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

"Why didn't you speak to your sponsor?" Belisarius asked her reasonably.

"My sponsor?" Her features crumbled under her emo-tions. "Oh, I could not. I would be cast out for what has happened, and he would never believe that I was telling the truth. He would not be able to do anything. He would not want to. There would be too much shame, and for that he would want me to suffer, not to find the answer for me." This tangled protest caught a little of Belisarius' interest.

"Are you saying that you must speak to me about one of my officers?" He knew of her unsatisfactory dalliance with Chrysanthos, but was reluctant to think that his officer would behave badly to a former lover.

"No, not… not officers. Someone… someone in your household." She put her hands to her face and wept, trying to keep from making a sound.

Belisarius rose and went to her. "Let me summon one of the slaves to—"

"No. No slaves. No." She pushed him away from her with repugnance. "No slaves!"

Now Belisarius was both troubled and curious. He knew that he had interpreted the reason for Eugenia's visit incorrectly and he was beginning to think that there was something to be learned from her. "Come. I will not insist you be aided if you would rather not." He indicated a place on the other bench, but she retreated back into the shadows once more. "What is it, Eugenia?"

She shook her head, shuddering with tears and fright. "I can't."

"But if you came here to tell me something—" He approached her slowly, with care, as if she were an animal that was only half-tame.

"I have to tell you," she whispered. "I have to."

He watched her face, seeing the shine of her eyes and the gleam of tears; the rest was indistinct. "Then tell me, Eugenia."

"It's… very difficult." She trembled. "But it has to end. It has to. I can't… go on." She bowed over, her head caught in her hands and pressed to her knees.

Belisarius waited, trying to keep his imagination from building hideous scenarios to account for Eugenia's behavior. "When you are able, tell me. I will listen."

"Oh, God and Saints!" she screamed, the sound muffled by her hands. "I can't. If he finds… out. Don't tell." She looked up imploringly. "Give me your word you will not tell him."

"Tell whom?" Belisarius asked, assuming she meant either her sponsor or Chrysanthos. Her answer astonished him.

"Simones."

"Simones?" He repeated the name as if it were unfamiliar. "Why should it matter what…"He did not go on for a short while, and when he did, his words were sharper. "What about Simones?"

"He…" She found a reserve of discipline she did not know until then she had. "He came to me, oh, some time ago. He said that he would see you condemned as a traitor, that he was being paid by the officers of the Censor to find the means to discredit you completely. He said that if I confessed this to you, you would not believe me, and he would deny it."

"Simones," said Belisarius.

"He… demanded I be… I be his lover." Her voice sank and her courage nearly failed her. "He boasted of how he would bring you down, and all those who were close to you. He said he had bribed Antonina's physician to—"

"To poison her?" Belisarius asked in a low, soft voice.

Eugenia blinked. "Yes."

"There was a letter from the physician. He left it… in Antonina's room. For me." He clasped his hands together in front of him as if they were holding a sword.

"And?" Though she was frightened, for the first time Eugenia had hope that she might not be dismissed. "Was there something in the letter?"

"The physician was paid to poison Antonina," Belisarius said heavily. "I informed the Guard but nothing has happened. Now, with the other—" He stopped abruptly. "Tell me about Simones."

"He said he had to have my help, but… I don't know." She felt her face turn scarlet. "I think he wanted to have someone to command, someone he could bully and threaten. He liked that better than anything else between us." She put her hand to the neck of her paenula. "I… I thought I had to do as he ordered. I thought he would say I was consorting with a slave, and my sponsor would hear of it, and then I would be cast out for what I had done. I was afraid. You understand that, don't you?"

"I understand," said Belisarius, and for the first time, he did.

"I didn't dare refuse him. He said he would accuse me of conspiring against Antonina, that I would be judged guilty. I cannot speak for myself, and although he cannot speak against me, he could implicate me, and—" It took an effort but she stopped her rush of words. "He told me he had arranged for the poisoning of your wife. He said that he had done other things as well. He wants to bring down everyone associated with you. He is determined to… to ruin you, to destroy you. He wants to know that he arranged your downfall." She turned to Belisarius. "I am sorry. I am so very, very sorry that I let any of this happen, and that once it happened that I permitted it to continue, but truly, I did not know what to do. I didn't want to participate in what he was doing. I thought I wasn't… important enough. But—"

"But Antonina is dead," Belisarius said heavily. "And she died because of poison. I should have seen what was happening. I should have suspected. Oh, Lord God, how could I not have seen it?" He lunged away from her, his arms crossed over his body. "How could I not have known."

"General—"

"I did know. Christos, I knew." He blundered into the wall and swung around toward Eugenia. "Why didn't you come to me when it might have done some good? Why didn't you tell me when she could have been saved? Why?" He brought his arm up, and then held it, seeing Eugenia cower, her face white, her eyes glazed with fear. "I won't hurt you," he said dully, stepping back from her. "It wouldn't change anything."

"But I tried," Eugenia protested in a small voice. "I tried once to talk Simones out of what he was doing; it was the third time he came to me, and I spent as much time as I could telling him why he ought not to do what… he was doing." She said this tentatively, like a child unsure of an angry parent.

"And? What happened?" He was exhausted. All his energy seemed to have run out of him, leaving him listless and numb.

"He… exacted vengeance. He made certain I would not do that again." She lowered her voice. "He used me. I have never been used so by a man before. I… was sick, afterward."

"Simones," Belisarius said.

"He is an angry, dangerous man," Eugenia said, reciting a litany she had told herself since her subjugation had begun.

"Simones." He nodded slowly. "So efficient, so dependable. So devoted. I assumed—" He lowered his head. "Antonina trusted him. She liked him better than any other slave in the household. Whenever she… she had had a… a bad night, she would send for Simones, for he cheered her." Without warning he hurled one of the small tables across the room; it smashed and broke against the opposite wall. "Of course he cheered her. He was enjoying his handiwork."

Two slaves appeared at the door of the reception room, one of them visibly frightened.

"Leave us alone!" Belisarius ordered. "And tell those Guards watching my house that I am going to the house of the Censor. I want them to be ready." He lurched to his feet. "I have let too much get beyond me. I have not done all that Lneed to do."

"What… what will happen to me?" Eugenia pleaded, her terror returning.

"You will be safe; I give you my word on it. If I am betrayed, then that may be another matter." His smile was hard, cynical. "Who knows what Fallen Angels have flocked to the Censor's standard? It may be that I am already too late." He went to the door, saying to her as he left, "Have one of my men escort you back to your house. I think that you had better not still be here when Simones returns."

"Belisarius!" The force of her cry stopped him.

"What is it?"

"Say you forgive me. I never meant to be such a coward, I never thought it would go this far. Please. Forgive me." She reached out to him, suddenly very vulnerable and fragile.

"Forgive you? How can I do that while Simones breathes? Once he is gone, ask me again." With that he was gone from the reception room, striding toward his chambers, moving in a way that his soldiers knew better than his household. "Arius! I want my white dalmatica and my gold pallium set out. At once. I want a basin to wash and I want oil for my hair. Now!"

The eunuch slave hurried after him. "I will have it done, master. At once."

"Order the roan harnessed to my triumphal chariot and have two of the horsemen accompany me. Mounted. On the matched bays. Give the order while I prepare." He slammed his private door closed on Arius and began to undress.