The Dark Lord

vigorous discussion! And I killed him and set them in confusion!

'What is this?' Dahvos poked the long bundle with a finger. 'That's beautiful cloth.'

'Nothing,' Jusuf snapped, drawing the bundle away from his half-brother. 'The khagan's tunic and my weapons.'

'Good enough,' Dahvos said, giving Jusuf a considering look. The tarkhan stood abruptly, looking down at Dahvos.

'I am going to round up the men,' Jusuf said, feeling strangely skittish. 'And number our losses. I fear we bled freely today. Will you be here?'

'No,' Dahvos grunted and levered himself up from the ground. 'I will be with the comes Alexandros, I think. We need to decide what to do next. I have things I wish to say to him, about his conduct in this... battle.'

Jusuf nodded abruptly and then walked quickly away, the long bundle held tightly across his chest. Dahvos stared after him, a little unsettled.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Palatine Hill, Roma Mater

Galen Atreus, Emperor and princeps of both East and West, entered a lofty-ceilinged room high on the Forum side of the Palace of Tiberius. Large square windows admitted cool northern light, making the marble and tile gleam. A circular fan turned slowly, moved by ropes passing overhead into a nearby room. The Emperor ignored the Praetorians beside the door and strode quickly to a dark mahogany swan-wing chair at the head of the table. He sat and nodded briskly to the men and women already seated. In polite society men would recline on couches and women sit, but the Emperor was far too focused on matters of state to care for social propriety today.

'Good morning,' he said, opening a wooden folder on the table in front of him. The packet was filled with parchment sheets covered in small, neat handwriting. Galen's secretaries had risen before dawn and spent a hurried hour as the eastern sky lightened, trying to condense everything about everything onto the square-cut pages. The Emperor grimaced, looking at the first sheet. Persia, he thought glumly. Despite his assured entrance, he felt completely exhausted, bled by thousands of minute, invisible mosquitoes. The Empire had never suffered a shock like the fall of Constantinople—not at Adrianopolis, not at Cannae, not even when fool Crassus threw away six Legions in the Mesopotamian desert.

Why does it fall to me? he thought bleakly. Have I angered the gods?

The Emperor sighed, arranged his papers again and looked up, face hard and mask-like. Everyone else straightened up a little and Galen counted noses to make sure everyone was present. His own brother, Maxian, sat somberly to his right, young face paler than usual above a dark tunic and dark brown robes. Beyond the prince, the elderly and nondescript Gaius was doing a good job of being invisible. Galen's eyes passed over him without pausing. The man did a centurion's work with any project, though he had not proven to be innovative, only dogged past anyone's expectation. The Emperor had not warmed to the bureaucrat—he couldn't say why, really. Normally he valued a hard-working, prudent man above all else—but there was something about Gaius...

In earlier, better times, Gregorius Auricus would have held a chair, speaking and listening for the Senate as he had done for nearly fifty years. Now his duties had fallen to Gaius Julius—his aide and executor for the past year. Galen tried to ignore the absence and made mental note—not for the first time—to ensure someone appropriate assumed the old man's mantle of Speaker in the Senate. The Duchess De'Orelio sat almost opposite, her perfect face framed by demurely coifed curls wound with gold and emerald. A single booklet lay on the table in front of her and the Emperor did not bother to hide a grimace. The chapbook was simply for show—Galen often wondered if there were anything written on the pages inside—for he could not remember the last time she had consulted the book in the course of business. The Duchess relied on her memory, which was prodigious.

Beside the Duchess' cool elegance, looking very much like a plump brown wren trapped on a ledge beside a hawk, sat Empress Martina. Her presence here was both a personal concession from Galen, who had extended her every courtesy and honor, and a political one. Though Galen had assumed the title Avtokrator of the East, reuniting both halves of the Empire for the first time in almost three and a half centuries, there was no way he could administer the rump provinces of the East without the willing support of their remaining governors.

Those men, as numerous letters and private meetings had revealed, considered him not their Emperor, but merely a regent for Martina's son, Heracleonas, who was probably crawling around in the palace gardens with Galen's own child, Theodosius. Galen knew Martina's residence-in-exile was now the natural and expected gathering place for the huge crowd of dispossessed Eastern nobles, their wives, children, and retainers who had fled the fall of Constantinople. Through her, he hoped to gain the assistance and trust of the Eastern nobility. Galen needed their assistance badly and he hoped she understood the desperate nature of their situation.

'We must,' Galen said, clearing his throat, 'discuss Persia and Egypt. Lady Anastasia, please relate the current state of affairs.' He suppressed a twinge of disquiet. Despite years of working with the Duchess, he still felt uncomfortable allowing a woman to hold such a powerful position. She knew things he did not, which bothered the Emperor a great deal. At the same time, he needed her and the sprawling network of agents she commanded.

—|—

'Lord and God,' Anastasia began, bowing to the Emperor and inclining her head to the others. 'Our situation in the East is poor. We have lost the provinces of Lesser Syria, Phoenicia and Judea to these rebels out of the old Greek cities in the Decapolis and their Arab mercenaries. Greater Syria and the city of Antioch have fallen to Persia, as well as portions of Anatolia and, of course, the city of Constantinople itself. Worse, we have suffered the loss of nearly the entire Eastern fleet and the Eastern Legions have been roughly handled not once, but twice by the enemy.'

The Duchess paused for an instant and opened her notebook. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw surprise flit across the Emperor's face and she repressed a smile. The others watched her with varying attention—Maxian seemed entirely absent, his attention far away, and Anastasia noted his hair was unwashed and his clothing rumpled. She wondered if he slept at all. The lean old man at his side, unfortunately, was watching her with rapt attention. Anastasia did not find being desired by a dead man a pleasant sensation. However, she did not allow herself to show revulsion. There was business to be done here. At her side, Empress Martina was trying to stay awake and plucking at the hem of her very expensive and rather over-ornamented gown.

'Word has reached us,' she continued, 'of the enemy fleet—captained, we believe, by Palmyrene and Arab merchants—leaving Constantinople.' She touched a sheet of parchment in the notebook with the tip of a well- manicured fingernail. 'A ship friendly to us sighted the enemy fleet bearing east from Rhodes under full sail. I believe—and this, Lord and God, is only a guess—the fleet is aiming to make landfall at Caesarea Maritima, on the coast of Judea. It is quite likely the fleet is carrying those Arab and Decapolis contingents who fought at Constantinople home again.'

'Not the Persians?' Galen leaned forward, narrow chin on his fist. 'If this is so, where is the Persian army itself? Where is the Boar?'

'Luckily,' Anastasia responded, 'the Persian attack on Constantinople, like the campaign three years ago, is really only a very large raid. Despite crossing the breadth of Anatolia, they have not actually conquered the Roman provinces between the Persian frontier and the Eastern Capital. However, there are no Roman armies to keep them from moving freely through those lands. Indeed, reports from the larger coastal cities of Pergamum, Ephesus and Myra report no Persian or Decapolis threat at all!'

The Duchess turned to Martina, who was slouching in her chair. 'Your husband's empire, dear, is still greatly intact. We, however, cannot rest easy—the Persians are sure to occupy as much as they can, as soon as they have the troops and time to do so.'

Anastasia looked back at the Emperor. 'My lord, we have received letters indicating the comes Alexandros has reached Perinthus on the Thracian coast, where the remains of the Imperial armies have gathered. He intends to muster those formations still infused with fighting spirit and to press towards Constantinople. I understand he seeks to forestall any further Persian advance into Thrace and to observe the deployments of the enemy for himself.

'When he has done so, we will know where the Persian army lies. Then, I believe, we will be able to tell where the next blow will fall.'