Raptor (81 page)

When Strabo and his officers went to the dining chamber for nahtamats, I had to stay in my room, under guard, and have my meal brought to me. I found the establishment’s provender about equal to its accommodations. Still, just my being clean was inspiriting enough that I could take some pleasure in viewing Serdica from my room’s one window. The city, I learned from the servant who brought my food, had been such a favored residence of Constantine the Great that he had
almost
chosen it, instead of Byzantium, to be the New Rome. I could understand why. Serdica sits in an upland basin of the Haemus Mountains, at an elevation that gives it a most salubrious air and pleasant climate and a nearly perpetual breeze that keeps it swept and fresh. The city is watched over by the highest peak in all the Haemus range; I could admire it from my window. That peak is called by the local folk Culmen Nigrum, but no one could tell me why. Black Top is certainly a misnomer, because it is crowned with gleaming white snow all the year around.

I had my room to myself that first night. Strabo did not come in to molest me, probably because he needed a full night’s sleep as much as I did. But the next morning, my guard marched me to the building’s courtyard, where were waiting Strabo, a military scribe, the optio Ocer and a few other officers.

“I wanted you to hear this,
Princess,”
said Strabo, with his usual mocking emphasis on the title. “I am about to dictate my terms to your brother.”

He proceeded to do so, slowly, because his scribe was not of great proficiency and had to write much more laboriously than I would have done. In brief, Strabo demanded that Thiudareikhs Amaling, son of Thiudamer Amaling, vacate the city of Singidunum and surrender it to imperial forces soon to be sent there by the Emperor Zeno. Further: that Theodoric cease and desist from importuning the emperor for concessions of land grants, military titles, the consueta dona of gold and any other such presumptuous entitlements. Further: that Theodoric cease and desist from styling himself King of the Ostrogoths, renounce all claims to that sovereignty and swear fealty and subjection to the true king, Thiudareikhs Triarius. In return for Theodoric’s acceptance of those several terms, Strabo would
consider
what disposition might be made of the woman Amalamena Amaling, daughter of Thiudamer Amaling, recently captured by Strabo in fair combat and currently being detained by him as a prisoner of war. Strabo added some hints to the effect that that “disposition” of Amalamena might consist of her contracting a marriage of convenience—prospective spouse unspecified—thereby to heal the long-standing dissensions between the divergent Amal lines of the Ostrogoths and cement a lasting peace and concord.

“You will note,” Strabo said to me, with a froggish wink, “that I make no complaint about the, ahem, already damaged state of the goods in question. Since I am sure that you have kept secret from your brother your woefully depreciated condition, I will not apprise him of it. He might deem you not worth his acceding to my demands.”

I did not dignify that with comment. I merely sniffed and maintained my princessly mien of complete disdain. Strabo reached out, yanked me close to him, twisted his fingers in the gold chain about my neck, broke it and held on to it while he undid its three pendants.

Then he said, “Here,” and tossed two of them and the chain back at me. “Keep your holy baubles, much good may they do you.” The third ornament, the gold tracery of Theodoric’s monogram, he folded inside the parchment that the scribe had finally handed to him. “This will convince your brother, if he needs convincing, that I truly do hold you hostage.”

The scribe dripped some blobs of candle wax onto the folded document, and Strabo stamped the blobs with a seal of his own. His consisted of only two lines, the thorn and the teiws—þ↑—to signify Thiudareikhs Triarius. He thrust the packet at the optio and said:

“Ocer, take as many men as you think adequate against bandits or mishap. Gallop with this document to Singidunum. Give it into the hand of that tetzte pretender Theodoric and tell him you are bidden to wait for a written reply. If he wishes to know where his sister is being held, you can tell him honestly that you do not know, that she and I are somewhere on the road. We will rest here in Serdica one more night and then”—he paused and glanced at me—“we will proceed you know whither. Bring the reply to me there. You will be riding much more rapidly than our long train, so you should arrive there at about the same time we do. Be off!”

“I am there, Triarius!” barked the optio. He clapped on his helmet, beckoned to the other officers and led them out.

“You,” said Strabo to me, “return to your quarters.” He again winked a frog eye and grinned salaciously. “Rest—for the night is coming. And on the morrow you start a long journey indeed.”

Well, I thought, as I sat in my room and stared morosely out at the white-topped Black Top, Strabo’s message to Theodoric was more or less what I had expected it to be. But what would be Theodoric’s response to it? Even if Swanilda had not reached him and delivered Zeno’s pactum, I very much doubted that Theodoric would entertain any of Strabo’s demands. No, not even for the sake of his dear sister’s safety. He was, after all, the king of too many people to hazard their hopes for one young woman. Still, he was bound to be distressed by the news that Amalamena was in durance and in peril.

He would not be any less distressed to hear that Amalamena was already dead, but at least that would relieve him of trying to think of ways to save her, and thereby probably putting himself or others in danger. How could I get that word to him? Do not give in, Theodoric. Do not even
pretend
to comply with Strabo’s extortionate terms. Your position is unassailable, Theodoric, and
somewhere
Zeno’s genuine document still exists, confirming your position. Also, do not grieve too much for Amalamena. You did not know it, but her death was foreordained, and she died better than she or you could have hoped.

I had to tell him those things, but how? Tomorrow this company would be on the road again. And once we arrived at Strabo’s aerie, wherever that was, I would be more tightly confined and closely watched than I was now. Right here in Serdica was my one best and probably last chance to send a message to Theodoric. But how? Offer my broken chain to one of the deversorium servants as a bribe of gold? Impossible. There was always a guard present whenever a servant was near me. And during the rest of this day there was a constant coming and going of Strabo’s underofficers, visiting his room across the hall for instructions or orders.

I looked at my chain’s two remaining ornaments, and the look I gave the reliquary phial was malignant to the point of desecration. Any virgin’s milk would have to be void of nourishment and blandly tasteless; just so had the phial repeatedly proved itself barren of utility. But the other? Whether regarded as a Christian cross or the pagan Thor’s hammer, it did have one useful attribute. It was of gold, and soft, and it would make a mark if scraped hard enough on a rough surface. I could write with it. I could leave a message on one of the room’s walls, but with only a dim hope that some servant would see it after I had departed, and would recognize it as writing—and the dimmer hope that that servant would bother to fetch someone who could read it—and the hope, so dim as to be laughable, that the message might somehow get passed along to Theodoric. Still, even a preposterous hope is better than none. I glanced warily at the guard lounging just outside my door, and went to the wall in which the door was, so that he could not see me without leaning his head in. Then I asked myself: in what language should I write, and in what alphabet? The Old Language, I decided: likelier than Latin to be recognized by a menial. And in runes because, having originally been intended for carving into wood, they consist mostly of straight lines: easier to write with my makeshift instrument. Next I gave some thought to the message itself. It should be of as few words as possible, but persuasive…

And then I was so startled that I nearly dropped the hammer-cross, because the guard outside, as if he had divined my intentions, commanded me: “Princess, do not make any sudden move or noise.”

My one or two guards had been ever present, but ever changing, of course, taking roster turns at the task. However, when I was not actively ignoring their insults or oglings or lewd solicitations, I was not paying any attention to them. So they could have been the same man or men, as far as I was concerned. But this one, when he spoke, did not barge into the room to do it. He spoke from outside the doorway, and in an undertone, and he spoke respectfully.

“Princess, I must talk quickly, for no one else is about at the moment.”

Stammering slightly, I said, “Who… who are you?” and made a move toward the door, but stopped when he said:

“Ne, come no closer. We must not risk being seen conversing. My name is Odwulf, Princess. You would not know me by sight, I am sure, and I have seen you only from a distance before now. But I was one of your column—a lancer of Optio Daila’s turma—all the way from Novae to Constantinople to the slaughter on the river Strymon.”

“But… but… why are you not dead with all the rest?”

“My misfortune, Princess,” he said, and he sounded dolefully sincere. “You may remember, the optio set guards here and there along the road and the river. Two others—myself and a man named Augis—he sent to climb to the top of the gorge above the encampment, to keep watch from there.”

“Ja… ja. I do remember.”

“Augis and I were only just gaining the top when Strabo and his men attacked. When we realized what was happening, we immediately began clambering down the cliff again. But it was all over too soon. I am sorry, my princess. We both are sorry.”

“Do not be, Odwulf. It is better that you lived. This day I have been casting about for a miracle, and you are it. But how do you come to be
here?”

“After the battle, there was much confusion—Strabo’s men running to catch the horses of ours that they had scattered, others stripping and looting our dead comrades. We saw you being led into the firelight. We hoped to see that Strabo had spared also our king’s marshal. But of the Saio Thorn, we found merely his helmet and corselet. Those were the only two valuables that the marauders did not carry off—because the marshal was a small man, you know, and his armor would fit no one else. Anyway, I must regretfully report that the Saio Thorn evidently died with the others.”

“Do not be too sure,” I said, smiling for the first time that day. “The marshal was also a resourceful man.”

“But never a coward,” Odwulf staunchly defended me. “I have heard how he fought at Singidunum. Nevertheless, Augis and I brought along his armor—just in case. Or in hopes.”

I restrained a joyful impulse to give loud thanks. My custom-made armor was still safe; I knew where my war-horse and my snake blade were; and now, unexpectedly, almost unbelievably, I had two brave allies nearby.

“But
you
had survived, Princess,” Odwulf went on. “So Augis and I thought—if we stayed close—we might somehow find an opportunity to rescue you.”

“And you followed Strabo’s column all the way hither?”

“Ne, ne. We have been
in
it. We merely mingled with the others and rode when they did. Akh, we have been at some hazard of discovery, ja. However, the troop numbers more than a century. Of that many men, not every one knows every other. Perhaps the optio, Ocer, would have been the likeliest to espy us as strangers, but we have taken pains to avoid his eye. Only now that Ocer has departed did I let myself be grabbed by a signifer for this guard duty and—slaváith, Princess. Someone comes.”

It was another underofficer tramping along the hall and into Strabo’s room. Not until those two were loudly conversing in there did Odwulf speak again, and in low tones:

“You said, Princess, you sought a miracle. Tell me what, and I will attempt it.”

“First I must tell you, gallant warrior, that I am not your Princess Amalamena. However—”

“What?”
He nearly blurted it.

“However, I am acting on the princess’s instructions, impersonating her, and Strabo also believes me to be she.”

“But… but… who are
you,
then?”

“Only from a distance have you seen me, too. I am the princess’s cosmeta, Swanilda.”

Odwulf’s sidewise muttering now became almost strangled. “Liufs Guth! Augis and I have been risking our lives to trail after a maidservant?

“Acting on Amalamena’s instructions, I said. And so must you do, out of allegiance to her.”

We were interrupted again, as Strabo and his visitor came out of that room and, laughing raucously about something, went off down the hall. When they were gone, Odwulf at last stepped inside my room and stared at me.

“You see?” I said. “I have gray eyes. Amalamena had blue.”

He frowned and asked, “What do you mean—she
had?
Did Strabo slay the princess, too?”

“Ne. Strabo thinks he has her captive, and all he has is me.”

Odwulf shook his head as if to clear it, then sighed, then said, “Very well. If you are all that is left, Augis and I will rescue you. We must plan how best to—”

“Ne,” I said. “I do not wish to be rescued.”

Now he
really
stared. “Are you brainsick, woman?”

“No more questions, lancer Odwulf. While we have the time, you must listen, and then do as I tell you.”

He bridled somewhat and said, “May all the gods damn me if I understand what is going on here. But I am not accustomed to taking orders from a female domestic.”

“When you hear them, you will gladly obey them. Now slaváith, and listen. You saw the optio Ocer leave here. He is off to Singidunum, to present Strabo’s ransom demands to Theodoric, claiming that Strabo holds Amalamena hostage. Theodoric must be told that that is not true.”

Odwulf thought it over, then said, “Ja, that I can understand. As soon as I am relieved of this guard duty—”

“Ne, ne. Do not you go. Now that I know and can recognize you, Odwulf, you remain with this company, and keep on doing your best not to be detected. Send to Theodoric your comrade Augis. Have him gallop after Ocer—or get to Singidunum ahead of Ocer, if possible. Here, have him carry this.” I handed over the gold hammer of Thor. “That will be proof of the truth of his message. Have Augis tell Theodoric this. There is unfortunately nothing he can do to save his princess sister. The sad fact is that Amalamena is dead.”