The Silken Slit of the Empress Ch. 10

Hey guys!

The story is really starting to get going. As many of you have guessed in the comments (I read each one) the Nika riots are starting to really boil. Yet, before things truly bubble over, we have a few more things to learn.

Namely, more on Helena's past.

Anyways, let me know what you guys think of this one! And be ready for things to really start coming to a head in the next few chapters.

......

The baying of the mob. The glow of fire.

After a few moments of debate, Helena and I decided to move towards it. There were no screams of pain, no real sounds of violence coming from the streets ahead. We would see what there was, we decided, before returning to the Empress.

We came into a square; one with a small, torch-lit church planted solidly at the northern end. A few squads of armored stratiotai, perhaps forty men, stood before the single door. They were imperial legionaries, though I did not recognize any of the grim-faced men. They all looked outward, swords drawn.

Surrounding them, was the mob.

The seething body of humanity was all around them. They totally filled the square; men, women, children. The old and the young and the in-between. Their roar was the pounding of the tides; the blue and green flags they held, the rolling of the waves.

Helena and I pushed our way to the rear of the crowd. They were hurling rocks and taunts and empty flagons of wine towards the imperial soldiers. The mob ebbed and flowed, forwards and backwards, as the guards stuttered forward and edged back. We were wedged between stone and pressed bodies, close to where a wild-eyed man screamed from a top a heavy crate.

I gripped Helena's arm, leaning close to shout.

"Is that where the escaped prisoners are?"

She nodded. "Saint Akakios church. Should we help the guards?"

I shook my head vehemently. There was no way that I was getting involved in this. If the Centenarius here had any sense, he'd be pulling his men back.

And, sure enough, the soldiers started to fall back. The crowd roared; a fresh wave of stones and broken pottery raining down on the retreating men.

"See!" The man beside us shrieked. "They're weak, the Emperor is weak! No more taxes! No more oppression! Power to the Greens! Nika! Nika! "

The man pumped a sword into the air, something that he shouldn't be allowed, or afford to have.

His rallying cries were lost in the crowd's jubilance. Their voice was the tide surging through rock. It was a disjointed, chaotic maelstrom of sound that crashed into and swirled around itself. I heard calls to free the prisoners, to end the costly wars and remember the charioteers that died. Men screamed the perversion of change, while cries of Nika rose like plumes of spray from the boiling sea.

The church doors opened. Two men emerged, welcomed by the crowd's roar of joyful defiance. These were the two escape prisoners; a Blue and a Green. Though, right now, that didn't matter. I saw more unexplainable swords thrust into the air. The two colors blended together, united beneath a call of conquest.

"Nika! Nika! "

Helena and I exchange glances, my fear and unease mirrored within her. We retreated from the square a few moments later. We hurried away from the crowd, looping around and back towards the palace. We tried to avoid any other knots of people we found, breathing out a sigh of relief when the walls of the palace finally came into view.

"Things are really getting bad," I said.

We'd slowed our pace now that the walls had come into view. They were well lit, with wary-eyed Excubitors patrolling the parapets.

Helena nodded; her expression serious. "We need to speak to the Empress. The weapons they had..."

She trailed off, unsure, as I was, of the significance of what we'd seen.

"Aye," I said. "Let's get behind these walls."

The gates, two massive doors of heavy, iron-banded wood, were sealed shut.

I hammered my fist against it, stepping back into the pools of light provided by two, over-hanging lanterns.

"Who's there?" A voice called from above. It was an Excubitor, poking his head over the parapets.

"Its us," Helena called back. "Open up."

The man took in our faces, eyes shifting to peer into the surrounding darkness.

"Its you," he said. "You two alone? Why are you out so late?"

"None of your business," Helena said. "Let us in. We have to see the Empress."

"Yeah," he said. "Alright. I'll just come down and do that, then." He gave us a smile that set the hairs of my neck prickling.

"Don't go anywhere. I'll be down in just a minute."

He vanished without another word, though we could hear the rattle of his armor as he stomped down a flight of unseen stairs. I settled in for the wait, wondering at my sudden sense of unease.

"How long does this usually take?" I asked.

"Not long," Helena said.

I waited for more, but she didn't continue. Her attention was on the parapets. She was chewing her lip, eyes distant.

"I think," she eventually said, "that I've seen him before. I'm pretty sure that he's one of Doukas' friends."

"Who?"

"Senator Hypatius' son," she said, lip quirking. "Remember, that rich and powerful man's only son? The one you humiliated?"

I scowled at her.

Her eyes sparkled in the lantern light, though her mirth quickly faded. "We need to be careful."

"You think that he's going to get a few of his friends?"

"I think that it's an opportunity," she said.

I nodded, holding my arm out as if a shield was strapped to it. "Alright. By my side then, shield mate."

She flashed me a quick grin, sliding into place beside me. She hesitated a moment, before planting a quick kiss on my cheek. I smiled, an expression of pleased idiocy that I still wore when the gates swung open a few moments later.

Helena's instincts, unfortunately, proved to be accurate.

"Well," a familiar, aristocratic voice said. "There seem to be beggars at our door."

Doukas was there with four of other Excubitors, including the man we'd first spoken too. Hypatius' son was as pretty as I remembered, with smooth sink and pouty lips. The bruises I'd given him were fading quickly. He and the others were in their armor, wooden clubs held in their hands.

"A dirty farmer and a jumped-up little slut," he sneered. "Here, alone in the dark."

I rolled my eyes. Did this idiot think he was clever? The fools hadn't even tried to surround us. "How's the face, Doukas?"

Rage flashed across his features. He led his rich friends in a handful of steps forward, their clubs held out menacingly. Helena and I stayed put, though I gripped her arm.

"If anything happens," I hissed. "Follow my lead."

She jerked her head up and down, and I was pleased by the ready coldness I saw in her eyes. She really was turning into a real soldier, not one of these strutting cocks.

"We're the Empress' guard, Excubitor," Helena said, her voice frigid. "Let us through."

The anger disappeared from Doukas' face, replaced by the smile of a child ripping the wings off an insect.

"Ah, Cooper, don't be like that."

Helena sucked in a breath. She stiffened, spear straight. Doukas' grin widened.

"I admit, I didn't recognize you at first," he said. "Neither did a lot of my friends here. But once we got to talking, we managed to jog each other's memories. Here," he unhooked a pouch from his belt and tossed it towards us. It hit the cobbles with the metallic jingle of coins. "For old time's sake."

Helena had started to tremble. Her eyes were wide, flicking between the four men.

"Three and a half follis," Doukas said. He nodded to the coin purse. "Thats what you cost, right? Its all there. Why don't you scoop that up and come into the alley with me?"

"And I'll take a roll after that," the man who'd spoken to us from the wall grinned.

"What the fuck is this?" I growled. This type of talk didn't usually bother me. But I could feel Helena trembling like a leaf, and my anger rose. "Pick up your fucking money."

"Paid is paid, farmer," Doukas said. "Its not fair that you're the only one who gets a turn." He took another step forward, slapping the club into his hand.

"That's how she's getting you to train her, isn't it? I can't say that I blame you. Copper's tight little cunt is magic."

A third man snorted. "Come now, Doukas. You exaggerate. The whore was just another hole."

"Shut the fuck up," I said. "All of you."

Doukas laughed. "She didn't tell you, eh peasant? Our Copper here has been on her back since she was old enough to take it. We've all had a dip in her."

Helena bowed her head.

"God, that slut loved to work a cock. Do you remember, Copper, how I made you scream?"

I looked over to Helena, my blood roaring in my ears. She was still shaking. She peered at me through the falling curtain of her hair. One look into her haunted, shattered eyes told me all I needed to know.

It was true.

Emotions surged up through me, but I shoved them all aside. I was statiotai, and now wasn't the time to get lost in my head. I tightened my grip on her arm.

"Ready, shield mate?"

"Come on," Doukas said. "Let's toss the beggar out and have our fun."

"Helena!" I roared, startling everyone. "Shield up!"

She snapped her gaze back up, in time to see the others charging towards us. I grinned, feeling the eager thunder of my heart.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered.

"Then, run!" I yanked her backwards, forcing her into a spin and pulling her after me as I bolted from the gate. I dragged her away, accelerating quickly. I don't care who you are, two soldiers in tunicas cannot beat four armed and armored men.

Even if it was these four shit-eaters.

The Excubitors roared, giving chase. Helena, I was pleased to see, found her footing after a few stumbling steps.

We stretched our legs, pulling far from the palace walls and into the night.

We lost ourselves in the city's darkness; streets and buildings blurring past us as we ran. My heartbeat slowed after a few minutes, the sound of pursuit fading behind us. Though we did not ease our pace.

Away from danger now, I felt my thoughts begin to swirl. Pieces clicked together in my mind, this final truth doing so much to explain the mystery surrounding my shield mate's past.

She was a woman dressed as a soldier; the Empress' guard with no real combat training. Her old friendship with Theodora and Antonina, her complete lack of bashfulness and even her bawdy sense of humor; all of it could be explained.

Helena had been an actress.

She must have known the Empress and Antonina from those days. Both of those women, I knew, had grown up desperately poor on Constantinople's streets. The Blues had taken them in when they were old enough, putting both women to work in their brothels and stage productions.

Helena's father had been a fisherman, her mother, dead in the weeks following her birth. She would have been poor as well, only a few bad days at sea from starvation. And for a young woman in the Empire, there were few ways to ward off hunger.

She'd started to sell her sex.

Copper, I thought, a stage name. A brothel name. I imagined the shine of her hair by candlelight, admitting that the name fit her.

The pounding of our feet on the cobbles was a familiar beat. I realized that we'd fallen back into our rhythm. The one that was most natural; that our bodies returned too when the mind was somewhere far away.

We ran at the pace that had become our training routine, one beside the other.

My earlier emotions started to leak back into my head. But the comfort of the pace, and the feel of Helena in her place by my side, helped smother my initial surge of revulsion. It shrieked to me in my mother's voice; all spite and judgement and hatred.

I let the air flow in and out of my lungs, Helena's breath, cycling with my own.

Nothing had changed. She was still there, right there, by my side. I felt all those ugly emotions flow out of me. The shape of her still fit there, as smoothly as it had before.

Nothing had changed. And when I looked back into myself, I saw nothing, not even the faintest imprint of that furious disgust.

So, Helena had been a whore? That was nothing compared so what I had done.

I hadn't been paying attention to where we ran, following wherever Helena led. She guided me through the city, past empty squares and street corners full of shouting people. We eventually came to a quiet place, the buildings here older, and shabbier than most.

We kept running, until we came to the sea.

We were far from the palace now, at a small dock along the edge of the Marmaran Sea. It was one of those warm, cloudless summer nights. The moon was bright against the inky darkness of the water.

Helena slowed to a walk, and so did I. I kept beside her, following her onto a short wooden pier. Neither of us spoke, though even in the deepest night, a dock was never silent. The sea lapped against the shore and the wooden pilings. Boats creaked, thumping rhythmically against whatever they'd been fastened.

I breathed deeply; comforted by the scent of salt and old fish. It smelled like Rhodos, like home.

"This is the last place I saw my father," Helena said, coming to the edge of the pier. "He left one morning in his little fishing boat. And he never came back."

She was silent for a few moments, gazing out and away from the city. I stood with her, feeling the sweat on my body start to cool.

"I know what you're thinking, Leo. Just say it."

She'd taken a step back from me, her arms crossed over her chest. She couldn't meet my eyes, curled away from me so that she wouldn't see the blow she was sure I'd give her. She was ready to take it; my scorn, disgust and condemnation.

That expression on her face, so different from the brightness of her smile, broke something in me.

She'd sold her body for money. She'd been a whore, but I was a butcher. A killer. How was it, that of the two of us, it was her that felt vile? Why should she be the one to cringe from my revulsion?

"Say it, Leo," she said. "Come on!"

Her voice had risen, tinged with the desperate need to end this wait. To let whatever was going to happen, happen.

"Will you sit with me?" I said, lowering myself to the dock.

I didn't look at her, staring out with my legs dangling until I eventually felt her sit beside me. I pulled out the pouch that I'd gotten from Kostas' son, teasing it open and handing it her.

"Here," I said. "Have one."

Helena peered inside, staring back up at me in disbelief.

"Honeyed figs?" She said. "Are these honeyed figs?"

I nodded. "They're your favorite, right?"

And then, all at once, her expression of raw vulnerability and confusion vanished. Replaced by rage.

"Honeyed figs?" She screamed. "You got me honeyed, fucking figs?"

She slammed the pouch back into my chest.

"I'm a whore, Leo! A fucking whore! I fucked any man that paid me. You find out, and now, you're giving me honeyed, fucking figs?"

Her face was bright, even in the darkness. Her eyes flashing with a wild mix of a hundred different emotions. I blinked at her, wishing that I knew what to say.

"Helena, I--"

"And I was good at it too," she spat. "Like those fucking pigs said, I was one of the best. I had generals, senators and God damned lords lining up outside my door. And you know why?"

Her fist, her body, all of it was clenched so tight. On the verge of shattering, like all the joy I'd seen break behind her eyes.

"Because I fucked their brains. I'd take everything they could give me and then beg for more. And, when they were done, I'd hold their sweaty bodies and whisper about how I'd never had it so good."

Her face twisted.

"Men always tip better when you stroke their ego as well as their cock."

I ignored the churning in my gut; the pointless jealousy that reared up in me. I didn't know what to do, what to say. So, I said the first thing that came to me.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

The question, I saw, was a knife through her armor. She blinked, her anger bleeding out of her. She looked away, back out to sea.

"I don't..." she started. She swallowed. "I don't know. Maybe, if things went further. But I just...I just wanted to see."

My heart was steady in my chest. I looked at her, and despite the letter in my pocket, my mother's voice had never felt so distant. In the tavern, thinking of those moments of peace when the horrors of the future seemed so far away; she'd looked at me. She'd looked at me and had taken in so much of me with those cypress eyes.

Because she'd understood.

"Well," I said. I pulled one of the sticky fruit from the pouch, holding it out to her. "Let's see."

"Leo," she said, her eyes full of tears. "Why?"

Because you're amazing, I thought. Because you're so strong, and bright and filled with so much life. Because you're stomach-churningly beautiful. You understand, and when I'm with you I feel such peace.

Your joy may be broken, but mine lies with you.

You're more than your past Helena, and you're so much more than the world says you can be. And oath or no, whatever the future holds; I will do everything I can to keep you by my side.

I wanted to say that, and so much more. But I didn't know how. I was stratiotai, and so I spoke with the words I knew.

"Because you're my shield mate."

I could see something fracturing beneath her features, like a wave about to burst through a wall of sand. She didn't move, and so I reached out and pulled her hands free. I put the honeyed treat into her palm.

"Leo," her voice cracked. She cradled the little piece of fruit in her lap. "I'm a whore."

"You were a whore," I said. "You became something different."

"I'm dirty. I'm not good, I'm not proper. I'll never be fit for y--"

Her voice broke again. Her finger's closed tightly on the honeyed fig, her eyes screwing shut.

"Who'd ever stand beside a whore?"

Then, she wept. She curled around herself, shoulders shaking. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I shifted close, gathering her in my arms. She resisted at first, but I didn't let go. I held her head to my chest, until her now sticky fingers reached up to clutch at me.

I didn't speak, didn't murmur sweet words into her ears. I just held her, letting the pain that drained from her soak my chest. Throughout it all, I let my thoughts drift.

It was amazing. I felt so light. I felt hope, real hope for the first time in so many years. This wondrous woman had done so much. She'd been a whore, and I was a soldier. She'd become something different, something new.

Could I?

In my head, I saw a room filled with tables. It was there, by a market that looked out onto the sea. A place, built by four hands instead of just two.

Who'd want stand beside her, she'd asked. What a ridiculous thing to say.

I didn't want to be anywhere else.

"Do you, Helena, swear yourself as my shield mate?" I felt her body stiffen. "Do you vow to stand beside me? And do you promise to stand together against the future; your shield locked onto mine?"

She pushed herself off of me. Our gazes met, and I saw a new world behind her eyes.

"Well?" I asked.

She nodded, jerking her head up and down.

I matched her nod. "Then, I swear myself as your shield mate, vowing to stand beside you. I promise to believe in you; to trust that you'll hold that place at my side."

I reached for her, cupping her hands and closing them around the honeyed fig in her lap.

"And tonight," I said, "and however many nights we have. I vow to hold you in my arms while you sleep."

A heartbeat later, her lips were on mine. She kissed me, and I could taste the salt from her eyes.