“It will not remain that,” he told her grimly.
She gave him a startled glance.
“Think,” he said. “The Normans have taken the last Imperial outpost in Italy. The Saracens hold everything south of there from Spain through Syria. They have not been totally hostile of late. However—the Imperial defeat at Manzikert last year was more than a military disaster that led to an abrupt change of Emperors. The Turks had already taken Armenia from you, remember. Now Anatolia lies open to them. It will be touch and go whether the Empire can hold the Ionian littoral against them. Meanwhile the Balkan provinces chafe and the Normans venture east. Here at home, commerce shrinks, poverty and unrest grow, corruption at court vies for mastery with incompetence. Oh, I daresay the catastrophe will be a while in coming full upon New Rome. But let us get out well ahead of it.”
“Where? Is any place safe and, and decent?”
“Well, certain of the Muslim capitals are brilliant. Far eastward, I hear, an emperor reigns over a realm vast, peaceful, and glorious. But those are alien folk; the ways to them are long and beset. Western Europe would be easier, but it’s still turbulent and backward. Also, since the churches openly split apart, life there has been hard for people from Orthodox countries. We’d have to make a show of conversion to Catholicism, and we’d best avoid conspicuousness like that. No, on the whole I’d say we should stay within the Roman Empire for another century or two. In Greece, nobody knows us.”
“Greece? Hasn’t it gone barbarian?”
“Not quite. There’s a heavy population of Slavs in the north and Vlachs in Thessaly, while the Normans are plaguing the Aegean Sea. But such cities as Thebes and Corinth remain well off, well defended. A beautiful country, full of memories. We can be happy there.”
Cadoc raised his brows. “But haven’t you given thought to this yourself?” he went on. “You could only have continued as you are for another ten years at best. Then you’d have had to withdraw, before men noticed that you don’t grow old. And as much in the public eye as you’ve been, you could scarcely stay on in these parts.”
“True.” Athenais smiled. “I meant to announce I’d had a change of heart, repented my wickedness, and would retire afar to a life of poverty, prayer, and good works. I’ve already made arrangements for the quick, quiet transport of my hoard—against any sudden need to escape. After all, that has been my life, to drop from one place and start afresh in another.”
He grimaced. “Always like this?”
“Need forces me,” she answered sadly. “I’m not fit by nature to be a nun, a she-hermit, any such unworldly being. I often call myself a well-to-do widow, but at last the money is spent, unless some upheaval—war, sack, plague, whatever—brings ruin first. A woman cannot very well invest her money tike a man. Whatever pulls me down, usually I must begin again among the lowliest and ... work and save and connive to become better off.”
His smile was rueful. “Not unlike my life.”
“A man has more choices.” She paused. “I do study things beforehand. I agree, on balance Corinth will be best for us.”
“What?” he exclaimed, sitting straight in his astonishment. “You let me rattle on and on about what you perfectly well knew?”
“Men must show forth their cleverness.”
Cadoc whooped laughter. “Superb! A girt who can lead me, me, by the nose like that is the girl I can stay with forever.”
He sobered: “But now we’ll make the move as soon as may be. At once, if I had my wish. Out of this ... filth, to the first true home we’ve either of us had since—”
She laid fingers across his lips. “Hush, beloved,” she said low. “If only that could be. But we can’t simply disappear.”
“Why not?”
She sighed. “It would rouse too much heed. A search for me, at least. There are men, highly placed men, who care for me, who’d be afraid I’d met with foul play. If then we were tracked down— No.” A small fist clenched. “We must go on with our pretenses. For another month, perhaps, while I prepare the ground with talk of, oh, making a pilgrimage, something like that.”
A little while passed before he could say, “Well, a month, set against centuries.”
“For me, the longest month I ever knew. But we’ll see each other during it, often, won’t we? Say we will!”
“Of course.”
“I will hate making you pay, but you can see I must. Never mind, the money will be ours once we are free.”
“Hm, we do need to lay plans, make arrangements.”
“Let that wait till next time. This while we have today is so short. Then I must make ready for the next man.”
He bit his lip. “You cannot tell him you’ve fallen sick?”
“I’d best not. He’s among the most important of them all; his good will can spell the difference between life and death. Bardas Manasses, a manglabites on the staff of the Arch-estrategos.”
“Yes, someone that high in the military, yes, I understand.”
“Oh, my dearest, inwardly you bleed.” Athenais embraced him. “Stop. Forget everything but the two of us. We still have an hour in Paradise.”
She was wholly as knowing, as endlessly various and arousing, as men said.
3
A miniature procession crossed the bridge over the Horn and approached the Blachernae Gate. They were four Rusi, two Northmen, and a couple in the lead who were neither. The Rusi carried a chest that was plainly heavy, suspended on two poles. The Northmen were off-duty members of the Varangian Guard, helmed and mailed, axes on their shoulders. Though it was clear that they were earning some extra pay by shepherding a valuable freight, it was also clear that this was with official permission, and the sentries waved the party through.
They went on by streets under the city wall. Heights soared above them to battlements and heaven. The morning was yet young and shadow lay deep, almost chill after the brightness on the water. Mansions of the wealthy fell behind and the men entered the humbler, busier Phanar quarter.
“This be muckwit,” grumbled Rufus in Latin. “You’ve even sold your ship, haven’t you? At a loss, I’ll bet, so fast -you got rid of everything.”
“Turned it into gold, gems, portable wealth,” Cadoc corrected merrily. He used the same language. While he had no reason to distrust their escort, caution was alloyed with his spirit. “We’re leaving in another pair of weeks, or had you forgotten?”
“Meanwhile, though—”
“Meanwhile it’ll be stored safely, secretly, where we can claim it at any hour of the day or night and no beforehand notice. You’ve been too much sulking when you weren’t off bousing, old fellow. Have you never listened to me? Aliyat arranged this.”
“What’d she tell their high and mightinesses, to make the way so smooth for us?”
Cadoc grinned. “That I let slip to her what a glorious deal I stand to make with certain other high and mightinesses—a deal which these men can have a slice of if they help me. Women, too, can learn how to cope with the world.”
Rufus grunted.
The building in which Petros Simonides, jeweler, lived and had his shop was unprepossessing. However, Cadoc had long had some knowledge of what trade went through it, besides the owner’s overt business. Several members of the Imperial court found it sufficiently useful that the authorities turned a blind eye. Petros received his visitors jovially. A pair of toughs whom he called nephews, though they resembled him not in the least, helped bring the chest to the cellar and stow it behind a false panel. Money passed. Cadoc declined hospitality on the grounds of haste and led his own followers back to the street.
“Well, Arnulf, Sviatopolk, all of you, my thanks,” he said. “You may go where you like now. You will remember your orders about keeping silence. That need not keep you from drinking my health and fortune.” He dispensed a second purseful. The sailors and soldiers departed gleefully.