Aethalric came back to the table, carefully holding two steaming cups by their rims. “You should like this.”
Abandoning their questions for the time being, the guards took the cups and drank eagerly, no longer paying attention to Rojeh, who was once again on his way up the stairs to Ragoczy Franciscus.
Text of a writ by Ragcozy Franciscus in Byzantine Greek, witnessed by two merchants of Byzantium remaining in Sarai for the winter, with instructions to file these dispositions with Emrach Sarai’af and Patriarch Stavros in Sarai upon my departure from the town.
As closely as I can fix the date of this authorization, I make it the first week of February by the revised Roman calendar, in the 1290th Year of the City; it is the first week of the New Year in China, although I am not certain which animal is in charge of this one; it is the tenth year of the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and the eleventh year since Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, died, and what is set down here was written in the sixth week since the Winter Solstice, and to which I set my sigil as token of my intent.
Upon my departure from this city, I have arranged for Thetis Krisanthemenis, the widow of Eleutherios Panayiotos, along with her three children, Pentefilia, Aristion, and Hrisoula, to be given tenancy in the house I have occupied until such time as her family arranges to bring her to them. I have provided the money for a year of occupancy and left funds to pay the wages of the staff, so that she need not be at any disadvantage imposed upon her because of the limitations law puts upon her access to her late husband’s fortune. The monies have been put in the hands of Patriarch Stavros with my specific instructions regarding how they are to be used, and an authorization for providing money to Thetis Krisanthemenis as she has need of it. I will leave a single horse, a copper-dun, for the use of the widow and the household, with funds for its upkeep. Chtavo may continue in his present work, so long as he is in Sarai. None of my servants are bonded and thus may depart or stay as they choose. Aethalric has already declared he has no wish to leave, so he may continue to head the household servants, with his wages paid for another six months, and sufficient monies provided to cover the next six, if they are needed. I leave one restriction for the staff and Thetis Krisanthemenis: that they buy no slaves.
Should Thetis Krisanthemenis decide to leave Sarai, the sums that would have supported the household are to be provided to her for travel expenses, so that she and her children need not endure more hardships on the road beyond what the journey itself provides. I also leave with Patriarch Stavros a sum of money that will allow her to hire three armed men to escort her, and I admonish her to travel only with a larger caravan, so that her escort may not become her captors.
All household goods left must be inventoried and kept for the use of Thetis Krisanthemenis and the household until she and her children depart, at which time the goods are to be sold and the monies divided in this way: half for Thetis Krisathemenis and her children to offset the costs of travel, the remainder to be distributed equally among the servants, Sinu and Herakles sharing a portion. So as to leave no burden upon her, I have provided two diamonds for such taxes as the town may impose upon my household and the current tenants of the house; one is for the Master of Foreigners and should cover the sum of my exit tax, the second is for Patriarch Stavros, who has undertaken to serve as administrator of the widow’s affairs.
The landlords of the Foreigners’ Quarter will have much to repair and restore before the Quarter can be fully occupied again, and to that end, I have set aside one gold and one silver bar for the purpose of helping to pay for such rebuilding as may be required. In return for this sum, I ask that supplies for a shelter be provided to Dukkai, the jou’an-jou’an woman who has been exiled. Failure to comply with this request will result in a withdrawal of all remaining money, which will then be put in the hands of the innkeeper at the Birch House to dispose of in some manner that benefits the town but without helping any construction in the Foreigners’ Quarter.
I set my hand and sigil to this before witnesses and in the conviction that when it is presented, its terms will be honored.
Ragoczy Franciscus
Merchant
(his sigil, the eclipse)
Nicodemus Daniatos, merchant of Amisus, witness
Evagelos Tomi, merchant of Chersonesus, witness
Rojeh stared out at the wet snow pelting down from a black sky. “Are you sure you want to leave now?” he asked Ragoczy Franciscus as he stood in the door of the stable and stared out at the chaotic night.
Ragoczy Franciscus gave the sign for
yes.
He pulled on the lead of the mules and put his foot in the foot-loop of his saddle, preparing to mount, making a last adjustment on the rough-woven blanket that was buckled onto his horse to provide warmth.
“It could be a very hard ride,” Rojeh said as he went to get his stallion, who was standing tied to a stanchion, fretting at the bit; he, too, was blanketed against the bone-piercing cold. “Just two mules and two horses provides little margin for trouble,” Rojeh pointed out, knowing his argument would not change Ragoczy Franciscus’ mind.
Ready?
Ragoczy Franciscus signaled, then swung up into the saddle.
“I’m worried about the widow and her children,” said Rojeh.
With a long, steady look, Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed,
Our staying cannot help her.
“Still, it could go hard for her, if the guards really do have orders to kill us,” said Rojeh, and went on in vexation, “Do you think you will be able to get the guard to open the gate?” He unfastened the lead.
Ragoczy Franciscus held up three silver coins in his gloved hand.
“He will not keep silent for that amount, if that is what you would want,” Rojeh warned as he mounted. “You’ll need double that to buy silence.”
The response was a restive shrug, followed by the sign Go.
“We’ll have to leave the gate unbolted,” Rojeh reminded him, taking the lead on his mule. He started his horse out of the stable, saying, “Chtavo and the rest of the servants may be blamed for our departure, if not the widow. The guards will think he helped us, since he lives over the stable.”
Ragoczy Franciscus made their sign for
How?
“You and I know that he could not stop us, but he could be expected to close doors and gates and ask where we would be going.” He reached the gate and kneed the horse over so he could draw back the bolt so they could go out into the street; since night was more than half over, there was no one else abroad. “When I think of what we had when we left China and what we are reduced to now …” He stopped while Ragoczy Francisus maneuvered his mare to allow him to close the gate.
Ragoczy Franciscus drew his mare up alongside Rojeh’s stallion and handed him the coins.
Take them,
he signaled, and pulled his mule into line behind his blue roan, then put his finger to his lips as they started down the street.
“Of course I’ll be quiet.” Rojeh kept his horse on a tight rein; the stallion disliked having to follow any other animal. Once or twice, the horses and mules slithered on the steep, icy street, but they made their way to the main gate without any serious mishap or disturbance.
The guard was half-asleep and largely drunk; he took the coins and opened the gate with no questions, and closed it with a promptness that bespoke finality, leaving Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh to inch their way down the sharp slope of the approach road to the snowy islands and the paths that connected them.
Rojeh knew from Ragoczy Franciscus’ notes to him earlier that evening that they were to go to the Jou’an-Jou’an camp to see what had become of Dukkai. He kept his dagger near to hand and patted the sheath containing his shimtare, reassured by the closeness of the curved cavalry sword. The heavily laden mules kept their progress to a walk, and the steady plodding was almost sleep-inducing. Rojeh had not realized how far they had come until he saw the snow-covered mounds of the Jou’an-Jou’an tents and heard a single bark from one of the dogs in the camp.
Ragoczy Franciscus rode through the encampment to the far side, out on a spit of land that poked a sandy finger into the marsh where the reeds did not grow, and the water was an obsidian smear against the falling snow; it was the place Dukkai had been sent in lieu of shelter, to crouch in the ruin of an old boat that had been drawn up onto the spit. He rode as near as was safe, then tied the mule’s lead to his saddle, dismounted, and secured his blue roan’s reins to a scrubby bush half-submerged in snow. That done, he stood still for a short while, then started toward the boat, tapping on it before lifting its bow to look at what lay beneath.
It was impossible to say how long she had been dead, for her freezing had prevented any decomposition. Frost crystals had formed on her eyelashes and her white hair was brittle with ice. Her gaunt face had a bluish tinge, and her lips were a chalky-purple shade. She lay on her side, her head pillowed on her leather sleeve, as if she had fallen asleep and failed to waken.
Dukkai,
Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed as he bent over her body. Rojeh did not dismount; he kept watch from the saddle, in case their presence should be noticed and they were forced to fight their way out of the Jou’an-Jou’an camp. His thoughts were bleak as he surveyed the cluster of tents and the marsh beyond. “We cannot linger,” he said as loudly as he dared.
Ragoczy Franciscus held up his hand in the sign for
Wait.
Then he reached for the rotted length of rope that held the boat in place, tugged at it, struggling to pull the boat free of the icy sand so it could float again; a slow trickle of water began to fill it, crystals forming along the inner curve of the hull as the water rose. Taking Dukkai in his arms, he laid her in the boat as gently as he could; since he was unable to bend her limbs, he did what he could to place her as if she had fallen asleep and, stepping back, shoved the old, leaky craft away from the shore and into the stream, watching as the boat and its frozen cargo drifted away.
“Why did you do that?” Rojeh asked as Ragoczy Franciscus came back to his horse.
After releasing the blue roan’s lead, Ragoczy Franciscus got into the saddle and gestured,
Later,
before he started his horse moving, going back through the Jou’an-Jou’an encampment and turning westward in the direction of the Sea of Azov and the Byzantine Empire.
By the time the leaden clouds lightened with the coming of the feeble day, Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh were at the edge of a small defile in which stood a small fortress that had clearly been abandoned for some time; some of the battlements had fallen away without any indication of repairs, and an empty eagle’s nest crowned the watchtower. The gate was little more than a few lengths of wood hanging on ancient iron hinges, and the building itself showed signs of extreme neglect; Ragoczy Franciscus and Rojeh dismounted as they went through the stone maw into the marshaling yard, leading their horses and mules into the shelter the squat stone walls offered. There were a few thorny, snow-shrouded bushes growing through the old flagging in the main court, and when they found the stable, the stalls smelled more of mice than horses.
Ragoczy Franciscus gestured,
We stay.
“For how long?” Rojeh asked.
One day and one night,
Ragoczy Franciscus signed.
“The horses and mules could use the rest, and the storm is beginning to die down,” said Rojeh, and seeing Ragoczy Franciscus nod endorsement, he went on, “If you rest on your native earth for a day and a night, you will be strong enough to travel by day: is that your purpose?”
Yes,
Ragoczy Franciscus confirmed, and began to look for a rake or some other implement to clean out the debris from the stalls along the inner wall.
“Do you want to sleep in a stall?” Rojeh found a shovel and went to work.
No was
Ragoczy Franciscus’ response; he mouthed
Mice
for explanation.
Rats.
Somewhat later, Rojeh remarked, “This looks like a Byzantine fort, doesn’t it? The watchtower is Byzantine design, not Roman, and the peoples in this region weren’t making fortresses of stone.” He was working on a second stall, and the advancing light revealed more about the place than had been apparent at first; the stable accommodated as many as twenty horses, but three of the stalls were so dilapidated as to be entirely useless. The water trough near the door was empty, and almost all the hinges on the stall gates had rusted.
Ragoczy Franciscus nodded and motioned to the much-faded icons painted on the stable beams, images that were clearly of Eastern Rite origin.
“It doesn’t seem that there was a hard fight, and it hasn’t the look of a siege. Why would the defenders leave?” Rojeh asked, and was about to apologize, when he saw Ragoczy Franiscus mouth
Huns
and stared at the lance shaft Ragoczy Franciscus pulled from the manger. He took this and turned it over in his hands. “It is Hunnic, isn’t it?” Shaking his head, Rojeh said, “Then I pity the men who were here.”
Taking back the lance shaft, Ragoczy Franciscus dropped it into one of the unused stalls, then sagged against the wall between it and the one he was cleaning.
“It must have been more than a century ago; the Huns were advancing on Byzantine territory then,” said Rojeh, recalling the unremitting assault the Huns had made on the little castle in Greece, and the long ordeal he and Ragoczy Franciscus had faced, repelling them only with the help of Niklos Aulirios and an old Roman ballista loaded frequently with hives of angry bees.
There was a long silence broken only by the stamping of one of the mules; it was enough to remind the two that they had not quite finished cleaning the stalls.
As he resumed working, Rojeh said, “There isn’t any bedding, and probably nothing we can give as food, not with so many mice about.”
Ragoczy Franciscus pointed to the chest that contained grain and some chopped hay.
“Of course. But it isn’t enough to last more than a week,” Rojeh reminded him.
The nod that answered Rojeh’s observation was slow and accompanied by a covert wince.
“The wound is paining you, isn’t it? You are having trouble moving your head?” Rojeh asked, putting down his shovel and starting toward Ragoczy Franciscus, who held up his hand authoritatively to stop him.
This time Ragoczy Franciscus made the sign for negation, mouthing,
It does not matter,
as he did.
“But it does,” said Rojeh, taking up his shovel once more. “Let’s finish up in here and get you onto your native earth. I won’t ask you not to work,” he went on, working more determinedly than he had done.
Ragoczy Franciscus plied his rake energetically, cleaning out the rest of the stall quickly. When he was done, he put the rake on a hook near what must have been the tack-room, then he went to unsaddle his mare; he left the blanket in place when he turned her into the stall and did much the same with the mule after he unloaded the well-laden pack saddle. Taking a measure of grain from the case that contained it, he fed the horse, then the mule, and handed the scoop to Rojeh, who had just finished stalling his two animals.
“I’ll have this taken care of quickly,” said Rojeh, looking for something to secure the stall doors.
I will
look, Ragoczy Franciscus gestured. A quick check of the other stalls revealed nothing useful, so Ragoczy Franciscus sought out the tack-room. The light was provided by a single window set high in the wall in a double-thickness of stones, hardly big enough to contain a saddle rack. Making the most of the poor illumination, he commenced his search where the light was strongest and progressed through the room toward the more shadowed parts, going carefully in case there should be some danger, for his dark-seeing eyes could not pick out what lay beneath the scattered bits of leather and tangled wisps of ancient straw. He found a length of old rope coiled in one of the corners, so obscured that it was all but invisible. As Ragoczy Franciscus approached, he saw that in it lay a skull, part of a spine and ribs, and one set of arm bones. He dropped to one knee and had a closer look, noticing the deep gouges axes had made in the lower ribs and the spine; he hoped the man had been dead before those ruthless hacks had fallen. Skull in hand, he rose, absentmindedly taking the rope in the other hand. It never ends, he said silently. Carefully he set the skull down in the stone window embrasure, then left the tack-room.
“This can be tied across the doors at two levels,” Rojeh said as Ragoczy Franciscus used his dagger to saw the thick hemp length in half. “It should do well enough.”
Agreeing with a nod, Ragoczy Franciscus leaned back against one of the four stone pillars in the stable while Rojeh strung the ropes across the gates of the stalls. Rojeh was right: his neck did ache, the kind of hurt that gnawed at him, sapping his strength and wearing down his endurance far more than the difficult ride or the harsh weather did. Glancing toward one of the three small windows lighting the stable, he saw that the clouds were not as thick as they had been and that the storm was breaking up.
“My master?” Rojeh asked, seeing the shadow of fatigue on Ragoczy Francisus’ face.
He straightened up, waving aside Rojeh’s question. He signaled,
I will look and Sleep
. Slowly he started toward the entrance to the stable.