A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

narrow shelf, built into the side of the cell, and was surprised to find a blanket in the shadows there. He lay down and spread it over him, and was fast asleep within moments.

The next day, the physician had to shake him awake. When he sat up, he saw from the bright glow through the high grille that the day was already well on.

The physician was a small man, whose speech was as terse as his movements. Who knew whether his healing lore was effective, but Erlan sat passively as he went about his business, examining cuts and sores and applying balms where he saw fit.

‘You must be a man of unusually strong health,’ the physician concluded, packing away his things.

‘Am I?’ Healthy was certainly not how he was feeling.

‘I’ve seen men come out of that hole wasted with wound-rot. Your body seems. . . well. . . unscathed.’

‘I guess I’m lucky.’

The physician gave a brusque snort. ‘It’s a lucky day.’ He nodded up at the grille. ‘You hear that?’

Erlan listened to the echoes rising from the courtyard. ‘What is it?’

‘The sound of celebration. Today the general marries the emperor’s daughter.’ The physician snapped his box of ointments shut. ‘If that isn’t lucky, I don’t know what is.’

The light from the window became softer as the day stretched on towards dusk. Erlan listened to the servants’ hectoring voices mellow into laughter and levity, and eventually, as night fell, into raucous revelry. It seemed the whole household was overflowing with the celebration – and not a little wine – all but his lonely corridor high above the rest of the palace.

He drifted in and out of sleep. Later on Marcellos brought him bread and gruel which Erlan wolfed down hungrily. The man stank of wine fumes; Erlan guessed he was lucky his gaoler hadn’t forgotten him entirely.

But as night deepened and his strength returned, anger started growing inside him. What was he doing sitting here, waiting? Was there nothing he could do to change his miserable predicament? Kai sprang into his memory. Kai, ever resourceful; Kai, who never waited for anything in his life; Kai, who always had an idea. A wave of sadness suddenly overtook him – he missed his friend – and when it had passed he felt ashamed. Kai wouldn’t have sat on his arse waiting for some other man to determine his fate. He would have found a way.

He sat up and turned to the wall. For a long time, he considered the bolt that fastened his chain. It was driven deep into the stone. If somehow he could loosen it or dig it out of the wall. . . But how? And then what? He imagined Kai picking his way through the rafters and tiling, out into the night, along the roof-ridge and down and down, squirrelling through the maze of the household until somehow he won clear of the perimeter walls. Out into the city and away? But what Erlan wanted was here, inside the walls of Byzantium.

What he had come for. . .

A noise interrupted his thoughts. Footsteps on the gritty staircase that led up to the landing. He heard soft murmuring followed by laughter and then the creak of the grille gate opening.

The footsteps drew closer. They were light, unhurried yet deliberate. Then they stopped. There was a faint scrape of wood. A glimmer of moonlight fell through his tiny window in a silver splash on the door. By its pale light, he saw the spy-shutter slide open and a pair of eyes twinkle in the shadow beyond.

He threw off his blanket and swung his legs to the floor. ‘Who’s there?’ No reply, only another sound. A giggle, maybe? He got to his feet, his joints stiff as rusted iron, and shuffled towards the door. The chain shrieked obscenely, shattering the quiet, followed by a deadening jolt as it reached its limit. The eyes had vanished, perhaps scared away. But no other sound followed from down the corridor. No one came.

He waited, his curiosity pricked, and soon enough his patience was rewarded. The eyes returned, furtively, like a fox slinking from its hole. This time he was close enough to see them. Large and luminous. Kohl-rimmed lashes, shifting pools of dark light. Trouble.

‘Who are you?’

Another titter. The woman’s eyes were levelled at his. ‘Ágrios.’

Savage. Ramedios had called him the word many times, but never in the way that soft, silken voice spoke it, more breath in it than sound. He heard the smooth grind of the key in the lock. The door swung open and with it came a waft of scent. It touched his brain like a needle, startling with its sweet-spice perfume. As out of place in this cell as a summer rose.

She was small and slim with a long river of black hair, slightly tousled and woven through with golden thread. Her eyes were sloped and full of mischief, her robe rippled like moonbeams over water as she moved into the room.

Erlan stood at the limit of his chain. She came closer. He didn’t see the point in asking her who she was a third time. What was a name anyway?

‘Arbasdos hates you,’ she murmured, her perfumed breath swirling into his mouth. Was this one of Silanos’s tricks? Or worse, the general’s? Her voice was low and husky. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘What’s he to you?’

‘My master. Like you.’

‘Not like me.’

‘He says you are dangerous. A wild man.’ She spoke with an accent, different to the other Greek he’d heard. ‘He says you’re an animal.’

Without warning, something sharp and cold pricked the cord of muscle under his chin. He saw the glint of a long dagger in her small hands. He swore but the pressure increased, piercing his skin.

‘You crazy bitch,’ he snarled, forced to his tiptoes.

‘Back, savage,’ she said, laying her other hand on his chest and pushing with arched fingers. He retreated till his spine butted against the wall. ‘I want to look at you.’

Even in the gloom, he