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

Lilla laughed. ‘Aye – that’s one blessing I envy.’

Gerutha scooped up a handful of water and cooled her face and neck. ‘Do you think Einar is all right?’

The three had agreed to split up. As he put it: they would go high, he would go low. To every tavern and brothel and gaming house in the city if he had to, starting with the military district which they learned was called the Strategion. ‘That’s where a warrior would go,’ he had said.

‘You mean that’s where you would go,’ Gerutha had replied.

‘I guess we all find our level.’ He’d winked.

‘He’ll cope,’ said Lilla in answer to Gerutha’s question. ‘He’s probably happy to be on his own for a while. I got the feeling he was rather sick of the sight of me.’

‘Never.’

Lilla chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t blame him. Gods, I’ve dragged the poor man halfway across the world. I’d say he has a right to gripe now and then. You too.’

‘I’ve nowhere else to be,’ said Gerutha. ‘Nowhere else I’d rather be.’

‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ Lilla smiled.

‘Hm! So – are you ready?’

‘Ready.’ Lilla stood and smoothed down the crumples of her dress. ‘How do I look?’

Gerutha shrugged. ‘Like a queen.’

‘Liar.’ But she would have to do.

It was only a short walk from the Holy Wisdom to the towering gate of bronze and marble that dominated the entrance to the Great Palace. They left behind the shaded gardens and crossed the blinding white expanse of the Augustaion – the ceremonial square that seemed to form the beating heart of the city, with its high columns and splendid, lifelike statues of kings and queens of the past.

The square was thronging with people and loud with the cries of pedlars selling food or cheap trinkets off the back of handcarts. With every step, Lilla felt her confidence wilt like a flower under the heat of the sun. She tried to loosen the knot of nerves in her throat by running through the precious few phrases of Greek she had to deploy.

She wondered how many levels of office she would have to break through before she came within even an arrow’s flight of the emperor. Yet the old defiance had not left her. . .

‘Vasílissa,’ she said for the twentieth time. ‘Eímai Vasílissa.’ She even resorted to pointing to herself, as if he were some sort of village halfwit. The guard peered out from the eye-holes of his red-plumed helmet, his expression a mixture of incomprehension and growing irritation. Clearly he was losing his patience. So was she.

The absurdity of standing at the emperor’s threshold, trying to wrangle their way past some lowly gatekeeper, was crushingly humiliating.

‘He’s not going to change his mind,’ said Gerutha, tugging at her arm. ‘We’ll have to find another way.’

‘No,’ insisted Lilla. ‘I’m not giving up.’ This time her efforts became so heated, her Greek so garbled, that the guard laughed in her face. She made to shove past him but his spear quickly dropped to bar her, and his companion, watching from the other side of the gateway, stepped forward to intervene. The first guard waved him away.

Lilla could have stamped in frustration except that would only make her seem more ridiculous. How in the Nine Worlds was she to form an alliance with this king if she couldn’t even get in the door?

Just then something behind her distracted the guard’s attention. His amusement evaporated in a moment.

‘Parámera!’ he snarled, shoving them to one side with the butt of his spear, before standing rigidly to attention.

Lilla glanced back and saw a strange conveyance approaching the cool shade of the archway. It was a sort of box mounted on two long poles carried by four short and burly men – slaves, she assumed, since it looked hot work. The box was ornately decorated, its exterior finished in yellow silk with windows covered by white veils. A kind of carriage for the highborn of the city, she guessed, who were either too lazy to walk or too lofty to mingle with the common herd.

She stepped back and pulled Gerutha with her. ‘We’ll come back later,’ she said, reverting to her native Norse. ‘The guards will change at some point. The next man may be more biddable. Come.’

But as they turned away, a command wafted out through the veil. The voice was neither high nor low, soft, almost languorous. But the four litter-bearers came to a smart halt at once and the guard approached. Something about the timing of it made Lilla hesitate. There was some exchange in Greek, and then the guard looked round and, seeing her still there, beckoned to her impatiently. ‘Grígora!’

She came over to the litter. As she did a face appeared on the other side of the veil. It belonged a woman and, if the shifting folds told no lie, one of startling beauty. Although her features were curiously still, like a mask.

‘It’s been a long time since I heard that tongue,’ the painted lips murmured. Lilla was surprised to find the voice was not that of a woman, nor quite that of a man. But most of all that the words were Norse.

‘My lady, forgive me,’ she stammered. ‘To hear our own tongue—’

‘My lord,’ the woman replied.

Lilla shook her head, confused. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘My name is Lord Katāros.’

Lilla cursed inwardly. This chance sent by the gods and her first words were an insult. ‘How stupid of me.’

‘No matter. You must be as surprised as I. Few in the city speak the Norsk language.’

‘You are the first we have encountered, Lord Katāros.’

‘I am not surprised. We are a long way from home hearths,’ he said. It was a Norse idiom and would only be known to a native speaker or someone who knew the northern lands well.

‘How came you to know our language?’

‘It was my mother’s tongue.’

‘Truly?’ It seemed hard to believe. ‘Yet how came you to be here?’

The painted mouth flickered, more grimace than smile. ‘It is a long tale, and a tedious one.