Silk Dreams - Songs of the North 3

The Byzantine slave market buzzed like a swarm of drones in search of a new queen. The fresh shipment of women docked at the Imperial Shipyard in the sheltered recess of the Golden Horn. They were driven from the relative safety of the cai'que that had borne them to Constantinople, to be pinched and prodded up the winding alleys toward a pristine marble colonnade. Mindful that even drones have stingers, Valdis Ivorsdottir resisted the urge to scream when a bystander's inquisitive fingers brushed her body as she walked the narrow way.

The Frankish girl in front of her wobbled a bit. Valdis reached out a hand to steady her. Last night the Frank's twin sister had died, whether from sickness or merely from willing herself to leave their floating
Hel,
Valdis could not be certain. When their Moorish captors consigned the dead body to the deeps of Middle Earth's great inland sea, the living twin had to be restrained from following her sister into the water. One of the traders seemed content to let her go, Valdis surmised from his animated speech, since her value as half of a matched set was severely diminished. But cooler heads prevailed, and the girl was kept from harming herself.

Now the Frankish maiden stumbled toward the auction block, the poor remainder of a pair of pretty playthings. Valdis pitied her, but though she shared the girl's fate, she would not emulate her.

Valdis wanted her freedom, and to win that she had to live.

“Courage,” she whispered even though the girl couldn't understand her. The Moorish traders had purchased Valdis on the wharf at Birka in the far North, and then wended their way along the continental coast, cherry-picking other pale blossoms as they traveled south. Her captors forcefully discouraged conversation among their prisoners. Still, a silent bond was forged. Tremulous smiles and small kindnesses knit the band of women together in their captivity.

After the first degrading intimate inspection to determine her purity, no one molested Valdis. Her captors provided opportunities for her to regularly wash herself and offered abundant food and drink. In fact, several women noticeably gained flesh during the long passage to Miklagard.

Valdis did not.

When she realized they were trying to round her sharp angles, she refused any more than was necessary to retain her health. If they compelled her to eat, she later slid a finger down her throat and emptied her stomach into the waves, letting her captors blame her illness on the pitching sea. As a daughter of the seafaring Norse race she suffered no such infirmity, but she would not allow herself the burden of excess.

The leanest runner travels swiftest.

But there was no place to run. All her life, she’d heard of the glories of Miklagard, the fabulously wealthy city in the sybaritic south. Now she saw only its squalor. Strange scents from the cramped streets of the Byzantine capital suffocated her, as the cloying sweetness of a decaying corpse mixed with the spicy pungency of Asiatic cooking. Bewildering sounds pierced her ear, the cacophony of endless tongues wagging in a babble of languages and the braying of Imperial horns.

Worst of all was the press of people.

She never imagined so many existed in all the nine worlds, let alone within the confines of this fortress city. Men of every imaginable color, black as jet, pale as moonstone, and every hue in between; turbaned, shaved bald as a brown egg, dark eyes overhung by brows that met in the middle, jaws fringed with curly beards dyed impossible shades of scarlet, or male faces as smooth and hairless as her own—there were too many variations to count. She confined her gaze to the slender back of the Frankish girl in front of her, but the bizarre images wormed their way into her mind through the corners of her eyes.

Valdis was hemmed in on all sides, kept wearily in line with the others.

There will come a time to run,
she promised herself. Valdis closed her eyes and imagined she was back in the Northlands, a fresh breath of snow from the mountaintop washing over her and the blue fjord shim-mering in the land's deep green embrace. Perhaps Ragnvald's dragonship would be sliding into the harbor....

Her toe caught on a paving stone and she stumbled. Valdis snapped her eyes open. No more dreaming. It might bring on another fit, another nightmarish interlude in which she knew not where or who she was. She dared not risk it. By the Thunderer, the last one upended her life.

Ragnvald would never come for her again.

She took the Frank's icy hand and squeezed. The girl smiled thinly at her, gripping her as if Valdis were her only tenuous hold on this world. Valdis gained strength from bearing up her weaker companion and slid an arm around the girl's shoulders as they neared their destination. The women were bundled into the colonnade, separated into groups and penned like beasts with females from other vessels. Fat, smooth-faced keepers with curved blades dangling from their hips stood silent watch over them.

The Frankish girl was forced to the block first. Valdis hoped she wouldn't faint dead away. The trader rattled off a stream of words in praise of her charms, but he had to shout to be heard over the din. One after another, the women were sold like prize heifers at market.

Valdis couldn't watch. She sank in a heap and let the cool marble seep into her bones. If she allowed herself, she would weep for days at the shame of it.

No,
she told herself with sternness. When her captor motioned her to the dais, Valdis straightened her spine. Whatever happened, she must be strong. She must not let anyone see. Her strange weakness had expelled her from her home.

If it were discovered here ... she didn't think there was much farther a body could fall.

Damian Aristarchus flicked the lion-tail whisk across his broad shoulders. It was a good thing the market opened early. By midday, biting flies were vexing this close to the wharves. He surveyed the other buyers, calculating the probable weight of their remaining coin. He'd made a few bids early on to drive up the prices without burdening himself with an actual acquisition. A signal from the emperor’s chief eunuch excited other buyers and made them image qualities in the merchandise that weren't readily apparent. Damian merely wanted to lighten their purses so he'd have less competition by the time the auctioneer trotted out his most valuable specimens.

“See anything you like?” Publius asked, fingering the black pearl that bobbled from his left ear.

Publius kept watch over the harem of Habib Ibn Mahomet, a wealthy silk merchant from Cordoba who was visiting his wives and concubines at his sumptuous house in Constantinople at present. In the past few years, Mahomet had achieved a near monopoly on the lustrous fabric throughout the Empire and amassed the attendant prosperity such a coup brings. The silk magnate bore close watching.

What other intrigues has the Cordoban spun for himself?
Damian wondered.

As serpentine as Mahomet's plans might be, Publius, by contrast, was easy to decipher. The fat eunuch sought to ingratiate himself with his employer by procuring a new diversion for him.

Damian edged away from Publius. Even though Damian was a eunuch too, he had little use for the unfortunates he dubbed "fat aunties." So often, those who'd been stripped of their manhood let the satisfaction of their bellies substitute for the lost pleasures of the love-couch. Each time he saw Publius, it seemed the man had ballooned even further. Publius was so grotesquely fat, Damian suspected he wouldn’t be able to find his balls even if he still possessed them.

It had been ten years since Damian fell under the castrating knife, but he'd been a soldier before his unmanning. He prided himself on maintaining rock hard musculature and a flat belly. He knew it was a senseless conceit, especially as it took more effort with each passing season, but it appeased his vanity. If Damian couldn't act the man, at least he could still look it.

“The Nubian's a pretty piece.” Publius worked his way close to Damian again. “I'm surprised you didn't bid on her. You've been free enough with bidding the emperor's coin today, though I notice you haven't actually bought anything yet.”

“Don't worry,” Damian said. “When the right one appears, I will.” The stock was thinning, so he was sure the best was soon to come.

When Damian looked toward the dais again, the dusky Nubian was being led away with a majestic roll of her monumental hips. It might have been a mistake to miss her. Women of that country were reputed to possess unusual amatory skills, sly tricks of tiny muscles that could drive a man to his knees.

A new girl took her place.

“Too tall,” Damian murmured. She'd easily be able to look him in the eye.

She towered above the Arab auctioneer, but despite her height, there was a fragile quality to her slender limbs. Her pale arms were already pinking in the hot sun.

“Too skinny. There's not enough flesh on that one to tempt a half-starved stray,” Publius said with a snort.

“That's easily remedied.” Damian shouldered past him to get a closer look. Straight as a horse's tail, the girl's hair fell to her waist, a cascade of ripened wheat. That alone accounted for her favored placement in the lot.

Experts could lighten a woman's hair, of course, but the result was usually a brassy hue that fought with the woman's skin tone and no matter how often she washed Damian always fancied he caught a whiff of sheep urine wafting about the coiffure.

But this woman's hair was obviously natural, for it perfectly complemented her ivory skin and pale brows. Her face was far too angular to meet the standards of feminine beauty popular in Byzantium, but her features were at least harmonious and well-balanced. Her eyes were downcast, seemingly fascinated by her own long toes peeping from beneath the thin linen palla.

Then she suddenly raised her head and he was startled by her eyes. She looked out on the world through one eye as dark as the Nubian's, while the other was a pale blue tinged with violet.

Two souls in one body?
Damian wondered. He'd heard of such things, but this was the first woman he'd seen with this unusual feature. Light and dark, angel and demon, such a one might be just what he required. From the corner of his eye, he caught Publius making the sign against evil.

That settled the matter. He would have this one, whatever the cost.

Erik Heimdalsson leaned against the marble column, bored with the market. Though it would be some time till the sun reached its zenith, he was already thirsty. It had taken him a while to develop a taste for the Christians' strong red wine, but now it called to him with regularity. He frowned with impatience at his friend. Erik and Hauk had squired the emperor around his holdings near Thessalonica for the past month, always on the alert for a threat against the Divine Presence. Now that Erik was back in the city, he had some serious drinking to catch up on. He resented Hauk for dragging him to this interminable auction.

“Why do you want to spend your silver on a woman, Hauk?” Erik demanded. “A whore is much cheaper, and you're not taxed with her keeping once she's fulfilled her purpose.”

“I'm tired of whores.” Hauk signaled his willingness to part with more bezants for the girl than Erik would pay for one of those blooded Arabian stallions he'd been considering. “Besides,” Hauk said with a shrug, “that one has the look of the fjords about her.”