Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Despite granting Alaric entry into the Imperial Palace, it turned out the emperor was content to make them wait.
After two days cooling their heels in a forgotten corner of the palace, his men were bored enough to try picking fights with the guards. Alaric had a feeling they’d all end up in some pit beneath the palace if this went on much longer.
And then, late at night, another message from Stilicho. Delivered in secret, as was their habit when they were at war.
Alaric waited until just a few hours before dawn. The last watch. The worst time to stay alert and the best to stage an ambush. Only then did he escape his rooms and slip into the sleeping city.
Ravenna was a maze of flimsy bridges spanning foul-smelling canals. By the palace, there were manors and churches, white marble slicked with algae. But not in this end of town, where wooden houses stood on pilings and scraps of cloth hung over the doors. Alaric could feel eyes on him from alleyways and darkened doorways; cutpurses sizing him up and deciding he wasn’t worth the trouble. Wise choice.
The journey offered a perfect opportunity to assess the city’s defenses. Far from the main gate, the walls were crumbling and undermanned. It wouldn’t be hunger that brought Ravenna to its knees in a siege; it would be thirst. People would drink from the fetid canals, and disease would spread. All he had to do was cut off access to the beaches and block the ships that brought fresh water from the countryside. Easier said than done.
The eastern gateway was barely more than a door in a crumbling wall. It stood unguarded. No wonder Stilicho wanted to meet here; it was the gate nobody watched.
Outside the city, the swamp closed oppressively around him. Ahead a dirt path led under a thick canopy of trees, and he followed it until he couldn’t see the walls. If Stilicho chose to ambush him, it would be easy enough now. But then, if Stilicho wanted him dead, he would be dead already. This skullduggery was unlike him.
A small temple loomed by the path, a Christian cross nailed to the door above a scratched-out carving of a thyrsus, symbol of old Dionysus. A shape emerged from the dark.
“You look disreputable enough to frighten the cutpurses off.” Stilicho used the Vandal language. Formal and ponderous, not well understood in the Roman army, except by the frontier cavalry. “Are you certain you weren’t followed?”
“Certain enough.” Alaric answered in the same language. “Perhaps you’ll explain the subterfuge.”
“I have enemies in the palace. Some of whom would paint this conversation in a light that’s less than flattering.”
Alaric crossed his arms over his chest. “You going to follow the usual script? The one where you ask me to come back into the fold?”
“And then you can tell me to go hang. Again.” Stilicho’s mouth thinned. “No, Alaric. I simply want to prepare you for tomorrow. The new emperor is ready to grant you a strip of land alongside the Danube. Good, arable land. This will be the best chance you’ll ever get.”
“And what will he ask in return?”
“The Empire is crumbling at the borders. I need your help to hold it together.”
Anger rose up in his chest. “I will not allow the Tervingii to be used as shields against the Empire’s enemies,” he growled. “My people stay mine .”
“Is it war you want, then? Can you truly not envision a better life? I offer you peace, Alaric.”
“No. You offer us endless war along Rome’s borders.” In a breath, he was back at Frigidus, down in that bloody cut of a valley. “That land is coin already owed. I will not ask my people to pay for it with their lives.”
“My spies tell me that last winter was brutal for you. You would not be here if you weren’t desperate.” Stilicho’s gaze turned shrewd. “How much longer can you hold the chieftains’ loyalty if you return empty-handed? One month? Three?”
“Interesting line of argument for a man who insisted we meet in disguise so as not to alert his enemies.” Alaric shrugged lazily. “What surety do I have that you can keep any promises you’ve made me? We both know the boy emperor favors your rival.”
“I have no rivals.”
“The son of Theodosius pledged his sister to Olympius yesterday morning. Did you offer for her too?”
Surprise flickered across Stilicho’s face, quick as lightning, and Alaric stifled a grin. It was rare that he surprised the old man.
Then Stilicho let out a sudden, joyless bark of a laugh. “I assure you, the hand of the princess Julia is more punishment than reward. Whoever marries that girl will be far too busy chasing after her to bother giving me trouble.”
But a muscle twitched, just beneath his left eye, and Alaric would wager there was more to the story.
“Why have you bothered to meet me, Stilicho?” he asked. “You make the same proposal you always have—land paid for in lives. Your emperor had better make a more compelling offer than that .”
“There is more than one path to a homeland, Alaric. The only way out of this endless violence is trust.”
Trust. The word filled him with rage. “My trust died at Frigidus.”
“I know,” Stilicho said gravely. “I sent you into that valley to save your life at Frigidus. Theodosius wanted you executed on some invented charge because he feared the foederati ’s loyalty to you. I persuaded him to send you into that valley instead, thinking he was sending you to your death. But I knew you’d fight your way out, and once you did, he would have no justification to refuse you a homeland. Of course, you rebelled before any of that could come to fruition.” He paused, shoulders rising in a heavy breath. “I loved you like a father, you know.”
Alaric tensed. Fuck Stilicho for pulling this string. Fatherly affection was just one of his weapons, and the fact that he meant it only made the blade sharper.
“You’re not my father, Stilicho,” he said, “and you can go hang.”
He turned and was six strides down the path when Stilicho spoke at his back. “Alaric.”
He didn’t have to stop. Didn’t want to stop. But the old man’s voice had worked its way into his bones long ago; even now it was snapping his spine straight. Alaric turned back, furious with himself—and halted. Stilicho had moved into a fall of moonlight, and suddenly he saw the old man more clearly. When had Stilicho’s shoulders begun to stoop? When had he begun to look so haggard? Alaric couldn’t explain the wild grief and raw, furious rage that rose up in his heart.
“The boy favors your rival,” he said shortly. “And your rival has painted a target on your back. If you don’t see that, you’re slipping.”
A small, faint smile crossed Stilicho’s lips. “I can handle Olympius.”
“That kind of thinking will put you in the ground.” Suddenly Alaric could see Stilicho’s death clear as daybreak. “Come into my fold,” he said, knowing Stilicho would refuse; not knowing anything else to do but offer. “The Vandals are your people as much as the Romans. There are many such in my army. Fight for them .”
“You ask me to bring ruin to an Empire already ravaged.” Stilicho shook his head. “No.”
“It is not for you to die with a knife in your back in some dusty palace.” He would not abide it. Stilicho was one of his own, his teacher and nemesis and the great granite cliff face he’d broken himself against for so long. “Come die on the battlefield, under the open sky where you belong.”
“So now you wish to dictate the manner of my death. You should have been a Caesar.” Stilicho smiled ruefully. “I will be on your side at the banquet, Alaric. Whether you believe it or no.”
Alaric shook his head. At the end of everything, Stilicho was only ever on the Empire’s side. “Watch your back until then, old man.”
But Stilicho was gone, striding into the swirling mist.
* * *
“So, what exactly is the plan?” Bromios asked.
Julia glanced up at him from beneath her woolen hood. Bromios was her favorite freedman—the one who would help her pull off a caper, escape from her guards, or bring her drugs. Tonight he was less than his usual adventurous self—and she was disappointed he wasn’t egging her on.
She was in a mood to be egged on. It was almost dawn, and the darkness didn’t make this part of town any lovelier. It was a cesspit, crisscrossed with channels of sluggish water.
It was a lovely cesspit. The most stunning Julia had ever seen. Exhilaration lightened her steps. She was seizing freedom. Maybe power, if she played things right. Which, of course, she would.
“You should wear cowled cloaks more,” she murmured. “You look like an outrageously handsome pirate.”
“Julia, I hate to ruin your fun, but are you certain this is a good idea?” Bromios glanced uneasily at the alleyways. “Have your intended’s parents approved this marriage? How do you know they won’t simply pack you up and send you back on the next tide?”
“Don’t be silly. His parents will erupt in joy once they realize I intend to sweep into this town with their legion and make their son emperor.”
“What?” Bromios halted and pulled her into an alleyway. “This is treason,” he hissed. “You had better explain yourself. Otherwise I might drag you back to the palace myself!”
“Don’t be such a bore.” But the freedman’s glare did not let up. Julia sighed. “Lucretia tried to persuade me to marry him. And Cornelius is sweet and biddable and will do everything I say. If his parents don’t have the fortitude for the more daring part of my plan, well—legions can be bribed.”
She twitched her cloak aside to show him what she was wearing. All the jewelry she owned. Bromios cursed and rushed to close her cloak. “You also failed to mention I’d be dragging you through the roughest parts of Ravenna wearing the entire Roman treasury. Are you out of your mind ?”
“Bromios, dear. Stop worrying. It will give you wrinkles.” Julia glanced around the corner. “Is that the gate?”
“Yes.” He followed her gaze. “I don’t see him.”
“He’s probably hiding.”
“Or he changed his mind.” Bromios turned back, his face taking on a hard, angular expression. “Stay here.” Then he was gone, and she was alone.
Julia drew back into the alley, her back against the damp wall. A rat scampered by in the dark. Her doubts multiplied. What if Bromios was right? What if Cornelius changed his mind? What if Honorius found out? The possibilities crashed down on her. Exile. The long, long wait for death. Watching for a ship every day, praying it came with food and not her assassin—or perhaps, after some time, praying for the assassin. And no wine. No wine ever. She’d go mad.
A shape at the alley’s mouth. Bromios. Julia nearly jumped out of her skin.
“He’s not here, Julia. Perhaps he had a change of heart after all.”
Impossible. “Perhaps he went to a different gate.”
“ What different gate? The nearest is a mile from here.” Bromios cursed beneath his breath. “Wait here, Princess. Do not move a muscle. I’ll never find you in this warren.”
And then he was gone again, leaving her alone with her panicked thoughts.
* * *
A black mood settled on Alaric as he made his way back to the gate. Bend his pride—bargain his people back into conscription— trust the old man indeed. He hadn’t come to bargain on trust. He’d come to wring concessions like blood from a severed limb.
But at least he hadn’t wasted the trip. This wasn’t the only meeting he had to keep. He passed through the gate and slipped into the yawning alleyway where he’d promised to meet
Riga’s liaison.
Shit. No spy.
This was the more important reason to risk escaping his confinement. He needed precautions taken. A map of the smugglers’ ways through the swamp if things went to hell at that banquet—assuming he could get them all out of the palace alive. Alaric cursed beneath his breath. If the time came, he just had to be sure his boot on the Empire’s neck held firm.
A sound at his back. He turned, his hand going to the dagger at his waist.
Riga hadn’t told him his contact was a woman.
She turned, startled, the hood of her rough woolen cloak falling to her shoulders in her haste, and something about the look of her made him halt. High, graceful cheekbones. A full, red mouth. Eyes heavy-lidded and tilted like a cat’s; an arresting blue-green.
“Bromios. You have no idea how—” That voice, redolent of smoke and sex. “You are not Bromios.”
And she was not his spy. Alaric knew this woman’s kind. A perfumed, pampered lapdog. She belonged in a soaring atrium, surrounded by fine statuary and marble columns—not here, amidst broken cobblestones and gutter trash.
One such as her would just as soon raise the alarm as look at him.
He could silence her now, before she breathed a sound. For a moment he weighed the worth of that carnelian at her throat, the pearls in her ears. Those could buy grain enough to see a hundred people through another starving time. A hundred of his own against this silly woman’s life. His hand strayed to his blade, and stopped. The death of a highborn woman would not go unnoticed and he didn’t need this kind of trouble.
Besides, she didn’t want attention any more than he did. Perhaps he could frighten her off without bringing the guards into it.
“You mistake me, woman.” That ring on her finger could feed a small village for a season, by his reckon. “Go home to your soft bed and your soft husband.”
Her sharp little chin came up. “I see your master never taught you manners,” she shot back. “I am no man’s wife.”
“And I am no man’s slave.” Temper became her. A pretty flush spread across her rising breasts; her eyes flashed at him from out of the dark.
Lust rose up in him so hard and fast it was almost painful.
He wanted her. This laughable confection of a woman. It angered him enough to make him want to teach her fear.
“Go,” he said, stalking closer. “Your kind does not belong here.”
* * *
“My kind ?” Of all the insolence. “Just what exactly do you mean by that?”
A moment ago, only his outline visible at the other end of the alley, Julia had taken him for Bromios. Now she saw that he could only be mistaken for Bromios if you were half-blind and entirely deaf. He was dressed plainly, but his bearing was faintly military and his Latin too educated for his clothes. A kind of leashed ferocity rolled off him like heat from a forge.
She was being very stupid, just by standing here. But she couldn’t leave. What if Bromios found her gone? She’d miss Cornelius. She’d miss her chance .
He came closer. “The kind that has never been hungry. Never cold. Never slept on a bed not made of silk and feathers.”
“You know nothing about me,” she snapped. Although technically, he was right.
“I know you are the sheltered pet of some powerful man.” His eyes were vivid blue, bright enough to catch the moonlight. “What would he do if he knew his pet had been lurking in secret alleyways, I wonder?”
“This is my alleyway. I found it first.” This was getting ridiculous. “Don’t make me call the guards.”
“You won’t.” A pirate grin flashed that made Bromios’s look like a cheap imitation. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have secrets to keep.”
His hair was burnished bronze and long enough to brush his shoulders. She felt an urge to run her fingers through it, to start at the temples. To rip it out by the roots. “If you get any closer, I will scream so loud the whole city hears.”
His laughter curled around her like a soft caress. “I can think of much better things you can do with your mouth.”
How dare he? A thousand retorts rose to her tongue as his blue eyes locked to hers. She felt the jolt of it all the way to her toes.
“Julia?”
The voice was faint, but near. Oh thank the gods. “Cornelius? Cornelius. ”
He was waiting at the other end of the alley. Julia ran to him, yanking herself out of the stranger’s spell. Cornelius’s arms slid around her and she almost fainted from relief. “Forgive me. It took forever to find you.” Cornelius spoke against her hair. “Who were you talking to?”
“No one.” Behind her, the alley stood empty.
Had that just happened ? Perhaps it had been some god, descended from on high to toy with her. That sort of thing was always happening in stories. Julia pictured the strong line of the stranger’s jaw, the mocking turn to his mouth. A voice that could call the sin from a holy man. She must have dreamed it. “Where’s Bromios?”
“Waiting by the gate.” Cornelius wound an arm around her shoulder. “My priest will meet us at the ship, and then we’ll be married.”
“Yes. Married. Wonderful.” The sun would rise any moment, and the watch would change. But the gate was in sight now. Soon they would be free. “Let’s go.”
They had almost made it to the gate when the soldiers flooded the street.