Maxian muttered and a pale-yellow light sprang up from his raised hand. Gaius Julius hissed in surprise.

“I had forgotten this was here,” the dead man said, looking past the Prince into the house.

The sorcerous light had revealed a half-circle of a room. The walls were marble and the floor a great mosaic of many colors. A great deal of litter, blown in from the garden, lay in drifts across the floor, but the ceiling was still intact and in the facing circle of the chamber, on a broad marble pedestal, stood a statue of a man. He was tall, taller in stone than in life, and nearly naked, though a‘ breastplate and leather kilt had been cunningly carved upon his torso. In one hand he leaned upon a tall spear and the other reached toward the viewer. Curly hair graced his head, and the artisan-from life or more than life-had made him handsome. At his feet the figures of men, much smaller than he, bowed before him or lay dead. The sculptor had been a man of surpassing skill, for the personality of the figure was like a stunning blow to Maxian.

“Alexander…” breathed the Prince.

At his side, Gaius Julius snorted with disdain. “You paid attention to least one of your pedagogues, I see. It has suffered through the long years. A pity, it was quite a work of art when it still had paint on it. She was obsessed with him, you know. Often she would try to convince herself that I was his spirit, invested in flesh once more.”

Maxian turned. The dead man’s voice had an odd, almost haunted quality to it. “What do you mean?”

Gaius Julius sighed. “I don’t know. Near the end I think that I was under her spell. I believed it too, that I would be the new Alexander. They killed me over the cost of the appropriations for my expedition, you know. I was emptying the treasury of every last coin.”

Maxian shook his head. “I don’t remember that. I thought you were preparing a campaign against the Dacians. That’s what my tutors said, anyway.“

The dead man snorted, waving his hand in negation. “I read that history too. Written by someone ninety years after the fact of the matter. No, I had a grander plan than that, my young friend. I intended nothing less than the conquest of Persia-even as Alexander had done-and then to swing north and conquer the Scythian lands north of the Sea of Darkness and fall upon Dacia upon my return, from behind.”

Maxian stared at the old man in shock, his eyes suddenly widening in apprehension.

Gaius Julius looked back at him with puzzlement. “What is it, Prince?”

Maxian shook his head. “Nothing, just something I had heard before. Let us look at the rest of this house and see if we can use it.”

The girl, brown and quiet as a deer, crouched in the rhododendrons on the hillside. Below her, in the old house, she could hear the faint voices of the two men as they moved from room to room. Her long dark hair was tied back in a braid and stuffed down the back of the light cotton tunic she wore. Her feet, tucked under her, were wrapped in leather and sandals. A light, leather girdle circled her narrow waist. From it hung two pouches, a hard leather case, and, in the small of her back, a thin dagger in a plain scabbard.

Behind her, the brush rustled quietly.

“Sigurd.” The girl hissed, not bothering to look back. “Quit staring at my butt and get back to the horses. Take them over the hill, out of the wind, so that the ones down in the garden don’t smell them and say hello.”

The brush whispered again and Krista felt the sensation of being watched recede.

Men, she thought, mighty easy to distract… It’s a wonder they get anything done.

Below, the voices suddenly became clearer as the two men walked out onto the rear porch of the villa. More exposed to nature on the open slope, it was in much worse shape than the front, and they picked their way carefully across a band of broken tile and collapsed fountain drains.

“… do, old man. Arrange for wagons to bring all of the materials from the insula up here. I’ll begin moving in immediately, and I’ll fix the water mains so that it’s livable, at least.”

Krista parted the brush enough to get a clear look. Then she grimaced. She recognized both men. This was very interesting, much more interesting than either she or her mistress had anticipated. Quietly she returned the brush to its original position and slipped away up the hillside. Time to return to the city. There was more work to do.

TRAPEZUS, THE EASTERN THEME OF PONTUS

H

A bitterly cold wind cut across the deck of the Mikitis. Thyatis and Nikos, wrapped in all of the cold-weather gear they had, huddled in the lee of the forward deckhouse, staring across the choppy waters of the bay at the shore. A steep headland plunged down to the sea, leaving only a narrow margin of black-sand beach at the wa-terline. The sky was gray, the color of old pipe. The ship was anchored a quarter mile from the harbor quay. Rain spattered out of the sky at random intervals.

Nikos, bundled up in a fur-lined coat he had browbeaten out of one of the Turks, muttered something unintelligible at Thyatis’ side.

She turned her face away from the wind. “What? I didn’t catch that.”

Nikos pointed up in the sky. Black birds with broad wings were soaring above the ship on the gusts of wind from the north.

“Colchis,” he said. “The cormorants.”

Thyatis shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Nikos turned away from the barren shore as well, his arms crossed over his chest. He leaned close. “In the tale of the Argolid-the sailors came to Colchis, a barren and dreadful shore, and the birds would have attacked them if they had not made a great noise by beating on their shields.”

Thyatis shook her head. She did not understand the reference.

Nikos looked sideways at her and sighed. “The benefits of a classical education, Centurion. A band of Greek pirates under their captain, Jason, came here looking for a fleece of gold. They put ashore, legend has it, here and made common cause with the daughter of the King. They murdered her father and took the gold. When they got home, they were heroes.”

Thyatis grimaced. “A parricide doesn’t sound very heroic to me.”

Nikos smiled. “I think you’d like her, the Princess in the story. She was strong and beautiful and knew her own mind. Later her husband is unfaithful, so she feeds his children to him in a stew.”

Thyatis smiled at that. “You think I would kill an unfaithful husband?”

Nikos shrugged, he had never thought of his commander in that light.

“I think,” she said, “that I would just leave. If he was dishonest, then there is no reason to stay. I can make my own way in the world-a man would have to be a companion, not a lord.”

The wind dropped a little. Boats put out from the harbor, though the heavy sea made it rough going. She gestured toward the boats. “Play it low key with the customs officers. The ship will draw enough attention in these waters without some run-in with the local prefect. I’m going to go below and get into my demure-daughter-of-nobility outfit.”

Nikos nodded, wondering if she would be able to carry through and not cold-cock some minor official for getting fresh with her. He smiled at the thought of his commander in a dress-it was true she looked great, but she did hate it so. He too scrambled down onto the lower deck and shouted for Arastus and Jochi to join him. There were palms to grease.

The town of Trapezus was built on a broad shelf of land above the cliffs of the harbor. In ancient days, a road had been cut from the harbor shore and the blackstone quays to the plateau. Trapezus was built to the edge of the cliffs, all whitewashed buildings with dark streets. The houses were covered with vines and ivy with little pearly flowers. Here, under the looming massif of the Tatus Mountains, the rain was plentiful and the growing season long. The main road south out of the city was ancient too, with mile markers far older than the coming of Rome. The dark pine and spruce forests that clung to the mountainside had seen kingdoms rise and fall on the narrow plain between them and the sea.