A Flame in Byzantium (Atta Olivia Clemens #1) 1

"You learned that in Roma, did you?" Drosos asked her, relenting.

"It's a familiar pattern, you'll allow that." She indicated a place beside her. "Sit. We'll think of something between us."

"You're a lascivious creature, Olivia," he said, not accepting her offer.

"Yes, but right at the moment I am a political one." She sat straight, and even with her fawn-brown hair cascading down her shoulders and back, everything about her implied business and reason. "You will not be happy until we have some tenable solution, and I would rather you be happy while you are with me. So we will consider what is to be done."

Drosos went back to the fishpond. "I don't want you enmeshed in my snares," he said slowly. "I don't mind risking disgrace for myself, but I don't want to bring it on you."

"That's very kind of you," she said, her sincerity more genuine for its simplicity. "And if you were nothing to me, I would not act with you in this, for all that Belisarius befriended me in Roma. However, you are dear to me, and he is my friend, and there is no reason for me to hesitate."

"You're not Konstantinoupolitan. That is always a factor, and it puts you at a disadvantage, no matter how you want to assess this." He had changed again, becoming more determined. "Still, we might arrange something, if you're sure you are willing to do this."

"Magna Mater!" she burst out, exasperated. "Drosos!"

"All right; all right. I'll assume for the time being that you are going to aid me. But I want it understood that if we cannot think of something that is at least reasonably safe that you will stay out of it. They might hesitate at condemning Belisarius, but you're not as distinguished as he; Athanatadies would not balk at confining you. Or worse." His eyes narrowed. "I wouldn't like that, Olivia."

"Nor would I," she agreed. "And I know that you're right. We'll have to work out a prudent way to manage."

She was serious enough, but amusement tinged her voice.

"A prudent conspiracy," he said, and snorted once with laughter.

"Why not?" She rose and went to his side. "What do you want Belisarius to know?"

He looked at her, a little startled by the bluntness of the question. "Isn't this place a little…"

"Niklos and Zejhil are watching us, which ought to prevent anyone else from listening. We're as safe here as we're apt to be most other places. Here, if there is someone listening or watching, we will know of it." She looked at the wall enclosing the garden. "I'm not certain there isn't an urchin in the street with his ear open wide, but that might be the case anywhere, and if that is how we must think, then no one would be safe saying anything anywhere."

"You're made your point," he sighed. "Very well, if you trust your slaves, I suppose I will have to trust them, too. But don't forget that loyalty is purchased with the slave." He said this last with stern cynicism.

"Niklos is a bondsman, not a slave," she reminded Drosos. "Now, what are we to tell Belisarius?" she went on, returning them to the problem.

"I want him to know that if he has any need of his officers for any reason whatever, he has only to get word to me, and we will come to him, and the Pit take the Guard set to watch him." He spoke softly but with emphasis, each syllable rapped out as if he were giving orders on a battlefield.

"You mean that if the rumors are true and Belisarius seeks the purple for himself, you and many of his officers would support him," Olivia said.

"Yes."

"He has said all along that he has no such aspirations," she pointed out.

"I know. I also know that he never thought he would be under house arrest. Ingratitude like that can change a man." He shook his head. "It's the Censor, I know it is. Justinian would not be so unreasonable if he understood.

He's the Emperor, and he is not unjust. I am loyal to him, but I have a greater loyalty to Belisarius. The Emperor… the Emperor does not have men around him who recognize honor, and therefore they advise him unwisely. Justinian would not treat Belisarius this way if he had a few soldiers close to him. He would realize that Belisarius is his champion, and he would reward the service that he has been given in the past."

"But you would support an action on Belisarius' part to overthrow the Emperor?" Olivia asked.

"If nothing else were possible. I would not want to bring Justinian down. He is Emperor. But if there were no other way to remove the Censor and that clique from the Imperial Court, then I would pray to God to forgive me for acting against Justinian. I hope it never comes to that. I hope that there are ways to be rid of men like Athanatadies—he is puffed up with that name of his, thinking he is already illustrious—without having to act against Justinian."

"And if there isn't?"

"Then the sooner it is done, the better for all of us. It would be possible to depose Justinian without imprisoning him, or worse. I do not want the Emperor's blood on my hands, even indirectly. There could be no greater dishonor. It's one thing to dispose of those men who are corrupt and ambitious, but no soldier can rise against his Emperor and think himself worthy of his rank."

"He may be your Emperor, but he's not God, Drosos," Olivia said, chiding him a little.

Drosos responded seriously. "The Emperor is more than the rest of us. He would not be where he is if he were nothing more than a man. Justinian is… an officer of God, and for that reason alone we who are sworn to uphold his reign would imperil more than our lives if we abused his trust. The rest of the court is as fallible as we are, and they are subject to the sins of men. But the Emperor…" He did not finish.

"The Emperor is a man like other men, Drosos," Olivia said very quietly.

"No." He took a deep breath. "I don't expect you to understand. You Romans have had to watch your Church crumble along with the power you had. You don't see that God has taken it from you because you were not willing to find those men who could serve Him as well as the state." He moved away from her. "I know that Belisarius would tell you the same thing."

"Which is why he has not protested his treatment any more than he has?" suggested Olivia. "For those of us who remember the Caesars, this appears strange." She tilted her head and looked at him speculatively.

"They were corrupt and corrupting, men without faith and without the power of God to support them." He touched the cross that held his pallium. "The world was in terrible darkness before Christ redeemed us."

Olivia was silent, not knowing what to say. She had watched the development of Christianity with mixed emotions which in the last century had become increasingly apprehensive. She stared down into the water, watching for the movement of the fish and hoping that Drosos would not insist on discussing his religion with her, for inevitably he would disagree with her.

"You are a Roman," he said again, some little time later.

"As you are well aware," she said, trying to make her voice lighter than her heart.

"Yes. I like that in you. I can say things to you that I could not possibly say to a Byzantine." He reached out and took one soft curl in his fingers. "You do not judge me, do you?"

"Not in the way you mean," she said.

He laughed, not understanding her. "And you are not like the women I have known."

Her smile was stunning. "I should hope not."

"You are not like anyone I have known before." He let her hair go, the fine strands pulling slowly across his palm.

"I know that." She had a fleeting thought of the man she now thought of as her first lover, and recalled how he had cautioned her to keep her secret even when she assumed revelation would be welcome.

"We are so easily loathed, Olivia," he had said in great sorrow. "We are feared and despised, and then it is a simple matter to… be rid of us. Keep your nature to yourself, for your own sake." Looking at Drosos, sensing his turmoil and his desire, she admitted to herself that Sanct' Germain had been right. "Why is that?" Drosos' question cut into her memories.

"It's… my nature," she said slowly and with great care.

"Your Roman nature," he ventured.

"If you like." It was not an answer she wished to give, but one she had learned long ago. There was, deep within her, a yearning to be without guile, to tell Drosos everything about herself—her life and death, five hundred years before, her life since then, the truth of her nature—and she knew that if she did, he would be lost to her. She was amazed to discover how much that mattered to her; she saw Drosos through new eyes.

He rubbed his chin, his thumbnail rasping against his beard. "You are worried about talking to Belisarius, aren't you?"

"Not really," she said. "If he is willing to talk, then I'll know it fairly quickly and that will be all right. If he isn't, then he and I will merely talk like the friends we are. He will apologize for the ruin of my villa and I will tell him how much it saddens me to see him in his… predicament."