Empress & Soldier: Chapter 11 part 1
In which Eudekia's grandmother makes plans.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 part I
Chapter 6 part 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8 part 1
Chapter 8 part 2
Chapter 9 part 1
Chapter 9 part 2
Chapter 10 part 1
Chapter 10 part 2
“OH, CHILD,” MY GRANDMOTHER SAID. She sat beside me and rubbed my back with her free hand. I leant against her. She didn’t speak again, just, at some point, let go of my hand to find her handkerchief, which she tucked into my fingers. I gulped, and wiped my eyes, and after a few more tears and sniffles I blew my nose.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Go wash your face,” she said. “Then we will talk.”
I did as she asked. She went to the door, called for wine, and by the time I returned she’d poured two cups. “Now,” she said, handing me one, “we plan.”
“Plan?” I didn’t understand. “Plan for what?”
“Your marriage to the prince. If that is what you truly want.”
Bewilderment made me frown. “But I can’t marry him. I’m not important enough.” Didn’t she understand?
“What nonsense. Who told you that? Your father?”
“Yes—but, Avia, it’s clear the Emperor agrees, isn’t it? Or he wouldn’t have had me sent to you.”
“Oppelius is forgetting his own ancestry,” my grandmother said. “His own great-grandmother was not even from the dignitasi, but a merchant’s daughter. That was a love match, or so the histories say, and from it came one of Casil’s greatest emperors. You leave Oppelius to me, child.”
I’d never given much thought to my grandmother’s life before she had retired to this villa when my grandfather died. They’d lived in the house my father and I did now. My grandfather had held some high office at the palace, so of course she knew the Emperor. She spoke of him with great familiarity—and as if he were a servant to be chastised. I tried not to giggle.
What was wrong with me? I rarely cried, and I hadn’t giggled for years. I’d done both in the space of a few minutes, and I felt as if I could easily cry again. I drank some wine to steady myself.
“What will you say to the Emperor?” It sounded like an adult question.
“What I have just said to you. And I will ask what marriage he is thinking appropriate for the boy, which province he feels needs a closer tie. I am aware of none.”
I blinked. “Would you be?”
“Certainly, unless something has arisen in the last few weeks.”
Almost all the dignitasi families passed the heat of summer on the coastal islands. As we would have, had not my father been taken ill. She would hear talk. “Was a bride for the prince mentioned?”
“Only speculation, nothing more. I know when a name is being put forward, a suggestion made to implant an idea, and there was none of that.”
“As you did to Seia, regarding me?”
“No, child. That was much more straightforward. I will,” she added, “have to find a reason to ask her not to act on that just now.” For a moment her expression was distant, and then she came back to the present. “I will ask Renatus to begin the arrangements. We are going back to Casil.”
⌘⌘⌘
WE ARRIVED HOME a week later. Letters had been sent ahead: my grandmother’s to the Emperor and my father; mine to Philitos, a brief note saying we would be returning on my grandmother’s whim. I wondered if his father would mention his own letter. I doubted it.
The litter brought us to the courtyard of our house as the sun began to dip below the hills to the west. It had barely been lowered before my father was at its side. “Varos,” my grandmother said. “An arm, if you will.”
Tight-lipped, he assisted her from the litter. She held her face up to be kissed. His expression told me he would have preferred to refuse. Apprehension fluttered in my stomach. He hadn’t looked at me yet.
Now he did, but I could read nothing into it: his face was schooled to neutrality. “Come, child,” my grandmother said to me, beckoning. “We are in need of baths and refreshment; I assume both are ready.”
“Of course,” my father said. “You have your usual room, Matra. When you are refreshed, we will talk.” He glanced back at the litter. “I am pleased to see your steward remains on the island.”
“It is his place,” my grandmother said. “I am going to see the Emperor this evening. He will be expecting me.” She had sent a messenger as soon as we had disembarked from the ship that had brought us to Casil’s harbour. She’d chosen travel on the calm coastal waters rather than the roads, for comfort, she’d said. It had been better than the dusty, close carriage journey, I’d decided, even if it had taken a little longer.
My father had still said no word to me. I licked dry lips, and said, “You look well, Patra.”
His gaze shifted, and with it his expression. A softening, for a moment. “I am.” He became stern again. “Your grandmother’s plans are untenable. You do understand that, Eudekia?”
“They are not,” my grandmother said. “But I am not standing here in this courtyard to discuss them. The atrium, with wine, once I have bathed and changed.” She walked past my father, towards the door to the house.
“Am I to be there?” I asked.
“No,” my father said.
“Certainly,” my grandmother replied. “It is your future, after all.” My father began to object. She raised a hand.
“Varos, I have spoken.”
My father raised his voice. “You are suggesting the impossible, Matra. Planting fancies in Eudekia’s mind, raising her hopes. The prince will marry as he is told.” He stood on the flagstones of the atrium, glaring down at his mother. She sat on a bench, her cup of wine beside her.
I sat quietly on the edge of the fountain. I wished the tabby had come to greet me; I’d have liked the comfort of stroking her, but she was nowhere to be seen. “A marriage is not impossible,” my grandmother said. “We are dignitasi, for more generations than Oppelius, if that matters. Eudekia is lovely, and has a fine mind. Where is the impediment? There is no political marriage that must be made.”
“But there is,” my father said.
“What? I heard no talk of this.”
“It has been kept quiet—and effectively, it seems, if no word had reached your women’s web of gossip, Matra. Nor can you spread what I am about to tell you.” He looked my way. “Nor you, Eudekia. I am allowing you to stay only because you must understand. Do I have your promise? Not a word, even to the prince, were you to see him again.”
Were I to? What did that mean? My father was waiting for an answer. “I promise,” I said.
“It is that serious?” my grandmother said. “And you know?”
“The Emperor did me the courtesy of explaining.” He looked around; no servants stood at doorways. “Sit beside your grandmother, Eudekia, so you can hear.”
I moved to the bench. He remained standing, looking down at us. “Qipërta’s king has taken a second wife.” His voice was very low. “She is Boranoi, a daughter of their king by one of his favourites.”
My grandmother’s intake of breath was audible. “Acknowledged?”
“I am unsure. How this came about is not clear, but it is done. Word was sent, but the marriage had taken place.”
“And the thought is the prince must take a bride from Qipërta, to counter the Boranoi influence. Is there someone?”
“Possibly. There are—complications.”
“Is Qipërta so important?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to say, or even how I felt. Everything had happened too quickly.
“A source of metals,” my father said. “But their king has blood ties to Trakïyani rulers, and Trakïya has been a source of unrest in recent years. Were they to make an alliance with the Boranoi, Qipërta’s compliance would be useful. This secret marriage must worry the Emperor.”
I blinked at the hot tears that suddenly threatened: why had I let myself hope? Politics would always take precedence. For a moment anger rose, directed at my grandmother. But that was unfair. She hadn’t known.
“What is the complication with the girl?” my grandmother asked, her fingers drumming on the bench.
“The only woman of sufficient rank is the king’s sister. She is older than the prince, and sworn to a temple.” There was almost amusement in my father’s voice, I thought.
“How much older?”
“A decade, maybe more.”
“Ridiculous,” my grandmother said. It was a favourite word, I’d concluded. “Why doesn’t Oppelius marry her himself?”
I was looking at my father when my grandmother spoke. I saw the sudden stillness on his face, the slow rise of his brow. The Emperor was twice a widower; Philitos the son of his second, younger wife. A third wife was far from unheard of for an Emperor with only one heir.
“I shall suggest it to him,” my grandmother said, standing. “Is my litter here yet?”
“You cannot!” my father said. “Matra, it must not be known I told you.”
“Varos, do not teach a fish to swim,” she retorted. “I have known Oppelius far longer, and far more intimately, than you. How hard do you think it will be for me to discover from him the reasons his son cannot marry my granddaughter? And then suggest this course of action. Instruct the gate guard that I may be very late.” My father took a step after her. “Stay with Eudekia,” she said.
“She is capable of this,” he murmured. With a shake of his head, he took the empty place beside me on the bench.
“I think she is capable of almost anything,” I said.
“Except doing what I asked.”
“Avia seemed very certain the Emperor would see her,” I ventured.
My father passed a hand over his brow, frowning as he did. “I imagine he will. He is a courteous man. But he may not be pleased with her.”
“Suggesting that he marry this Qipërtani princess?”
“Suggesting that you could marry Philitos. Oppelius will not countenance it, Eudekia, regardless of what my mother thinks. Or does.”
He left me then, pleading work. And without asking me how I felt or what I wanted, I realized. I couldn’t summon the energy to move. The atrium was in shade now, but the flagstones still radiated warmth. From somewhere, the tabby appeared to rub against my ankles. She mewed, plaintively, before jumping onto my lap.
Her swollen teats and flatter sides told me she’d given birth. She pushed her head against my hand. I guessed she was hungry. I put her down, gently, and went to the kitchen. She didn’t follow.
I assembled a plate of scraps, told the cook to keep everything a cat might eat, and returned to the atrium. The tabby was up on the fountain, drinking, but as I put the plate on the flagstones she jumped down and began to eat, purring as she did. Motherhood had come naturally to her, young as she was. Was this why a goddess of domesticity was portrayed as a cat?
Feeding the tabby had made me feel better, or at least less enervated. I went to find Mahir, to discuss what I had missed with the clients in the last days, and between that and other household duties, I kept myself busy until bedtime. But alone in my room, my thoughts returned to Philitos. Could he be forced to marry a woman ten years his senior?
But why should she, reputedly dedicated to some god or goddess, be forced to marry anyone either? Whether it was to a man much younger, or one much older, shouldn’t the choice be hers? Perhaps in her land it was possible, and she would simply refuse. I couldn’t. By Casil’s laws, my fate was my father’s to decide, not mine.
The cat figurine sat on my table. I hoped, looking at it, half-praying, that my father knew nothing of Seia’s grandson. If he did, he could declare the match made, and I would have no recourse until our time for determining our compatibility. Two years from now. Nor did that testing period end many pairings. Once it had been to ensure fertility, the formal marriage taking place only once pregnancy was confirmed. A necessity, after the loss of so many people to the ravages of fever many generations before. But somewhere over the years, it had become acceptable for a girl to say the husband chosen for her did not suit: the one time she could go against her father’s wishes.
Unless she ran away. To the horse archers, to a temple, to the baths. I could ride...
Stop being ridiculous, I told myself. I had no particular piety; I certainly wasn’t going to become a scrapta, and the horse archers renounced men completely. There was nothing wrong with women finding pleasure with other women, but it didn’t appeal to me. Then again, neither had the idea of that sort of an intimacy with a man. Until Philitos.
I ran my hands along my breasts and belly, imagining his touch, feeling a shudder inside, an exquisite tension. Another night I might have continued, found the release my body wanted. But it would be a poor substitute for what I truly desired, now I’d let myself admit it.
Admitted, only to have the possibility snatched away again, a dream fading in daylight.
Enough, I told myself. Think about something else. Think about—geography.
The Trakïyani, my father had said, had been a source of unrest. I saw the map in my mind; Qipërta, on the coast above Tisiras, the land that had once been Heræcria. Odïrya to their east, and then Trakïya. Above them were Boranoi lands.
And if the world were a game board? Not xache, quite, because there were three players: Casil and her provinces were one; the Boranoi a second, and the eastern lands a third. Seen that way, Trakïya was important: minor piece or not, it sat in a pivotal position.
What did I know about it? An ally, not a client kingdom, I seemed to remember. Allies could change sides. With Trakïya as an ally, the Boranoi could attack Qipërta and Odïrya from both the north and the east. And if Qipërta had blood ties to Trakïya, they might switch their allegiance too.
No wonder the Emperor thought to strengthen Casil’s control over Qipërta. Were this only a game, it was the obvious move. The troops I had seen sailing there might not have an easy posting at all.
This Ptolemaic Period (664–30 B.C.) Egyptian statuette, thought to represent the goddess Bastet, is how I picture the figurine Philitos gave Eudekia.
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