Burning Shadows

PART II Chapter 2

"That feels ... wonderful," Nicoris sighed as Sanctu-Germainios' small, strong hands worked their way down her aching back, kneading out the tension that had taken hold of her. "It wasn't an easy day," she said with a sigh of pleasure as she felt another knot give way, "not with the mason smashing his arm between stones, and the farrier getting himself kicked in the head by a lame mule." Just speaking of these two dreadful accidents brought back the horror she had done her utmost to submerge during the time she had worked to assist Sanctu-Germainios with the injured and the ill. She tried now to shift her attention beyond the thick wooden walls, out into the night, where there was the muffled silence of snowfall that wrapped the whole valley in a thick cloak of smooth white. Mixed with the myriad flakes on the deceptively gentle wind was the scent of wood-smoke and the odor of grilled meat, a reminder of the nine hundred seventy-eight people - townsmen, their wives and children, farmers and their families, goat-and-shepherds, soldiers, servants, slaves, and monks - within the walls of Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit, all shut up in close quarters against the growing storm.
"It is unfortunate that the farrier survived," said Sanctu-Germainios , his face revealing little emotion as he considered the man from Tsapousso.
She raised herself on her elbows and turned toward him. "Unfortunate? Why? - he's alive, isn't he? If his wound doesn't putrify, won't he recover?" The square-sleeved linen tunica she wore over her woollen stola had spots of blood and brain on it left over from treating the farrier; she had made a point of ignoring them until now, and wished she had removed the engulfing tunica when she had taken off her femoralia and calcea so she need not have such a reminder: surely the stola would be garment enough for propriety, and she would not feel so queasy. She wondered if Sanctu-Germainios was as sympathetic as he seemed, for his equanimity made her think that it might be a sign of indifference to her, or to the farrier's suffering.
"Because after such a blow to the head, he will not be able to function as he did before he was injured. It will be some days before we know how extensive his impairments may be, but without doubt he will have them. He may lose some or all of his ability to speak, or his coordination may go, and leave him incapable of working. He may forget everyone he knows, or where he is. He will probably have to learn his profession all over again, if he has concentration and energy enough to permit him to trim and shoe hooves, which he may not."
"You sound so positive that he will remain ... damaged." She bit her lower lip. "How can you be certain?"
"A blow to the head often brings serious problems with it. Anything that cracks the skull can ravage the person who endures it. Given the extent of his hurts, it is beyond doubt that he will have lasting effects from them. At the very least, he will be disfigured." He thought back to the Temple of Imhotep, recalling the times he had seen devastating fractures to the head; he shook off the memories. "He may yet curse us for saving his life, and with good cause."
"You were so ... so composed when you picked out the bone splinters with those little grabbers and then put in that piece of ivory to cover the - " Nicoris closed her eyes, trying to shut out the recollection of the farrier with the left side of his head broken and bloody, with his soft, whitish brains showing through the cracks. "Don't you ever feel the repugnance such injuries cause?"
"Yes," he said steadily. "But I have had more years to learn to quiesce my revulsion than you have." The L-shaped alcove off the old chapel near the barns that had been turned over to them to serve as a treatment room was warmer than most of the old wooden building, which was drafty as a tree and as empty; only a square stone altar gave any sign that the chapel was a place of worship. Here in the alcove at least there was a fire in the hearth, a stout door between them and the nave, and shutters on the windows; the low couch on which she lay was padded with goat-hair and covered with a cotton blanket, making it comfortable and warm, which even he found soothing.
She laughed a bit uncertainly, then leaned into his hands again. "If it weren't so cold, this work we do would be easier."
"If it were not so cold, we would have less work to do. The man with the sprained ankle we dressed this morning got his injury from skidding on the ice, and the mason dropped the block he was putting in place because his fingers were stiff, to say nothing of the coughs and fevers that are so prevalent. But we might have the results of a Hunnic attack to contend with, so ..." He lifted her arm and put her hand on his shoulder. "Do not try to hold it: rest. Let me keep it in place."
"Do you think that spring ..." she began, but changed her mind - thinking seemed to be too much trouble after such a demanding day. As he had promised, her over-stimulated exhaustion began to give way to lassitude. She started to smile as he worked down from her shoulder to her fingers, turning the stress of fatigue into relaxation; at the same time an unfamiliar thrill awakened within her, one she dared not identify. "Where did you learn to do this?"
"In Egypt and Roma, for the most part," he told her, starting on her other arm. "You are tightening your shoulders again."
"Could you teach me?" she asked, paying no attention to his admonition. Her quick smile brought a glint to her quicksilver eyes; she added, "If you teach me, I can do the same for you."
"Learn to give massages? Do you want to?" He sensed her enthusiasm was more than the impulse of the moment. "You will need practice to build up your strength, but if it is what you want, I will." She attempted to swing around so she could stand up, but he would not move to let her do so. "I do want to learn," she said eagerly. "I have no wish to be a goat-and-shepherd forever."
"Then you shall learn, after you are rested. In the morning, if you and I are not needed elsewhere, we can begin with Isalind; she has need of such relief." He worked her hands, loosening them with a gentle shake, finger by finger.
"Why?" The question was sharp with a feeling that confused her.
"Because it is the result of her having one leg that is a bit longer than the other, so that every step she takes reinforces the ache in her back," he said.
"I have an ache in my back," she said.
"I know, but yours will fade - hers will not; every step she takes will renew it." He ducked his head. "I have an unguent for you to use, later, on your lower back. It will reduce the discomfort you may feel from all the hard work you have done today. You have a tightness of the hip that could mean stiff joints tomorrow." Finally he released her arm.
She lay down again as he began on the backs of her thighs, his fingers seeking out the tenderest knots. The sharp ache his first touch evoked quickly gave way to languor. "You feel it all, don't you? The places I'm most tense."
"You will learn the trick yourself, in time. You will discover how the body reveals itself." He had bent over her legs as he moved down below her knees and focused on her calves. "You have a bruise on the back of this leg," he went on, tapping her left ankle just below the purple smudge. "Do you know how you got it?"
Thinking back over her day, she took a short while to decide that "It had to have been when they were moving the farrier back to the infirmary; the stretcher-bearers had swung a stool out of the way and it banged into me." She twisted on the table so that she could see it. "Not as bad as some I've had."
"That stool could be the cause," he agreed, and took care not to squeeze that part of her leg.
"Yesterday I tripped on the enclosed channel from the spring to the lake; the snow covered it completely. I might have got a bruise then, as well." In spite of her determination to keep from giving herself away, Nicoris heard evasion in her answer.
"It is possible," he said, feeling her response to him intensify along with her attempts to disguise the cause of her heightened state.
To distract herself, she asked, "What do you make of this Antoninu Neves? Is he really what he says he is?" The man had arrived at the monastery the day before with a small company of mercenaries under his command, claiming to have come from the Roman garrison at Porolissum; they said they had been in the employ of a Gepid landholder at his estate since the city was sacked, but that their arrangement had soured: sent off on their own without pay, they had been given provisional shelter at the monastery until the spring thaw in exchange for their labor and scouting.
"He seems a reliable sort of man, and his soldiers will be most useful here. Better that they should guard this valley than turn brigands."
"Do you think they would do that? - turn outlaw?"
"It has happened before," he said, recalling the trade routes he had followed, which were infested with gangs of former soldiers, as well as remote tribes that stole as a matter of survival, and the cities where garrisons enforced the laws in ways that made up for the pay they often did not receive. "And those who come from the Legions' traditions have the habit of fighting."
She could think of nothing to add; her thoughts remained fidgety. "How much longer will it snow?"
"Probably another day, and then it will be clear for a time - at least it has happened that way in the past," he said.
"Then some of the men will go out to hunt boar," Nicoris remarked.
"If the snow is not too deep," Sanctu-Germainios remarked, and added, "You will need thicker wraps on your feet under your calcea; you have a blister forming on your heel."
"I'll be careful," she said, her concentration disrupted by his touch; she could feel that his hands were cool, but where he put them, her skin seemed hot. A short while later he asked her to turn over.
"You mean you're going to do more?" she exclaimed.
"If you like. If you would rather I not, then I will stop. There is hot water in the tub behind the confession-cell. You can wash away the soil of the day before you sleep. I have put a night-wrap next to the towel for you."
Nonplussed, she could think of nothing to say. She wriggled onto her back, taking the time to look up at him as she wrestled with her clothes, unaccountably self-conscious. "What more will you do?"
"Your feet, your face, and perhaps your shoulders," he said; he was aware of her confusion and sought to put her at ease. "If you are too tired to continue, I will leave you to sleep."
"No," she protested, repeating more calmly, "no. This is helpful."
"As you wish," he said, realigning the cotton blanket for her. "This will not take long, I think. You will want to sleep shortly."
"Oh," she said, between disappointment and relief. As he touched her foot, she quivered.
"Are you ticklish?" he asked, knowing the answer.
"No. It must be that the cold is fading and the heat prickles," she said.
He said nothing in response to this as he started working on her foot, flexing it gently before stroking the sole with his thumbs, following the long tendons from toes to heel, aware that everything he did was no longer wholly relaxing for Nicoris; her pulse was getting faster, and her breathing was deepening. So long as she did not recognize her own fledgling arousal, he would continue; once she realized what was happening within her, he would cease his malacissation, it being no longer effective. He watched her stretch, her back arched, as he moved to her other foot. "I think, when I'm done with this" - he tweaked her big toe - "that you may want to go off to your bed." It was in another alcove on the far side of the nave, less than half the size of this one, with its own small bed and fireplace, shutters over the tall, slitted windows, and a heavy wooden door to ensure her privacy.
Her yawn had a sigh in it. "You're right. I should ... wash and get to sleep." That would get her away from his compelling presence so that she could regain her self-possession and bring her mind into order again.
"Very wise. The nights may be long, but you will need every hour of this one, or you will be tired still in the morning." He rubbed at her Achilles' tendon, keeping his mind on the feel of what was under her skin.
"All right," she said, trying not to sound disappointed. "I'll go bathe as soon as you're done."
"Very good," he said, continuing his ministrations. "You should sleep very well."
"I hope so," she said with a spurt of nervous laughter.
He finished in silence, standing back with his hand extended to help her to sit up; she took it promptly, pulled herself erect, then released it more quickly than was necessary.
"Thank you, Dom. It was a very ... helpful ... I'll be refreshed, come morning." That was more for his benefit than to express her conviction. She got down from the table, stepping back from him as she did, her marvelous lassitude now almost gone. "The tub has hot water, you said?"
"Yes: it was filled from cauldrons set above the hearth-fire to boil. It was done while you were at supper. The water should be hot enough, but not scalding." He inclined his head, sensing his flaring attraction to her. It had been four nights since he visited one of the women from Ulpia Traiana in her sleep, and his esurience was awakened, keyed by Nicoris' dawning excitement. "There are a brush and a cloth for you to use."
She flushed at this, and was baffled by the unexpected embarrassment that came over her. "I'll let you know when I've finished, if you like," she said, then turned abruptly and headed for the confession-cell, apparently unaware of the cold stones beneath her feet, or the chill that took hold of her as she got farther from the hearth; her breath came quickly.
A branch of oil-lamps stood beside the tub - an old tun cut in half, with a faint odor of wine still clinging to its ancient slats, with a rim a hand's-breadth wide around the top - and there was a bench with the brush, cloth, towel, and night-wrap set out on it, as he had told her. Above the black, shiny water, specters of steam writhed over the surface, promising heat, which she suddenly desired as a starving person desires bread. She had a moment of self-reproach, then dismissed it. Shivering, she skinned out of her clothes as quickly as possible, grabbed the brush, climbed up onto the stool beside the barrel, and eased herself into the warm water, trying to minimize splashing as she sank into it up to her shoulders, her skin tingling. The sensations that ran through her made her gasp with a frightening kind of delectation. Closing her eyes and holding her breath, she slipped under the surface, remaining there until her chest began to ache; she stood up, the water streaming and steaming off her. She reached for the brush and started to scrub, starting with her feet and working her way up her body, her skin becoming more sensitive with each stroke. A twinge very like a cramp shot up her leg from her calf, and she gave a little cry, sloshing water as she struggled to keep her balance.
"Nicoris? Are you all right?" Sanctu-Germainios called to her.
"Yes," she answered brusquely. "I ..." What should she tell him? that she was flustered by his nearness? that she had become aroused by what his hands had done? that she wanted to share his bed? that she - ? "I'm fine!" She took hold of the rim of the tub and steadied herself, preparing to emerge from the warm bath into the cold air.
"Have a care getting out," he recommended while he pinched the flames on all but one of the oil-lamps. He looked around the alcove, his dark-seeing eyes making out the faint paintings on the walls, faded with age, detailing the life of Sanctu Eustachios the Hermit, or so the monks claimed: to Sanctu-Germainios, the murals showed the life of the Maiden of the Spring, a much older figure than Sanctu Eustachios. Saint or Maiden, the miracle-working spirit of the place was depicted as being tall, thin, and in flowing white robes. The Maiden of the Spring had been worshipped while Sanctu-Germainios still breathed, and her place in this isolated valley had been sacred before he was born. He sat down on the table and let his long memories wander back to that vanished time when his own people still lived in the eastern hook of these mountains, to his capture by the invaders from the east, and his execution at their hands, more than twenty-five centuries ago. "Why do they so often come from the east?" he murmured in a language that no one else on earth could speak now, except Rugierus, who had learned it from him.
"Dom Sanctu-Germainios," Nicoris' voice cut into his reverie. He shook off the hold of the past. "Is something wrong?"
"N ... no, not wrong," she responded. "It's my mind; it won't be still. My thoughts are ... jumping like locusts. I can't stop them." Moving toward him through the darkened alcove, she concentrated on the single burning oil-lamp rather than on the shadow he had become. In her night-wrap she was pale as the mists hovering over the snow, her damp hair hanging unconfined; she looked very young as she came up to him. "Don't tell me to pray."
"Are you worried, or are you edgy from so much work?" He took the hand she held out to him, once again aware of the turmoil within her.
"Neither of those." She went silent, summoning up the courage to tell him the truth. "I haven't the right to ask this of you, and I know it, you being Dom and regional guardian, and Priam Corydon wouldn't approve, and this being a holy place, but my body needs ... I need ... succor. Don't make me go to one of the soldiers; they're too rough. All the tenderness has been driven out of them." Her eyes glittered in the lamplight as they fixed on him. "You are not a man to deny me, are you?"
He felt the strength of her impetration, and his own ardor rose to meet hers. "If it is in me to release you, I will do what you ask."
With a soft exclamation, she went into his arms, clinging to him as if she expected to be pulled apart from him. "You needn't worry - I'm not a virgin." She burrowed her head into his shoulder, shivering with something that was not quite passion. "You can be quick, if you want."
"No," he said gently, touching her hair, and then her cheek. "I cannot."
"Why not? Do I offend you?" she asked flatly even while she strained her body to his.
"Because you will not be quick, no matter how urgent your desire, and my relief is tied to yours," he said, tilting her face upwards to kiss her, lightly at first, then growing more rapturous as her fervor increased. As he started to move back from her, she laced her fingers behind his head and renewed the kiss with determination. For a long, suspended moment, they remained together, her body locked to his, as if striving to melt into him. She trembled and slowly released him, her face revealing the depth of her arousal. "Where shall we go?"
"To your bed, if you like," he said, certain that the thin mattress that lay atop a chest of his native earth, which had served him when he slept, would afford her little comfort.
"It isn't much," she said apologetically.
"No bed here is much," he said, and lifted her easily into his arms. "But you have two blankets and a sheet, which is more than many have." As he walked, she hung on to him lightly, her arms around his neck, and pressed little kisses along his jaw and on his angled ear, growing more adventuresome with every step he took. He made his way toward the far end of the alcove, into a small space behind the confession-cell where her bed waited, smelling faintly of rosemary from the needles in the stuffing of her mattress.
She did not wait for him to lower her, but scrambled out of his arms, threw back her blankets, and patted the sheet as she stretched out on it. "Here, Dom. There's room enough for both of us if we lie close together." She opened her night-wrap and patted the sheet again.
Her offer was so obvious that he sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over her. "There is no hurry."
"But we should be quick ..." she began, then was silenced, trembling as he slipped his hand inside her night-wrap, moving over her body, barely touching her, but evoking responses from her flesh that astonished her.
"Why lessen your enjoyment in the name of haste?" he asked as he leaned down to kiss her slowly and thoroughly, his fingers teasing at her breast while his lips provided a kind of fascination no other lover had awakened in her. Gradually, luxuriously, he worked his way down to her shoulders, and then his mouth began on her breast where his hand had been, his tongue more artful than his fingers were.
Her hands caught his hair and pressed his face hard against her breast. "I want to feel you, Dom."
"You dislike pain; I will not give you any," he said steadily, eluding her grasp. "This is to bring you joy, not hurt." His hand explored down her torso, over her taut abdomen, then dawdled among the soft, moist folds between her legs.
She inhaled sharply between her teeth, and she seized the edge of her blankets in a solid grip; she laughed again, her head thrown back euphorically, and suddenly the spasm was upon her, coursing through her in ecstatic waves. Suddenly she released the blankets and grabbed him, pulling him down on top of her once more; she hardly noticed his mouth on her neck. Her being was subsumed in greater fulfillment than she had ever experienced. Her body, made malleable by passion, sank down, more relaxed than when Sanctu-Germainios had massaged her muscles. As she loosened him, she kissed him soundly once, then looked at him critically. "Why didn't you ..." She gestured to show what she meant.
He got up from the bed, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.
"Those of my blood have limitations - at least the men do." He had long since become accustomed to his impotence and spoke of it without embarrassment.
She took hold of his arm. "You ... have nothing for yourself."
He caressed her admiringly. "Now there, Nicoris, you are wrong; I have fulfillment through your fulfillment," he said, his voice kind, his dark eyes full of understanding. "I have you." Yet even as he said it, he wondered why she was lying to him.
Text of a letter from Rugierus in Constantinople to Sanctu-Germainios in Apulum Inferior, written in code in Imperial Latin with fixed ink on vellum, carried by hired courier as far as Oescus and turned over to the Praetor Custodis, never delivered.
To Dom Feranescus Rakoczy Sanctu-Germainios, regional guardian at Apulum Inferior, this from your devoted servant Rugierus of Gades, now in Constantinople, resolving certain problems confronting Eclipse Shipping and the question of your private properties. It is one month past the Winter Solstice in the Christian year 439, and I am in residence at your house in this city.
My master,
I am sorry to tell you that I have had to deal with a zealous priest who enforces the taxation levied on foreigners by the Emperor's orders. Patras Methodos, priest though he is, is cut from much the same cloth as Telemachus Batsho in Roma, two centuries ago. He has a remarkable talent for finding taxation schedules that require more money from you. In addition, the Patras has made it his business to demand every tax he can think of from the earnings of your ships. He has inspected cargo frequently and inventoried goods in your warehouses. He will not allow me to leave until he is satisfied that you have provided all the monies that can be demanded of you. Your new factor, a prudent Greek called Artemidorus Iocopolis, who is acceptable to the Metropolitan, has tried to ask the Metropolitan to review what Patras Methodos has demanded, and as a Constantinopolitan, he cannot be considered a foreigner. But the Metropolitan is too pleased to have the money that Patras Methodos has required you to pay. I have stated that I am obliged to leave here by the end of February in order to report to you in a timely way of your affairs in this city. Fortunately the Metropolitan puts much importance on the dedication of servants and slaves to their masters.
I have to tell you that it is unlikely that you can return to Constantinople for some years yet. There are too many still alive who are likely to remember you and the upheaval that revolved around the Captain of the Hecate and his fellow-smugglers. In fact, it seems to me that some of the rapacity of Patras Methodos arises from the assumption that you in some way benefited from those smugglers' crimes. I have ordered certain necessary repairs on your house, and told Iocopolis to monitor the house and maintain it in your absence. That will calm the Patras and the Metropolitan.
Rhea Penthekrassi is now established in a house near Hagia Sophia, in a street of handsome houses most of which are owned by merchants. This permits her to live as a woman of quality lives. She has a small household - a major domo, a cook, a builder, a personal maid, a household maid, a gardener, and a groom to care for her stable and horses. She has found it difficult to go about in society, lacking a male relative or in-law to accompany her. I have attempted to find her an acceptable escort; I still hope that I will be able to find her someone before I must leave the city.
There are more rumors about the Huns, saying they are ransacking all the towns in the Carpathians and will soon move into the Balkans and do the same there. Given the depths of the snows at present, I am puzzled as to how they are to accomplish the raids that make up so many rumors. How the Constantinopolitans come to know such things is never explained. There is much fear in this place that the Huns will enlarge their forces and campaign against this capital. The Emperor Theodosios has been reluctant to send his troops to stop Attila, fearing that his Hunnic mercenaries may well rebel, join with Attila and his men, and render the army ineffective, thus leaving all Byzantium open to attack. When Roma is mentioned, very few of the people here want to take the risk of reinforcing the city.
I am eager to join you at Apulum Inferior again; I will bring you reports from your factor and the Patras, as well as some additional money to make your situation more secure. I am assuming that you will have need of it, with so much turmoil in the region. I anticipate arriving by the Equinox, barring any more military incursions. If there are too many conflicts under way, I will stay at Viminacium until I can join a northward-bound company of travelers. Until the day when we meet again,
I am, as I have been for almost four centuries,
Rogerian