Authors: Thomas Harlan
"I seek privacy," she said, smiling faintly. Despite an almost automatic instinct to bend her will upon the man, to blind him with the glamour that was part and parcel of her as breathing was to him, the Queen restrained herself. To his eyes, she hoped to be only a thin, tired-looking woman of later middle age. "I assure you,
rev
, I will not trouble your village, your house of worship, even your shepherds in the forest meadows. My... friends... can find what they need among the high peaks, or in the secret places where your people do not go."
The man grimaced, brushing sweat from his forehead with the back of a white hand. The Queen saw he was near complete exhaustion. His hands could not stop trembling, yet he showed no signs of losing his focus. "Last week, one of your... friends... came down into the high pasture and took four good sheep. We are a poor community! Such a loss..."
The Queen raised a hand and Shemuel found his tongue cloven to his mouth. His eyes widened, unable to speak. Herrule entered, shouldering through the door, and laid a wooden board, polished and carved with interlocking designs of leaves and flowers and running dogs on the end of the stone bench. There was wine and fruit and fresh bread. Steam curled away from the golden loaf. At a motion from the Queen, the Walach left again. When he was well gone, the Queen's fingers tightened into a fist and Shemuel blurted out "—cannot be borne!"
He stopped, rubbing his jaw and glared at the thin woman. The Queen laughed, delighted by the outrage in his face and the way his eyes bulged out when he was angry. She had not intended to laugh, covering her mouth with a hand. Shemuel looked away, blushing furiously, and the Queen schooled her face back to impassivity. A little irritated with herself, she dampened the slowly rising glow around her, and banished the subtle scents of rose, coriander, myrrh beginning to pervade the air.
Silly girl! How much trouble has this brought you before? Ages of strife are on your head! Leave this tired old man alone.
"Rev Shemuel, I will make good your loss, and be assured, I will restrain my children. They
will not
bother your herds or dwellings again. Will you say the same, for your people?" She bent her attention upon him, expression intent, watching the twitch of his eyes and marking the pattern of his breath. Shemuel recoiled from her scrutiny, but mastered himself and shook his head.
"They call you a queen. What is your name? Who do I treat with?"
"A fair question." The woman brushed a fingertip along the line of her jaw, beetle-red enamel bright against pale flawless skin. "If a name will ease your mind, then you may call me Aia, which is long familiar to me." She almost laughed again, thinking of distant youth, but then her face shadowed and became grim, thinking of what had come after.
"Aia..." Shemuel's face also turned, and she saw he was thinking furiously, dredging old memories. Then he looked up, gaze fierce and he tried to stand. His legs betrayed him, weak and depleted by the long climb through rocks, mud and slippery pine. "That is not a name to inspire confidence in me," the
rev
gasped, "but if it
is
your name, then you are a Queen and I will treat with you as such. I have never heard
you
broke an oath, when given."
"Are you a king?" The Queen tilted her head to one side, looking upon him with bright eyes. "Do you rule, with a scepter, with laurel, holly and gold in your hair?"
"I speak for my people, lady Aia, but I am not a... king. We have no king, not now."
The Queen's nostrils flared slightly, intrigued, and she stepped closer. Shemuel froze, remaining quite still, and the woman—hair hanging long around her face—circled him, tasting the air.
"You are lying." Her voice was intimate and he shuddered involuntarily. The Queen stepped away to the window. She looked down, upon the white clouds and the pine-clad slopes, her arms spread wide, hands resting on the chipped, dark gray stone. "We could strike a bargain,
rev
Shemuel. My aegis could watch over your people, my children could run in the woods, watching and listening for your enemies. Would that ease your mind? Make you feel safe?"
The man laughed, though it cost him carefully husbanded breath to do so. "As safe as any baker's pie! No, Queen of Aia, we will look after our own business and let you to yours. Let us say this—the people of the valleys will say nothing of what they might see on the peaks, and those living among the clouds will say nothing of what transpires below."
One of the Queen's eyebrows inched up, an alizarin wing on a white unwrinkled forehead. "You are a scholar,
rev
, but you make me wonder—is there aught to see below, in your villages and farms? This has ever been a land for those seeking sanctuary. Do you conspire, down under the clouds? Do you plot? Do you dream glorious, violent dreams, there in your whitewashed houses?"
"No." Shemuel met her eyes. "Do you?"
The Queen shook her head and for an instant, as the moon might break through racing clouds, there was great weariness on her face. "I am done with such follies," she said.
"Very well." The
rev
stood, swaying slightly. "Then nothing moves in the ruin of old Montsegur."
The Queen took Shemuel by the arm, lifting him effortlessly. "And below, among the hidden valleys, there is no 'beloved one.' I will keep your secret,
rev
, as you keep mine."
The
rev
nodded, then walked to the door. Herrule was already waiting, a looming dark shape.
"Carry him," the Queen said. "Take him home, safe and swift."
The Walach nodded and, despite Shemuel's weak protests, swung the old man up onto his broad back. The Walach grinned, then sprang away, taking the steps two and three at a time. Shemuel was clinging tightly to the furry pelt, eyes screwed shut, when the Queen lost sight of them on the mountain path.
"So..." muttered the Queen. "Dare I rest?" She went to the window facing the east. By rights, she should not yearn for sleep. An ancient enemy was awake, prowling the world, growing stronger with each day. Yet, such exhaustion filled her limbs and dragged at her thoughts, she could not stomach the thought of the struggle to come. "That daywalker child will be alone..."
Not too long ago, the Queen matched her power against the Lord of the Ten Serpents and only barely survived. Their test of wills had been an unwelcome revelation. Centuries had passed since the last time she bent her power to its destruction, and in that long endless time, her own strength faded, while the old enemy grew.
Is my time past?
The Queen bent her head, unwilling to admit the years might tell upon her, as they did upon the daywalker children.
Is there a length to my days? I should not have matched strength against strength with that... thing. Not alone. But who could help me? The others are all dead or passed away...
Even the thought of battle made her weary. She longed to sleep, to rest and let the world pass on, without her watchful eye. Below the broken tower there was a crypt and a tomb, where a scented bed already lay, girded round with signs and symbols of her own devising. There, on silk and golden thread she might take her ease, far from the brilliant sun, while her children kept a vigil over her.
If darkness comes this far... then Rome is overthrown and the boy has failed. Will there be life, then? I might drown in night, while I sleep, and never feel the passing day. And I am so tired.
The grim thought offered release from the cares of the world. The Queen turned away from the window in the ruined wall, and descended the stairs, thin arms wrapped across her chest. Around her, the fortress groaned and creaked with ancient voices. The faint residue of ghosts lingered, shimmering with pain and a terrible death in fire. She ignored them and continued to descend, down into close, clammy darkness.
I will sleep, if only for a little time, and regain my strength.
Stone ground against stone, spilling fine granite dust into the pit. A dozen men, stripped to the waist, hauled on guide ropes twisted around the huge block. Above, a wooden crane towered over the ruins, secured to old marble pillars rising towards a vanished ceiling.
"Heave!" The foreman cracked a short whip in his hand. The block trembled, swinging to and fro, casting a long shadow down into the recess of the excavation. Sections of broken floor—all sparkling tesserae and geometric patterns—jutted from a rubble of brick and roofing tile. Everything was stained and blackened by fire. Down at the bottom of the pit, men were digging, filling leather buckets with scraps of leather, dirt, moldy books, sections of splintered wood. "Heave!"
The granite block—twelve feet long and two-by-six in cross-section—rose up. High above, heavy cables squealed through pulleys greased with pig fat. Out of sight of the pit, hundreds of men strained against the cables, bare feet digging into the rubble, muscles stiff with effort. The block rose jerkily, and the foreman's face beaded with sweat, watching the stone sway back and forth. "Keep 'er steady!"
The block rose up, swaying over the lip of the pit, and more men were waiting, drawing ropes tight, easing the granite over solid ground. The foreman stared up, blood draining slowly from his face as the sharp-edged shadow drifted across him, and then the granite block was gone. It was dropped clear, shaking the earth with a dull
boom
as it crashed down into some useless part of the ruin sprawling in all directions from the huge pit.
The foreman steadied himself against a translucent sheet of green Cosian marble. The elegant stonework was badly damaged and spidered with long, milky cracks. A statue's arm emerged from the tumulus nearby, lifelike pink hand raised towards the sky. The debris pile groaned, shifting with the shock of the granite falling into an abandoned ornamental pool. Dust spurted from cracks in the rubble, then drifted hazily in the air. The foreman wiped his brow, glad the day's work had gone without injury.
So far.
Below him in the pit, men crawled over every surface with brooms and shovels, carefully sifting through the rubble. Another crane carried a long succession of leather buckets, suspended from iron hooks, swaying, up out of the excavation. At the top of the pit, two scrawny bald men worked ceaselessly, catching the buckets, slipping them from the hooks, then dumping the contents—dirt, gravel, shell-like marble fragments, broken tile, wadded-up pages of papyrus and parchment, twisted bits of leather and metal—onto the top of a long, sloping wooden frame. The frame sat on stout legs and the bottom was covered with a mesh of closely set metal wire—in itself worth a vast sum. Ten men shook the frame from side to side with a rolling motion. Dirt rained out of the bottom of the mesh, and all of the detritus of the excavation tumbled and slid down towards the end of the sieve.
At the bottom of the frame, under the watchful eye of a dozen brawny men in full head-to-toe armor—the closely set, overlapping enameled plates of the Persian
clibanarius
—four women bent over a large circular bronze bowl. Fragments of stone and glass and metal spilled into the bowl in a constant stream, making a tinny, ringing sound. The women's hands were busy, sorting metal from wood, leather from parchment. Everything not metallic was pitched downslope, onto a swiftly rising midden spilling away across the smashed, burned gardens of the Bucoleon Palace.
The metal—bronze, iron, copper—was tossed into a fluted, elegant urn, which held a steadily accumulating collection of metal bits and pieces. The women worked quickly, trying to keep up with the endless stream of buckets.
One of them caught a gleam of bronze in the spillage and snatched it up. The fragment was triangular, with a blunted tip, and four well-polished sides. Her dead eyes registered the gear tooth, and then her hand—spotted with patches of black hair-like spores—flipped it unerringly into the urn. When the urn was full, a pair of
diquans
hoisted it with a rope and, straining, picked their way to the south, along a walkway of boards and chipped slabs of buff-colored marble, towards an arcade of arched pillars.
A vase of red porphyry replaced the urn, immediately chiming with the sound of falling metal.
All around the ruin, at the eastern end of the dead city, the army of Persia was busy, swarming like ants across a giant's tumbled larder. There were other excavations underway, sorting through the destruction. A forest of cranes loomed over the old palaces. Thousands labored feverishly, for their master had bidden them to haste, and those still living desired only to continue breathing and seeing the blue sky.
The dead did not care, and they worked all the harder, for his will was upon them.
The two
diquans
reached the edge of the ruins, where a long arcade of pale white marble was still standing atop a seawall. Blue water sparkled through the arches, slim pillars framing a view of the Asian shore of the Propontis. Many ships with triangular sails and low, sleek hulls moved on the waters, busy ferrying the loot of the Eastern capital across the strait. In the shade of the domed roofs, the
diquans
set down their burden, then tipped the urn, spilling hundreds of tiny fragments across a smooth floor.
Scraps and broken bits of bronze and copper bounced across black-and-white squares, some sliding to the foot of a heavy wooden table topped with a travertine slab. A figure stood at the head of the table, brown arms braced against the cool stone. The Persian knights did not look upon the shape—a man, muscular and bronzed by the sun, his head enclosed in an iron jackal mask—and bowed nervously to the shadows before hurrying away. Beneath the arches and domes, the air was very cold, and the bright sunlight on the water seemed dim.
The broken tooth bounced across the floor and then sprang into the air as if seized by a ghostly hand. Unerringly, the metal piece flew up, shining in the dim light, then settled onto the tabletop. The travertine was covered with concentric rings of bronze and iron, eight in all, radiating out from the smallest arc—barely the width of a woman's hand—to an outer layer, incomplete, almost four feet across. The gear slowed, drifted this way and that, then rattled to rest along the fringe of a bronze wheel, joining an even dozen of its fellows. The fragment fit perfectly.