A Flame in Byzantium

"I don't know. I thought when he first came here that he was merely searching for Drosos." He righted the bench and sat down heavily on it.



"Why would you think that?" Niklos asked, guessing at the answer already.



"His collar had the mark of Belisarius' household. I assumed the General was concerned, what with his former officers being sent to the distant ends of the Empire." He sighed and stared down at the earthen floor. "Or that may be what I told myself when I took the money."



Niklos' expression softened a bit. "It is a reasonable assumption."



"I thought that would be the end of it, and since Belisarius is our mistress' sponsor, I thought that there was no harm in telling the slave that."



"Since Belisarius is Olivia's sponsor, why would his slave have to ask you? Why would Belisarius not send a messenger directly to me or to Olivia herself?" Niklos asked.



"Perhaps he didn't want Captain Drosos to know he was being watched," said Valerios hopefully.



"And perhaps Belisarius has a spy in his household," said Niklos.



Valerios looked away. "There might be."



"Which slave was it? Describe him." He grew more attentive though his posture did not change.



"A eunuch. Not fat. Fairly tall. Between twenty and thirty—it's hard to guess age with eunuchs. Deep voice." He shook his head. "I should have spoken to you. I knew that at the time. But I thought it would be just the once, and the money was—"



"And this time he offered more, of course." Niklos recognized Simones and anticipated the pattern.



"Yes, more. And he wanted to know more. He said that I could keep the money no matter what." He coughed. "I don't want it, not that way."



"But you said nothing," Niklos reminded him. "Neither the first time nor the second."



"I know." This was hardly audible.



"Has our mistress been unkind to you?"



"No."



"Or made unreasonable demands?"



"No." His voice was lower.



"Or mistreated you?"



Valerios surged to his feet, kicking the bench aside. "You know she hasn't!"



"Then why did you betray her?" Niklos asked, his voice quiet and sharp at once.



Valerios shook his head and moved away from where Niklos stood. "I… I don't know."



"Shall I tell you?" Niklos did not wait for Valerios to answer. "You thought that you might have some power, some means to control—oh, anyone—and you wanted it. Don't you understand yet that Olivia meant what she said. You are her slave, but not in the way of Konstantinoupolis, in the way of Roma, old Roma. When I brought you here, you were told how the household was to be run, and you would not believe that, and now you have compromised yourself."



"I didn't agree to help the second time." Valerios was sulking now, refusing to look toward the majordomo. "I said I would not."



"If you think that you have heard the end of it, you're very mistaken. You are a tool of the enemies of my mistress now, and that makes you dangerous." Niklos finally moved into the room. "By tonight, you will be confined to your quarters. I would do that now, but it might alert others. Certainly the rest of the slaves would talk, and that is something that my mistress cannot risk at present. So you might as well get used to my company. Until you go to the kitchen to eat, you will have it."



"And then?" There was a hardness in his voice, the rasp of long-denied anger.



"You will have your meal, of course. The others will guard you. Afterward, I will secure you." He gave Valerios a measuring look. "If you are thinking of attempting to escape, let me advise you against it. If you run away, or even try to, you will have lost any chance you might have of salvaging something for yourself. A run-away forfeits everything, and there is nothing my mistress can do to change that. You will be branded a criminal and set to hard labor—probably the copper mines or aboard ship. In either case, you will not have much left to you."



"I should have taken the money, told the slave what he wanted to know, and said nothing," Valerios grunted.



"Had you done that, you would be confined right now. Be thankful to your good angel that you did not take the money." Niklos regarded Valerios a moment, then said, "Bring the bench to the kitchen. If the cooks need it so much, they will wonder if you do not fix it for them."



Valerios obeyed, his face sullen and his movements ponderous and slow. As he left the room, he looked hard at Niklos. "I could have accused you. I could have told the slave all I know about you, and—"



"And what is that?" Niklos inquired, sounding amused in order to hide his sudden apprehension.



"I saw you." Valerios turned narrowed eyes on Niklos.



"Do what?"



"I saw you eat. You had a shoulder of goat. You… just ate it. Just the way it was." Even as he hurled this accusation, there was a tone in his furious words that hinted he did not quite believe what he was saying.



Niklos shook his head. "Have you never tested meat to be sure it was fresh and wholesome before letting the cooks have it?"



"It was raw." Revulsion made the last word much worse than it was."



"It certainly was," said Niklos. "But no one in this household has fallen ill to tainted meat, have they?" He waited while Valerios considered what he had said. "My ways are similar to the ways of my mistress."



"So you eat goat raw?" Valerios said, now more bewildered than challenging.



"Upon occasion." He stood aside so that Valerios could carry the bench out of the room. "Come. The cooks are waiting."



Valerios had one last crafty question for Niklos. "What if I tell… someone that you eat raw goat?"



"What if you do?" Niklos rejoined. "If they believed you—and the chance is they would not—they would also believe the reason for what I do. Konstantinoupolitans believe almost anything about Romans." He was able to chuckle, but it was fortunate that Valerios could not see his face.



Valerios picked up the bench. "What are you going to tell the mistress?"



"Everything. I am her majordomo." He walked close behind Valerios as they went toward the kitchen. "If I did not, I would be failing her in every way."



"What will become of me." He stopped in the entryway to the kitchen.



"That is for my mistress to decide," Niklos said, his manner expressionless. Then he indicated the kitchen. "Look. Urania is waiting for the bench."



One of the two cooks, a squat, muscular woman with a round face and rosy complexion, greeted Valerios with a shout.



"About time! Put it here. My feet ache all the way up to my innards."



Niklos nodded and Valerios, after a quick glance at him, went and put down the bench. "Next time, don't pile half the kitchen on one end of it," he admonished Urania.



She uttered a gruff oath and sank down on the bench. "How anyone is supposed to cook all day on their feet, I don't know."



Niklos indicated the two long tables on the far side of the room where the slaves were served their meals. "How much longer before the meal?"



"Not long. There are some flatbreads just coming out of the oven, if you're hungry."



"I'm not," said Niklos. "But I know that Valerios is. Let him have one and we'll wait for the others."



Urania nodded, her wide face smiling even as she grumbled. "I don't know how I'm supposed to keep up with this household." She got her baking paddle and went to the oven. Her face grew ruddy from the heat as she pulled back the door and slid the paddle in. "These are best hot."



Valerios burned his fingers when he took the flatbread Urania offered him, but he refused to drop it. He sat at the nearer of the long tables and chewed slowly on the bread, watching Niklos while the other slaves began to arrive for their food.



Only when eight of the slaves were seated and Urania was bustling among them with trays of chicken cooked with dates and olives with garlic and cracked wheat did Niklos decide it was safe to leave Valerios in the kitchen. As he hurried toward Olivia's private apartments, he wondered how many other of the household slaves Simones had approached, and what they had told him. He was most troubled that Valerios had seen him eat. The fiction he had offered might be acceptable to a slave, but there were others who would find other meaning in what he did, and that could easily lead to questions with dangerous answers and more dangerous repercussions. He set his jaw and knocked on Olivia's door, saying "It's Niklos."



She was watching him as he came into her quarters. "More trouble? Of course there is more trouble," she said for him when he hesitated.



"It might be worse," Niklos hedged.



"Indeed it might," she said sardonically. "There might be an earthquake and the house could be on fire."



"Olivia—"



She managed a rueful smile. "But fortunately, we have only to deal with spies and enemies. Tell me."