turned to survey the men, little more than boys, their blood high, as he might regard u
nfit recruits.
“Little boys,” he snorted. “One good battle, and their nurses would have laundry to do once they finished wiping those fools'...”
Leo glared at him.
“I was going to say, ‘wiping their eyes.'”
“Of course,” Leo agreed, nodding courtesy at a very wide and very eminent merchant. The man returned the nod, calibrated to reflect Leo's no-doubt-lean purse, then turned to bow more deeply to a finely robed merchant of a distinctly foreign cast.
Leo remembered his inquiries in the Jewish quarter of Constantinople. This merchant might well have been at home there, or in company with the Emperor's own surgeon, searching for spices, medicines, and knowledge. From the man's robes, he might be a dealer in spices, perhaps, or silks. With a beauty for a daughter. Leo wondered that he would expose her to the town's gaze. He had seen no women there; and when he had asked ...
Forget they exist, Leo had been told in essence. He had not been able to forget; and now, here, he saw a man much like the one he remembered.
Behind him walked younger men, dressed like him, only less richly. Leo had seen such young men in Pera, suspicious, even eager to fight. There always were people angry with him when he sought answers to questions. Fearing stones hurled by young men whose anger could set a city ablaze, Leo had turned away.
In the midst of these young men, temporarily intent on their work, not their pride or self-preservation, walked two women. One, heavier and older, he dismissed: a nurse, perhaps, of the type of whom Nordbriht had made his joke. But with her walked a woman smaller than the wives and nuns of Hagios Prokopios, and far more finely made. Those women were foursquare or thin almost to gauntness. Beneath her robes, this woman—this lady—blossomed into gentle curves, a more refined version, perhaps, of the figures Leo had seen sculpted of dark stone.
He flushed, ashamed that at the very time he prayed for a vocation, he could eye a woman and think of how she might look without those cumbersome garments sweeping the dust behind her. If thy right eye offend thee ... Oh God, don't think of blindness; think of anything but that, even carnal thoughts of women ... Oh God no, his mother and Andronicus, not even to save his life ... He managed to look down before the lady felt his eyes, his hungry eyes, upon her.
At least, he could hope that she had not met his eyes and seen the hunger in them! Her face was veiled, but not hidden, so fine was the silk that covered it. Metal threads glinted in the weave; and from its pretense of modest retreat, bright, dark eyes surveyed her world.
The woman whose pride had shamed Andronicus Ducas had disappeared into air, she and her father, or into the obscurity of caravan routes and the secrecy wrought by their age-old and notoriously secretive people. Whatever else might be said of the Empire's Jews—and much was—they looked after their own.
His hope that she might not see him, or that she would simply pass by went, like most of his hopes these past few years, in vain. The lady quickened her pace and pulled at her father's sleeve. The man paused, turning to look toward Leo. Yes, he had indeed seen that face before. Judging from how the man furrowed his brow, Leo suspected the merchant tried to place him.
Only a moment ago, Leo's belly had been growling. Now, it chilled. He had asked among the Jews about a merchant and a woman—a lady—and had been sent away. The man, or priest, who had dismissed him had been afraid. The pounding of Leo's heart made him suspect that these were the people he had met and sought.
If I call his name, will he turn to me, or will he send his servants to drive me off? Leo brushed at his dusty, tattered clothes.
Joachim, or his twin, made his way toward Leo, his hand already reaching toward his purse. His daughter took a step forward as if she too would give alms.
He bowed with the grace his mother had insisted he learn for a career at court, if all went well. Even in rags, he was a Ducas, not a beggar: insufferable to be an object of charity!
So much for humility!
Something about that delicate, costly veil—she had knelt and wiped sickness away from a sobbing man's face.
“Do you have water?” her father had demanded. “We have gold to pay for it."
They understood pride, these people. Again, the woman plucked at her father's sleeve. The man nodded and returned Leo's bow.
“Do you require employment?” he asked. “Anyone in the market can point out the merchant Joachim's house.”
So it was Joachim after all. Leo had fled the world only to find other remnants of his old life washed up upon this shore. A hand on his arm, trembling slightly; rapid breathing, catching in revulsion at the moment that her countryman's irons struck the Emperor and went awry; a scent of sandalwood and roses—
The lady had unveiled so that Romanus’ last sight might be of a fair woman: he might as well think of her as bubbles in a fountain—brilliant and quickly vanished. Her father's strength: it was only an illusion. Neither could have a thing to do with him. They were Jews, and he would be a monk, serving God. It was sin even to think of this woman, even though her face had haunted his dreams.
Let them pass.
Leo shivered and let Nordbriht steer him into the tavern he had scouted out. The lamb was tender, savory, but it might as well have been Dead Sea fruit, turning to ashes in the mouth.
“You have merchants here,” he said to the innkeeper. “I would imagine they bring you much trade.”
“Not they. Jews, you know. They keep to themselves and eat apart. God only knows what filth they eat or do.” He blessed himself with one greasy hand, licked his fingers, then shouted for empty plates to be carried out. If God was kind, the tavern's kitchen was cleaner than its master.
“What do they trade in?”
“Rugs from the East, if the godless haven't burnt it out. Silks from the City—you'd know that better than I, young sir. Spices. Gems from Persia, maybe—how should I know? And perhaps that is not all they trade, seeing as they travel to the East.”
Spies, he meant. That was another reason why the Jews were watched, one reason why they had feared so when a nobleman came asking for a man of their blood. It was not at all uncommon to wipe out a nest of spies. Fool that he was, he might have signed the death warrant for an entire people.
Best make amends as best he could. “A Jew named Joachim offered me employment.”
The innkeeper's eyebrows wagged, and he slammed fresh cups down upon the table.
“One of the richest,” said the man. “Richer even than a City man like you, young master.”
Leo sat, waiting, not daring to ask for more information.
“He is a decent man, even for one of those. Likely, he's spent enough time—and made enough gold—trading among Christians that he knows a good man when he sees one.”
“What about his daughter?” a voice asked from across the table.
The innkeeper straightened up. “No one has starved since her father opened his house here. Jephthah, not Joachim, his name should be, though, please God to a far better end for him and his daughter Asherah. She is a good woman, for all she is a Jew. I have said more than I should even in naming her.”
Asherah. A hand, delicately poised upon his arm. Hair tumbling down a back as straight and supple as a swordblade. A voice as cultivated as ... as his own mother's, though husky from speaking languages Leo would never know, demanding to share her kinsmen's risks as a way of making them the lighter. A pride that might beg to save a life, but that would never, never break.
To dispel the heat that flooded through him, he reached for his mother's letter, opened it, and read: Turks in Anatolia; civil strife among the Ducas; the last witticism Psellus had made and in whose heart it had struck home. A warning that Cappadocia yet blamed Michael Ducas for the death of Romanus, a native son. You may be the son of God the Father, hallowed be His name, his mother wrote in elegant Greek, but He has a greater Son by far; and you, for whom I have sacrificed more than ever Hannah gave for Samuel, are the only son I have. Since I can do no more, I shall implore the Ble
ssed Virgin, the bearer of God, to keep you in a mother's care.
Leo reached through a blur of tears and hearthsmoke for his cup, drank deep, and set it down. Overset it: it spilled on the rough-planked table, and a man across from him jumped back with an oath. His garments were good and had been better once.
“I was clumsy,” Leo said. “Forgive me, sir.”
“Moonstruck,” Nordbriht struck in cheerfully. “Or perhaps touched by too much work. My ... friend has been cutting himself a monk's cell in the side of a hill.”
The man nodded. Nothing ever went unnoticed in a small town: merchants, strangers, a young man turned to holiness.
“Is this some discipline that has been set for you?” he asked, the Byzantine's fascination with God gleaming in the dusky room. “Surely, there are caves enough, even hollowed-out rocks in the wilderness. Or room and to spare in the cities...”
“There are cities underground?” Leo caught him up. “I saw entrances to caves, but thought they were for storage. Or housing for birds.”
The stranger's mouth thinned. Quickly, Leo poured him a cup of the sour wine.
“Storage, certainly. But some of them are large enough to hold a village. There are churches down there. A trusted man might ask leave to tend a shrine.”
“Barrows,” Nordbriht said, and won a blank look from their new companion. “Like the grave. Why would a man live down there before his death? No one is that holy that he shuns the light; Our Lord established light from darkness.”
“Yellow-hair, when the Turks come riding with their bows and their devilish swift horses, you may be glad to shelter in such a cave.”
“And what stops the Turks from sitting down and starving people out like rats in a trap?”
The man shook his head, stung. “You haven't been here long. That much is clear. Those caves go down level upon level, room upon room. Roll a rock before the entrance, and no one can get in unless he tunnels; and the corridors double back and forth. The air is fresh, and there is water...”
Shards of Empire Page 20
