Like Fire Through Bone Read Free Page A

Panagiotis’s concubines, and Eudoxia had ordered he deal with it. Vasilios’s good mood had vanished.
    Now he stood in the courtyard between the kitchens and women’s quarter, with the young eunuch trembling and sobbing where he knelt on the ground flanked by two of the house guards. Vasilios kept his gaze firmly fixed on the figure on the ground, although he knew a small crowd of servants watched out of sight in the kitchen doorway. There were also more serving women, eunuchs, two of Panagiotis’s concubines’ daughters, and the youngest of the concubines herself, all watching from the balcony attached to the women’s quarter.
    Vasilios pressed his lips together and clenched his hands at his sides, but he kept them out of sight in the folds of his tunic. The punishment for this kind of stealing was usually having the fingers cut off. Vasilios wondered if the young eunuch on the ground knew that, and if he did, why he’d done it in the first place.
    Vasilios glanced sidelong at the man who stood beside him. Eòran was tall but slight, with red-blond hair he wore braided, and a hint of blond scruff that followed the line of his jaw. His skin was incredibly pale, marking him as from the Northern Isles. With his arms folded across his chest and his expression impassive, Eòran too, watched the young eunuch.
    “Look at me, boy,” Vasilios ordered, voice loud enough to be heard but completely devoid of emotion. The eunuch on the ground looked up, gulping back sobs. “I don’t know if you are aware of how lucky you are,” Vasilios said, taking several steps forward. “Our master and mistress are extremely lenient with us eunuchs, but also with all who serve them.”
    For a moment, Vasilios let his gaze sweep around the courtyard, making sure all of the servants who were watching understood this was a warning for them all.
    “They give us fine clothes, enough to eat, a place to sleep, and discipline us only when we have let them down grievously.” Vasilios looked down at the young eunuch once more. “I have belonged to this household since I was sixteen years of age, and in all that time, I have never once been treated cruelly by our master, or even punished by him for acting beyond the scope of what I have been ordered to do. Instead, he educated me and made me his personal secretary. Our master and mistress prize intelligence, independence, and culture in their eunuchs, and that is a gift we should cherish.”
    Vasilios shook his head, then knelt next to the younger man, and when he spoke next, his voice was gentler. “You are young, and you have never served in any other house, but let me assure you, most other masters would beat you every day for daring to even think beyond what you were ordered to do. We are eunuchs and that makes us more valuable than most servants, but never forget that we are still owned. Jewels are to be beautiful and pleasurable in the bedchamber until they grow too old for such things, and then to be attentive around the house and to the ladies’ needs. Castratos are to be obedient, attentive, loyal, and demure in all things. You have disappointed not only the expectation of our master and mistress, but the very duties you were designed to do.” Vasilios stood, his voice going hard again. “The common punishment for a eunuch caught stealing from the house concubines is having several fingers cut off.”
    The young eunuch on the ground went white and began crying again, his voice keening into a high, desperate wail. Around the perimeter of the courtyard, everyone held their breath and waited. Vasilios shook his head and turned toward where Eòran waited silently, sword at his waist.
    “It seems a shame to damage you that way, though, since it will be harder for you to fulfill your duties with fewer fingers. But we do want to impress on you the severity of your actions so that in future you will only uphold the good name of this house. Instead”—Vasilios met Eòran’s steady gaze