Byzantium's Crown Read Online Free Page A

Byzantium's Crown
Book: Byzantium's Crown Read Online Free
Author: Susan Shwartz
Tags: Science-Fiction
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Antony and Divine Cleopatra's victory over the pretender Octavian had won them Empire. A stoop-shouldered, pockmarked Octavian knelt and offered up his blade to the divine pair. Behind him stood a priest and a physician, waiting with the poison that was stark imperial mercy to the defeated foe. Had he won . . . a Roman world: what a solemn bore that would have been. Like the Marcellini, those walking solemnities his father had bade him learn from.
    "I have collected gold, gems, horses—purchased under other names. I have even arranged passage with"—she laughed and seemed only a young girl, not a princess or a conspirator—"Do you remember a Northerner who styles himself 'Bearmaster'?"
    "By the hawk! Audun!" Marric exclaimed. "I knew him when I was a lad."
    "Shortly after Father died, he brought you a bear cub, did Audun. White, of course. Irene coveted it, but"—Alexa's laugh was malicious—"when she stroked it, it scratched her. She ordered it killed, and Audun was furious. He never came back here until a few weeks ago, when I bespoke passage from him. Like Cleopatra, we'll flee the palace and return with an army!"
    "To Tmutorakan in Cherson?" Marric considered the idea. Perhaps his army there would follow him. Or the Huns and Northerners might help him gain his throne. He rose and paced panther fashion across the room. Alexa had planned carefully. Surely Ellac and Uldin, sworn to him by exchanges of hospitality and gifts, could be trusted—assuming he could trust Huns at all. And the Bearmaster—Audun had never been a party to intrigue . . . at least, not before this. Alexa's plan would do.
    Then Marric stiffened. As the silver door opposite the garden whispered open, his hand went to his dagger. But a middle-aged woman, stout, decorously clad as befitted a palace servant, entered: Alexa's old nurse.
    "Be careful, Princess. Ctesiphon is coming!"
     

Chapter Two
    Alexa flushed, her initial surprise and fear turning swiftly to anger. "I've dreaded this. Ctesiphon's been trying to get his courage up to force himself on me so I stand dishonored unless I submit to an evil marriage."
    "You have me with you, sister. Can you flee now?"
    "I'm ready."
    "Well done." Marric might have been a general approving a subordinate. Alexa was so strange, yet so familiar. If the nurse hadn't been in the room, he would have kissed her. Of course he must spirit her away; she was too precious to risk. For himself, he would prefer to stay and fight. He had been silent and stealthy for too long: every nerve in his body strained toward release either in passion or in blood.
    Alexa ordered her nurse to fetch simple, warm clothing and then to disappear. Outside her suite came the measured step of one very sure of his path, and surer still that no one would dare hinder him from a long anticipated scheme of pleasure. Marric and Alexa looked at one another. Then Alexa nodded almost ceremonially, as if opening the games. Let it begin.
    She moved a chair to face the door and seated herself. Chin raised, eyes distant, Alexa looked as regal as if she wore the moon crown of Isis and held audience for mere mortals.
    "That's my girl!" Marric padded noiselessly to the door and flattened himself against the wall. He drew his scabbarded dagger from his belt and tapped its heavy pommel against his hand with satisfaction.
    Alexa flung off her scarf so that it drifted behind her. She drew her shoulders back, revealing the fine lines of her body more fully. Only the pulse that fluttered rapidly at her throat betrayed her tension: after so long a wait, to finally face battle!
    The door swung open, and Ctesiphon swaggered in.
    "All alone, sister mine?" he asked. His eyes roved down her body. "Contemplating the god and goddess? Shall we do that together—or, better yet, unite to become gods ourselves?"
    Ctesiphon had the cockiness of a spoiled adolescent, Marric decided. Irene's idolatrous love for her son had marred the weakling further. Marric signaled
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