Raptor (82 page)

“Iésus.” Odwulf signed the cross upon his forehead. “But you said she was not slain.”

“She died of a wasting illness. Theodoric can verify that by sending a messenger to inquire of his court lekeis Frithila at Novae. But, before she died, the princess and I arranged this substitution. Me for her, to delude Strabo. You see, as long as he thinks he holds Amalamena, and waits for Theodoric to yield to his demands, Strabo is no menace or impediment. Theodoric can proceed with his own plans, tighten his hold on Moesia, strengthen his ties with Zeno, do almost anything else he pleases. Do you see?”

“I… I suppose I do. And that is why you do not wish to be rescued?”

“Ja. And also, while I remain in Strabo’s company, I may see or hear or learn something of his own plans and designs—things that I can later impart to Theodoric, to Theodoric’s advantage.”

Odwulf nodded and was silent for a space. Then he said, “Forgive me, Swanilda, for having spoken rudely to you a moment ago. You are a brave and clever young woman. I shall have Augis tell Theodoric that, as well. Anything else?”

“Ja. Ocer will press Theodoric for an immediate reply to Strabo’s demands. Theodoric is to send none at all. Leave Strabo waiting and wondering as long as possible. I recommend that Theodoric kill the optio and all his companions. When Ocer arrives at Singidunum, he will be armed with two snake blades, one shorter than the other. The shorter sword belonged to the Saio Thorn. Ask Theodoric please to slay Ocer with that one.”

Odwulf smiled and nodded again. Then, at a noise from down the hall, he stuck his head out the door.

“My relief approaches. I will instantly instruct Augis and send him on his way. But quickly now. Is there anything more?”

“Only keep safe my—keep Thorn’s armor safely stowed, and bring it along, wherever we go from here. That will be our memento of him.”

The newcome guard had nothing to say to me except—with indecent simpers and gestures—how fetching I looked in the different gown I was wearing today, and how much more fetching I would look without it. So I simply sat and congratulated myself on the latest turn of events. Of course, I had not told Odwulf of all the secret circumstances that had affected or afflicted our mission ever since Constantinople. And some of the things I
had
told him were likely to cause confusion at Singidunum. For example, if Swanilda was already there, Theodoric would be puzzled to know who was the “Swanilda” now being held captive—or, rather, voluntarily playing the spy for him—among the forces of his enemy Strabo. Well, I had tried to keep my message as succinct as if I had had to resort to scrawling it on a wall.

I was feeling so elated that, even when Strabo came again that night to paw and maul and abuse and debauch and defile me, he found that he still could not make me weep or scream or swoon or give him any other such satisfaction at all. Instead, I spent the whole time quite impassively turning over in my mind one scheme after another by which someday I would repay Strabo for doing these things to me.

The journey was a long one, for a fact. From Serdica to our destination turned out to be much, much farther than the distance that my own column had traveled from Novae to Constantinople. We went directly east from Serdica, along the southern foothills of the Haemus range, across the provinces of Thracia and Haemimontus. There are practically no roads in those regions, and obviously that was why Strabo chose that route: not to chance meeting any traveling troops of Theodoric’s rival Ostrogoths. So, with only rough cart tracks and horse trials to follow, we progressed but slowly.

We could have moved rather faster if I had volunteered to ride a horse and let the big carruca dormitoria be abandoned. Strabo and others of my captors several times growled hints to me that I ought to do just that, but I was stubbornly resolved not to. If I was being carried into faraway captivity, I would be
carried.
After all, I was impersonating a princess; I would be treated like one. Since we came to no settlement anywhere along the way that was big enough to boast even the most primitive pandokheíon or taberna or gasts-razn or krchma, we had to make camp in the open every night. But I at least had the carruca’s shelter from the increasingly cold and worsening weather, and—whenever Strabo did not crawl in with me for a while, which he did every third or fourth night—I could sleep the whole night away, comfortable on my couch in there.

Here and there along our way, we did come upon a decent Roman road, but always running north to south, across our route. One of them was the very road over the Shipka or Thorny Pass that I and Amalamena and Daila and our company had traveled. But Strabo did not avail himself of any deviations from our direct route, even if the longer way would have made for easier and faster progress; we pressed on continuously to the east. I still did not know to what city or town or fortress we were headed, but I knew that if we went eastward long enough, we had to come at last to the Black Sea.

And so we did. And I confess to have been a trifle disappointed to discover that the Black Sea does not consist, as one would naturally suppose, of a stygian-black liquid. It is, in truth, a beautiful body of water—azure with lacy trimmings of white foam where it laps the sands of the coastline, darkening through blue to blue-green to deep green as it gradually deepens offshore, and then dimming and paling again to blue and blending into the blue of the sky at the far-distant horizon. It is also much more pleasant to bathe in than are any of the waters around the Mediterranean, because it is only half as salty as they are. I should correctly say that the Black Sea is a beautiful sea when it
wants
to be. It got its gloomy name because, at unpredictable intervals, even on the sunniest day, the sea can decide to shroud itself in a fog so dense that it blinds and confounds a boatman as totally as would the blackest night.

I first saw the Black Sea when we arrived at an uninhabited stretch of its Haemimontus coast. Then we turned north along that shore, across the invisible border into the province of Moesia Secunda, meaning that we were in what was properly Theodoric’s domain—so Strabo led us as rapidly as possible across those lands, continuing on a northward course that took us out of sight of the Black Sea. Not until we had crossed another invisible border, into the province of Scythia, did we turn east again, and eventually we came to the seaside city of Constantiana.

This is another city that was founded by Constantine the Great, and it gets its name from that emperor’s sister Constantia. Rightly or wrongly, simply by force of occupation, Strabo was nowadays using it as his stronghold and apparently regarding it as his “capital.” Well, Constantiana was then and still is worthy of an honorific title, for it is a fair and pleasant and populous city, and its capacious harbor is as crowded with vessels—both coastal and seagoing—as is that of Perinthus on the Propontís.

Strabo’s residence and praitoriaún were under the same roof, but a most extensive roof, covering many buildings, barracks, storehouses, slave quarters, stables and such, rather in the manner of the Purple Palace at Constantinople, though not on such a grand scale. The combined palace-administrative-military buildings presented a flat, blank, unwindowed stone face to the rest of the city, but within were many small gardens, interior courtyards and an extensive parade ground. I was led to one of the courtyards, and Strabo told me that it would be my own personal exercise yard. It was enclosed by walls too high for me to climb, in one of which was a door—where a guard would be permanently stationed, of course—that gave onto my private quarters.

The rooms had windows looking out onto one of the gardens, but the garden was sere and barren in this season and the windows were stoutly barred. A servant girl was already installed, to be my constant attendant, and she had a small room of her own. Camilla could hardly be dignified as a cosmeta, for she was only a frumpish Greek peasant. And, I soon discovered, she was a deaf-mute, no doubt selected for that reason to be my maid, so that I could neither persuade her to relay messages for me nor try to ferret from her information about anyone or anything else connected with my captivity.

The lodgings were hardly regal, but I had lived in far worse, and at least I was not to be chained in some dark dungeon. I made sure not to let Strabo see from me any signs of satisfaction or resignation, but he seemed not to care a whit about what my state of mind might be.

“I trust that you will enjoy your stay here, Princess,” he said. “And I do believe you will. I believe you will become so fond of these accommodations that you—and frequently I—and eventually our son also—will delight in residing in these chambers for a long, long time.”

Even before he told me so, I was well aware that Strabo had no intention of setting me free, even if Theodoric had abjectly surrendered to his every demand. I knew that for a certainty, because Strabo had already confided to me one secret of his that he would never give me the chance to repeat to anyone else. At our very first encounter, he had told me how he despised his own son and heir apparent, and how Rekitakh’s being at the court of Constantinople gave the Emperor Zeno only the
delusion
of holding a hostage with which to manipulate the young man’s king-father. Had I been let loose to reveal just that one bit of information, Zeno surely would have shifted his imperial favor from Strabo’s Ostrogoths to Theodoric’s—or even have raised up some nonentity kinglet of some lesser Germanic nation. So I would not be let loose.

Whether Strabo intended to keep me as his plaything forevermore, or whether he truly expected me to conceive and bear a worthier heir for him, or whether (since I never would get pregnant) he eventually would tire of me and have me summarily slain—one thing I knew. When he said that I would be confined in his Constantiana palace for “a long, long time,” he meant for the rest of my life.

Had I really been Princess Amalamena, I would likely have been plunged into despair on hearing myself sentenced to such a fate. But of course I had secrets of my own to comfort me, and a fair prospect that, with Odwulf’s assistance, I could effect my escape whenever I judged that the time was right. I knew that Odwulf was still with us, for I had occasionally glimpsed him during our journey hither. On the first occasion, he had given me just the merest nod, to assure me that his fellow lancer Augis was on the way to Theodoric. Thereafter, Odwulf had communicated nothing more, and, if we chanced to pass one another, he might lewdly chaff or leer at me, as did all the other soldiers, but neither of us gave any other sign of recognition. Since there were many more of Strabo’s troops here in Constantiana—though nothing like a vast army, as well as I could tell—Odwulf probably (and gratefully) found it easier yet to mingle with them undetected as an intruder. Anyway, at intervals, he contrived to get himself assigned as the guard at my courtyard door, just to find out if I needed anything from him. I did not—not yet—but we could talk freely, the servant Camilla being unable to eavesdrop, and that was pleasing to me, because I had no one else to talk to except Strabo himself.

Strabo did talk, and often—and, when he was not panting or grunting or slobbering in the act of copulation, he could talk articulately enough—and he talked of many things that I found of compelling interest. He was most loquacious when he was spent and languid after having made carnal use of me, but it was not because he was besotted with love of me that he was so freely confiding. He talked out of his love for braggartry, and because of his certitude that I would never be able to make any use of the secrets he divulged.

Not everything that he said was a dark, dire secret, of course. On our first arrival at Constantiana, he expressed some surprise and displeasure—not just to me, to everyone within earshot—because his optio Ocer was not already there, waiting for him with Theodoric’s message of contrition, concession and submission. But there could have been many innocuous reasons for Ocer’s delay, so Strabo did not then make too much fuss about it. As time went on, though, and the optio did not appear, Strabo got more concerned and disgruntled, and frequently snarled at me something like:

“If your nauthing brother expects to wheedle any compromise from me simply by dawdling in making his reply, he is very much mistaken!”

To which remarks I simply shrugged indifferently, as if to say that I had nothing to do with the matter, cared nothing about it and could do nothing even if I would. Another time, Strabo threatened:

“Perhaps it would stiffen your brother’s weakling irresolution if I began to send him your fingers, one a week.”

I yawned and said, “Send him Camilla’s fingers instead. Theodoric would hardly know the difference, and she would hardly miss them. She does little enough work with them around here.”

“Iésus Xristus,” said Strabo, in genuine awe. “You may be only a pretender of a princess, but an Ostrogoth you surely are. A predator! As ruthless as a haliuruns! And when you do give me a son, what a sturdy and staunch and steely son he will be!”

Another time, he spoke of another thing that was obviously no secret, but was thunderclap news to me. He had been boasting of how much the Emperor Zeno esteemed and supported and relied on him, when I made bold to say:

“But suppose my brother has enlisted the support of the emperor at Rome. Would not you and Theodoric then be evenly matched, and thus at deadlock?”

Strabo belched juicily and growled, “Vái! There
is
no emperor at Rome.”

“Well, I mean Ravenna, of course. And I know he is only a boy, and disdainfully called Little Augustus…”

“Ne, ne. Aúdawakrs dethroned that boy Romulus Augustulus, and exiled him, and had his regent-father beheaded. For the first time in more than five hundred years, no Roman bears the resounding title of emperor. Why, the entire Roman Empire of the West is no more. Its name is expunged from the maps of the world.”

“What?”

“Where have you been, girl, that you did not know?” Strabo cocked his head to stare one of his eyes at me in incredulity. “Akh, ja, I was forgetting. You were a long time on the road. You must have left Constantinople just before the word of it reached there.”