by Harley James
How far would she go to make it happen? And how far would she go to discredit Niketas’s rule?
Did King Davos know how calculating his wife was?
“Niketas, I’m sorry to make this so difficult for you.”
He sighed. “You have until sundown to make arrangements for the child. If you haven’t returned to the palace alone by then, I will send a guard to collect you.”
He turned to Alexios. “Soldier, you will report to the sand pits two hours before the dining hall bell tolls for mess. If you are a moment late, you are no man of honor, and I will therefore see to it that you never see my sister again. If you prove yourself a Spartan of honor, I may speak on behalf of your marriage to the Assembly. But, if you ever make a mark on her, I will break you into tiny pieces. Are we clear?”
Alexios’ chin dipped ever so slightly. “Likewise.”
This is absurd. The baby shifted in her arms, too weak to even cry, and here they were, trading threats? Sophia’s heart raced. There wasn’t time for machismo. She moved around Alexios and passed her brother’s mount. Goddess, please keep my footsteps true. If this baby died, she’d never forgive herself.
Chapter 14
Alexios felt Sophia’s worry for the child as clearly as if she’d voiced her concern. He turned his attention back to the king. “Are you aware that Theodora will try to hurt your sister?” My enemies as well.
Niketas shifted in the saddle, the sun steadily at work sucking the moisture from the earth. “Yes, I think I understand Theodora’s schemes. I arranged a discreet guard to track the two of you when Herodion and Mantes both came to me last night. The guard saw you together but lost you in the rain.”
“Cowards, unfit to wear the Spartan scarlet. They are a disgrace. Let me choose her guard during my flogging. She will be at great risk while the city is distracted with my blood.” Everyone would be there to witness the king’s bastard’s thrashing.
Niketas stared at him. “If you use my sister to advance some sinister plot, I will crush your bones.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be so sure the greatest threat to my family was beyond any palace walls. Take her and the child upon your horse. The child needs attention at once…your Grace.”
The king studied Alexios, his stallion snorting and throwing his head, anxious with inactivity. “Sophia got herself into this present trouble, and she will have to get herself out of it. It’s time I stopped rescuing her. You’re welcome to the job, bastard.”
When Niketas set his horse in motion, Alexios lengthened his stride to catch up to Sophia. He had lots of time before he needed to report to the sand pits. Enough time to help settle the child.
Sophia was breathing heavily when he slowed his steps to keep pace with her. He reached to take the child, and as reluctant as she was to let the babe go, he could tell it had been a growing strain on her arms and back. He settled the baby over his shoulder opposite his baldric and stroked the boy’s head.
Sophia’s lips tilted slightly, pulling at something inside him like the hem of a chiton unraveling.
“Sing to us? Perhaps it will chase away both our terrors,” she said.
That she would be afraid bothered him. Unfortunately, there would be much trouble and uncertainty along their chosen path.
He sang them down the mountain anyway.
Sang and hoped he could be the warrior she believed him to be. Hoped he could change. To extinguish the anger, the bitterness. To move ahead for positive change. He wanted it.
But he wanted her more.
To have her, he would have to set the vengeance aside.
He sang…a boatful of peaceful dreams to carry you home to Sparta, sweet little child…
His voice wavered on the stanza, the words profound this time.
Matrem, mother…how can I avenge you if I bury my anger?
All this time he’d thought he’d find peace by avenging her. The blood of many—so many—on his hands had never bothered him.
Now?
Sophia’s hand reached out for his and squeezed. The unraveling within him hastened as the sun ate away at the shadows, and they descended the mountain.
Her soft voice broke through his thoughts. “I hate that you have to endure for my shortcomings. I am so sorry. Niketas is right. I’ve been seeing all this from my own vantage point. I’ve rarely stopped to consider this from anyone else’s. Even the Queen has good reason to hate me. Why don’t you?”
“I admire courage.” And her goodness, so unjaded, so bright it might even help cleanse his darkness. He took a breath to expel such swampy feelings. “Does Lydia have a list of families ready to accept this boy?”
Sophia’s gaze pinned his, seeing far more than he suspected he’d like her to see. His heart crash-thumped. By now he knew her well enough to realize she was probably thinking five steps ahead of him.
“She does…” A pause.
That pause boded no good.
He risked a sideways glance at her when she remained mute. “But…”
Her face grew imploring, an innocent smile gracing her lips.
He shook his head. “No. Whatever you’re thinking, you will set it aside.” Sweat ran down the side of his face. “Sophie—”
“Let’s keep him,” she blurted.
He froze on the path. Took in the heightened color on her cheekbones, her hesitant, wobbly smile and felt his world tilt.
Gods damn him.
His vulnerability was not the forged bronze or iron of his enemies, but this singular pair of Aegean blue eyes and all the fire and heart and revolution that was at their foundation.
Sophie.
Here he stood, babe in his arms, gaping. If he had such slow reflexes on the battlefield, he wouldn’t have lasted one campaign. Had she been anyone else, he would have asked if she was serious.
But she meant everything she said. Always. With all her heart. It terrified and exhilarated him all at once.
It must have been all over his cursed face.
Sophia clapped her hands, then twined her fingers together like she was trying to stifle their energy. “I’ve already begun to think of him as ours. Lydia can care for him tonight until this ordeal is behind us. Look at him—so content in your arms. He loves you, Alexios. You could be father to him as your father couldn’t be to you because of our laws. Laws we will change.”
He couldn’t speak. Didn’t dare speak. Her words drove deep into his soul, exposing pain too raw to share.
“He could be a new generation in Sparta,” she continued. “We will raise him to be more tolerant, yet no less strong. No less worthy to be called Spartan warrior.” Her voice rang with conviction.
If anyone could bring it about, it would be her. He shifted the babe who looked up at him with those wise brown eyes. My son. A new urgency took hold to get the boy fed, clothed, safe.
He started forward again, increasing his pace. Could Sparta really have a bold new future?
Sophia leaned over as she walked to place a kiss on the baby’s head. “You feel the rightness of this. I know you do, warrior.”
He did. He also felt the rightness of his body seated deep inside hers, but the child’s needs came before his desire.
She smiled and held on to the crook of his elbow as they hurried to Sparta’s city walls. “I want to fill our house with children, and I want you to sing to them all, so that when we are old, they can sing to us.”
Alexios’s feet nearly stumbled on the path. He cleared his throat and looked away as he absorbed the most beautiful words he’d ever heard. Focus. Like on the battlefield.
Horse hooves sounded from the right. Alexios glanced up, his gaze falling upon the Temple to Apollo where a figure stood, his himation flapping in a breeze that didn’t reach to where he and Sophia walked.
Instead of Spartan scarlet, the figure was dressed in black battle panoply. Black helmet. Black cuirass. Black greaves. Even black bracers encircling his wrists.
Judging by the figure’s position next
to Apollo’s statue, the soldier was the tallest man Alexios ever seen.
Déjà vu made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He scanned the immediate area, turning away from the soldier to see Niketas riding hard toward them, two extra horses in tow, but no king’s guard to accompany him. Alexios pulled Sophia closer as her brother reined in.
“Why are you here, Niketas?” Sophia asked.
“The Council of Elders demand that Alexios report to the sand pits at once.”
Alexios looked again toward the Temple of Apollo, but the figure was gone. “So they sent the king on a messenger’s duty?”
Niketas flushed, but held Alexios’s gaze. “I told them I would bring the summons as it is my family’s affair.”
Sophia squeezed Alexios’s forearm, her only show of nerves. “You are king, Niketas, can you not overrule their decision?”
“No. Four of the five high magistrates have sided with the Council. If Alexios does not come with me, and you don’t leave the child as proscribed by the Elders who pronounced it unhealthy, they are prepared to exile you both.”
Sophia’s fist rose in the air. “Barbarossas! That’s what they all are! This child is mine!”
Niketas’s face darkened. “Shut your mouth, you little idiot!”
“I will not! These base behaviors—infanticide and…and…inbreeding—demean our people and show how far back we are sliding as a culture. We shall become deficient, or worse, extinct, if the highborn only want fuck select citizens from the same family!”
“Seven Hells, Sophie!” boomed Niketas.
Give them hell, Sophie, thought Alexios, his own darkness rising up, ready to champion her fervor.
Niketas furiously dismounted.
Alexios unsheathed his sword. “I respect you, Niketas. You are young, but patient and smart. The Elders and Ephors are none the wiser if we deliver this child into a helot’s care. We are almost there. Spare your sister this grace, and I will ride with haste to my flogging.”
Sophie spun to Alexios. “You said—”
“Hush. One problem at a time. Trust me,” he said quietly.
She went up on tiptoes to kiss his chin. “I do,” she whispered back. “But I don’t want to be separated from our son. And I cannot bear the thought of the lash upon your skin. Perhaps exile is the right choice.”
He placed the baby in her arms. “You have not chosen a man who runs.”
Niketas advanced until Alexios could see the color of the king’s eyes. They mirrored Sophia’s, but cynicism crouched where Sophie’s gleamed with hope.
Alexios understood the cynicism better.
“Loving my sister will bring you even more pain than it has caused me. Are you certain this is to be your path?”
Alexios drew a deep breath, then blinked and envisioned the bodies of his enemies littering the ground. Their blood would answer for his mother’s death.
But what then?
What would remain if he didn’t die along with them? Pride? He would sojourn easterly across the sea to become a sell-sword. Always fighting other men’s battles for coin. Ever empty. Ever alone.
Standing under the weight of Apollo’s sunlight, that prospect didn’t satisfy as it once had. Not since the princess had imploded his world.
He would honor and avenge his mother another way.
Sophie’s revolution.
Alexios blinked away the vision of his enemies’ massacre. “Iron is forged in fire. I am not afraid of what lies ahead.”
Niketas shook his head with a curse, looking between them. “You are both fools. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let’s be off then.” He spun on his heels and walked back to the horses. He smacked the rump of the first one toward Alexios, and the other horse followed. “And one more thing, if either of you disrespects me in public again, I will have you put in the stocks. Don’t think I won’t.”
Thankfully, Sophia didn’t respond.
Alexios moved behind her to help her mount the mare. He pressed into her backside, leaning down to her ear, transferring his mother’s ring—the only possession of value she’d ever owned—from the pouch at his hip into her hand.
“At Lydia’s, give this ring to Mantes so he knows I’ve claimed the child as my own. He will protect him with his life should it come to that. Ask Lydia to care for the child until I come for him. Tonight, when I meet you at my kleros, you shall tell me the name you have given our son.”
She blinked back tears as she looked over her shoulder at him. “You won’t regret your choice.”
He rubbed his thumb across the child’s papery cheek before handing him up to Sophia and mounting behind them.
Niketas frowned. “I brought two horses.”
“So you did,” Alexios replied.
Niketas’s eyes promised trouble. Alexios didn’t doubt it was to come.
And soon.
Chapter 15
Sophia stuck her finger in her mouth to suck at the welling blood. She hurried toward the sand pits through the sunbaked, dust-coated streets of the agora, past the austere Assembly building, the theater, fountains, gymnasium, and the statue of Ares in Chains.
She’d didn’t even feel the pain from where she’d cut herself on a shard of pottery she’d dropped in the palace courtyard. She cleaned when nervous, but it seemed she couldn’t even do that without bungling it. If only she had the grace and athleticism of other Spartan maidens her age. She wanted Alexios to be proud of her.
But how small-minded to be distracted about minutia when he was moments away from taking the lash.
“Excuse me! Pardon!” Members of the aristocracy raised their eyebrows, some even frowned as she ran past them. It was rude and undignified, yes. Even she agreed this time.
Her heart pounded so hard she felt it all over her body, down to the soles of her feet. Please, Zeus, Ares, and Artemis, help him bear up.
And please not so many lashes.
She would be more careful with her tongue after this. After all, she had two new reasons to exercise caution.
Leaving the baby with Lydia had been harder than she’d expected. As well as she knew her dear friend would care for him, she never wanted him to leave her arms.
The olive grove came into view as she left the dusty city streets behind. The harvest would begin in a couple of months. During the long hours last night while they’d talked and loved, Alexios had told her he had a nice-sized plot of terraced olive and citrus trees on his property, which set on the far northern edge of the valley.
After the fall harvest replenished their stores, she would scent the olive oil with lemon to massage their son and Alexios when he returned home from morning drill.
The thought gave her strength and hope for the future.
But first, they had to get through today.
She never pictured things happening like this with Alexios and the baby—people so upset with her desire to equalize humanity that they wanted to silence her permanently.
Fate, whether or not it was spun out by three fickle goddesses or some other quirk of the universe, didn’t always make sense until enough time had passed to see the broader picture.
Right now, the very man who had a role in her father’s death was the man she claimed as her husband. They would raise a child together, and hopefully many more.
Trust could be so hard, but if she wanted the helots and Spartiates to have confidence in her vision, she needed to begin with the same heart.
She drew nearer to the sand pits where a huge crowd was already amassed on both banks of the river. She pushed her way closer to the front, receiving a few bruises in the process—nothing she didn’t normally do to herself in an average week.
She only hoped Herodion would be able to make his way to her up front when it was all over. She’d instructed him to bring a horse and cart to transport Alexios back to their kleros. There, after caring for his wounds with the cannabis and poppy preparations she’d learned from the helots, she’d feed him wine and olives, fresh baked br
ead, goat’s cheese, and honey. It wouldn’t be enough to erase her guilt, but it was something.
Finally she broke through the front line, and there he stood next to the river, naked and magnificent in the withering sun. Sweat glistening on his broad shoulders and ran down the defined muscles of his chest. His dark hair, the curls just below his ears, damp now and even darker with perspiration.
His feet burrowed into the sand as he grasped a wooden pole set horizontally across two tall stakes. Officials gathered canes from the reeds and soon the first blow rained down upon him.
One.
Sophia’s fingernails scored her thighs as a wave of anguish crashed through her. His steely gaze found hers, and she swallowed back a moan remembering his sweet words as they’d ridden tandem to the city. It shall be a public testament of my commitment to you.
Two.
Four.
Six.
He didn’t flinch, though his knuckles whitened upon the pole.
Composure. He needed her to be strong. She was here to support him, counting out his pain in the hope that it would somehow hasten the ending.
Ten.
His copper and gold gaze never wavered from hers. She blocked out the nausea twisting her guts, concentrating on the defiant courage in his eyes that somehow made him the champion instead of the offender.
Twelve.
Blood began to fly with each lash. His scars from the last ordeal have protected him until now, she thought, her head dizzy, her lips parting to exhale shakily.
Twenty.
Her legs trembled, her eyes threatened to overflow. She breathed through the weakness. She pictured her and Alexios in their courtyard, children laughing and playing in their midst.
Thirty-five.
How did he bear it? The crowd was now silent as though they, too, couldn’t understand his endurance.
Or maybe it was reverence.
Fear that she lacked the fortitude to not cry out, to sink to the ground, to beg or even grovel for mercy on his behalf lanced her. But it would shame him. It would negate his extraordinary statement.
