Shards of Empire

by Susan Shwartz

Meletios’ low voice cut across his, a chant, but from no liturgy that Leo had ever heard, no Greek he knew, not even the complex gutturals Joachim had used.

  The Northerner fell silent. Even the wind sank. Their horses’ hooves, striking the sunbaked ground, sounded muffled. Then even that sound died.

  Leo thought he heard a piping sound, accompaniment to the priest's chant. The music from the pipes rose above Meletios’ voice, a hollow threnody that wove about his words and seemed to wreathe about them all.

  The light bent. It wrapped about them until each of them seemed surrounded by a halo, such as glorified the saints in the great churches of Byzantium. The light fragmented into rainbows that clung in glory to their shoulders, then slid off, casting no shadows. Shadows streamed from the rocks and the brush, even from the clouds high overhead; but, if light and shadow were any indication, Leo and his troop were not there.

  Nordbriht whistled, then fell silent. Father Meletios’ chant reached a triumphant climax, then subsided.

  Now they rode as if through a tunnel of altered light. Leo kept an eye out, not only for Turks, but for shadows such as he thought he had seen far below the surface of the earth: ghosts of sensations—though there had been nothing ghostly about how he had felt when he took Asherah in his arms. Best not to think of her now.

  Father Meletios’ voice sank into a mutter, and the pipes—from wherever their music had emanated—grew more faint until they could be heard only at the very threshold of awareness.

  “They're here.” Leo did not so much hear the words as see their shapes printed on Theodoulos’ trembling lips.

  Turks galloped into sight, dashing from the protection of stone dune to dune, their bows already drawn.

  "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, kyrie eleison...” They should have heard those gabbled prayers all the way to Baghdad, but they did not. Leo could not hear the Turks’ horses’ hooves or the faint deadly melodies as armor clashed upon its rider.

  “Allah!”

  Leo knew when Kemal prayed. His prayer might or might not be answered: after the first exclamation, it certainly was soundless.

  And there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour ...

  They rode as if in a tunnel of light, armored against the sharp eyes of Turkish archers, muffled against their too-keen ears. Bearing their dead with them as Father Meletios chanted in a whisper, they rode across the plain. Hagios Prokopios appeared in their sight, made strange and dark by the errors in the light that guarded them.

  Under their silenced horse hooves, the land trembled.

  The land itself cries out, Meletios had warned.

  Men rode out past them, their mouths squared in silent screams of battle rage toward the Turks. Folly, Leo thought. They could not afford to lose a single man. They did not dare reinforce them or do aught but ride forward, guarding the priest who spent his strength guarding them.

  They rode past perimeter guards whom Leo was frankly glad to see. Some, graying under battered helmets, were clearly veterans. He saw one or two Armenians, and even men whom he knew to be in Joachim's pay: caravan guards and drovers would know more of Turks than most farmers.

  Leo leaned close to the priest, resting his hand on the man's wrist. It was burning hot.

  “We're home,” he murmured. “You did it, my father. Thank you.”

  The light altered. The rainbows died, restoring the men that light had protected to the world. Meletios collapsed, sagging onto the saddle. Leo leaned in to support him, controlling his horse with knees alone as it sidled away from the priest's tired mount and yet another slight earth tremor.

  At a villager's shout, Leo ordered, “Get the priest. Get Joachim from the markets.”

  “You just appeared here,” a merchant pointed at them. “No one saw you ride in. What sort of...”

  “They have a Turk with them ... a Turk!”

  Father Meletios’ head lolled onto Leo's shoulder, a dependency he never would have permitted if he were conscious. “He is old, he is blind, but do you doubt he can work miracles? Now go!”

  Torches appeared on all sides, and men shouted.

  In an instant, they would have a panic on their hands, or what was worse, a riot. Already, the rougher townsfolk were looking for likely rocks to hurl—and in Cappadocia, rocks were always close to hand.

  The guards who had ridden out heard the shouts, sent scouts back, then returned—a bad moment, that, when Leo's men found themselves surrounded by mounted soldiers. Even if they were not Turks, the assembly of nobles, Armenians, and God only knew in the dark what else was alarming enough; and the way they glared at Kemal did not augur well for his future.

  Finally, too, the priest ran out, his robes flapping. Tenderly, he helped a black-robed woman cut Father Meletios free of the saddle and lift him down, all the while barraging everyone with questions.

  Nordbriht dismounted and stood, holding his axe, staring at the outskirts of the town, the dying sunlight casting bloody shadows upon his face, braid, and gleaming weapons.

  Women and children ran, and even guard dogs barked in shock, fear, and welcome, as Leo brought his charges to Hagios Prokopios and what sanctuary an unwalled traders’ town might offer them.

  Tumult outside, an explosion of shouts and horses’ hooves, brought Asherah out of her meditations with a cry. Footsteps pounded down the corridors toward her quarters. The walls were thick; it would take some time to burn them or break them down.

  She reached for the pouch of gems and the dagger she kept by her in case she had to flee.

  Father! She knew what his orders to her had been should catastrophe strike them yet another time, in yet another place they had hoped to make their home. She hoped she was an obedient daughter—most of the time. She knew she was a loving one. And so, perhaps, she would be forgiven if love won out over obedience.

  She pressed her hand to her heart to keep it from pounding through her ribs, and pushed by her maid into her father's rooms. To her astonishment, Tzipporah followed her.

  Joachim would want her to flee. He had ordered her, in fact, to do so; she knew where the gold and gems were hidden and how to gain a place on any one of a number of caravans.

  She had fled thus before: never again. She would stand firm, as she had when an Emperor was blinded. Or she would fight and die.

  Let it not be Father who was hurt. I would know it if they struck at him, she told herself, falling back on the old, familiar madness. My dreams would have brought me awake, screaming ...

  The horses outside were Greek, and a new terror seized her. Let it not be Leo, the dark eyes glazing, those clever, tender hands of his going lax in death. Please God, spare Leo, even if I never see him again.

  Asherah burst into the room in which she had sat and listened to Leo and her father. Already, her father's men had turned it into a welter of warriors, snapped commands, and flustered, frightened servants. Some of the men tried to push between the soldiers and the maidservants, while they shoved furniture to one side or cried out in pity at the injured men. Nordbriht had shoved aside the heavy columns on which ancient statues rested and now bellowed for order. A streak of blood defaced one white wall.

  Not again, Asherah could not help thinking. Not the killing again. Oh, please.

  And this time she even knew the soldiers. That did not reassure her. Knowledge had not spared those she loved before.

  But there was a difference. This time, it seemed, they had come not for plunder, but for care.

  To ask, not demand.

  Perhaps the world could change. Slowly. Perhaps.

  Joachim clapped his hands, gaining the silence that Nordbriht sought. As always, when a storm was rising, he created order. In the quiet, his calm voice ordered medicines and cloth brought from Asherah's own stores. She must match his courage with her own.

  Summoning all her courage, Asherah looked about. Her heart almost exploded, and she leaned against a wall for support. Leo stood there. He was watching for her, she realized; and hi
s face lit when he saw her. No wonder the soldiers had come here. Leo knew she and her father would take them in.

  Father is alive. Leo is alive. Now I can go on living, too.

  Leo half-carried, half-supported another man whose leg was crudely splinted. Both of them were filthy, both stained with blood. Tzipporah tumbled cushions into a pile and gestured for Leo to set his burden down.

  “He'll spoil your cushions,” Leo protested. Even the man he upheld recoiled. So he was civilized, too.

  “Better ruin cushions than lose a life!” Tzipporah cried. Two servants helped her settle Leo's companion. Waiting for medicines, she held his hand and did not flinch from the blood on it or its hard grip.

  Asherah met Leo's eyes, which searched hers for shared memories. The impact of those memories halted her in her tracks: just like that, not caring when a maid's shoulder pitched her forward.

  Leo strode forward and steadied her. Briefly, she was in his arms again, resting in that warmth, near that remembered heartbeat. For an instant, she closed her eyes to savor his touch.

  He set her back on her feet, but his hands lingered on her shoulders. Despite the tumult in the room, her father saw and raised his eyebrows. Asherah felt hot and chilled all over. The moment had come before she realized: Leo's gesture had been a declaration as telling as a formal announcement—and to think she had worried that he might regret his promise to ask her father for her! Her eyes filled with tears of relief that Leo had proved true. And yet, his truth could put them all at risk. He was willing, he was willing—and yet, she must pretend for just a moment longer. She raised her chin proudly, then turned back to Leo and the prisoner ... no, the guest he had brought.

  “Esteemed lady, I have brought you...” Leo's voice was husky from the road and battle. “...a very dubious guest indeed.”

  She looked up at him, standing so close so that her hair brushed his shoulder. He reached out his hand toward it, then let his fingers fall before he could touch her.

  “Another ambush?” she asked.

  “Not assassins. This time, the storm we spoke of. It's struck.”

  She glanced down at the injured man in the torn silks, the battered leather, the torn mail of a gulam—oh, she knew the signs, knew, in fact, where that harness of his had been bargained for.

  “Your prisoner?” The words tumbled out breathlessly. It was a foolish girl who spoke, not the sensible, calm woman she tried to be. He had fought Turks. At this moment, he might be lying outside, pierced with arrows. Here he was, alive and standing before her, bringing her his prisoner and all but embracing her before her father. She had nothing to fear, had she? Still she flung out a hand for support, lest her knees collapse beneath her.

  “This time he is. Last time, at Manzikert, it was Kemal took me and the Emperor captive. He saved our lives, you might say. So, when he said he feared a Christian surgeon—he called them all butchers—I ask you, Asherah, what was I to do?”

  “Precisely what you have done,” Asherah said.

  She might say much else to this stranger, starting with her thanks for saving Leo's life so long ago. But the best things she could give would be hospitality and healing. She greeted him in Persian, a tongue she knew better than the language of the steppes, and saw his dark eyes flare.

  “Ah, lion's cub, do you make of this gazelle your lioness?”

  Much was said of what brutes Turks were, how they slaughtered children, how they ate their meat raw. Many other such lies were told of Jews: if it did not make for common cause, it at least made for a kind of wry sympathy. Turks were Muslims, therefore people of the Book, therefore, as Asherah accounted it, civilized—at least as much so as Christians. And she had never known one to be less than shrewd—including this one. He even spoke in an undertone, as if protecting his captor's secrets.

  “Quiet, you!”

  Leo's hand came down to cuff his prisoner into silence, if not courtesy.

  Asherah stepped between them. “You shall wait until he is healed to beat him,” she said.

  “Just let him try it,” Kemal chuckled.

  Astonishingly, Leo laughed too.

  She could smell the sweat, the blood, and the fear on him. He had been much afraid, for friends as well as for himself. They wavered on the edge of war, she knew that. But, here in her own house, standing so close to him that his shoulder braced her as it had before the Jews in Cotyaeum drew lots to see who must blind an emperor, Asherah had never felt more secure.

  Had the gulam saved Leo's life? Then he would never want for anything, she decided. She would tell her father. She felt her stomach chill with fear, now that the moment was upon them. She had never, in her life, failed to win what she would from her father: not until now, when her whole life hung in the balance.

  “The lad, Ioannes, is it? Son of Ioannes?” Joachim gestured off in the direction of the dead man's land. “He lost his father, but lasted out the fight. I turned him over to the women to mother. As long as he's well, he can be ashamed of himself in the morning for wanting to be a boy again.”

  “The other boy, Theodoulos, is with his master. The priest came for them. The holy father collapsed—”

  “After that long ride and a battle?” Joachim interrupted. “I should think so. Leo, why did you roust him out of the valley? The ride from Peristrema must have been hell on a man that old. I don't think he's stirred from that cave of his since he came here from Egypt.”

  “The word was that they needed him in the town. Needed his wisdom.” Leo's voice lingered on the word and his eyes narrowed. “And you and he are friends. You talk. I thought you might know what ailed him. And how to help.”

  Asherah caught her breath. The night that assassins had stalked him, Leo had seen her and her father wreathed in lights, invoking the archangels to preserve him. They had been immune, even, from the fear of the wolf-thing that Nordbriht had become. Asherah watched her father. Part of what made him such a successful merchant was that he could communicate without speaking. Why did you come here? he asked Leo with a glance.

  Leo looked down, gesturing at Kemal. Where else could I have brought him?

  Joachim nodded. Part of what made her love him was that he not only listened, he understood.

  “The Turk will not want to be tended by women or those he considers infidels,” Joachim told Leo. “Bring him into the anteroom.”

  “A little further,” Leo urged his captive and heaved the man's arm over his shoulders.

  Asherah following, Joachim ushered them out of the crowded room into the anteroom he used to show valued guests or customers treasures from the East. Rash enough that his daughter and his guest betrayed themselves before a room full of soldiers, prisoners, and servants. That answered one question that he had. Now, in a place of his own choosing, as safe as he could find, he would ask those other questions that were his duty and his right. Please God, let him understand the answers she and Leo would give.

  Joachim busied himself, washing his hands in the basin a servant held, untying the battlefield dressings. Asherah bent to assist, hiding her face, listening with all her heart.

  “I take it, Leo, that the holy Meletios did not collapse from merely too much riding,” Joachim remarked in Greek too rapid for the Turk to follow. “Did he?”

  Leo shook his head. “We needed his help. Turks were coming, too many to fight, too fast to outrun. I had to insist that, if he knew anything to do, this was the time to do it. He was afraid, sir, said there were consequences I had no idea of. But I didn't think they would mean his death. After all, you...”

  You did not falter when you saved my life.

  Joachim had to hear that as clearly as his daughter.

  “I had help, Leo, though you will never hear me admit that again. There are better physicians than I, but I know better even than to try to suggest summoning one of them. So it must be me.

  “Now, do you suggest that I go through the streets where, I hear, they are practically rioting out of sheer panic, knock on the
priest's door, and offer myself—dressed as I am, known as I am—as physician to a living saint? What if my old friend dies? And what right do I have to leave my daughter unprotected?”

  “Nordbriht owes you more than his life,” Leo said. “He will guard you as though you were an Emperor. And, sir, you must know I would lay down my life for Asherah.”

  Asherah set down the bowl and rose, folding her hands. The moment for her and Leo to tell all the truth had come. Kemal looked at her. His eyes were half shut, but she thought he winked at her. Leo would not need to beat him, Asherah decided. She would do it herself.

  I do not want Leo to die, but live! Asherah's eyes filled. Blindly, she reached out and felt her hand taken in a firm grip—her father's.

  “Child, this is hardly the match I planned for you,” Joachim said. “I had hoped...”

  “I know what you planned. That I would be son and daughter to you both. I succeeded, and you saw what awaited me—wealth, solitude, and whispers about Joachim's daughter, witch even to my name. You tried. I even tried until I was ashamed. They didn't want me!”

  Joachim shook his head, his own eyes, the canny eyes of a merchant prince and scholar, filling. He had not wept the last time they had had to flee. So he had seen what she had tried to conceal from him. He had seen and sorrowed for her, preparing her as best he could, teaching her to try not to mind that the powers that made her strong had made her a stranger to her own people.

  “Leo's family cast him out, too,” Asherah went on. “So here we are, washed up on the same shore.”

  Her father flung up his free hand. “I had so hoped that...”

  Asherah raised his hand to her cheek. “I am the woman you raised me to be. I will grieve if I have caused you pain. I will mourn if you cast me out—”

  “Asherah, daughter, how can you even think of that?”

  She laughed, though it tore at her heart. “You always raised me to consider every possibility.”

  “Check your reasoning! For me to disown you—that is not even an improbable possible!” Joachim interrupted. God bless her father. Even on the verge of war and of seeing his only surviving child join hands with an unbeliever, he stubbornly invoked Aristotle. The absurdity made them both smile, easing the moment.