The magistrianos had looked for no other reply from her. “You see my problem, then.” She nodded, again promptly—as he had said once, in many ways the two of them spoke the same language, though he used Greek and she Persian. That reflection was part of what prompted him to continue, “I hadn’t planned to put you in the gaol in the bowels of the Praitorion, or to send you to the Kynegion”—the amphitheater in northeastern Constantinople where the imperial headsmen plied their trade. “I meant that you should come back to the city with me.”
“Did you?” Mirrane lifted an eyebrow in the elegant Persian irony that could make even a sophisticated Roman less than self-assured. “Of course you know I will say yes to that: if I slept with you for the sake of duty in Daras, I suppose I can again, if need be. But why do you think you can make me stay in Constantinople? I escaped you there once, remember, on the spur of the moment. Do you imagine I could not do it again, given time to prepare?”
Argyros frowned; here, perhaps, was more professionalism than he wanted to find. He said, “Come or not, sleep with me or not, as you care to, not for any duty. As for leaving Constantinople, I daresay you are right—there are always ways and means. I can hope, though, you will not want to use them.”
Mirrane looked at him in amusement. “If that is a confession of wild, passionate, undying love, I must own I’ve heard them better done.”
“No doubt,” Argyros said steadily. “The Master of Offices writes poetry; I fear I haven’t the gift.”
“Battle epics.” Mirrane gave a scornful sniff.
The magistrianos supposed he should have not been surprised she knew what sort of poetry George Lakhanodrakon composed; the Romans kept such dossiers on high Persian officials. But he admired the way she brought it out pat.
He shook his head. This was no time to be bedeviled with side issues. He said, “I doubt you could pry a confession of wild, passionate, undying love from me with barbed whips or hot irons. To mean them fully, I fear one has to be half my age and innocent enough to think the world is always a sunny place. I’m sorry I can’t oblige. I will say, though, I’ve found no woman but you since my wife died with whom I care to spend time out of bed as well as in. Will that do?”
It was Mirrane’s turn to hesitate. When she did speak, she sounded as if she were thinking out loud, a habit Argyros also had: “You must mean this. You have the power behind you to do as you like with me here; you gain nothing from stringing me along.” She still kept that inward look as she said, “I told you once in Constantinople we were two of a kind—do you remember?”
“Yes. Maybe I’ve finally decided to believe you.”
“Have you?” Mirrane’s voice remained reflective, but something subtle changed in it: “I suppose Constantinople has its share of fire-temples.”
She was, the magistrianos thought, a master of the oblique thrust, murmuring in one breath how alike they were and then hammering home a fundamental difference. He said stiffly, “I would never give up hope that you might come to see that the truth lies in Christ.” Seeing her nostrils flare, he made haste to add, “Those who follow the teachings of Zoroaster may worship in the city and the Empire, however, in return for the King of Kings not persecuting the Christians under his control . . . as I am sure you know perfectly well.”
That last little jab won a smile from her. “Fair enough,” she said, “though how you Christians can fail to see that evil is a live force of its own rather than a mere absence of good has always been beyond me.”
Her smile grew wider, more teasing. “I expect we will have time to argue it out.”
He took a moment to find her meaning. When at last he did, his breath caught as he asked, “You’ll come with me, then?”
“Well, why not? Didn’t the two of us—not forgetting your men, of course—just put paid to a threat to both our countries? What better sets the stage for a more, ah, personal alliance?” Now she was wearing an impish grin.
Argyros felt a similar expression stretch his face in unfamiliar ways. He looked again at the blast that had ruined the hopes of the Kirghiz and of Goarios. His eye lit on the miraculously unbroken bottle of yperoinos. Suddenly it seemed a very good omen. He pointed it out to Mirrane. “Shall we pledge ourselves with it?” “Well, why not?” she said.