The Sign of The Blood Read online

  He looked away. The whimpers, shouts and grunts of dying men always affected him. Not everyone dies as stoically as they’d hoped. He nodded to a centurion glaring up at him, trying to speak. He bent low, saw the wide gash in the man’s side, and finished the man off with a sword cut across his throat.

  “Go home now to your family,” he whispered in the man’s ear, as blood poured down his neck.

  Words of comfort, a quick death, it had to be done. If he himself was dying he would have prayed for the mercy of a Jovian, before the enemy could take him or torture him to death, plucking eyes and splitting noses.

  The drums of the Persians were louder now.

  He had to be quick.

  Some of the Jovians were already moving among the white tents with their flapping pennants. Constantine roared at them to halt. They turned back to him.

  “Look for letters, maps. Search all the tents nearby and bring everything to me.”

  Most of the Persian nobles would have escaped as soon as the alarm had been raised, probably taking anything important, but maybe they would find something.

  He stooped to examine the sword the dead Persian officer had been wielding, raised it, cleaned the blood away on the man's trousers. The blade was thin, clearly of the highest quality. He felt its edge. Blood seeped from his thumb. He whistled softly. It had been rumored Persian swordsmiths had discovered a lighter, more flexible form of iron. He sheathed the sword, then slung the scabbard over his shoulder.

  Somebody screamed. Other voices joined in the clamor. From the noise, he would have imagined a harem was being slowly strangled. He jogged toward the sound, the Persian sword banging against his back. A fat eunuch lay coughing, feebly dribbling out his last at the entrance to one of the larger tents. Constantine stepped around him, sword in hand, and peered inside.

  A row of oil lamps on high tripods illuminated the tent's interior. A throat-tickling fragrance of sandalwood hung in the air, turning it blue. Sumptuous red carpets covered the floor. Scenes of tiger hunts picked out in gold thread decorated the walls.

  In the center of the tent he saw the source of the dreadful noise. Two young women were on their knees, wringing their hands and screaming louder than he’d ever heard women scream before. Two Jovians were holding swords above their heads as if they were trying to stop the racket, although they were only making matters worse. A smile parted his lips. He saw why the Jovians were gawping.

  The young women wore baggy black trousers with yellow waistbands. Their feet were bare, as were their plump upper bodies. Their naked breasts swayed as they cried, and their black hair, plaited into hennaed tails, swung like a pack of snakes about their heads.

  “Down your weapons,” Constantine said. The legionaries turned toward him. His gilded, purple-edged breastplate was enough to warn ordinary Jovians who he was. Most of them would know him without it. He sheathed his sword. The girls turned to him but instead of stopping, their wailing rose to an ear-splitting pitch.

  An older woman kneeling a little way back didn’t join in the screeching. She was maybe twenty-five, the same age he was, though it certainly didn’t look like she had wasted half her life on pointless duties and out of the way frontier postings as he had done.

  Then it came to him. The other girls were protecting the older one, keeping the legionaries at a distance, distracting them. She wore a silver mail shirt that ended at her midriff. Her breasts were not exposed. A mane of braided black hair flowed over most of her back.

  Persian noble women never cut their hair, he’d heard. Could she be one? Perhaps a distant relative of the King? She certainly looked the part. A finger thin band of pearls ran across her forehead. White, silk ribbons hung down on either side of her face. Whoever she was, she knew the grip that beauty holds on men.

  She stared back insolently at Constantine.

  It was the stare of a pure bred, who expected to be treated differently, better. She didn't appear at all daunted by the intrusion of the Jovians or by Constantine’s gaze. That was interesting in itself. But who was she?

  The woman raised a hand and pointed disdainfully at his face with a crooked finger, as if he were her slave. Her cat eyes, highlighted all around with kohl, stared hard at him, daring him to resist her, insisting he look away, look down, now, acknowledge her superiority.

  “I am the Queen of Queens, the Divine Incantress of Zoroaster. I order you to defend my person, and that of my King's sisters, from these brutes. You will be rewarded. Well rewarded.”

  Time slowed as she spoke. Had she said she was a Queen? She spoke an accented lilting Greek, the official language of the eastern Roman provinces and most diplomacy, which meant she was educated. His mind raced. He’d not expected this. She fingered a flame-colored and tear-shaped stone hanging around her neck. She stroked it, as if it might protect her.

  He walked up to her and peered at the pendant, a red garnet, the largest he'd ever seen, an object a queen might indeed possess.

  She maintained her haughty expression as he came near. He sensed her distaste as he moved even closer. He leaned forward, caught a whiff of her perfume.

  In a flash, with the speed of a leaping cat, she slapped his cheek. Hard. The wailing stopped. Good. Everyone looked at him. His cheek stung as if it had been burnt. He raised his hand, pointed a finger in her face.

  “Touch me again and you will be sorry.”

  The Jovians made ribald comments about what she might want or, better still, what she might get if she struck him again. He stared at her. He knew her type.

  “Leave,” he shouted to the Jovians. They were reluctant, but after a few moments they went to stand outside the tent doorway. They knew better than to ignore direct orders. He turned to her. His cheek still stung. He raised his hand again, as if he might strike her this time, and held it high, a determined look on his face. She didn’t flinch.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked slowly. The musk of her perfume almost overpowered him, like unwatered wine.

  “It is mine,” she replied stiffly. “Given to me by the King after his defeat of the Shah of Bactria. It is an ancient jewel. The last of Queen Pandoraxa’s. It purifies the blood of nobles and curses all others who dare hold it. Do you plan to steal it?” Her eyes were wide and, unblinking, like a snake’s. Her gaze flicked to his purple breastplate, then back to his face.

  “I’m not here for baubles.”

  She lifted her hands high as if in thanks. The front of her mail shirt arced open. He caught a glimpse of silky brown skin where her breasts started.

  “I will help you now, Roman. Get out of here, quickly. My King of Kings will be here soon, and your heart will be food for his dogs after you eat your own eyes if he finds you here.”

  He looked around. She was right. They would have to go soon. But she would go with them. He would not lose the prize that could make this raid worthwhile. One of the legionaries at the door peered inside.

  He heard a crying sound.

  “What's that?”

  The Queen shook her head as if she’d no idea what he meant and had no desire to answer him.

  “Who’s back there?” he pressed.

  She said nothing, her expression as disdainful as if he was a slave who’d dropped a tray and would soon be made to pay for his stupidity. He took a step around her. He’d no time for this. At any moment troops of Persians would be on top of them.

  “It is just a girl. A slave. She is nothing.”

  “Show me,” he said. “Show me at once.” She was trying to hide something.

  She sent him a glare of contempt and shook her head, slowly. She would not obey him.

  He sighed. It was always going to come to this. Ask first, then demand, then force, his father had taught him. Some of his fellow officers left out the first part, asking, but he included it.

  He unsheathed his sword.

  The effect was immediate. The girls began wailing again. You’d have thought he’d run them through already.

  She pu
shed her chest forward, daring him. It was his turn to smile. He moved his hand, as if to take her pendant.

  She stepped back, spoke sharply to the younger girls. They stopped their wailing. Then she turned, strode to the back of the tent, and pulled aside a flap in a wall hanging. Beyond lay another linked tent.

  It too had a domed ceiling and similar carpets. At its center stood an ebony column on which a skull had been mounted. A golden skull. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. Sitting by the column, leaning dazedly against it, shivering, was a naked girl of no more than ten or eleven summers. A green fish tattoo stood out on the girl’s right shoulder.

  One of her hands pressed between her thighs to cover herself up. She was whimpering. The Queen glided through the flap. Constantine, after glancing at the legionaries by the door, followed her. Two were looking at him with wide-eyed incredulity. He raised his hand to them as he went, indicating he knew what he was doing.

  But when he passed through into the other tent his confidence faded. It wasn’t the syrupy sweet incense, which he’d never smelt before, there was something cold and unnerving about the room, which made him uneasy.

  “We make sacrifices here to the great daemon, Aesma Daeva, that he will reveal the end of this war.” The Queen stopped near the whimpering girl.

  As she turned, he saw a slim silver dagger in the hand she held close by her side. He should have searched her. He stopped out of her reach.

  The other girls had followed them and after a curt word from the Queen they began dancing around the girl at the column. She took to whimpering louder, like a dog waiting for a beating.

  A Jovian called to him. “My lord, do you need us?” They were out of sight.

  He answered. “Stay there. Keep a lookout. Shout if you see Persians.”

  The two dancing girls’ breasts swayed again, as they swirled their plaited hair from side to side and ululated as if intoxicated.

  “Prostrate, Roman. This is the skull of your beloved Emperor Valerian. The divine Valerian. One of your many gods, was he not?” said the Queen. She nodded toward the skull.

  “Do you like my King’s sisters? They are his Ministraie.” She gestured at the girls. For a moment, he imagined she was offering them to him. His gaze flicked toward them and then back to her. She wouldn’t fool him that easily.

  “I'm sure your emperor wouldn't mind,” she continued. “I hear he enjoys such things. I can watch.” Her tone had turned soft, honey sweet.

  The girls’ movements were wilder, more abandoned now, as if some unheard tune was speeding up. A jingling of bracelets and the stomping of feet filled his ears. As they passed behind the skull he stared at it.

  “See how the fixing holes in the back were bored.” The Queen had seen where he was looking. “Those holes were drilled while Valerian still lived. You can tell from the re-growth. Do you see?”

  An amused note, a note of triumph, filled her voice. Her rescuers would be here soon. Perhaps they were outside. What was that noise? He couldn’t hear anything with those stupid dancers.

  He had to move. He should drag them all away at once, but like a dread compulsion, the strangeness of the scene had him spellbound.

  “Stay here, Roman. Unless you’re afraid of what a virgin’s entrails will show you.”

  The Queen held the knife up. She wasn’t offering it. She wanted to use it.

  Lives were sacrificed every day in the arena and slaves, he knew, were liable to have their throats cut for any insubstantial offence. But the idea of an innocent’s life, slave or not, being wasted to foretell the future angered him. He remembered his father remonstrating with an official about the subject years before, when he was nine or ten. He’d always admired his father for that.

  He walked toward the Queen. When he was close enough he raised his left hand high in the air and opened it abruptly. As soon as her gaze jumped to it he seized her knife hand. It was a trick only the untrained fell for. He bent the knife from her grip and smiled. Then he pushed her away so forcefully she took a step back and stumbled, crying out in horror at his impudence. He went to the whimpering girl.

  While the Queen got to her feet he examined the girl. She looked healthy. Perhaps a recent captive. The Queen spat like a wounded vixen, but she stayed away from him. Her pinched expression and the hate in her eyes made it clear she would love to see him suffer.

  He helped the captive to her feet. She clutched at his arm like a baby, her body trembling, her mouth opening and closing like a tiny bird’s. He wondered had she known what they had planned for her. He sniffed. The crisp tang of urine clung to the girl’s body.

  “You're safe,” he said, not knowing if she'd understand. He turned to the Queen. Her composure had returned.

  “Your bloodthirsty daemons will have to wait. You’ll all come to the Roman camp with us, either freely or tied up like dogs. I promise you that will not be pleasant. It's your choice. Make it.”

  He pulled away the captive's hands, walked to the flap separating the two tents, and called for the Jovians to help him, and quick. Then he walked over to the skull and, with one blow from the pommel of his sword, smashed it. No one would believe it was Valerian’s skull, and what good would it do to remember him anyway? He’d lost to the Persians.

  The sisters let out a high-pitched squeal. The Queen made no sound. He ground the larger pieces to dust beneath his hobnailed sandals as two legionaries peered into the tent. Two more were behind them, bobbing up and down with curiosity.

  “Come on in. This lot will be coming back to camp with us. It’ll be your unfortunate duty to get ’em back alive.” There were stifled gasps, and a snigger. He glared. The sniggering stopped and the familiar grim expression of legionaries under the eye of an officer, returned.

  The whimpering captive had dropped to her knees beside him. Now she stared, wild-eyed, at the legionaries. She had unusual blue eyes. Clearly, she wasn't pure Persian. He wondered about her story. He imagined her staying here alone, waiting for the Persians to retake this part of their camp.

  He’d saved her and had changed her fate. Was that not enough? He looked at her. Yes, he would leave her. He had enough problems with the other three.

  The girl saw him looking at her and started saying something. She spoke in a local dialect, then glared at him.

  Suddenly there was something appealing about her, as if he knew her, or someone like her in an earlier, happier time. Constantine felt an urge to protect her. He sighed. He was just being stupid.

  His heart had been hardened by years of fighting for his life in blood-filled battles and skirmishes and was now firmly locked. His one ambition now was to make his father proud of him by his actions in every campaign he fought in.

  He turned and gave orders for the prisoners to be taken outside. He motioned the captive to follow him into the other tent where, after a quick look around, he found a chest filled with carefully folded clothes. She stood two steps behind him.

  At first, she wouldn't touch anything he proffered. She simply stood dumb-faced, staring at the fine fabrics, her hands held up, as if even being close to those embroidered silks and linens was a sacrilege. He threw a long blue shirt-like garment at her. She picked it up gingerly, then placed it carefully back in the chest. He shook his head, and firmly pushed it toward her again, angry this time. He didn’t want blood-crazed men to see women being paraded through a battle half naked. And he had no time for arguments.

  She looked around, as if someone might stop her, and then hesitantly took the shirt and put it on. He picked up some similar garments and motioned at the other girls being hustled outside. She understood.

  The Queen turned to him as she was being led through the tent. A Jovian was pushing her.

  “Curse you, and your kin,” she said. She spat at him and laughed like a crone twice her age.

  “Put her over your shoulder and run for your horse,” he said, pointing at the larger of the two legionaries pushing the Queen. The man nodded.

  �
��Tell the men to take the others the same way and this one as well.” He gestured toward the captives.

  The Queen looked at Constantine with hate in her eyes and then screamed when one of the legionaries grabbed her arm. The man ignored her.

  “You'll make it if you move fast. Go.” He turned away. Behind him came shouts, the noises of a struggle, then yelling, but he didn’t bother looking round.

  He went around the tent, looking for papyri or maps. Finding nothing, he went outside into the early morning sunlight.

  War horns bellowed not far away.

  A huge horseman appeared around the side of a tent fifty paces away. Another rider followed behind the first in a mist of dust. Both had long, curved swords. Both swords glinted. If he didn't move fast he'd be cut down like corn at harvest time. He turned and ran fast, leaping wildly over bodies and tent ropes, his scabbard clattering and banging as if it might break against his thigh. The trophy sword he'd taken banged hard against his back.

  Catcalls and whoops came after him. He glanced back. He was sorry he did. Four heavy Persian cavalrymen, the most feared sort, were cantering after him. Their thigh-length wire mail coats, pointed iron helmets, and leather boots made them look like oversized vultures swooping onto their prey. He swerved around a tent and raced toward another, his head tucked down.

  They would be on him any moment, their swords high in the air. A single blow could cut his head off. He knew such cavalrymen would practice that killing blow until they could do it with their eyes closed. He leapt over an injured Persian curled on the ground. His legs felt heavy.

  He heard the whup-whup of a spinning mace. His skin crawled across his chest as if he’d already been hit by it. He gulped air and ran on, his legs pumping, not bothering to look back. Faster, come on, come on. He dodged a tent rope, went left.

  The pounding of horses’ hooves seemed almost on top of him. He half stumbled but kept on his feet. It had been too easy so far. Capturing the Queen had been a gift from fortune, the kind of thing he’d never believed could happen if he’d not seen it himself. And now he might have to pay. He gripped his sword. It was time to move. He ran around the side of a large tent.