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

crack in these walls has been repaired. There is nothing more that can be done. That is what will save this city. Forethought. Preparation. The patrician mind –’ he tapped his temple with a fat jewelled finger – ‘not a bunch of grovelling paupers wailing to the heavens.’

‘Yet if prayer could truly move the hand of the Almighty, a man would be a fool not to pray.’ Leo turned to Katāros. ‘What say you, grand chamberlain?’

Katāros dabbed the corner of his sleeve at the sweat hovering on the corner of his eyebrow. ‘I say faith has its place. And these walls are no doubt strong. But I expect Your Majesty will have to deploy cunning as well as faith if Christ’s citadel is to withstand the infidel horde.’

‘Hmm,’ mused Leo. ‘Wise as the serpent, innocent as the dove.’

‘Just so, Majesty,’ Katāros replied with an ingratiating little bow. Although he might have put it differently. Wise as the serpent, and just as deadly.

If the walls of Byzantium could not be smashed, then he had to find another way.

And he would.

‘Cut them off.’

‘My lord,’ said Silanos, somewhat alarmed at the way this was falling out, ‘is there not a more reasonable course to take?’

‘Reasonable be damned,’ Arbasdos answered, in a voice cold with anger. ‘Cut off his balls and feed them to my dogs.’ Silanos sighed. He had hoped that being newly wed might have mellowed his master’s irascible nature. It seemed not.

On the other hand, there was no doubt his anger had some justification. A runaway slave was an insult to any man.

Silanos felt the barb of betrayal himself after the kindness he had shown the Northman. He’d had his reasons, of course. Valuable property had to be looked after; although just then the Northman was looking pretty worthless.

He was kneeling on the flagstones of the main courtyard under guard, one side of his face swollen and turning purple before their eyes. His nose was bloody, his eye black, and his sullen expression had become downright murderous. The very opposite of the clean, obliging, intelligent warrior Silanos had hoped to cultivate. And now the general wanted to castrate the fool. Silanos saw all his efforts pouring like water into the dust.

It had been a bloody day. That oaf Marcellos had been whipped to within an inch of his life for his oversight. Silanos understood he probably wouldn’t live out the day, which was a shame. The man had claimed he had no memory at all of the night before. But that was exactly the problem. He’d been found dead drunk with the key on his belt, the door of the Northman’s cell flung wide with no explanation. Silanos had always said too much wine will kill a man. Marcellos was about to prove his point.

‘Bring the knife,’ Arbasdos snapped. ‘We’ll geld the scum, then flog him to death. Let him be a lesson to the others.’

‘Of course, we need to make an example of him, my lord – but you mean to keep him, surely?’

‘Do I?’

‘One doesn’t destroy a wild horse for throwing its rider. Patience is the key. It takes time to break even the finest stallion.’

‘Cut his balls off,’ said Davit, the general’s ham-fisted spatharios who was also in attendance, regrettably. ‘That’ll calm the son of a bitch down.’

A singularly unhelpful interjection. ‘The fiercest hunting dogs are left intact, my lord. This man will be no use to you as a house pet.’ If this continued, he would soon run out of analogies.

‘His nose then,’ suggested Davit. ‘An ugly warrior is right enough to purpose, eh?’

‘In your case, undoubtedly.’ Arbasdos chuckled at this. Thank God. Silanos had never been able to abide the sight of those kind of mutilations. Split noses, severed ears, plucked eyeballs. He found all of that revolting.

‘Very well,’ said the general, leaning back in his chair. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘Ten lashes with the scourge is more than most men can bear. But I suspect he is equal to it. It will inject the right degree of fear into the other slaves. And the Northman will not forget the lesson.’

Arbasdos’s temper had cooled a little which was all to the good. He peered at Silanos for a few moments over steepled fingers. ‘So be it. Davit – you can administer the strokes. I know you’re itching to.’

The Armenian gave a rueful snigger. ‘Thank you, Strategos.’ Silanos was mighty glad that he wouldn’t be under this man’s lash. Although he could easily have been. Arbasdos’s rage had been directed mainly at him when he learned that Erlan had been released from the ‘hole’. That was until Marcellos’s incompetence had been established. That had been a lucky turn and Silanos’s luck was holding. For now.

‘One other thing, my lord.’ He was aware that he was on borrowed time. ‘The Northman was armed with this.’ He produced the bone-handled dagger from his robe and handed it over to the general. ‘I’ve never seen it before. Marcellos claimed he knew nothing of it so. . . well, there we are.’

Arbasdos glared down at the blade in his hand and for a long moment his brow furrowed. ‘Very good,’ he murmured at length. ‘At noon then. See that the slaves are assembled.’

Erlan was dragged blinking into the sunlight – with one eye, anyway. The other was sealed shut with the swelling.

His escape had come to a pitifully premature end. And he was still perplexed at where Aska had sprung from. His best guess was that the dog had somehow got loose from his new owner and had been living stray in the city. But he couldn’t explain how his hound had been there at just that moment. At the time, Erlan had thought it a fair omen, some clever stitching of the Norns to change his fate. But now Erlan wondered whether Aska had been a mere trick of the mind, a strange phantom conjured by the substance Lucia had shoved down his throat. Because the stupid animal had led him