She kissed his brow. "Drosos."
"If anything goes wrong with you, I will blame myself." He said this as much to the walls as to her.
"That's absurd," she informed him, now very brisk. "You have been gone too long and you've given yourself over to gloom and melancholy. You have permitted yourself to succumb to worry and dread."
Drosos moved back from her, his hands clasping hers. "You would, were you in my place."
"Probably," she agreed. "But you are here now, and we are together again." She rose and tugged on his arms to bring him to his feet once again. "Drosos, stay here. You can stay tonight and any other time you wish. You are welcome here as long as I am living within these walls. You will always be welcome wherever I am."
He attempted a smile without much success. "You are a lovely woman, and you are kind, Olivia. You make me want to believe that nothing else matters but that you and I are together. That isn't true, is it?"
"There are times it is and times it is not," she said, her arm around his waist as she started toward the door. "But think how desolate this place would be if you and I were not ever to be together again. It would cause me—" She pulled the door open and was startled to see one of her household slaves standing a short distance away.
The man was flustered. "I… I am on an errand, great lady."
"It must be urgent if it keeps you away from your evening meal," Olivia said with a serenity that she did not feel. "Do not let me detain you, Valerios." She stood while the slave hurried down the hall.
"He was spying on us," Drosos said, agitation coming back into his voice.
"Very likely," Olivia agreed. "And I will have to discover why and for whom, but not just now. I have other things, more important things to do now."
"You do not—" He started to move away from her. "It probably is best if I leave. I will not have compromised you too much and you and I will be able to…" The words trailed off as he gazed into her face. With a soft moan he pulled her tight against him. "I can't."
"Thank every god I've ever heard of," she whispered to his neck. "Stay with me, Drosos. It is dark and I am lonely. I have ached for you since the day you left me. I do not want to give you up now."
All at once his hands were fevered, hot and urgent in their questing and probing. "What does it matter?" he whispered against her hair, sounding like a man in delirium.
With effort she moved back so that they could walk the short distance to her private apartments. Every step of the way he touched her, his hands seeking out the flesh under her clothes. He spoke little and his words were deep and thickened, as if he had been drugged.
"Let me undress you," she offered when she had closed the door on her sleeping chamber.
"Never mind," he told her as he tore off his pallium and dragged his dalmatica over his head. He reached out for her Roman clothes and nearly ripped them off her.
"Drosos," she murmured as he swarmed over her. "We can savor this. There's no need to rush."
He paid no heed to her, his hands and mouth busy and urgent, frenzied in their quest. He pressed into her with little more than a hurried stroke to open her legs, and he rode her in ominous silence until he spasmed and pulled away from her.
Olivia lay still, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and she caught her lower lip in her teeth until she was certain she could speak clearly. "You needed—"
"So did you," he said, not looking at her.
"Why do you want to deny us what we can have?" She did not make the question an accusation; she waited for his answer.
"What did I deny?" He meant it as a challenge, but he sounded more like a sulky boy.
"Must I tell you when you know?" she asked as she rolled onto her side and propped herself on her elbow. "You tell me you remember all the times we have been together, you have dreamed about them. And you behave as if I am nothing more than your whore."
He flinched at the word which she said so calmly. "That wasn't it," he muttered.
"Then what was it?" She studied his face. "Drosos?"
He refused to look at her. "I want you. It is worse than a fire in my bones, this wanting you."
"Then why do you—"
"You are relentless, aren't you?" He faced her, something between fury and despair in his eyes. "You will not let me go. You cannot release me."
"Release you from what? To what?" she asked, pain in her voice now.
"From you. From all you are. I… I haven't the strength for it anymore. I'm not…" He touched her hair. "Did I hurt you?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"I didn't want to. But… I don't know. Something within me has… failed. There are nights when I have lain awake and thought that I was taken with disease, that I was being consumed with some vile infection."
"Oh, Drosos," she said as she stretched her arm across his chest. "How can you condemn yourself this way?"
"Why not?" he asked her. "Think of what I am, what I have done."
"I think of who you are," she told him, soothing him, wishing the cold ache under her ribs would fade. "I hear you speak and I long to find the words that would succor you."
He laughed without hope. "There are no such words. There is nothing. I am beyond mending."
"No," she protested.
"When I followed my orders, when I honored my office and my Emperor, I destroyed my honor. It's an irony worthy of one of those banned Greek plays. If I were more than the fool I am." He shifted his weight to face her. "I want to have something left of me, something that can touch you without making me feel you have been tainted by me. If that still exists, Olivia, will you help me find it? I have no right to ask, but if you won't, then it might as well go up in smoke like the rest of my honor."
Olivia regarded him solemnly. She put her free hand over his heart. "I have lost those I love to death and time more often than I want to remember. I have seen destruction overtake things of sense and beauty so wantonly that it wrung my heart to know of it. If there is a chance to save something from the ruins, then—"
"You think to save me, as a remembrance?" He made a sound that was not laughter. "You think I am worthy to serve as a token of your time in Konstantinoupolis?"
"Stop that," she said softly. "I won't have you scorn yourself."
"Who better?" He reached out and pulled her over him. "I want to give value for—"
She wrenched away from him and he was startled at her strength. "I will not be party to your mockery. I do not permit you to denigrate someone I love, even though that person is yourself." She sat up and turned to regard him seriously. "Drosos, listen to me. I do not despise you. You cannot make me despise you."
"Why not? I despise myself." He had raised his arm as if to stop a blow and it shielded his eyes from her steady look.
She ran her finger along his jaw, feeling his untrimmed beard rasp against her skin. "You are like a man with a festering wound you will not lance, and you are poisoning yourself with the humors. I wish you were free of the pain and the anguish you feel."
He lowered his arm; tears stood in his dark eyes. "God, God, so do I. But—"
Her fingers stopped his objections on his lips. "Then we will find a way. There is a way, Drosos, if you will permit yourself to find it."
"Is there?" The tears ran down his temples and he wiped them away.
"There is a way," she repeated firmly. Then she leaned down and kissed him lightly on the mouth. "Let me help you, for my sake as well as yours."
"Why for your sake?" He was trying to recover some of the dignity he had lost. "How can—"
"You have done what you have done because you have a sense of honor; I have told you I have a sense of honor, too, and it demands that I do not desert my friends in misfortune."