Bloodline Rising Read online

  When we were at the bath-house, he made the slaves in the caldarium lock the door and shutter the window as if I were a prisoner – a murderer or worse. There was but the spice merchant in there, and a couple of tired-looking soldiers, all soaking in the warm misty waters. The spice merchant’s face went even redder when we came in – like the skin of a ripe peach, it was. I’ve lifted more from his market traders than any thief in the city, but none of them has ever come close to catching up with the Ghost.

  “You!” he said, half-choking as he jabbed a finger at me. His pale, flabby chest looked as if it had been hewn from old cheese.

  Tasik paid him no heed, tossing a gold coin to the slave who shuttered the windows and lit the oil lamps. “I’m desolate sorry to make this a gaol,” he said to them all, not the least sounding it. “Wilder than a tiger is this brat of mine – clear beyond control, he’s got, while I’ve been away.”

  The soldiers saluted him, grinning: they must have come off the same fleet. “Is the brat crazier than you are, God’s Fire?” one of them asked. “We should have him in the legion.”

  Tasik just said, “Don’t wish that, Iarchos – he’d steal the rings from your fingers while you slept. God alone knows how I bred such a wretch. How is your head this morning – Aikaterina’s wine shop, was it not? I was sorry to miss that.”

  “Feels like my eyelids got boiled in oil,” said the other soldier, and everyone laughed.

  Oh, ha ha, I thought, sourly.

  The spice merchant was staring at me still, goggle-eyed with rage. If I’d not been so full of misery I’d have laughed myself. “That boy,” he spluttered, pointing wildly. “That boy—”

  Tasik turned to him. “What, raided your spice stalls, did he, Helios? Well, do not rile yourself about it, I beg you, not while these good men have such sore heads.” Tasik tossed the purse of coin at him and it fell into the waters with a splash.

  The merchant glared at him, but snatched it up anyhow.

  Tasik looked down at me, a smile flashing across his face so fast it was barely there. Then he said in British, “Don’t do anything foolish; I’m in no mood for it, I promise you.”

  I sat on the edge of the pool, staring at the high, domed roof above while Tasik had rose-oil rubbed into his limbs and the journey-dirt scraped from his skin, and his hair combed and rinsed with lemon water. A thin trail of daylight lanced down from a gap between two bricks and I stared at it, wishing I knew when Achaicus had summoned his fellow traitors for their meeting.

  “Do you not desire to bathe, young master?” I looked up to find a slave standing there with a bowl of oil and a drying-wrap.

  Oh, for the love of God, I thought, I’m meant to be breaking into the Great Palace at risk of having my throat cut and here they are, mithering me about baths.

  “No,” I said.

  “He’d better, or the womenfolk shall have my hide,” Tasik said, and the soldiers laughed again. “Cai, get in.”

  Let him believe I’m ready to obey his every word. I climbed into the steamy, greenish waters and sank down to the slimy tiles at the bottom. Thoughts swirled around my head like oil and vinegar shaken together in a jar: Tecca before she was sick, so thrilled whenever Asha and Elflight took her to the girls’ baths; Ma carrying her there later when it hurt too much to walk; my lord’s silk-thin voice, whispering that I must learn Achaicus’s secrets.

  I think of my dream, the stifling darkness of it. Always I ride the same nightmare when I’m in that house. It’s one of the reasons I left it.

  If I tried to tell Tasik about the Emperor of Thieves and the task my lord has given me, what would he do? He would not even let me out of that cursed chamber for my lessons. I would be a prisoner for ever.

  I do not know what I am going to do.

  Tasik does not knock or call for a slave when we reach my tutor’s villa; he just sweeps straight in. We burst through the house-place and out into the courtyard, where I blink in the morning light. Old Yannis is standing under the apricot tree, his face slack with shock when he sees us. The boys slumping at the table sit up and stare. It takes me a moment to remember their names – there’s Peri, the silk merchant’s son. His face is all swollen now with spots. And that’s Timaeus, who was always slow, and had to copy my work. Solon Dassalena used to come too, but he is not here now, I thank God.

  “Good morrow, Yannis,” says my father, as though they have just crossed paths in the market-place. “I beg you will accept my apology for my son’s laziness. I find he has not been attending much to his lessons these past few months.”

  Yannis gathers his wits pretty quick, all considered. He grasps Tasik’s hand, saying, “It’s no matter, sir. I only hope you’ve had as much success bringing the Arabs into line.”

  “Let me have the Arabs any day.” Tasik leaves go of my arm at last. It feels like it’s going to fall off, but I resist the need to rub it.

  Yannis smiles at me – I am quite fond of him – but I can see his eyes are full of worry. “Sit down, child,” he says. “There’s a spare stool at the end of the table.”

  Tasik turns and speaks to me in Anglish. “Do you hear this: if you’re gone when I return, I will find you, and when I do, I’ll take you home and I shall bind you before I lock you up.” I know he means it, and the thought makes my gorge rise and chills the back of my neck. I must just hope he’ll not catch me.

  And then he is gone, striding off across the courtyard without looking back, without another word to me. Timaeus and Peri stare as if I have grown a second head. Was it really me who used to play catch-ball with them while our mothers drank rose tea in the garden? We are the same age but they are just children. How well fed they look: sleek, like the porpoises swimming in the Golden Horn. I think of Niko and Iskendar, who know they’ll only get their next meal if they are quick enough.

  “I believe Hector had just killed Patroclus the last time you graced my home with your presence, Cai,” Yannis says, “but you’ll find we’ve moved on since then. Timaeus, where have we reached?”

  Timaeus smirks. “We’re not even on the Iliad any more. We’re doing the Odyssey, when Telemachus leaves to search for his father.”

  I could not care less, and Telemachus was a fool. I heartily wish my own father lost on a far-distant sea where he could do nothing to bother me.

  “Very good,” says Yannis, and he starts burbling about ships with twelve masts and the wine-dark sea, and that fool Penelope weeping and weeping. Then we all have to repeat it back to him till we’ve got it by heart: a tangle of such ancient verbs it hardly makes sense. What’s the use?

  If I don’t get to the Great Palace soon I’m dead, but Yannis is watching me closer than a cat watching its prey. It’s Peri’s turn now, and he’s droning on when Yannis comes and stands at my side. His old knees crack as he crouches down to speak quietly, so that Peri and Timaeus cannot hear. “I am glad to see you, my child,” he says, “but I have been keeping my ears open to the market talk lately, and I’m afraid you’re in a tangle with the sort of men you ought not to have crossed.” Yannis pauses, as if he’s waiting for me to say something, but I keep quiet. He sighs, and his eyes travel across my face, taking in the graze on my cheek left by Tasik’s ring when he hit me. “Remember, if there is anything you feel you ought not to … well, not to bother your father with, I am always here, and perhaps I can help.” He smiles, and I smile back.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, and I feel ashamed of what I’m about to do to him, because Yannis is a kind old man and for a moment I almost want to tell him everything. But of course, I do not.

  Time slides by till I’m nearly bursting. The whole morning has gone, and Yannis has hardly taken his eyes off me. The slaves have just cleared away what’s left of the midday meal – dried sausage, partridge broth, bread and peaches. It tasted like dust in my mouth. I must get to the Palace. What if Achaicus has already met with his fellow traitors? What if I am too late?

  Curse Tasik, the fault’s all his.

 
I watch the shadow of the apricot tree lengthen across the courtyard. Yannis paces in the shade, spouting the Odyssey. Timaeus and Peri listen; Peri’s lips move as he desperately tries to follow the God-forgotten tangle of age-old grammar. Timaeus gazes fixedly at the wall. How can they do this, day after day? Does it not make them want to shriek? Yannis is paying too much heed to me – he keeps looking over all the time as if to make sure I’ve not disappeared. Poor Yannis. Tasik’s going to have out his throat when he finds I’m gone. If I weren’t such a wicked person I’d not do this to the poor old man. But I have no choice, do I? I am starting to think they are none of them so foolish after all, Iskendar, Asha and now Yannis. I am in deep water. I know too much.

  Achaicus Dassalena has found out who I am, and that I stole his letter.

  I must make an end to this somehow before he makes an end of me, and I must do it now, before it’s too late. I breathe in, long and slow, clearing my mind. It’s hard today – there is too much stirring about in my head. I think of Ma, of Tasik, of Elflight. I think of Iskendar telling me I ought not to be entangling myself in our lord’s affairs, of the thin smile on my lord’s face when I handed him Achaicus’s letter.

  Yannis is looking at me again. Come on, I tell myself. Time to go. I let myself become swept up in the sound of my own breathing: in, out, in, out. My mind’s clearing. Neither Timaeus nor Peri is paying me any heed. They are probably secretly planning the stories they’ll tell when they get home – And you’ll not believe this, but then God’s Fire walked in with the Ghost… I slide off my stool, take a couple of paces towards the courtyard wall. It’s hot away from the shade of the apricot tree. Yannis stands where I was sitting, looking mazed. Was I there or was I not? He’s confounded. Did he dream the whole thing? The Ghost was never here, old man; return to Odysseus, for he’s climbing up the rocks to the island of Circe.

  My heart sings as I scale the wall. I have done it. After Tasik saw through me yesterday I’ve been fearing my skills are lost. But they are not. It will be hours till he’ll return to Yannis’s house for me. Maybe I can even be back there, and he’ll never know I was gone.

  I go across the roof-tops – I daren’t risk meeting Tasik in the street – scrambling, leaping, jumping over alleys shaded by great, sagging trellises of grapevines that send long green stems down into the cool shadows of the streets below. I realize as I land in the lee of the Palace wall that I still don’t know why Tasik is back. Did word of Tecca reach him at last? Are the Arabs subdued? Has he talked Muahi’ya out of Armenia? Perhaps Constans won’t send Tasik away again, and he’ll always be here.

  What’ll I do then? A year ago that was all I wanted, but not so now.

  I sit in the shade of the wall, one of the palace courtyards spreading out before me. It’s easier to stay hidden when I’m in the shadows. Some folk have sharper senses than others, like Fausta who saw me in church. I hope to God I do not lay eyes on her today – she might let me off a visit to the Ladies’ Gallery, but if I’m found sneaking around her palace she’ll want to know why. There’s a gate on the far wall guarded by a couple of Africans. Not eunuchs, so I’m not in the Empress’s quarter, or near Constans’s inner chambers, which Tasik told me once are guarded by the fiercest, most cunning eunuchs in the known world: folk who could slide a knife between your ribs without your even feeling it.

  The guards are leaning back against the wall, eyes half-closed against the sunlight. I run around the edge of the courtyard, keeping to the wall. There’s a fountain dribbling greenish water, a few peach trees heavy with forgotten fruit that no one but the birds will eat. The Great Palace is so ancient and so huge: there are great rambling swathes of it that no one ever goes to – but it’s all guarded, just the same. I remember Constans once telling me that he got lost for a day and a night here when he was my age (I was in my eighth summer then). He told me there are chambers lived in only by bats and spiders the size of your fist, and others filled with great heaps of gold: the dowries of long-dead Empresses, princesses who came from far-away kingdoms to wed the Purple, long ago.

  The Prefect’s quarters are off to the west, I’m sure. I glance up at the sun and skirt around to the far wall of the courtyard. One of the guards yawns and scratches his nose. The other looks as though he might be asleep. Luckily for me, the wall’s old and crumbling, easy to climb. As I get closer to where I think Achaicus’s chambers are, everything looks cleaner. There are no pikes lying rusting against the wall, no broken chairs rotting in the sun. The guards here stand straight, watchful, sunlight glinting off the heads of their spears. It’s harder to remain unseen. It’s not easy to keep my mind clear and find my way west through this rambling maze of a palace.

  I slip silently through a courtyard where lines of rose-bushes breathe out a heady scent. A slave boy in a white tunic rakes the dusty pathway. I pass an open window and, peering inside, I see scribes sitting at two long wooden tables, heads bent over their work. Maybe it’s my barbarian blood, but a life like that would drain the spirit from my body. How can they sit there, day after day, copying out reckonings and laws and declarations? But this must mean I’m somewhere near Achaicus’s quarters.

  I slip past the guard at the west gate of the rose courtyard. One of them blinks as I stir the air in passing, but that’s all. Another courtyard, this one cast into green dappled shade by a roof of trellised grapevines. There are more scribes here; I can see them inside. I haul myself in through the nearest window. The room is cool. The quiet is interrupted only by the sound of stylus tips scratching at vellum. One of the scribes speaks in a low voice to another. None of them notices me. When I slide out of the door, I just brush by the guard, a shaven-headed eunuch. Freezing, I glance back: he is shaking out his robe – he probably thinks there’s a spider up there, or a mouse. I have to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing.

  I run off down the corridor and come to a turning. It’s all the same in here: quiet, dark hallways, windows looking out over jumbled palace roofs, some with glimpses of the sea. I don’t know where I’m going, and time is slipping away. I must ask someone. I wait by a window for what seems like years, and in my mind I see Achaicus and his men gathered, but I am not there, and I cannot hear what they’re saying. I have to fight a sick, panicky feeling. Achaicus probably has men all over the city looking for the Ghost. He is going to have me killed if I give him the chance – and now here I am, making straight for his own chambers.

  Sometimes I wonder if I am not clean out of my wits.

  At last. A pair of slave boys in white tunics are coming down the hall, carrying great bundles of parchment.

  I step forward. “You there,” I say. They stop and bow their heads before me; they must, even though they are taller than me and probably three summers older. I would hate to be a slave. I would rather die. “I have been charged with a message to the Quaestor’s office,” I say. The Quaestor’s chambers are right next to the Prefect’s quarters, where Achaicus will be. “Some fool gave me the wrong direction. Tell me how to get there, and be quick. I’m late as it is.”

  They tell me, in lowered, respectful voices – the way slaves must always speak lest they get beaten – and at last I’m there.

  Two huge eunuchs guard the door of Achaicus’s chamber. They could kill me with just a pinch of their fingers around my throat, but they shall not catch the Ghost. I am afire with the thrill of it. I wait behind a pillar, drawing deep, slow breaths, watching the door. I hope it is not bolted from the inside. All colour drains from my mind. I am here, but not here. I must just walk straight by them. It is the only way in. There can be no fear, no pause.

  I smell their sweat. One oils his body with orange-flower water; the other has not been near the bath-house for perhaps two days, and has a stale stink about him. He has been eating onions; I can taste his breath. I press both hands flat against the door, feeling the old, polished wood cool and smooth beneath my palms. Very slowly, it creaks on its hinges. For the briefest moment, I listen: there is no one wit
hin. It’s a vast room, with a high vaulted ceiling criss-crossed by wooden beams worn dark with age. Then I slide past both the guards. I do not have long to find a hiding-place. They heard the door creaking – they have seen it’s open. I run towards the nearest couch and duck down behind it; I know I shan’t remain unseen for long. They are wary now, ears pricked up like dogs’. They’re looking for an intruder.

  “Strange,” I hear one of the guards say. “Must be the damp.”

  Go on, I think, close the door.

  “Wait. Did you not feel something just then?”

  One of them has stepped into the room; the soles of his sandals slap softly against the flagstones. If they find me in here, I will not live to see the sun set.

  I can hear him breathing. I stare at the rich red folds of damask hanging over the back of the couch. Why did I not steal a scarf on the way here to disguise my hair? If I’m caught, they’ll know who I am. But then the footsteps sound quieter. The guard has left. I hear the door click as he closes it behind him.

  Thank God. Now, where to hide? I look up at the ceiling and see the place straight away. On to the polished oaken table. It’s inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl. I haul myself up till I’m standing on the window-ledge – Achaicus certainly has a wonderful view of the sea. I leap for the beam and catch it, pulling myself up till I sit astride it. Then I crawl closer to the wall and lie face down on the beam, with the whole chamber spread out beneath me. It would be a long way to fall – but I shall not fall.