A Flame in Byzantium

She tried to pull her hand away. "You're very large."



"When they docked me, they left the best part." His expression was smug. "There are great ladies who prefer eunuchs like me. We are the safest lovers. You will never get a child off of me, and I will outlast any whole man, who eventually spurts and withers." He smiled. "Do not try to hurt me, Eugenia. If you do, I will hurt you."



Her eyes were bright with fear and another unnamed and unadmitted emotion. "Why are you doing this to me?"



"I need your help. And I have wanted you a long time." At last he let her go. "You had better consider everything I have said. Everything."



"But… what…" She rubbed her arms where his hands had been.



"Think of the advantages I offer you. Or do you think that a mere eunuch slave cannot do the things I have said?" His face darkened. "Well?"



"You are being unkind to me, Simones." She said this wistfully, a little of her languishing sensuality coming back into her manner.



"I will be worse than unkind if you refuse to work with me. I will make you regret your refusal more than you can imagine."



"Threats are not very lover-like," she said, her smile more a rictus of fear than the tantalization she intended. "If you want my aid, you might ask for it differently."



"I do not want it; I need it." He looked down at her. "You are hoping you will enthrall me as you have other men, but I am not like them. I am a slave, and I do not find captivity enjoyable. Such things are only attractive to those who are free to walk away from them."



Eugenia looked away from him. "And you will make a slave of me."



"If you care to think of it that way," he agreed. He approached her. When she flinched, he deliberately took her face in his hands. "It will not go well if you show me your repugnance so plainly, Eugenia. Take a lesson from me and learn to appear complacent." He bent and kissed her again, this time harshly, so that she felt his teeth against her lower lip.



This time she broke away from him and chose the narrowest chair in the room to sit on. "You expect me to betray my friend. You want me to be a spy. And you want me to be your whore."



"Yes," he said baldly.



"And if I do not cooperate, you will do everything you can to destroy me." She said this very calmly, but she could not look at him as she spoke.



"Yes."



"So you are saying that it is you or the gutter." She flung the words at him, daring him to contradict her.



"Yes; that is precisely what I am saying." He came and stood directly in front of her so that she was blocked in the chair and could not escape. "You will do what I ask when I ask it and you will not question me. You will comply with my instructions, no matter what they are, and you will do so without complaint. Do you understand?"



"You're gloating." She held her paenula closed.



Simones bent down so that his face almost touched hers. "It does not matter if I am. It is my right, if I wish to exercise it."



She swallowed hard, and when she spoke, her voice trembled. "Is there nothing I can do to make you change your mind?"



"What?" He laughed as he reached out and pulled her from the chair, pinning her against him with his arms and holding her. "You will have to show me a little more emotion, Eugenia. You must make me believe you are pleased that I have taken notice of you, or I might be tempted to forget our arrangement and see you made a beggar."



"Simones, please." She was weak with dread.



"And to show you how much faith I put in you, I will tell you something that will shock you. Antonina is dying of poison." He saw her shock. "You will say nothing to her or to anyone about it. If you do, you know what fate awaits you. I will say that I said I feared she was dying of poison, and that will be sufficient. You cannot testify and neither can I, so nothing we have to say will reach the magistrates."



"Why do you tell me this?" she whispered.



"To let you know that I can and will do all that I say," he said with such calm ruthlessness that Eugenia shuddered.



"Are you poisoning her?" She knew the answer but was filled with a hideous fascination. In a remote part of her mind she wondered if this were a dream, a convincing nightmare that would leave her melancholy and exhausted.



"Indirectly," he said.



"Christos have mercy," she murmured.



"Better to appeal to Him than to me," Simones said, releasing her just enough to have one hand free to fondle her breasts through her garments. "Where are your private chambers?"



"I—"



"Where are they?" His hand tightened.



She cringed. "Must it be today? Won't you let me prepare?"



"You are prepared enough. If you succeed in sending me away now, the next time you will think you can do it again, and it will be more difficult for both of us; I would probably have to beat you into submission—and do not doubt that I would—and that is not a good way to begin. Tell me where your private quarters are."



She had not realized how large a man Simones was, nor how strong. Her throat was tight and dry and she felt as if she might be getting a fever. "It is… along the hall on the left. There are two doors with golden latches. The second is the room you want."



"How plaintive you sound," he jeered as he lifted her into his arms.



"My slaves—" she began, shamed at the thought of gossip.



"I will say you are faint if anyone has the audacity to ask." Holding her easily he strode to the door, deftly working the latch open before striding into the hall.



"What if I scream?" she asked, desperation making her reckless.



"I will make you sorry you did. I will begin by throttling you until you faint. After that, I will be certain you tender me a profound apology. Slaves know about such things, great lady. I give you my word it would be a lesson you would not forget." He was moving quickly but without apparent haste.



"Why do you want to do this? Why do you degrade me this way?" She felt tears well in her eyes and she hated herself for the weakness she revealed.



"What is degradation to a slave? We are born to it, and it is our fate to die as we were born. God has mandated that we have this station in life without recourse. You say we are born degraded." He was almost at the door of her private chambers. "Have you ever considered your slaves?"



"I give them the best care I can, but I am not wealthy. I see that they are housed and fed and treated well when they give good service." She lifted her chin but was appalled at the whine she heard in her protestations.



"How good of you," he said angrily as he threw the door open. "You think you are doing well because you don't abuse your slaves."



"My pope has said that a good Christian does not mistreat slaves, for they have their purpose appointed by God just as we have ours." She repeated this in a small voice, sounding almost like a child.



"And you listen and obey." He lowered her onto the bed. "You know nothing about obedience. Not yet. You will learn, Eugenia, and you will thank me for it, for it will buy you more freedom than it will buy me."



"No—" she whispered, trying to hold on to her garments as Simones kicked the door closed.



"Another time you will do this on request," he said coldly. "This time, you require a demonstration." He took the neck of her paenula and dalmatica in his hands and with a sudden wrenching pulled both garments apart.



Eugenia shrieked, aghast at what was being done to her and at the power Simones used, for the silk and wool were not easy to tear.



"Don't resist me, Eugenia; it will be worse for you if you do." He held her with the ends of her garments, staring down at her. Then, abruptly, he tugged one end of the clothing and almost wrenched it away from her.



"No!" She tried to bring her hands to cover herself, but they were still trapped in the sleeves of her dalmatica. She squirmed and pulled, but she was quite effectively trapped.



"Very pretty," Simones approved.



"Take me if you have to, but not this," she pleaded.



"A few lunges and it's over?" he suggested sarcastically. "You forget how it is with eunuchs like me. A few lunges will accomplish very little. We take a long time to be satisfied. I will see you spitted and I will hear you scream before I am finished with you."



She struggled but to no avail.



Still holding the wreckage of her garments, Simones sat beside her, staring at her critically. "I am going to determine if you please me."



"Simones—"



"You," he went on conversationally, "will say nothing. You will do as I tell you silently." He weighed her breast in his hand as if he were selecting a cut of lamb. "Firm enough." He pinched the nipple twice. "A trifle small, but probably adequate."



"This is intolerable!" she screamed softly.



Simones struck her casually, his hand open. "I said you would be silent. If you disobey again, I will have to find some way to correct you with force."