Byzantium's Crown Read Online Free Page B

Alexa to rise and walk toward their half-brother. Ctesiphon wore purple-dyed silk sewn with pearls. A collar of rubies and moonstones circled his thin shoulders and delicate neck in imitation of the ancient style of the pharaohs. A dagger too richly encrusted with gems to be of much use hung from his girdle. He was dark-haired like his elder half-brother and sister, but there the resemblance ended. Ctesiphon lacked Alexa's tensile strength or Marric's toughness. Marric was tanned from field duty. Ctesiphon was as pale as Alexa; a courtier-prince, but never an emperor. Weakness betrayed itself in the thick-lipped petulance of Irene's treacherous, sensual son. Marric wanted to slash the gloating expectation from his face with Ctesiphon's own gaudy dagger.
    Enticingly Alexa moved toward him.
    "It grows late, my brother. Too late for idle visits. You do me no good by coming here when I am alone."
    "But Alexa, it is only good that I would do you!" Ctesiphon declared fulsomely. He reached out to embrace her, fingers curving greedily toward her breast.
    As Alexa tensed in revulsion, Marric moved forward silently on the balls of his feet. He struck Ctesiphon on the side of the head with the bronze pommel of his dagger.
    The princeling fell forward into Alexa's arms. Taking his weight, she staggered. Then, with a disgusted little sniff, she let him fall onto the marble floor.
    "Do you think you killed him?"
    "Fratricide stinks to the gods—even with such a brother. He will escape with a sore skull, though he may be so sick he might wish for death." He had seen enough death in Tmutorakan, his capital, not to relish causing it unnecessarily.
    Prince and princess smiled at each other. Marric swept up Alexa's scarf to bind the unconscious man.
    "We cannot expect that Irene will send no one to check on her precious son's . . . wooing," Alexa said. "So at least part of the way, we must take him with us. Let his mother think he has borne me off somewhere secret." She attempted to laugh knowingly while she loosed his girdle and bent to gag him with it, but as her hands touched Ctesiphon's face, they trembled. Marric took over the task of gagging him.
    When the nurse entered with clothing, Alexa kissed her cheek. "Isis guard you," she whispered. "I've provided for you. Now, run!" She pulled a heavy garment over her white robe.
    "We take him with us?" Marric preferred to travel light. "How do you suggest we manage?"
    "Like royal Cleopatra again, brother," Alexa indicated a rug nearby. "Here. Wrap this cloak about you, and you look the perfect merchant. A rug merchant, who brought this rug to the palace and will now take it away in a tidy roll . . . with our beloved brother wrapped in its center."
    The excitement had stimulated her. Now she seemed a different woman from the fragile girl who had stammered out her fears in her brother's arms. Her eyes, enlarged by kohl, gleamed.
    What an empress she will make! Marric exulted. He rolled Ctesiphon in the carpet.
    "Ha! He reeks of perfume," Marric commented. "We'll have Audun stop at the first port so he can unload this cargo, and air out his ship." He unsheathed his dagger and cut a hole in the rug above the unconscious prince's face.
    "It is a pity to ruin that rug," Alexa remarked. "You take great care for his life."
    "He shares our father's blood."
    "Does he?" Alexa shrugged.
    Marric clasped the cloak with a bronze brooch she handed him. The old druid had been wrong after all. His brother had fallen into his hand like an ornamental fish to a cat's paw. All the oil-borne visions had been ravings.
    An orderly march of feet brought him up sharply. He swept up his sword.
    "Only the watch, brother."
    The guards marched down the hall. Just when they had begun to breathe more slowly, a clash of boots on the paved floor warned them that several men had broken away from the main force and were heading toward their room.
    "Set take her!" Marric swore. "Does Irene set watchdogs over her precious son