Raptor (75 page)

“I wonder…” I said, affecting humble reticence. “Do you suppose I might beg a sheet of this, grammateús, to take home with me and show our scribes how much finer resources you enjoy here?”

“Why, surely, surely, Presbeutés. I brought two, in case I might mar the writing of the one, but I did not.”

I thanked him profusely, took great care in rolling the parchment, then tucked it down the front of my tunic. I was showing Eleón to the door, when he greeted by name another wispy old man just arriving:

“Khaîre, Artá. Have you already completed the emperor’s pactum? Then I shall wait and we will return to the palace together.”

This second grammateús was accompanied by the interpreter Seuthes, who asked if I would like him to read aloud what Zeno had written—and if so, in what language? I said Greek would do. He unrolled the document and declaimed, complete with oratorical gestures:

“The Sebastós Zeno Isauriós, Basileús of the Roman Empire in the East—the pious, fortunate, victorious, ever august Zeno, renowned conqueror of the Antae, the Avars and the Kutriguri—from his New Rome of Constantinople says
Hail!
to Thiudareikhs Amaling, son of Thiudamer Amaling, and to his generals, senators, consuls, praetors, tribunes and marshals,
Hail!
If you and your loved ones are in good health, Thiudareikhs, it is well. I and my loved ones are in good health also.”

Then the communication proceeded to the business at hand, and Zeno’s was as cluttered with ponderous legalities as Eleón had made mine. (From behind Seuthes’s back, the old grammateús winked at me.) However, as I listened, I managed to filter those out, and was satisfied that Zeno
had
granted everything he had promised—the lands in Moesia Secunda, the annual gold payment, the command-in-chief of the border forces. He closed with another fulsome spate of fare-you-wells, though still noticeably neglecting ever to address Theodoric as King or Rex or anything else grander than Magister Militum. At last, Seuthes turned the parchment to show me Zeno’s imperiously swashed signature, and under it his zeta-with-curlicues seal stamped upon purple wax.

I nodded and said, “It is acceptable. I trust Zeno will find my conveyance as much so.”

Seuthes gave the pactum back to the grammateús Artá, who did not roll it, but folded it in quite an intricate manner. Seuthes plucked a purple candle from a wall sconce and dripped melted wax onto three different places on the folded parchment. Artá produced from inside his robes the emperor’s heavy gold seal and, on those three places, again embossed the zeta-with-curlicues, then handed the compact package over to me.

“I thank you, good men all,” I said. “I and my company are prepared to leave as soon as your emperor sends word that he is satisfied with my own document. As early as daybreak tomorrow, if he so commands. And we will bear this speedily to King Theodoric. Be so kind as to tell him that.”

When they were gone, I sat down at a small porphyry table and contemplated the packaged pactum. I took out of my tunic the blank parchment I had been given by Eleón; it was of a size, tint and quality identical to the other. I could quite easily have counterfeited Zeno’s flourish of signature, but I would have needed weeks of finicking forgery to duplicate all the words Artá had set down. Still, I really required no more than a simulacrum of the
package.
So I went to the kitchen and borrowed from the baker the wooden block with which he embossed Zeno’s zeta on all the bread he made and served. I brought that back to the table, folded my blank parchment in exact imitation of what Artá had done, dripped purple wax onto the three same places and stamped the wax with the wooden block. The zeta thus embossed lacked the curlicues imparted by the real golden seal, but that was not evident except on close inspection. So I returned the bread stamp to the baker, then carried both of my parchment packages to Amalamena’s chambers.

In just the little time I had been away from her, the odor peculiar to her disease seemed to have intensified—to me, anyway—and I hoped she could not yet smell it. But all I said was “Have you decided, Princess? Everything is ready except Swanilda.”

She looked at me with the same expression she had worn when I left her earlier: a look somewhat wary, somewhat wondering, perhaps even a little sad. With a sigh, she said, “I still have enormous difficulty in thinking of you as a—in thinking of you as Veleda.”

I shrugged and said lightly, “Sometimes I do, too.”

That was a lie. Even when I was most Thorn, I was ever aware of my Veleda self. But I had stopped short of disclosing to the princess everything about me. I had led her to believe that I was a young woman only
disguised
as a young man, the better to find adventure and advancement in life.

She said wistfully, “I had got so accustomed to Thorn. Even fond of him.”

“And Thorn of you, Amalamena.”

“I shall be sorry to take leave of him.”

Of course, considering her affliction, she would eventually have had to do that in any case, and she doubtless knew it. But I tried to make our having to end our man-and-woman companionship sound more heroic than inevitable. I said:

“Remember, Princess. You and Thorn are participants in a great matter that takes precedence over mere individuals. If either of you were found wanting of will and courage in the completion of that mission, would you not be even sorrier?”

“Ja… ja…” She sighed again, and squared her slender shoulders. “Veleda, you bear the name of a long-ago priestess of the Old Religion—an unveiler of secrets. So before I give permission to let Swanilda go, can you tell me, will she be at hazard?”

“Probably less than you and I will. The girl is an accomplished rider, and she and I are of much the same size. Dressed in some men’s clothing of mine, astride one of our common pack horses instead of a lady’s mule, Swanilda will seem just another wayfarer on the road. Anyway, I believe she is the only one of us who
can
depart from Constantinople unnoticed. So those are the orders I wish you to give her—that she ride out of here at the darkest hour of this night, and make all haste to Singidunum with this.”

I held out to Amalamena the packet that was the real pactum. She still looked undecided, so I explained further:

“We must assume that every soldier of our company has been marked by Zeno’s minions. Any man’s sudden disappearance would be as noticeable as would be yours or mine. But I doubt that your cosmeta has attracted much attention, she having been in and out of the carruca with you. When our column does depart, you—and ostensibly Swanilda—will be inside that carriage. I will be riding in full armor and marshalish pomp, triumphantly waving aloft this imitation pactum.” I showed her the other package. “To any watchers here in the city, or daylight spies along the way, our company will look complete. Any katáskopoi watching us by night will see a female servant waiting upon you—and retiring to sleep with you.”

That made the princess blush slightly, and I was glad to see that she still had at least enough blood and vis vitae to
enable
her blushing. But I hastened to add:

“You have seen Veleda unclothed. She is not one whit different from Swanilda or yourself.” That of course was another lie, but my next words were not. “Veleda’s only intent is to wait upon you as devotedly as a servant or loving sister.”

“I have never had either servant or sister who could so convincingly pass as a
man.”
But Amalamena said that with a laugh, and I was glad to see that she also still could laugh, even if it was a slightly rueful laugh. “Very well. Summon Swanilda and I will give the orders. I will also tell her that I am replacing her with one of these Khazar palace maids.” The princess added, in a commanding tone, with some of her old mischievous mockery, “Now,
Veleda,
you go and have a horse and traveling provisions made ready for her.”

I grinned, and bowed my way servilely out of the room, and went to tell Optio Daila why the princess’s cosmeta would be making her midnight departure, and garbed as a man. I also told him the same small lie that Amalamena was telling Swanilda: that we had engaged one of the Khazars to attend the princess during our return journey. And I cautioned him:

“Do not request any provisions from the kitchen. Pack Swanilda’s saddlebags with some of those supplies we brought ourselves. Then I will leave it to you, Optio, to lead her and her horse unobtrusively through back streets to one of the less busy city gates, and there set her on the right road.”

“I shall see to it, Saio Thorn. And the mount will be ready when the girl is.”

Back at the women’s chambers again, I found Amalamena laughing right merrily, as from her bed she watched Swanilda awkwardly getting dressed in the tunic and undercoat and hose and shoes and cap I had provided.

“Ne, ne, Swanilda,” the princess was saying. “You have the belt backward to the way a man wears it. For some reason unknown to us women, men bring the buckle around from the
left
and the tongue from the right…”

Laughing myself, I lent my assistance to the flustered Swanilda. When she was properly attired, I gave her also my ancient sheepskin surcoat to take along, because the nights would be getting chilly. Then I gave her a wallet containing money more than adequate to take her to Singidunum. I recommended that she carry only a few of the coins in that wallet, and hide most of them—along with Zeno’s pactum—elsewhere on her person. Then, because Amalamena seemed now fairly revivified, I told her that the Khazars were laying a table in the triclinium, and asked if she felt like taking some nourishment.

“Akh, ne,” she said with a small grimace. “But do take Swanilda with you, and make sure that she gorges herself. It may be the last decent meal she will have in some while.”

In order to do that, I had to bid the girl to put on a feminine robe over her masculine garments, so that the servants would not marvel at her transformation. Swanilda may have been a bit uncomfortable, so heavily clothed at table—and the slave maids did regard her somewhat oddly, because a cosmeta who ranked in status only slightly above themselves did not customarily dine with a presbeutés. However, neither of those circumstances prevented Swanilda’s putting away an estimable portion of the meal we were served. And while she may have been distressed at leaving her mistress, even a little apprehensive of what lay ahead of her, still she was noticeably excited at the prospect of making such a responsible journey all alone.

During the meal, Swanilda shyly asked if I, as a man, could give her any intimations as to how best she might comport herself in her disguise. With such a short time available for instruction, I could think of only a single useful suggestion:

“I cannot imagine that you will have much occasion to run, Swanilda, or to throw anything, while other people are watching. But try to remember not to do either. The act of running or throwing will always give away a woman who is pretending to be a man.”

She thanked me for my sage advice, then went to say goodbye to her mistress before she reported to Optio Daila and prepared to depart. I stayed on at our table to ask our serving maid to bring me a jar of the wine we had just drunk, hoping that I could get the princess to take some of it. Then I went to a window that faced the Propontís, and looked out at the pháros. Its fire was blinking and flickering, undoubtedly either repeating or elaborating on the message it would earlier have sent by puffs of smoke. So I went next to my own chambers and untidily disarranged the linens on my bed. In case any spy should sneak a look in on me during the night, it would not be evident that I had not occupied my own bed. It would appear that I had been unable to sleep—and so had probably gone off to relax myself by using one of the Khazar maids.

Then I carried the wine jar to Amalamena’s room, and steeled myself not to flinch when I caught the whiff of the brómos musarós. I found the princess again alone, still in bed, but once more looking almost as wan and woeful as she had done on coming back from the palace.

“Are you in pain, Princess?” I asked anxiously. “Do you require some attention? Were you left too long alone?”

She wearily shook her head. “Swanilda changed my dressing one last time before she left. I have to confess that it is dispiriting to see my—my wound uncovered.”

“Then here—have some of this good Byblis wine,” I said, pour ing a goblet for her. “I brought it because I thought it might have some beneficially homoeomeric effect on your health, it being the color of rich blood. But whether it does or not, it is potent enough to lift you out of melancholy.”

She sipped at it, than drank quite thirstily. I poured a goblet for myself and took it over to the corner of the room where stood the maidservant’s smaller and lower bed, and there I began preparing myself for sleep. Among the Goths, this simply means stripping to the skin, except on bitterly cold nights—and except in my present case, of course, for I continued to affect Romanish modesty, and did not remove my hip band. In truth, my modesty was not entirely a pretense. Even after having earlier undressed to the same near-nudity in Amalamena’s presence, I could not now do it
casually.
But I assumed that she would feel less uncomfortable being alone in a bedchamber with another woman rather than with a seeming man.

She did keep her eyes averted from me while I disrobed, and forbore even from speaking to me again until I had slipped on Swanilda’s discarded light lounging robe. Then, evidently just to have
something
to say, Amalamena murmured, “The wine is delicious, Veleda. And it truly is blood-red.”

“Ja,” I agreed and, also just to have something to say, unthinkingly added, “I daresay that is why it got its name. After the nymph Byblis, who committed suicide when she failed in all her attempts to seduce her brother.”

I instantly realized what a mistake that remark had been, for the princess turned on me a look of Gemini fire.

“And you,
Veleda?”
she demanded, this time not stressing that name with good-humored mockery. “How have
you
fared with my brother, niu?” Her eyes raked blue flame up and down my scantily clad body. “Surely you, too, are in love with him.”