Tulius laughed. 'The Black Beast isn't sick. You want to take its muzzle off, they're your hands.' With easy arrogance he took a key from a cord around his neck and handed it to Andi. 'Bandage him up while you're at it, if it will make you happy. But the Empress knows about the beast-and she has said I may use it in the arena.'
'I can't believe that,' Irene said, stricken. 'I'll go to Theodora myself. She won't-she can't-let something so rare and beautiful be destroyed.'
Tulius grinned. 'Ask her.' He tossed Irene a salute and sauntered out of the chamber.
The Black Beast raised its head to watch him go, rumbling with impotent hate.
Andi fetched their satchel. She took something from it, then slowly knelt before the bars again, her eyes locked with the beast's baleful glare. Slowly, the muted growl died. From amidst the scales, graceful ears lifted. Andi held her right hand motionless, cupped just before her chin.
'Shhhh,' she whispered. The creature arched its graceful neck toward her. At the base of the muzzled beak, nostrils flared wide to take in her scent.
Andi's lips puffed. The soporific powder smoked through the bars, drawn deep into the beast's throat and lungs.
The long neck swayed as the beast drew back; the heavy, beaked head sank down onto the armored breast. In a little bit, it slumped onto its side, unconscious.
Irene set her hand on Andi's shoulder. 'Well done.'
Andi turned her eyes to Irene's, and Irene saw in them a reflection of her own despair. She turned her eyes away, and, taking the key, opened the door of the cage.
Irene hoped she'd be allowed to see the Empress before she'd sweat-soaked all three layers of her court clothes. Her costly cotton tunica was more forgiving than silk, but the wide-sleeved underdress was amber-colored samite, her overdress russet silk trimmed in shades of yellow and amber. Her cap and superhumeral, the wide formal collar, matched the underdress and were trimmed in seed pearls and amber drops.
She felt like a courtesan's bed-curtain.
One of Theodora's secretaries, a small, slim eunuch named, inappropriately, Herakles, came out of the Blue Chamber. 'The Empress will see you now, Mistress Irene,' he said, 'but be quick. She's tired, and she has much more to do before she will consent to rest.'
Irene nodded. Wishing she could calm her fluttering stomach, she drew a deep breath and followed Herakles into the Blue Chamber.
The Empress Theodora VI was seated in a highbacked chair behind an elegantly simple wooden table. On a stool beside her mother sat the seventeen- year-old Princess Helena, frowning over a wax tablet as she nibbled an apple slice. A platter of cold chicken and fruit and a water jug were wedged in between piles of documents. A half-dozen secretaries worked at low desks or glided to and from the table and racks that held maps, books, and parchments. A high window admitted air without making enough of a breeze to trouble the papers.
Irene prostrated herself, awkward in her unaccustomed clothes, then moved forward to kneel on one of the cushions scattered before the table, to wait for the Empress to acknowledge her.
Helena noticed her first. 'Mistress Irene! I'm sorry I've been too busy here to come to the aerie. How is my Goldie?'
Irene felt relief that she could honestly give a good report. 'She is better, Highness. She fed well yesterday.'
The Empress put her signature to the paper before her and handed it off to a secretary. Helena hastened to move the platter of food beneath her mother's fingers before she could select another document. Theodora spared a smile for her daughter, and took a piece of food without looking. 'Mistress Irene,' Theodora acknowledged. She inclined her head. 'You may sit.' She ate a bite of chicken while Irene settled more comfortably. 'I assume you are here about Tulius's Black Beast.'
Irene's heart sank. 'Yes, my Empress. Tulius means to have it torn apart in the arena.' She looked up at the woman she had served all her adult life and found herself pleading. 'My lady, please-it is unique, perhaps the only one of its kind. It is-it is beautiful, perhaps intelligent as well. You can't allow it to simply be destroyed.'
'One does not say `can't' to one's Empress, Irene,' Theodora said sharply. Irene quailed, and the Empress went on more gently. 'I understand. You are as passionate in your calling as I am in mine. But my concerns are larger than yours. I have intelligence that this Vandal princeling has a barbarian's taste for a bloody show, and I have need to please him.' She made a face. 'As little as I like it, his people control trade routes that we need. I learn from my ancestress: treaties are better than war. I'm sorry, but unless circumstances change, the beast belongs to Tulius.' The Empress took another document and turned her eyes to it. 'You may go.'
Irene made obeisance and got slowly to her feet. As she turned to go, the Empress's voice caught her. 'Oh, and Mistress Irene, a word of advice.' Irene froze. 'If I were you, I would concentrate my attention on the creatures already in your care.'
The Empress's pen dipped, tapped, and began to write. Irene was dismissed.
'She said, `Unless circumstances change, the beast belongs to Tulius.' I'm so sorry, Andi.'
Andi knelt beside Irene's bed and carefully folded Irene's cold fingers around a cup of mulled wine. 'It's not your fault, Mistress.' The younger woman stayed kneeling by the bed, one hard, thin arm curved loosely around Irene's waist.
Irene forced herself to drink the hot sweet wine, feeling its heat begin to melt her cramped muscles. 'I feel my life's work slipping away from me,' she said. 'I thought I'd made a sanctuary, a place where animals could be cared for and studied. Now a fabulous, unknown beast is going to be torn to pieces
'Don't say that!' Andi snapped. 'Even if the worst happens, if Goldie dies and some Varangian knifes you in your bed and Tulius takes over here, you've
Irene hugged back, drawing a fierce comfort from the press of Andi's body, warm and hard even through the quilted tunic. 'Thank you,' she whispered.
Andi drew back, gestured at the cup. 'I'll make you more wine. I'll go to the menagerie, check on the animals and change the bandages, while you stay here and rest.'
'No,' Irene shook her head. 'No, Tulius may have won this battle-but I'm damned if I'll let him see me surrender the war.' She straightened her shoulders, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and sniffed. She grinned a little. 'You're fragrant. What were you doing while I groveled?'
'Oiling Goldie. For bug repellent, this stuff isn't too bad. You aren't going to make me change, are you?'
'No. I rather like rosemary and cedar with base notes of griffin.' Irene rose and went to ready their horses while Andi checked their supplies.
To Irene's relief, Tulius was about other business, and they were able to make their rounds without disturbance. The lioness with the shallow wound was moving easily, and willingly accepted a treat of drugged meat. Andi's special patient, recipient of the 'Varangian goo,' was awake and alert, though she had yet to take solid food. Sedating her, they found her wound much better, the swelling and fever reduced. Encouraged by the success, they went to see the Black Beast.
The antechamber door was open, the key to the Black Beast's cell hanging from the inside handle of the door. Irene felt a twinge of anger, knowing this easy access was Tulius's taunt, daring her to defy Theodora.
The Black Beast lifted its head at their entrance, making a soft, curious honk. It rose to its feet and came to the bars, surveying them with large dark eyes. 'It's much calmer today,' Irene said.
'Tulius isn't here,' Andi said. 'It remembers us.' She knelt by the bars, crooning. 'Don't you remember me, Beastie?'
The Black Beast took a step backward, yanking back its head and squeezing its nostrils shut. Irene laughed. 'It remembers you all right.' Realization touched her, leaving grief where wonder should have been. 'Andi, it's intelligent. On some level, it understands what's happening to it.' She reached out, gently touching the bars of the cage. 'Oh, Beastie, I'm sorry.'
The Black Beast looked at Irene, then at Andi. Andi held her hands up, flat, to show that they were empty. The beast came closer, almost mincing, and flared its nostrils wide. It snuffled all around Andi through the bars, even extending a leathery grey tongue to taste her hands. It made a soft croaking noise and
Andi leaned over and peeked between the Black Beast's legs, then shook her head at the beast. 'Trust me, boy, I'm not your type.' She did take advantage of the beast's interest by giving him a drugged treat.
The beast gave her an accusing look just before his double eyelids slowly shuttered closed. 'I'll change his bandages,' Andi offered. Irene just nodded, deep in thought. There was something about the Black Beast, about the way it had responded to Andi, that was teasing at her mind, something terribly important, but the harder she tried to grasp it, the more elusive it became. Andi had to tap her on the shoulder to tell her it was time to leave.
Outside the torchlit gloom of the menagerie, a purple dusk was falling, nightjars stitching the sky with their cries. All the way home, Irene's thoughts went in circles like puppies chasing their tails.
They were on their way back to their quarters from the stable when the dovecote boy caught up to them, his face pale by the light of his lantern. 'Mistress Irene. A pigeon came while you were gone. One of the big red ones.'
'One of Kerides',' Irene said, hope in her voice. 'Do you have the message capsule, Thomas?'
The boy looked down. 'I'm sorry, Mistress.' He reached out and pressed something into Irene's hand. 'This is all there was.'
The bit of black ribbon lay in Irene's palm like a snippet of night. 'Windwing and Kerides are dead,' Irene said, and turned her face to the darkness.
