Kathleen Kirkwood & Anita Gordon - Heart series (32 page)

»«

Lyting greeted Melane as she emerged from the back room, closing the door softly behind her.

“
Kalispera sas.
Good evening, Melane,” he spoke haltingly in Greek. “Your servant, Dita, said I would find Ailinn here.”

“
She is waiting for you. Enjoy your leisure. I hope you will find everything to your satisfaction.” A secretive smile sparkled in Melane’s eyes. “Now I must see to Thord. He, too, will be waiting.” With that, Melane floated down the hall in search of her lover.

Distracted by Melane
’s words, Lyting reached for the door and, without knocking, entered in, eager to see Ailinn. His footsteps solidified as his gaze fell on her. She, too, went perfectly still where she stood beside the wide, inviting bed, reaching for her mantle.

Heat
surged through Lyting. Ailinn looked like one of the classical goddesses whose sculptures graced the city — Venus come to life, her beauty rousing the most primal passions known to man. Known to him, but long denied.

His heart began a strong, heavy beat as his gaze traveled downward. The misty gown covered all but concealed nothing. He drank in the sight of her high, lovely breasts, full and round and tipped with rose. His gaze lowered to her incredibly small waist and flat stomach, then lingered over the indentation of her navel which beckoned to be filled with sweet wine and relished there. The curve of her hips he imagined hot beneath
his hands, and her sleek legs wrapped around his waist. Heat suffused his loins. Ailinn long haunted his dreams looking just so — the nymph of his most erotic desires and untamed passions.

Ailinn stood unable to move, stunned at Lyting
’s sudden entrance, then again by the sight of him. His beard was gone, his face clean shaven. Once more she gazed clearly upon his features. She felt a tightening in her breasts, a tingly ache that spread downward and settled between her thighs. Exceptionally handsome with the beard, Lyting was devastatingly so without one. ‘Twas near painful to look on him.

Desire swamped Lyting
’s senses. Why did Ailinn remain unmoving before him, not even attempting to cover herself?

Ignoring the distant voice of wisdom, his gaze went to her silken shoulders, where the jeweled fasteners invited him to remove them and let the fabric whisper away, fully exposing her creamy breasts. His gaze descended to the juncture of her legs. He swallowed hard, feeling each drub of his heart.

Raw desire battled with will. His eyes pulled slowly to hers. She remained still as a doe, waiting. He balled his hands as will began to bend and a molten fire raged forth. A groan rose from his depths. In a single stride he closed the distance and swept Ailinn into his arms, hard against his chest.

“
God’s holy might, Ailinn! Would you torture me apurpose? There are many eunuchs in Byzantium, but I assure you, I am not one of them.”

His mouth descended over hers, covering her lips
and ravishing them thoroughly. A small, startled sound escaped her, yet she opened to him, her mouth parting under the assault. He invaded at once. His tongue mated hers in a frenzied dance — commanding, possessing, plundering all at once, claiming her as his alone.

A bolt of liquid heat shot through Ailinn, melting her against him. His tongue continued to stroke and seduce and steal her breath straight away.

He molded her against him, sliding his hand down the curve of her spine and pressing her hips against his. She felt the hard proof of his desire. Felt an answering throb between her own legs. Her senses whirled and her body ached with astonishing need before Lyting’s unleashed passion.

A white heat of emotion possessed Lyting as his hand moved
to the side of Ailinn’s waist and met with bare flesh where the gown parted above the belt. Ailinn pressed against him as though inviting his touch of fire. His hand slowly continued upward seeking the warm mound of her breast.

Deep within, he knew if he began the intimacy, he must have more. He must have all of her. There would be no stopping, his passions too long strained, the blood of the North flowing hot and thick in his veins. In the frenzy of unshackled desire, he would take her, bury himself in her, be she willing or not. Then he would be no better than those who had attacked and violated her kinswomen. Where then would be his sworn word to her? Where would be his honor? Ailinn would find herself ravished by a Dane after all.

Reason warred within the dense haze of passion. With fierce concentration, Lyting mastered himself enough to break the kiss. They both gasped against each other for breath. Dropping her softly to the bed, he staggered back a pace.

“
A man has his limitations, Ailinn. I am at the end of mine. Remember it, if you would preserve your virtue.”

With that, Lyting pivoted and flung himself through the door and out of the room. He dared not look back, knowing how she would look, spread upon the bed and so easily his.

Breathless, Ailinn stared after Lyting, her lips burning from his fiery possession, her heart pounding beneath her breast. She pressed upward as he disappeared from sight and remained staring out the empty doorway, utterly astounded, empty and aching within.

»«

Hours later, in the dark of the night, the moon a fingernail in the sky, Lyting still walked the streets of Constantinople.

He returned earlier from the tenements in the Magnaura district outside the city, after visiting
Arnór and dealing with Jorunn, Ingered, and Ashild. Arnór had been shocked by Lyting’s revelations, having received a different version of Ailinn’s disappearance from his wife and daughters. Arnór proved wholly understanding of Lyting’s decision to take separate lodgings and agreed to send his goods on to Melane’s the following day.

On reentering the city, Lyting had then spent considerable time cooling his ardor with a long walk in the evening air. He moved along the streets with his hood drawn up, for his white
hair ever brought him notice and marked his passage. Tonight he longed for privacy as he dealt with the concerns that plagued his heart and soul.

Surprisingly, the streets were fairly well illumin
ated with torchlight. But, while walking along the seawall on the Golden Horn, he’d encountered a little scab of a man, loitering there, who became highly insistent that he carry a brand for him. The man looked to belong to Constantinople’s poor. Believing ‘twould be charitable to allow him to do so, Lyting employed the man. He now walked slightly ahead, lighting the way back to the house of Melane.

As Lyting arrived in front of the house, he paused outside a moment and contemplated the entrance. He would request another room. Near Ailinn
’s. He should warn her to block her door.

God give him strength. He was not wholly sure he could make it through the night without climbing into her bed.

Lyting retrieved a small coin from his pouch and paid the man, then went and rapped on the door. Almost immediately a servant whisked it open.

Steeling himself, Lyting entered in.

»«

The man waited until the Norseman disappeared into the house, and the door closed behind him.

He turned and hurried off, rushing at a hobbling gait along darkened streets and alley ways, until he came at last to a palatial mansion that sat upon one of the city’s many hills and overlooked the lights of the Golden Horn.

Hastening to the back of the building, he stopped before a thick, planked door of knotted oak and knocked rapidly, heaving to catch his breath. When no one answered, he pounded harder, insistent, urgent.

A small inset panel in the door slid open, revealing a pair of eyes.

The man from the wharf yanked open the neck of his tunic,
pulling it down to expose the mark on his left shoulder.

“What is it you wish?” a voice rumbled behind the door.

“
Pass the word. Atlison is back!”

Ailinn awakened slowly, feeling wonderfully rested and deliciously lethargic. She stretched out in the soft, comfortable bed. She hadn
’t slept so well in ages.

Opening her eyes, she found the room
still in darkness, a small amount of light entering from without, seeping through the cracks around and beneath the door.

Lyting. He had not returned to their room last night. Was he still in the house?

She flung her legs over the side of the bed and began to rise, groping for her mantle.

Just then the door eased open and a shaft of light penetrated the room. A servant, seeing Ailinn awake, spoke a soft greeting and entered with a tray of food. She gibbered in Greek, which was lost on Ailinn, but she realized the woman wished for her to sit back. When she did, the woman set the tray of sliced melons, figs, and bread upon her lap, then turned to light the elegant silver lamp on the table.

Ailinn saw now that clothes had been brought during the night and left, folded on the chair. She wished to ask of Lyting, but having no way to communicate, she waited for the servant to leave.

Setting aside the tray, she rose to dress, deciding to go in search of Lyting. Gratefully, the new gown proved a solid, nontransparent weave
— a sapphire blue patterned all over with small golden stars and circles. A
stola
of currant-red silk, bordered with gold, accompanied it.

Ailinn thought to hear feminine voices from without. Easing the door open, she slipped into the corridor.

Light spilled through narrow windows that opened onto the courtyard, washing the interior spaces with bright sunlight and revealing ‘twas much later in the day than Ailinn first guessed.

Voices and stringed music drifted from the courtyard. Ailinn pressed on, glimpsing rooms in passing, furnished with costly hangings, couches, carpets, piles of cushions, and small figurines on marble pedestals.

Entering the main hallway, Ailinn encountered a couple descending the staircase. The man looked to be a soldier and adjusted his uniform, his hair tousled. The woman’s face was becomingly flushed and her lips pinkened. ‘Twas obvious, even to herself, that the two had just finished their tryst.

Ailinn quickly turned and headed toward the courtyard. She emerged beneath the cool shade of the portico, overlooking carefully tended gardens and a marble fountain at its center. There she observed two women entertaining a man where he lounged on a long, open-sided couch.

One woman played a lyre while the other amused him, feeding him from a tray of fruits. Both women were comely, elegantly dressed, their hair carefully arranged. Ailinn saw that their eyes were enhanced with darkener and their cheeks lightly rouged. Their clothes were much like the one Melane had created for her — draped rather than sewn, but theirs were pinned over only one shoulder, leaving the other shoulder and arm bared.

The oddest of feelings spiraled through Ailinn that they dressed to simula
te the ancient Romans, such as on the statuary she had seen along the Mesê. And the couples in the wall mural.

Ailinn watched, unnoticed, as the one woman fed the man from a cluster of grapes. He smiled as he ate from her hand, his own idly tracing over the ample swell of her breasts, then dragging her gown from her shoulder to expose them to his view.

The woman laughed throatily as he pulled her to him and suckled her. Enjoying the play, she tossed back her head, then froze as her gaze fell on Ailinn.

The man paused, feeling the woman stiffen beneath his attentions. Turning, he spied Ailinn. He stared openly, then
raked her with heated interest as though considering her for his next course.

Ailinn
fell back a pace. Turning on her heel, she fled to her room, her cheeks flaming as she realized that this was a house of courtesans.

»«

Lyting made his way back to Melane’s alongside Thord, thoroughly disgusted.

Since the palace gates opened at dawn, he had endeavored to gain audience with the Empress
Zoë. But he’d been unprepared for the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Byzantines, which proved supremely frustrating and rested in the hands of as many eunuchs as not.

One wished to relieve him of the golden
solidus
and purple silk; another wished to arrest him for possessing it. Gratefully, Thord had intervened.

Midafternoon, having made no headway, he was forced to give up his efforts, for
‘twas time for the palace gates to close. They would not be opened again until the morrow’s dawn.

Thord then took him to the Baths of Zeuxippus where the Varangian Leidolf and, lately, Koll had been slain. Evidently, Koll
’s assailants had abandoned him, thinking him to be dead. But Koll lived enough to scratch a clue into the marble floor, using the brooch pin from his mantle — a single letter, the Cyrillic
omega
.

Lyting thought on the inscription in Askel
’s armband and wondered, if Koll had lived longer, if he might have added a Cyrillic
I.

Lyting readjusted the hood of his mantle, pulling it forward once more to shade his sensitive eyes from the brilliance of the sun, then glanced right and left. He could not shake the feeling that had persisted since leaving the Sacred Palace that someone watched him. Yet, he never saw anyone overtly staring or following him. As now.

Nearing Melane’s, Lyting and Thord came upon a singular sight, that of a man standing naked on a pillar, his matted beard reaching long enough to grant him a measure of modesty. Men gathered around the base of the column as he proclaimed his impassioned message.

“
The man is one of their religious ascetics, a
stylite
,” Thord explained with a smile. “They are hermits who stand on their pillars the year round, never sitting or kneeling, never coming down. They pray their devotions and offer their counsel to those who seek it. This one is more fiery than most.” Thord gave a short laugh. “Twice a day he preaches a peppery message of salvation and repentance to Constantinople’s wayward populace.”

“
A modern day John the Baptist?” Lyting smiled, taking interest, though the words were lost on Thord.

Thord started to interpret for Lyting, but Lyting stayed him.
“I can understand the language better than I can speak it.”

Lyting concentrated, pleased as he captured most of the holy man
’s pronouncements. As Lyting looked up, his hood slipped back, exposing his snow-pale hair.

“
You young men think you know the will of God. But you do not!” the holy man snapped. “You see, yet you are blind. You hear, yet you are deaf. Repent! Repent!”

Spotting Lyting, he stretched a long, bony finger toward him.
“Take the block from your eye and hearken the way of the Lord. ‘Walk in the paths
He
has chosen,’ not those you have set your foot to.”

Lyting
’s head jerked back, the words taking him by surprise. The holy man quoted, in part, the same scripture once given to his sister-by-marriage, Brienne, when she left her convent walls. Ones which had proven prophetic. Ones she had gently quoted to him when he had sought her advice. Advice about entering the Abbey of Corbie.

Thord
’s laugh broke his thoughts. “Must be that white mane of yours that singled you out.”

“
Já
,” Lyting concurred, distracted as he adjusted his hood and they moved off. “It marks me all too well.”

Arriving before the house of Melane, Lyting paused a moment, seeing a young boy playing hoops in the street, and bid him o
ver. With Thord’s help he hired the lad to deliver a message he had written out earlier, addressed to the father of Rurik’s deceased love, Helena.

“
Do you know aught of Alexius Dalassena?” Lyting asked Thord as the boy scampered off down the street and they started for the door.

Thord shrugged.
“The name brings no face to mind, but there are nearly a million people in Constantinople.”

“
He would be a court official, I presume.”

Thord shook his head.
“Sorry, my friend. You have seen the `heart of the empire’ for yourself today in the great complex of buildings at the Sacred Palace. ‘Tis a hive of activity. There are officials by the thousands.”

Lyting nodded his understanding.
“I hope the boy will find him at the address Rurik provided.”

»«

As the two Northmen disappeared inside the house, the young boy trotted happily on, a small bronze coin in one hand, the folded piece of paper in the other.

Turning at the end of the street, he bumped into a figure waiting in the shadows of the building. Hands clamped down on the boy
’s shoulders, startling him further.

Looking up, the child began to tremble, recognizing the man. The man released his hold of one of the boy
’s shoulders and, snapping his fingers, opened out his palm and waited expectantly.

Shaking, the boy gave over the note the pale-haired Norseman had entrusted to him.

»«

“Ailinn?” Lyting rapped soundly on the door to the bedroom. Melane had assured him she was in the room, but when he attempted to open the door, it knocked against something solid, obstructing the other side.

“
Ailinn, are you all right? Open the door.

“
Lyting?”

He detected
a thread of desperateness in her voice. Lyting tensed. He next heard movement on the other side — the sound of furniture being dragged aside. The bed? he wondered.

The door opened a crack, and Ailinn
’s eye appeared. In the next instance she flung it open fully and cast herself against him, her arms circling his neck.

God help him, he appealed heavenward as he felt her breasts flatten against him. He could not survive another encounter like yestereve without losing his sanity.

“What is it,
elskan mín
? Did you think I would not return? You need not have stayed in the room all the day.”

“
Oh, but I did!” she exclaimed drawing back, then her voice fell to an urgent whisper. “Lyting, we must talk.” She caught him by the hand and pulled him inside the room with her. In a rush she related all she had seen earlier when she ventured from her room.

“
Melane runs a house of courtesans!”

Lyting
’s brows rose in surprise. As Ailinn chattered on, he massaged his temples, wearied by the long day and sleepless night, with another meeting yet to face.

“
Ailinn, I am grateful to Melane for her hospitality. We will have to make the best of it until we can find other lodging. At the moment, Melane wishes us to join her and Thord in her private dining room.”

Ailinn nodded, folding away her concerns. As she and Lyting moved through the corridors, they encountered a number of couples lingering in the halls and side rooms. Lyting received considerable interest from the women of the house, and Ailinn an equal share from the male visitors. Lyting began to better appreciate Ailinn
’s guarded seclusion in her room. His hand moved possessively to her back as he ushered her into the dining room where Thord and Melane awaited them.

The room was airy with a high ceiling and one wall open to the courtyard. Soft murals covered the other walls, similar to those in the hall
— bucolic scenes of which Lyting took a closer look, then blinked at the frolicsome couples who were engaged there in more than mere fondling. Clearing his throat, he joined the others at the table.

The four passed the time in pleasant conversation over a light meal of fish in a white sauce, asparagus, and boiled eggs. Despite Melane
’s profession, Ailinn found that she very much liked her, and Melane’s and Thord’s affection for each other was both obvious and heart-warming.

As they relaxed to the music of a lyre floating from the courtyard, Lyting drummed his fingers on the table, impatient to receive a reply from
Alexius Dalassena
.
Many songs later a servant appeared bearing a sealed parchment and presented it to Lyting.

Lyting
’s spirits rose. He quickly broke the glob of red wax, the seal’s impression unreadable as though it had been made by an unsteady hand. Lyting thought little of it. According to Rurik, Alexius was quite elderly.

Lyting opened and scanned the missive. His brows drew together in thought as he considered the words.

Thord eyed the parchment. “What is it, my friend?”

“
Alexius asks that I meet him at Helena’s crypt, in the cemetery outside of the Gate of Charisius — a somewhat unusual request.”

“
Not if the father commonly visits his daughter’s crypt,” Thord offered. “Too, there may be things of which he wishes to speak but cannot in his own home with the overlarge ears of servants about.”

Lyting
’s gaze went to Thord, the truth of the statement striking him. He hoped Alexius did know something of the conspiracy or of the more recent murders that might prove helpful. Helena had secreted the Imperial child out of the palace during the attempt on Leo Sophos. ‘Twas likely Alexius had also been involved as well and aided her. Lyting was anxious to speak with the man.