A Flame in Byzantium

"Don't." She was still with fright as soon as the word was out.



"That's better," he approved, and loosened the belt he wore in place of a pallium. "If you struggle, I will be rough with you. I hope that won't be necessary." He tugged his dalmatica up around his waist and moved over her.



"Not yet," she implored, her body feeling leaden and cold.



"Open your legs for me."



Shuddering, she complied.



It went on forever, his body pressing hers, his intrusion seeming to be endless. Once it crossed her mind that if she had wanted this man, if he had been a chosen lover, she would feel bliss now, for his incredible endurance would bring her more satisfaction than she had ever experienced. But it was Simones who mounted her, who pillaged her. Every thrust was like a blow and their joining like a beating.



"Eventually you will give in," he told her in deep pants. "You will not resist me."



"No."



"Yes," he insisted.



Eventually she shrieked, but it was not from fulfillment or culmination; she shrieked her outrage.



* * *



Text of a letter from Drosos to Olivia.



To my dearest, cherished Olivia, Drosos sends his greeting and love on the occasion of Passion Sunday, in the Lord's Year 549.



My friend Chrysanthos will bring this to you. Destroy it when you have done reading it, and tell no one what I have said, or you will expose us both to great dangers and I have brought enough grief into the world without adding to it. I would not burden you this way, but there is no one else who I trust enough and who is not bound by oath to report what I say. Do not be angry with me for adding to your risks, Olivia. I do not think I could say such things to anyone but you, and if that is dangerous, I can think of nothing that would make amends for doing this.



I suppose by now you will have heard about the Library. The popes here were celebrating as if they had triumphed over Satan himself. I have heard them offer prayers of thanksgiving, and I cannot join with them. All those books! When they showed them to me, I couldn't believe that anyone could want to burn them. How I hate the look of that word: burn. I despise it. I loathe what it means. It's all gone, all of it; all the information, all the thoughts, all the words, because the men who wrote them did not worship Our Lord. What does the growing of a plant have to do with that? The popes have tried to explain it to me, and I have wanted to understand, oh, God, God, I have wanted to understand. There has to be a reason that it happened. If I gave the order to destroy all those books for nothing more than Justinian's whim, how can I live with honor?



The Emperor has said it was good to do this, that it would cleanse the world and would take away temptation. He is not like other men, for God has elevated him and made him our Emperor, and for that he is given wisdom to be the Godly leader of the Empire. He sees more and knows more. I have wanted to serve him and to live as a proper soldier does. Though I believe Justinian was misled by the enemies of Belisarius, I must assume that in this matter he speaks with clarity of vision and complete authority.



Then why am I unable to comprehend his intentions? Why is it that every time I look out the window and see those blackened heaps of stone I can sense the rebuke in them, and I am sickened by what I have done? Why have I no sense of victory that the others have? What is wrong with me? Why have I disgraced myself in this shameful way?



Olivia, I long to be with you. At night I dream of you, and the times we have been together. I want you with me. I long for you. I have asked to be returned to Konstantinoupolis, but so far no answer has been given to my request. It is too much to hope that you have taken no other lovers, but I pray that you have not come to prefer another to me. I hope that you will still welcome me, for when I return I will seek you out as avidly as a stag in rut. There has been no woman like you, ever. I have tried others, but all I want is you. Take me back when I come. If you turn me away, I could not endure it. I would rather the worm consume my vitals than you turn me away.



Chrysanthos will give you news of me if you ask him. He has worried and fussed over me for weeks on end. He is a good man, Chrysanthos, and he will speak plainly if that is what you wish. Do not worry that he will report what you say. He has sworn that he will never speak of what I have told him, and that he will extend this vow to you. Not even the Emperor could demand that he abjure his word, you may be sure of that.



Olivia, what purpose has the burning served? I think of everything lost, gone. It was a stilling of voices, as if it were men we burned and not words. I will fight in battle and kill if that is my fate, but this was worse than slaughter and I fear I am a butcher or a murderer. Why is the purpose of this act hidden from me? Why do I see myself as smirched with a stain that will never leave me? The popes say that this is the greatest act of the Emperor, that we are closer to Heaven for being rid of these pernicious books. Why, then, do I feel so much closer to Hell?



Pray for me, Olivia, and let me love you when I return, no matter when it is that they will finally permit me to leave this place. Olivia, let me come to you then. I am in a wasteland here, and you are the spring in the desert. If you have chosen another lover, or if you have married, then there is nothing for me in Konstantinoupolis and I might as well be sent to the battle lines again.



I wish there were something I could fight. I am a soldier, and I might find expiation in battle. The popes say that I am wrong to feel this contrition and that I have no fault, but my soul carries a heavy burden and I do not know how to put it down. If I could vanquish an enemy, I might believe that I have restored myself.



You are all that is left to me now, until the Emperor sees fit to send me elsewhere or I come to understand what purpose I have served in ordering those damned fires lit. You are sense in an insane world, Olivia. You shine like a comet in the skies. I will love you until the blood is gone from my veins and the breath from my lungs.



Remember, destroy this. No one must see it, for your sake as well as mine.



With my devotion and passion



Drosos



10



Zejhil held out two small, golden cups. "I found them in the pantry, next to the glass vessels. I didn't recognize them and I thought you'd better have a look at them."



Niklos took the cups. "They're not ours. I wonder where they came from?" He turned them over, examining them with a critical and practiced eye. "Very good quality, about two hundred years old, I'd guess. Very definitely Roman, but I know that Olivia never had anything like them."



"Why would—" Zejhil interrupted herself. "Someone wants to implicate her."



"As being in league with smugglers, I'd guess," Niklos concurred. "Doubtless you're right." He looked down at the little cups as if he expected them to burn him. "Olivia has gone to church. She's been doing that more recently; she wants to rid herself of some of the stigma of being foreign."



"If this is what someone is doing to her, she will have to try harder," Zejhil said, trying to sound cynical.



"That she will," Niklos said without humor. "I wonder what else has been hidden about the house?"



"You don't think there's more, do you?" Zejhil was not able to conceal her shock.



"If someone wants to make a case for her having things she ought not to have, two gold cups aren't enough. Anyone might have a few things they had forgotten or misplaced, even gold cups. Therefore, if this is part of a plan, there must be other things here. Unless they have just started to act, in which case we may have a chance to surprise them in the act." He gave the cups back to Zejhil. "Put these back where you found them."



"Why?" She was surprised at the suggestion.



"Because whoever put these in the pantry will know that we are aware of what he is doing if he finds they are missing." He tapped the rims of the cups together in ironic salute.



"Are you certain it is a he?" asked Zejhil.



"No. And neither are you." He faltered. "Zejhil, if you do not want to do anything more, I would understand and so would Olivia. It was one thing to assist us in gathering information about the household, but if we have reached a point where someone is attempting to do more than that, you have very good reason not to continue to cooperate."



"I am a slave," she explained.



"You are: a slave to a Roman lady," Niklos said. "She follows the old ways."



"I don't understand."



"There was a time when slaves had rights. Olivia Clemens remembers that time." Niklos took Zejhil by the elbow and pulled her into an alcove. "If anyone comes, I will kiss you. No one will think that remarkable. Now tell me what else you have discovered."



"Very little," she admitted. "Phaon, the new gardener, has been asking questions, but there is nothing strange in a slave doing that when he comes to a household. And the cook has been doing some snooping; it may be curiosity, but it may be something more than that. The laundryman has spent more time in the house than in the washing shed, but the weather is—"



Niklos wrapped his arms around her and pressed his mouth to hers. His hands moved expertly over her and he was startled to discover he was enjoying himself. When the carpenter was out of sight, Niklos released Zejhil with reluctance.