The Belt of Gold Read Free

road a good long way; she stopped, catching her breath, and straightened up to look around her. The road would take her off to Constantinople, if she followed it in this direction.
    If she went back, within a few hours she could reach Chalcedon. In Chalcedon there would be food, water, wine, fresh clothes, and a way to make her plight known to the Basileus, who would then rescue her. Perhaps. But she dared not take that chance, not with the precious list now safe within the bosom of her dress, against her skin. She pressed her hand against it, glad. She had done what her Basileus had ordered. That lifted her heart like a jolt of strong wine.
    She had to get back to Constantinople. She would lay the list into the Basileus’s hands herself, or die in the attempt.
    That gave her strength, and she started away down the slope again. Unfortunately the strength did not last very long. As she clambered downhill, the bleak, sunblasted slopes rose up around her as if they would swallow her entirely; the road disappeared; the flat, leathery-leafed brush tripped her and caught at her clothes and clogged her path. At the bottom of the hill she sat down, exhausted.
    For a moment she was still, limp and empty of thoughts. The dust smelled bitter. Behind her something rustled in the brush, and she heard a twittering of birds.
    She longed for Constantinople. For the comfort of her place in the Palace, her silken sheets and her bed, clean clothes. To bathe; to drink cool wine. Something good to eat. She imagined a baked fish on a bed of spinach and eggs. Her mouth watered.
    Why had she ever come out here? Irresistibly tears drew into her eyes.
    She cursed herself. She was a fool, a silly girl, as the Basileus often called her, and she deserved no pity. She had wanted this. A woman born of her rank was offered few choices in her life: she could become a nun and pray all her life, or she could marry and bear babies, immured as surely as a nun in the women’s quarters of her husband’s house. She could wait upon the Empress. That was Theophano’s choice, and she had seen that as the opportunity to do other things as well, to serve the Basileus, to do deeds of great import. She had asked for this.
    Do it, then, she told herself. Do it, and do not cry, and do not yield. What can happen to you, after all? You will be uncomfortable for a while, but in the end, if you persevere, you will be home again, your task fulfilled. Do it.
    She got up, squared her shoulders, and faced the countryside. That way was Constantinople. All she had to do was keep walking.
    Yet as she looked on the barren hills her heart sank again, and she felt again the shameful burning of her tears. Her hand rose to her breast. Even the soft crumple of the paper there could not spur her forward. She could not go on.
    She started down again, to sit some more, and weep. But as she sank down her eyes detected a sort of smoke climbing into the sky, from beyond the hill she had just descended. It was a plume of dust. They were chasing her.
    She sprang up. She knew who it was who chased her: the wretched Karros, surely, John Cerulis’s bully boy. If Karros caught her, she would suffer a good deal of indignity. Lifting her skirts up out of the brush, she raced away toward the next slope, toward the road and Constantinople and safety.

2
    â€œGod, I hate churches,” Hagen said. “When we get home again, I’m never going inside another church. I’ve earned so much absolution, anyway, these two years, that when we get home, I’ll sin for free the rest of my life.”
    â€œBe quiet,” Rogerius said.
    They had left their horses in a grove of trees at the gate, and now, approaching the little stone church, they unbuckled their sword belts and laid their weapons down on the uncovered porch at the door. Hagen went first into the church. He pushed back the hood of his cloak; inside the church, the jingle of his pilgrim’s bells sounded noisy and