Silk Dreams - Songs of the North 3 Page 7

  “There are a few silver strands in her dark hair, but her waist is still slender as a girl's. The years have been kind to the lady.” Onesimus wrung his hands before him in a habitual gesture of nervousness. “And though you don't ever ask, I feel I should tell you the boy is more like you with each passing year.”

  Damian studied his steepled fingers for a moment, unsure how to catalog what he was feeling. Pride? Certainly, but mingled with a wave of uneasiness as well. All fathers long to see their likeness stamped on the faces of their offspring, and yet beyond providing lavishly, if anonymously, for the boy, Damian had done little to be a father to him.

  Because he was unable to be a husband to the lad's mother.

  “If I may be so bold as to suggest, Excellency,” Onesimus said, “perhaps you'd do well to reveal yourself to your family. I'm sure your lady wonders at the largess that comes each year. Without constant tending, even the most sagacious of investments dry up after a time. The lady is no fool. She must suspect you live yet.”

  Damian rose and gave his back to his informer, trying to school his features into passivity and knowing he failed miserably. “You forget yourself, Onesimus. I ask only for your observations, not your counsel.” He waved his servant away. “I will hear no more on the subject. Rest yourself for a week and then resume your duties. Unless there are unexpected developments, I will look for your next report three months hence. You are excused.”

  Damian didn't turn around at the rough slap of leather on the Corinthian marble of the study floor as Onesimus took his leave. His informer's reports were always gut-wrenching, but he demanded them with each turn of the seasons, torturing himself with scraps of his family's life, knowing he could allow himself nothing more.

  He crumpled the spy's report into a ball. Calysta and his son were safe. They were both healthy and well provided for. It should be enough.

  It never could be.

  Damian poured himself a glass of the Etruscan vintage from the decanter on his desk and swirled the amber liquid for a moment, sending its delicate perfume into the air. He sipped it slowly. The flavor was un-marred by poppy juice now, but the first time he tasted it the wine had been laced with opiate. It was wine from the same vineyard they gave to all the men who were unmade that terrible day ten years ago.

  His regiment had been routed in a bloody skirmish with a particularly fierce Bulgar tribe. Sometimes in night phantoms, Damian could still hear their inhuman war cries as they gloried over the devastating Byzantine loss.

  In older times, the practice of decimation, the killing of every tenth man from among a defeated Roman unit, would have been employed as a means of convincing the remaining soldiers to fight all the harder. The Bulgar-Slayer reasoned that castration might have an even more stimulating effect and at the same time, create a number of well-trained eunuchs to move into Imperial service.

  Damian had been a tenth man.

  Going home to Calysta was out of the question. Better to let her believe him dead than gelded. Damian could learn to live as a highly placed eunuch serving the emperor's pleasure. He could still provide for his family, perhaps even more bountifully than as an intact man since he'd risen to a position of great influence.

  But he couldn't bear the sight of pity in his wife's liquid dark eyes, or see his son's contempt when he learned his father was half a man.

  Perhaps he should draft another assignment for Onesimus. He considered having his spy investigate the affairs of Calysta's would-be suitor, Nobelissimus. If the man turned out to be at all decent, the honorable thing for Damian to do would be to engineer a match for his wife. It would be easy to arrange. All he need do was include a stipulation for the next payment of his family's support, requiring her to remarry in order for the flow of bezants to continue. It would free Calysta of any remaining doubts about his death.

  But as he took another sip of Etruscan grape, he knew it was no longer in his nature to do the honorable thing.

  The delights of a thousand dreams wait within,

  Yet I stand rooted outside your window,

  Trembling like a tamarind in the breeze.

  Unable to move,

  Unable to breathe,

  Hoping for one flutter of your curtain.

  Valdis closed the book of poetry and laid it beside her on the porphyry bench. She leaned down and scratched Loki behind his ear. After a few moments, the mongrel abandoned her to stretch out in the sun. “You must admit,” she said to Erik, “my accent is improving.”

  Erik nodded tersely as he continued to pace around the tinkling fountain in the center of the courtyard. “The eunuch was right to teach you to read the language as well as speak it. I only wonder at his choice of material.”

  “Don't tell me you've never enjoyed a maidensong?” she asked incredulously. No Nordic skald's repertoire was complete without one or two love stories. Even though they were forbidden in some realms, skalds braved the edicts against them and continued to weave tales of mighty passion.

  “Maidensongs are fine in their place,” Erik said. “But don't you ever wonder why your master requires you to always be reading of love?”

  “I assume it will have something to do with whatever my 'assignment' will be," Valdis said with a toss of her hair. “It's still quite mysterious. First I'm to pretend to have the Sight, and then I'm evidently to entertain with recitations of love poetry. Perhaps he intends to make a skald of me. I can't begin to imagine what goes on in Damian's mind.”

  “I can,” Erik growled in Norse.

  Even though her master had decreed they speak Greek only, she and Erik occasionally slipped into their mother tongue. Usually it felt as comfortable as a worn sandal to converse, however briefly, in the language in which she still dreamed. Now, something in Erik's tone gave her pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that I have eyes.” Erik stopped pacing and fisted his hands at his waist. “Aristarchus can't seem to be in a room with you without touching your hair, your cheek, hanging on every syllable that drops from your lips. That Greek ox wants you.”

  She laughed despite the heat she felt creeping up her neck. “How absurd. He's a eunuch. That's like imagining a blind man could fashion a mosaic.”

  “Maybe not, but a blind man could still carve a statue well enough.”

  She ran a fingertip along the spine of the poetry book and shook her head. “Your tongue is as twisted as the Byzantine's. What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that there are ways for a man to have a woman, ways to pleasure her that your master is fully capable of and he knows it.” A small muscle tensed in his jaw. “Why else would he fill your mind with love poetry?”

  “You almost sound jealous. Does the bull wish to trade places with an ox?”

  He scowled at her. “I'm only trying to warn you. He may be an ox, but his heart, his thoughts are bullish.”

  “Well, now you've tickled my thoughts,” she said, enjoying his obvious discomfort. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was beginning to feel possessive of her. “Just how might our 'ox' pleasure the cow without any 'bullish' attributes?”

  Erik's eyes darkened as he walked toward her. “Are you sure you wish to know?”

  She held his gaze for a moment, then glanced away lest he see how his intense look unsettled her. Her heart fluttered like a snared bird against her ribs. She drew a deep breath and gathered her courage in both hands.

  “Are you offering to show me?” she asked in a small voice, unable to meet his gaze.

  She heard his sharp intake of breath as he settled beside her on the bench. He moved the book away and sat with his knees spread. He leaned his elbows on his muscular thighs and laced his fingers together, the knuckles white with tension.

  “I dare not.”

  “Are you afraid of Damian?” she asked, shocked by his admission.

  He snorted. "No, I don't fear your master," he said gruffly. Then he turned and looked at her again, the expression on his face unread
able. He reached a hand up slowly and pushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. A shiver of pleasure snaked down her neck as his rough finger brushed her earlobe. “But I confess myself terrified of you.”

  “Of me?”

  “And of what I might do to you.” Despite his dire words, he leaned toward her, closing the space by finger-widths, as if drawn against his will.

  Valdis let his warning settle in even as she wondered what it would be like to feel his mustache brush over her lips. “From the first time I met you, you've tried to help me. I can't believe you have it in you to do me hurt.”

  “Believe it.”

  “I will not.” His mouth was so close now, all she need do was turn her head and he'd be on her in a heartbeat. Valdis tilted her face toward him, daring him to take her lips. She closed her eyes in invitation.

  “Varangian!” Damian's voice made her eyes snap open. Erik was on his feet. Valdis's belly churned with disappointment. “That will be all.”

  Erik fisted his hand on his chest in the prescribed salute and strode from the courtyard. He paused at the archway and turned back to look at her. A half smile tugged at his mouth and he recited in Norse part of the poem she'd read to him earlier.

  “I stand rooted outside your window,

  Unable to move,

  Unable to breathe,

  Hoping for one flutter of your curtain.”

  And then he was gone, but hope leaped in her chest. His declaration held the ring of promise. She would part her curtains and look for him on her portico when the moon rose full.

  Damian frowned after him, then turned his attention back to Valdis.

  “You are aware that your usefulness to me depends on your purity,” he said with coldness.

  She nodded. “You need have no concern on that score. I am as I was when you acquired me, master.” She couldn't keep sarcasm from her tone when she named him thus. Damian appeared not to notice.

  “That is not how it appeared a moment ago.” Damian tapped his foot against the flagstones with nervous energy. “The Northman has been an acceptable language tutor, but take care that his teaching does not stray into other disciplines. You are aware, are you not, that he is in exile from his homeland for the crime of murder?”

  “I know that.”

  “And do you know he murdered his own brother?”

  Valdis nodded. “Erik told me.”

  “Did he also tell you it was because he found his wife in his brother's bed?”

  Her jaw sagged. Erik had never mentioned a wife. No wonder he resisted kissing her. He'd been betrayed by two people he should have been able to trust implicitly.

  “There is a madness that stalks the Norse warrior class. Berserkr, I believe you call it. Erik slew his brother in that black rage without giving him a chance to defend himself. He very nearly murdered his wife as well.”

  “How can you know all this?”

  “I always investigate those who are in my employ with thoroughness,” Damian said. “And his fellow Varangian, Haukon Gottricksson is willing to spin tales if plied with enough wine. Erik's friend was free enough with the details. Seems he stayed Erik's hand when the sword was at the wife's throat. If not for his intervention, your tutor would have been garroted for killing his wayward wife as well as his brother.”

  Valdis felt her stomach juices churn. No wonder Erik feared what he might do to her. He knew he was capable of killing a woman.

  “I see that surprises you,” Damian said. “There is something else you may find surprising. It's time you learned the consequences of straying from my instructions. Come.”

  He grasped her hand with a strength that shocked her and dragged her from the courtyard.

  “The rational being will choose safety over all else.”

  —from the secret journal of Damian Aristarchus

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  Valdis was forced to trot to keep up with Damian as he pulled her along with far less gentleness than she'd come to expect from him. He led her down the corridor bordering the northern side of the courtyard.

  She'd never been in any of the rooms in that part of the villa, but she'd heard the northern section housed Damian's small army of servants in cell-like chambers. She could see no windows from the outside when she had tramped around the villa with Loki at her heels earlier that day. Having no way to look out on the world, no chance to see the rising sun or glimpse the first flicker of the stars in the heavens seemed almost as bad as imprisonment. She pitied the slaves who slept in the tiny chambers.

  Damian's favor was evident from the lavish style of dress he provided for Valdis and from the opulent room she'd been given. Now she wondered if she'd taken her status of preferment for granted. She'd never seen such a fierce scowl on her master's face.

  Maybe Erik was right. Was it possible the eunuch had feelings for her?

  Damian slowed his pace only when they entered the kitchen, a large utilitarian room in the northwest corner of the villa. A round woman with a merry face dipped a headless chicken into a vat of boiling water for a few moments, then lifted it out and began ripping off the sodden feathers. A group of three more women were seated in a semicircle on the floor in one corner, pounding millet into flour.

  “The time for your studies with the Northman is nearing an end,” Damian said.

  “But why? There is still more Erik can teach me.”

  “That is precisely what concerns me. Your fluency is growing by the day, but the Varangian's obvious attraction to you is a danger we can ill afford. It's time for you to make the acquaintance of your new tutor. Chloe!” He signaled to one of the millet women.

  A petite slave immediately rose and sketched a graceful bow in Damian's direction. Valdis stared at her with interest. The woman was easily a head shorter than Valdis, perfectly proportioned with slender wrists and ankles. Even though her palla was linen instead of silk, she carried herself with dignity that Valdis found surprising for a kitchen slave. A long lock of raven hair escaped from under her headdress and her large dark eyes were expertly rimmed with kohl. The rest of her face was hidden beneath an opaque veil.

  “What does my master require of me?” Chloe asked in a curiously hollow-sounding voice.

  “This is Valdis,” Damian said with a gesture in her direction. “You are relieved of your current duties effective immediately, Chloe. Your new assignment is to instruct Valdis in the arts of an odalisque.”

  “Odalisque? I do not know the meaning of that word,” Valdis said. “Obviously, my language studies are incomplete.”

  “The meaning will become clear to you soon enough,” Damian said curtly before he turned back to Chloe. “She will learn to dance, to serve at an intimate dinner, to entertain with clever conversation and you will teach her all you know of pleasuring a man.”

  Chloe nodded her understanding as Valdis's eyes widened. Odalisque, he'd called it. Her master obviously intended to turn her into a well-educated whore, but before she could speak Damian cut her off with a dismissive gesture.

  “The first lesson you will teach is the price to be paid for impurity.” Damian's face was as hard as the granite slab on which the cook chopped the now denuded chicken. “Remove your veil.”

  Chloe's dark eyes filled with tears that trembled on her thick lashes. She reached up a slim-fingered hand and detached the stiff veil from behind her shell-shaped ear and let it hang free. Her face was a perfect oval, the smooth skin flawless. The deep berry-colored lips formed a delicate bow above her sweetly dimpled chin.

  But where her nose should have been there were only two dark slits. The cartilaginous openings were hideous insults to an otherwise striking face. A single tear slid down Chloe's olive cheek.

  Valdis suppressed a shudder and averted her eyes, but Damian grasped her chin and forced her to look.

  “Mark this and mark it well,” he ordered. “Experience is the best teacher, but a wise pupil learns from the experience of others. You ar
e being prepared to serve in a harem, a place of the sacred womb. There can be no room for unchastity, especially if you hope to earn your freedom once your usefulness in that position is ended.”

  A harem. Valdis's stomach roiled and she feared she might be sick on the spot. She didn't know which was more repugnant, being forced to look at Chloe's ruined face or the idea of entering one of those mysterious gilded prisons.

  “Chloe was once a favorite in a great man's harem. For this purpose she was trained from childhood.” Damian skewered Valdis with an assessing glare. “I can see this shocks you, but in her village, a position in a harem is highly coveted. A safe, secure life behind the sheltering zenana walls, pampered and well fed, is more than most parents of limited means can aspire to for their daughters. If she'd conceived a son she might even have been elevated to the status of a wife.”

  Damian released his hold on Valdis's chin, but she found she still couldn't look away. She stared at Chloe in horrified fascination, her mind trying to make sense of the woman's truncated features. Chloe met her eyes for a moment, then cast her gaze at Valdis's hemline.

  “You may cover yourself now, Chloe,” Damian said in a milder tone. “Come with us to the courtyard.”

  Chloe reattached her veil. Valdis noticed that a piece of carved wood was cunningly incorporated into the half-mask and fitted over the slits so that with the fabric in place, Chloe's deformity was virtually undetectable. She might still be deemed a desirable woman.

  Unless, of course, she spoke. Her missing nose was the reason for Chloe's unusual hollow-sounding voice.

  As they walked back to the courtyard together, Valdis's mind whirled. She'd known Damian wanted to use her for some unspecified assignment. He'd treated her with such deference, she never suspected he would turn into some sort of procurer. Despair clawed at her belly. She wanted her freedom so badly.

  She never expected the price would be so high.

  When they reached the spurting fountain, Damian inclined his head toward Chloe. “I will leave you to your lessons then. She must be ready in three weeks' time. Can you do it?”