A Flame in Byzantium

'I never…' Drosos began seriously, then broke off. 'It isn't wise to know me. I am in disgrace.'

'Given those in disgrace,' Niklos said lightly, 'I think it must be excellent company. Come with me. Olivia is in her library.' He did not add that in the last month she had removed and hidden over sixty books that were no longer permitted within the walls of Konstantinoupolis. 'She will be delighted that you're here.' As he spoke he led the way down the hall, indicating a new fresco as they went. 'It's almost finished.'

'The martyrdom of Saints Adrian; that's Natalia there, with his hand after they burned him.' Drosos pointed to the anaemic figure of a young woman with a haloed hand in hers.

'The artist has also done work for the Censor, so Olivia was confident that it was acceptable to hire him for this work. It's not always safe to choose someone who's unknown.' He reached the door to the library and paused. 'Do you want me to announce you, or would you rather do that yourself?'

Drosos hesitated. 'Let me do it. If she's angry, she'll want us to be private.'

'She won't be angry,' Niklos promised him, his sympathy going out to the Captain.

Drosos shrugged. With a lift of his jaw he dismissed Niklos, but it took him the length of several deep breaths to work up his courage to lift the latch. At last he opened the door, stepped inside and leaned back, closing it.

Olivia was seated at a low table, an ancient scroll rolled open on the narrow table in front of her. She had her long, fawn-colored hair held back with a wide silk ribbon, and she was dressed in Roman palla and stola, both of a soft muted green. As she heard the door close, she called out without turning her head, 'What is it, Niklos?'

'It isn't Niklos,' Drosos answered, his voice not much more than a whisper. The sight of her was so wonderful it almost hurt him to watch her.

She turned very slowly, her hazel eyes widening as she looked at him. 'Drosos.' Carefully she rolled the scroll, always looking at him as she did. Then, when this was set aside, she rose, lifting her arms toward him. 'Magna Mater, you are come at last!'

Drosos moved slowly, his somber expression giving way to a faint smile as he reached her. Lingeringly he touched her face with the ends of his fingers. 'God and the Prophets,' he whispered as he gathered her into his arms.

They stood together, hardly moving, saying nothing with words; their bodies spoke with other voices in silent eloquence. When he finally let her go, Drosos said, 'Olivia, I…'

'I'm so glad you're back,' she said when he could not go on. 'I've missed you, Drosos.'

'I've missed you. But it isn't wise for you to see me. I shouldn't come here, but I couldn't stay away.' He stared down into her eyes. 'I tried to stay away.'

'Why?' She took his hands in hers. 'I would have been more hurt than you can imagine if you had.'

'I am not safe to know,' he admitted, trying without success to pull his hands away.

'Half of Konstantinoupolis isn't safe to know,' she countered. 'I've never let that select my friends for me.'

He shook his head, refusing to be convinced. 'You're already suspect because you're Roman. Letting me come here only serves to make it worse for you.'

'If you stayed away, it would not be better. This way, Drosos, my troubled love, neither of us is alone. Being alone and suspect is worse than having friends with you, even if all of you are suspect.' She kissed him on the cheek. 'I am pleased you are concerned for me, but not if it keeps you away from me.'

His eyes flickered, shifting away from hers and moving restlessly. 'You ought to tell me to go.'

'Why would I do that?' she asked, her face calm though she was growing more concerned as they talked.

He broke away from her. 'I did a… a foolish thing. If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that it was stupid to do it, but I assumed that… I had to do something. You see how it was.'

'No, I don't. Tell me, Drosos.' She went to him, standing behind him and putting her arms around his waist. 'Tell me. What is the terrible thing you did? And why is it so terrible.'

He bit his lip, shaking his head. 'It would only make things worse.'

'Drosos, please. You trusted me when you wrote to me. Trust me now.' She used nothing to persuade him, no wiles or tricks that he could later blame for what he did. 'I want to know because it is hurting you.'

Again he resisted. 'If I tell you, you might have to tell others, and that would be bad for both of us.'

'Drosos, I am a Roman, and as a Roman I swear to you that I will not tell anyone what you reveal to me, no matter what they require of me. You might not believe it, but there was a time when such a vow was binding and any Roman would rest his life on his honor. My family has held to the old ways and you can depend on me to treat your confidences that way. If you still would rather not speak, very well. But believe me when I say that nothing you tell me will pass beyond these walls.' She rested her head against his shoulder. 'Drosos?'

He broke away from her and dropped into one of the chairs. 'When I was about to leave Alexandria, there had been a storm that swept in from the sea. One of my last duties was to survey the damage and make a report about it.'

'Is this the thing you—'

He went on as if she had not spoken. 'Alexandria is on one of the branches of the Nile. There are many little fingers of the river, and when there is a storm—and the one we had was worse than usual—some of those little fingers get even more divided, and cut up into spits and sandbars. I was out in a good-sized boat, looking over some of these sandbars. Most of them were nothing more than isolated bits of sand.' His face was nearly blank, his eyes distant as if he were standing on the deck of the boat at the mouth of the Nile. 'But there was one. It had been cut off from the shore. It wasn't large—no more than twice the length of the boat at most, and very narrow, and it was being reclaimed by the water more and more every hour. The water was salty there, taking as much from the sea as from the river. Nothing grew there except a few stands of marsh grass. But on that sandbar there was a cow. Don't ask me how the poor beast had got out there; the storm must have driven it, not that it matters. It was alone on the sandbar. It had been there for at least three days. It was a black-and-white cow with dark horns; I remember it so clearly. She was bawling, but there was almost no voice left, for she was dying of thirst and starvation. She was on her knees, but she kept trying to rise and to get her head out of the water. I have never seen such despair, not in battle, not in plague, not in a slave market. There was nothing for that poor, dumb creature but her suffering. I asked for a bow, so that I could kill her, but no one had anything other than a spear, and the distance was too great to be certain…'

'Oh, Drosos,' Olivia said. She had taken the chair nearest his and was watching him, grief in her tearless eyes.

'I don't know what it was about that cow. I'm a soldier,' he said, sitting straighter. 'I have killed men, I have been wounded, I have fought in war. I know what it is to have a horse lanced out from under me; I have watched men with their guts in their hands try to reach just one more enemy warrior. I have seen widows and children after the fight. Nothing—nothing—moved me in the way that black-and-white cow…'He looked away. After the silence had stretched between them, he said in another, more remote tone, 'I wrote to the Emperor, after we burned the library. I said that I was convinced that we had made a great error in burning the books and that he had been given poor advice by those close to him, who did not know the Library and the things it contained. I thought, you see, that he had been persuaded by those around him to do this, not that he wanted it done himself. I told him if he understood what was stored there, he would have realized that destroying so much knowledge was against every virtue and aim of Christianity. Well, I might as well have ordered my Guard to drag me through the streets of Alexandria behind four maddened horses. It would have spared everyone trouble.'

'Don't say that, Drosos,' Olivia admonished him in a low voice.

In the light from the brazier only half his face could be seen, and it was more like a mask than a face. 'You have to understand that it was Justinian who wanted the books burned. It was the Emperor who had decided that the Library was dangerous and that the things in it were a hazard no Christian dared endure. He was the one who gave the orders, he was the one who decided. It was not some clique around him; it was Justinian himself.' He stood up abruptly. 'So they ordered me back here, where they can keep an eye on me, and watch what I do, for now the Emperor numbers me among his enemies.' He came and stood beside Olivia. 'Which is why I must go.'

She did not rise. 'No.'

He dropped to his knee beside her chair and looked up into her face. 'Don't you understand, Olivia? Don't you realize that if I visit you, Justinian will consider you to be as dangerous as I am, and you will be subjected to —'