TAYLOR LIFTED THE LID to disclose the enameled tray and its contents. Metrodora leaned forward to look at the contents. “Oh,” she said uncertainly.
“I made these myself. They are a family recipe…a great secret passed on from generation to generation,” Taylor told her. She picked up one of the cookies and handing it to Metrodora. “Do not let the appearance of these biscuits fool you. They are the most sinful delights. Try it. Go on.”
Metrodora took a small, hesitant bite and chewed. Then her eyes widened. “Mmm…” She took a bigger bite, one that demolished most of the cookie. “What…?” she asked, speaking carefully around her mouthful.
“I told you…it is a secret recipe,” Taylor told her. In fact, the cookies were a rough approximation of the simple peanut butter cookie recipe that Taylor could recall from every jar of peanut butter she had ever seen Marit devour. Peanuts were plentiful if one could afford them, here, and wheat flour could be bought at a price. After that, it was a matter of substitution and ingenuity. Cooking with a wood stove had been the most challenging part of the task.
Metrodora eagerly reached for a second cookie. “This is a most generous gift,” she said and bit into it.
“It does come with a small price attached,” Taylor confessed, pushing the enameled tray closer to Metrodora.
Metrodora lifted a brow. “More conspiring? You are so adventurous, Ariadne! What now?”
Taylor joined her fingers together docilely. “Your father is the Emperor’s chief tax collector.”
“He is,” Metrodora agreed. She cocked her head to one side. “What mischief are you brewing?”
“Oh, something a bit more potent than mischief,” Taylor assured her. She leaned forward. “There’s a man—a guard—that needs to be taught a lesson…”
* * * * *
Brody came floating back to consciousness slowly. It wasn’t like waking from sleep at all. There was pain and confusion and a deep reluctance to stir back to the state that had caused the pain in the first place.
For a while he let himself drift, unwilling to pick up the traces of the thoughts and memories that gave coherence and meaning to consciousness.
“Braenden…Brody!” came the soft hiss.
That caught his attention and pulled him closer to the surface. He tried to fit the names together. Why would someone be using both of them?
Evaristus. He was the only one who knew both of them here and now, apart from Taylor, and it was not her melodious tones he had heard.
Brody kept very still and opened his eyes a sliver.
Bars.
The cage. They had thrown him into the cage after all.
He grew immediately aware of the bars underneath him, digging into his arms and thighs and hip. It was an extra discomfort – one that was painful enough for him to ease himself up until he was sitting and then to find a position where the bars didn’t dig into his ass too deeply or uncomfortably.
Evaristus tapped on the bars to get his attention once more and Brody turned his head to look. That set off a pounding in his skull that made it feel like his eyes would pop out and the bones of his face would slide off without too much more encouragement. He hissed at the throbbing agony and paused, waiting for it to subside, before opening his eyes once more and focusing on Evaristus where he squatted outside the cage.
“This is familiar,” Brody told him.
Evaristus pushed rough material through the bars. “If you insist on defying the guards, you will keep finding yourself in these bear cages. It is a fate entirely in your own hands.”
“That’s a familiar refrain, too,” Brody replied, sliding the fabric under his butt. “You don’t happen to have any food, as well?”
“Not yet,” Evaristus told him. “Did the lady Ariadne not feed you?”
“In all ways,” Brody told him. “But I’m hungry again.”
“Then the blow they gave you didn’t permanently damage your head,” Evaristus judged. “You have a very thick skull.”
“So I’m told,” Brody replied dryly.
Evaristus lifted his head and turned it, questing. Brody recognized the movement and the odd cocking of his head. Evaristus had heard something with his extra-range vampire senses.
“What is it?” Brody asked.
“Footsteps. Boots. Many of them, coming this way,” Evaristus replied.
“Boots. That’s something official.” Brody looked toward the entrance to the cavern, where the wide, well lit passage led directly to the street. There were several flights of stairs on the way, and a well-guarded gate at the street entrance. Only guard-escorted members of the public with authentic reasons to be here or people in authority would have got past the guards. Slaves were brought in to the cavern via the Hippodrome entrance, and guards used a private portal on a side street.
After nearly a full minute had passed, Brody heard the susurration that heralded the arrival of many people, thrumming along the air issuing from the mouth of the big tunnel.
No one else had heard it yet. Everyone was going about their business in ignorance, but gradually, one by one, heads began to turn as they heard the approaching boots and turned to look toward the main tunnel.
The guards were cautious. Zeno sent six of them to stand in loose formation around the entrance. They didn’t draw weapons, for the guards on shift at the front gate had passed the approaching strangers through. But the slaves, chariots and equipment in the interconnected caverns represented a huge investment in capital and were high income producers. It wasn’t unheard of for raiders to pirate the caverns of high-producing chariot outfits, steal the slaves and equipment and supply their own caverns. It was worthwhile to be cautious about a large group coming down the tunnel.
The guards—everyone, in fact—fell back half a step either mentally or physically, when the group emerged from the tunnel and stepped into the cavern proper, for half of the men in the group wore the colors of the Emperor’s own officials, and the guards accompanying them were army soldiers.
“The Emperor sends his minions here. This looks…interesting,” Evaristus murmured.
A short man with cropped black hair and thick brows, and the dark olive skin of an island Greek stepped out from behind the guards, as Basilides moved forward with a bow and a subservient smile.
“I seek the man called Zeno,” the official told Basilides, tapping a scroll against his other palm.
Basilides failed to hide his relief, while Zeno looked startled, the brow over his one eye lifting. He swallowed and moved forward reluctantly as Basilides bowed low again and stepped backwards at the same time.
“I am Zeno,” he told the official.
“I am Tarasios,” the little man replied, looking up at Zeno. “I am honored to work with Cosmos, who has the honor of collecting taxes for our great Emperor.”
Zeno looked puzzled. “You are welcome here, Tarasios, but I fail to see why you seek me out. My affairs are in order. I have paid my taxes.”
“The official taxes, yes.” Tarasios unrolled the scroll. “Certain unofficial transactions and income you have been privy to throughout the year have come to our attention. You did not report these items to the Emperor. Nor did you share tribute with him. He is most vexed about this.”
“Sir?” Zeno queried, looking panicked. His face had drained of color.
Brody glanced at Evaristus, a rich and warm humor flowing through him. A smile was tugging at his lips. Taylor had pulled this off. Somehow. She had been super-pissed about Zeno cutting short her night with him.
“Never get on the wrong side of a scheming woman, Evaristus,” he murmured.
The vampire glanced at him sharply. “This is the doing of your Ariadne?” he whispered.
“The timing is too coincidental for it to be anything else,” Brody replied.
Zeno was gripping his hands together. Pleading. “But I do not have fifty bezants!” he cried.
Tarasios was completely unmoved. “It is a pity you did not think to put the money aside when you first earned it.”
“But I didn’t—” Zeno began, then stopped as he realized that declaring he had not earned the money would win him no sympathy, either. He shot a helpless glance toward Oresme, who had emerged from the room where the off-duty guards sometimes relaxed before and in between their shifts. Oresme was standing with his arms crossed, absorbing the situation.
Brody realized that Taylor was sending Oresme a message, too. “Oh, you are one wicked schemer, Maggie Taylor Yates,” he murmured.
When Oresme didn’t leap to help Zeno, the one-eyed guard realized he was on his own. His shoulders slumped and he turned back to face Tarasios. “I do not have such a sum put aside,” he said flatly. “Is there some arrangement we can come to, instead?”
Tarasios let the scroll roll up with a snap of parchment. “Slavery is the usual course in these matters, in order to pay the debt.”
Zeno winced.
Tarasios smiled. “But this is a first transgression. I’m sure we can transmute that remedy.”
Zeno looked hopeful.
Tarasios glanced at his companions, who all looked dour and disapproving. Tarasios shrugged. “Very well. Public flogging in the market.” He clicked his fingers and the soldiers all surged forward, to grip Zeno by the arms.
Zeno let out a squeak of protest that sounded high and frightened as the soldiers stripped him of his weapons and armor. He glanced pleadingly at Oresme and Basilides, who stood motionless and silent.
Tarasios bowed regally toward Basilides as the soldiers marched Zeno out through the main tunnel. He smiled widely and turned and moved down the tunnel himself, his companions falling in behind him.
Brody let out his breath in a gusty exhalation. “I wish I had my video camera, or even a cellphone so Taylor could see it later. That was priceless.”
Evaristus frowned. “Those would be things of the future, I would be guessing.”
Brody nodded. He gripped the bars in front of Evaristus. “She’s going to go after Oresme next,” he said quietly. “She’ll let Basilides stew in the stink of his own fear.”
Evaristus jerked his chin a fraction toward the pair of them. “Look, it’s already working.”
Brody glanced over his shoulder. Basilides was carefully not looking at anyone. There was sheen of sweat at his brow and temples and at the base of his throat, just above the neck of his tunic.
* * * * *
There was one advantage to travelling about the city with a large contingent of people, Taylor discovered: It tended to halt traffic, both foot traffic and vehicles. It was just what she needed to corner Oresme at the far end of the Regia, the colonnaded stretch of the Mese that runs into the forum of Constantine, where all the processions and festivals tended to go.
Her guard captain “gently” tapped Oresme on the shoulder and brought him across the road and into the patch of shade cast by Taylor’s mobile, square parasol, carried by four slaves holding a corner each erected on a staff.
Oresme look thunderous, but resigned. He held himself stiffly.
“You short changed me on the terms of our agreement,” Taylor said shortly.
“Straight to the point, my lady.” Oresme glanced around, looking for eavesdroppers.
“I trust everyone who stands within hearing distance,” Taylor said flatly, although she knew nothing of the sort and cared less about Oresme’s reputation. “I know it was Zeno who really made the decision, but he took orders from you.”
“That is correct,” Oresme agreed evenly.
“I understand he pissed himself when they flogged him in the market this morning,” Taylor added and smiled brightly at Oresme.
His jaw sagged and the truculent look in his eye faded. Shock and dawning suspicion replaced it.
“I suggest,” Taylor continued, keeping her tone pleasant and light, “that tonight, when you bring the slave to me, you remember Zeno’s fate. I can always arrange something similar for you.”
Oresme drew in a slow, deep breath, his chest lifting under the leather breast plate. “Aye,” he said finally. “I understand.”
“Eleven o’clock and not a moment later,” she told him.
“Eleven…” he began to protest. He halted, then nodded shortly. “Eleven.”
“And make sure he is freshly bathed and sweet smelling when he arrives,” Taylor added.
Oresme’s jaw flexed. His nostrils flared. “It’ll cost more,” he ground out.
“Take it out of the taxes your guard didn’t pay.” Taylor turned to go and looked at him over her shoulder. “Give Basilides my regards.”
Oresme’s eyes widened in surprise.
* * * * *
Evaristus alerted Brody by tugging on his ankle from his position on the bunk below his. “Something is happening,” Evaristus called softly.
Brody looked down at the cavern floor below. Oresme was crossing the cavern in long strides, his cloak furling behind him. He eschewed the dalmatic most men wore, preferring to wear armor over a tunic, in imitation of military men.
Oresme strode directly over to where Basilides sat on a wide stool and began to speak in a low, hard tone, his hands working furiously as he spoke.
Evaristus climbed up to Brody’s bunk and sat cross-legged next to him.
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Brody murmured.
“Bits and pieces. He’s speaking very low.” Evaristus narrowed his eyes, focusing his concentration. “He’s talking about her, your lady.” He grinned. “He’s not using nice words, either.” He listened further, then pursed his lips. “Hmmm….”
Both Basilides and Oresme turned and looked up at the bunks.
At Brody.
Basilides was scowling.
* * * * *
Oresme’s men arrived a few minutes after the chimes in the streets below announced the hour, the sound floating up through the open windows to where Taylor leaned against a cool column of marble, waiting.
Every minute that passed after that before Taylor spotted their shadows moving along the processional seemed to last forever. With no time-keeping gadgets to mark the exact passage of time, she could only guess when another minute had elapsed, and she knew that in her heightened state of anticipation, her judgment of time was absolutely skewed.
For a brief moment she wished she had Veris’ and Brody’s accurate and infallible sense of time. It would serve her well right now.
But then she saw the movement of dark patches at the far end of the processional. Her heart leapt and she pushed herself away from the marble column she had been leaning against and hurried silently down the cool tiles toward them.
Kale, alerted to her movement, lifted herself up from the floor where she had been squatting and followed Taylor down the length of the passage, her bare feet making no sound on the floor.
Taylor halted as the tightly gathered group drew closer to her.
The one in the lead threw back his hood and she hid her surprise, for it was not Zeno, the one-eyed guard she had been expecting. She had been bracing herself for insults and anger from him.
The man staring coldly at her was younger, a typical Greek with the dark hair and eyes, and there was intelligence in his expression and gaze. “Where do you want him?” he said shortly and softly.
Taylor stepped aside. “Kale, show them the antechamber.”
Kale beckoned. “Come,” she commanded.
The huddled group continued down the processional and Taylor fell in behind them. She followed them into the front room of her suite and heard the soft rattle of chains as they were unfastened.
She moved around the group, to where Kale was watching with eagle eyes. The slave woman considered the guards of charioteers to be beneath her in rank and a lesser breed of people. Her prejudice was rich and open and she had managed to belay her disapproval of Taylor’s association with them and their drivers via expressions, sounds and gestures, even though she was not permitted to say anything directly unless invited to speak freely, which Taylor had carefully not given her permission to do.
The group dissolved, leaving Brody standing alone in the center of them. Then one of them stepped forward to snag the back of the hooded cape, as if it was a forgotten item. It was whipped away, with a sharp tugging motion.
Brody was naked beneath.
Naked, and covered in bruises, scratches and wounds. His hair was damp and hung down the center of his back in a tangled skein. He had a black eye forming and there was a raw scrape along his jaw that looked like his face had been ground against stone.
There were older bruises all over his ribs. Some of them, Taylor recognized from last night, but others were forming and they looked bigger and deeper.
There was a series of scratches that turned deeper and uglier as they moved from his forearm up along his biceps to his shoulder. It was his left arm and Taylor knew in her gut that Brody had been using that arm to fend off a knife.
“Animals,” Kale muttered, her nostrils flaring, as she took in Brody’s state and the guards, who stood grinning around him.
“It is eleven in the evening. The stink of the cavern has been scrubbed from his hide, as ordered,” the lead guard said. “We will be back two hours before dawn. I trust there will be no protest when we retrieve our prized driver this time.”
“One hour before dawn,” Taylor bargained.
“Two,” the guard said flatly. “We will need that much time to return through the streets to the Hippodrome before sunrise and without being noticed.”
It was a reasonable objection. Taylor nodded reluctantly. “Two hours, then.”
The guard did not react. He did not wish her a good evening, or give any of the standard pleasantries. He simply turned and walked away, the rest of his men following just as silently.
Kale inclined her head toward Taylor. “I will leave you, my lady. I will return before the guards, to wake you, if you need waking.” She floated away, more regal than Taylor could ever aspire to be.
Taylor stepped toward Brody, who was watching Kale leave. When Kale disappeared, he looked back at her.
“They’ve beaten you. Again. Oh, Brody…”
He shook his head. “You scared the crap out of them, Taylor. This is the only way they can hit back.” He held out his arms. “I am clean this time. They used boar brushes and soap that I think was nearly pure lye. I think it took off layers of flesh.”
She hugged him gingerly, afraid to add any more pain to his already pain-riddled body. “They hit back hard,” she whispered. “The cowards.”
“They’re all that,” he agreed, his lips moving against her hair. “I don’t know what miracle you pulled off, but Zeno has disappeared. He was a sadistic bastard so no one misses him for a nano second. Oresme has been looking thoughtful and Basilides is flat out scared.”
“They thought they could dick me around because I’m just a woman,” Taylor told him. “So I showed them it wasn’t a good idea.”
She felt his silent chuckle. “We’ve had a marvelous time watching them shit themselves wondering what you’d do next.”
“Despite the beatings?” she asked, appalled.
“I’ve had worse.”
“Worse than guards coming at you with a knife?” she asked. “I know defensive knife wounds when I see them.”
He was silent for a few seconds, then he said softly, “Worse than guards with knives.”
She shuddered. This was the reason why, sixteen centuries later, Brody still carried the traces of his time as a slave. The brutality had left very deep imprints on his soul.
Then Brody’s stomach rumbled and in the total silence in the room it sounded loud.
Taylor stepped away from him. “God, you must be starving!”
Brody gave a lopsided grin. “I could eat,” he confessed. “Especially more of that fancy stuff. And wine.”
She picked up his hand. “Come with me. I had Kale put a meal together for you. More fancy stuff, only different than last night.” She tugged him toward the inner rooms, where the meal had been left. “Hot food this time, as I was pretty sure they would bring you here when I said they must.”
“Hot sounds marvelous,” Brody replied, following her without resistance.
“Let me find you something to slide into while you eat. You don’t want to drip hot sauce on your flesh.” She lifted the lid of a chest and pushed aside silk mantles and delicate robes, looking for the heavy winter robe she had spotted folded at the bottom. She pulled it out and shook it out. “It’s huge on me, so you should have no problems with it.”
Brody was already sitting on the edge of the divan where he had sat last night, looking over the half dozen dishes laid upon the giant circular bronze tray sitting on the ottoman in front of him. He was inhaling in big, slow breaths, sampling the aromas.
“It smells even better, as a human,” he said.
“That’s because your body is responding to the smells and making you feel even hungrier,” she told him, stepping around the ottoman and holding out the robe. “Here, put this on.”
“I’m fine,” he told her shortly.
“I’m not,” she shot back. “It’s my fault you have those cuts and bruises. You said as much. It would help if I didn’t have to keep looking at them.”
He looked up at her sharply. Then he got to his feet and slipped the robe over his shoulders and wrapped it around him. “It’s not your fault they’re ignorant fucking morons. You’re working with limited means in a world you don’t know…” He shook his head. “I’m amazed you pulled this off a second night, Taylor. I’m truly stunned. I’m sure you’ve already learned how small a woman’s freedom of choice and movement is here.”
Taylor grimaced, which Brody responded to with a flash of one of his big smiles. “I see you have,” he added. He sat on the divan and reached eagerly for an apricot and bit into it and chewed.
“Do you want to know what I did?” she asked, pouring wine.
Brody shook his head and swallowed. “No,” he added for emphasis. “I don’t want Oresme and Basilides to have reason to think I know more than I should. Keep it between you and them, Taylor. Leave me as the ignorant sex object.”
Taylor tried not to smile, then not to laugh, instead. She gave a breathless wheeze and handed him the wine. “Oh, you’re really getting off on that idea, aren’t you?”
“An ignorant slave?” he asked innocently. “Not likely.” He drank some wine.
She rolled her eyes. “The sex object whose services of which all the rich wives have knocked themselves out trying to buy.”
The corner of Brody’s mouth lifted just a little. “It’s a pleasant amusement that passes the time.” He sobered. “But mostly, I spend my time thinking about you and Veris.”
Taylor drew in a slow breath, searching for the calm she had to deliberately reach for whenever she thought about Veris and how very far away he was. “That’s how I did it,” she told Brody. “That’s how I tied Oresme and Basilides up in a knot and got you here for a second night.”
Brody looked puzzled, so Taylor added, “I imagined I was Veris and figured out what I would do if I were him. It worked so well I’ve been almost scared at the effectiveness of it. No one seems to be able to cope with a woman who acts like a man.”
“Or looks like you,” Brody added. “I’m beginning to understand why Oresme has been looking so thunderous and thoughtful.”
Taylor reached for a bowl and scooped up some sphoungata for him, the spongy omelet that was a local dish. “Eat up. You’re going to need your strength before the sun rises.”
“I am?” he asked with the same innocent tone.
“Veris has the bad taste not to be here. You’ll have to be twice as creative tonight to make up for it. You two have been neglecting me dreadfully.”
Brody’s gaze simmered as he chewed. “That’s a gauntlet hitting the floor if ever I heard one.”
She grinned. “I imagine you’ve heard one or two in your time. Real ones, too.”
“Aye, but the sword I will use on you bites a different way altogether, my wanton wife.”
Taylor pushed the plate of figs toward him with a slow smile, a shudder of anticipation running through her, and settled back on the divan to wait.
They had almost all night. Brody would make her enjoy every moment of it now.