Empress & Soldier: Chapter 7
In which Eudekia grows up.
Chapter 6 part I
Chapter 6 part 2
“EUDEKIA.” Nishan’s tone told me he was growing impatient. “You have had more than enough time to translate that passage. What does it say?”
I looked down again at the book on my desk, forcing myself to focus. Something was happening. A messenger had come earlier, dressed in the colours of the palace. My father had received him, then told his secretary to dismiss the waiting clients. His office doors were closed, both the one opening to the waiting room, and the private door.
“Now, please.” Nishan had been my tutor since I was eleven. In the ensuing four years, I’d never known him to lose his temper, but he was coming close. I studied the words. The Heræcrian script was faded, but there was light enough from the high windows to read it.
Seeing Aelena moving on the ramparts,
the men whispered to each other, words that…
I paused, seeking the right way to convey the meaning. Just changing the words to Casilan wasn’t what I was meant to do.
Drifted near-silent into the air,
‘But who would blame them?
Should we wonder that the men of her land
And those conquered
Have accepted agony in her name.
What beauty! What a woman! An immortal goddess, surely.’
Nishan nodded his approval. Did men really behave this way? Torture themselves for a beautiful woman? But before I could ask, my father appeared in the doorway.
“The poet would approve, I believe,” he said. “I must go to the palace, Eudekia, so I am afraid there will not be time for xache this afternoon.”
“The palace? Why?”
My father smiled, but he addressed my tutor, not me. Nishan had been his secretary before Mahir, until my father had decided his skills were better used in my education. “You and I will have the same occupation, Nishan. I am to tutor the prince Philitos in philosophy and rhetoric.”
Nishan breathed out. “An honour, Varos.”
“I cannot disagree. But less time for my own studies, and less for Eudekia, as well.” Only then did he turn his smile to me. “I was to go over the accounts this afternoon with Mahir. You may do that in my stead.”
“I?” He didn’t mean the household accounts; those were the steward’s responsibility, although I had overseen the quarterly review for a year now. “The patronage accounts?”
“Write down your questions and thoughts as they occur to you. We will discuss them this evening. Now I must change, so I will not disturb your lesson any longer.”
All my interest in conveying a Heræcrian poet’s words in translation had vanished. Nishan closed his copy, too, smiling. He was, I knew, genuinely happy for my father. They were friends, as much as a freedman and a dignitasi could be, and Nishan had been part of our household since long before I was born.
“How old is the prince?” Older than me, I was sure, but by how much?
“Eighteen. Your father is being modest.” Nishan gathered up the books, making a pile. “This appointment is not that of a simple tutor. The prince is a man now, and needs the finest minds educating and advising him in the duties he is given as the Emperor’s heir. Your father will have a role at the palace for many years, I should think.”
A cloud dimmed the patch of sunlight on the desktop. My stomach rumbled, reminding me it was nearly midday. I ignored it. The patronage accounts? Some of the men who my father advised, or used his money or influence to advance their interests, would be appalled to think I knew their business. That I was not yet betrothed, and that he was educating me beyond the usual expectation for women caused comment. But to involve me in trade or politics?
Nishan sensed my apprehension. “Shall I sit with you while you hear the accounting?”
I stood, sliding the stool neatly under the desk, thinking. “No.” My father had asked me to do this. I should do it alone. “Thank you, Nishan, but Mahir will explain, if I don’t understand something.”
“Eudekia?”
“Yes?”
“See to your hair, before you meet with Mahir.” I made a face, but he was right. I had twisted its strands into knots, as I always did, studying. My father joked that he could tell how difficult the task Nishan had set me was by the state of my hair.
I washed my hands and face, removing the traces of oil from the olives I’d eaten, then freed my hair from its clasp to comb it. I tugged at the knots, biting my lip. I had to cease the childish habit that created them. I was fifteen, a woman, domina of our household in the absence of any other, and before long... I pushed the thought away. Marriage was not something I wanted to consider. I wanted to keep learning, to read the books on my father’s shelves and sit with him of an evening, discussing them. Marriage would mean a different life, a man to adjust to, children—and little time for study. I wasn’t ready.
But I was ready to review the patronage accounts. I gathered my hair up and fastened the clasp, then added the pins that helped keep stray locks in place. I would not tug at them, I told myself.
Mahir waited for me in my father’s study. Like Nishan, he was from a land east of Casil, and a freedman; my father disapproved of enslavement, at least of honest people. Criminals sentenced to the quarries or the arena as punishment were a different matter. When I saw how friends sometimes treated their household slaves, their peremptory, disdainful instructions and snapped reprimands, I understood my father’s decision to free all our staff. Although I did wonder if simply the difference in status would provoke the same attitude among some of the girls I knew.
I brought my thoughts back to the afternoon’s task. I took the stool beside Mahir, smiling my greeting. “Where do we start?”
“There are three types of patronage accounts,” he began, his tone measured. “The financial records; the lists of licences and permits which your father has assisted with, and then the records of political agreements and favours. Where would you like to begin?”
I had expected only financial records. “Am I to see them all?”
“It is what Varos and I would have reviewed this afternoon, and his instructions to me were only that you would take his place.”
Political favours? Surely my father had not expected me to see those. He did speak to me of the agreements made, sometimes, though.
“We’ll begin with the loans and repayments,” I said. Mahir reached for a bound volume, opening it to columns of names and numbers. A familiar sight; the household accounts were kept in the same way.
By the time an hour had passed, I knew many things I had not before. Most of my father’s loans were to men, and the occasional woman, running small businesses—butchers, leatherworkers, seamstresses—and the amounts small. A few were larger; these, Mahir explained, were primarily to fund materials or goods needed to begin a new enterprise: stone for a builder; a hold’s worth of cloth to take east to Sylana to trade for grain.
“The profit my father takes is greater on these.”
“Yes. Fifteen percent, whereas you saw that with the small loans, the interest is low.”
Going over the permits and licensing records was faster. I hadn’t realized how many things required some sort of official permission: haulage into the city; a stall in the market; a berth at the harbour.
“Does anyone just apply?” I asked Mahir. “Without a patron’s influence?”
“Some must,” he answered. “Merchants new to the city, without family here. Sons or daughters who have quarrelled with their parents, or are disowned. Either situation would mean no patron to intervene.”
“Children become clients automatically, when they become adults?”
“Usually.” He pointed to one entry. “You can see here that the merchant Salvius applied to us for another quay licence, at the harbour. His shipping business is doing well, and they have expanded yet again. But it was his son Marius who came to offer his appreciation this week. The father is ill, and not expected to recover. Marius will take over as head of the family, and your father will become his patron.”
He began to close the book. “Wait!” I said. “This entry. The request was refused. Why?” Beside the item was the cross-reference mark. Mahir opened the financial records again.
“Tell me what you see.”
I read the entry. A small loan, repaid in two instalments. I glanced back at the other records. The request had been for a cart licence, to bring goods from the harbour to the city by road. “He paid that back quickly,” I said.
“Too quickly; it is not the first loan your father has given for this type of business. He should not be making that much profit so early, or so fast.”
“Then how is he?”
Mahir counted out reasons on his fingers. “He is dealing in high-value goods, perhaps smuggled. Or he has had a second copy of the permit made—which is illegal, of course—and has more than one cart. Or he is a proud man who has starved himself, his family and his mule, housing them in squalor, to be out of debt.”
“But how do you know which is right?” And surely the last should not be punished? But that was a question for my father, not his secretary, who did only what he was told.
“Observations will be made.”
“By whom?” Mahir just shook his head. Something more to ask my father.
Voices outside caught my attention. “Varos,” Mahir murmured. “I did not expect him back so soon.”
I stood to go to my father, but he opened the door before I’d taken more than a couple of steps. “Here you are,” he said.
“Is all well?” I asked. “Did you meet the prince?”
He smiled. “All is well, and, no. That will happen at dinner. I have returned to prepare for that. I and his other two tutor-advisors are guests of the Emperor tonight. Prince Philitos will be present.”
“Three tutors?”
My father crossed to the chair Mahir had vacated. “Myself, for history and philosophy and rhetoric. The palace fiscarius, for matters related to finance. And the general Roscius, for his military education.”
I sat again too. “The prince is expected to master all those subjects?”
“He will be Emperor one day,” my father said. “He must have a firm grasp of all aspects of administering an Empire, even though he will have advisors. History will remember what decisions he makes, not how he was counselled.”
My father went to prepare for the evening, and I went to ensure the kitchen knew he would not be dining with us tonight. He and I usually ate together, and unless there were visitors Mahir and Nishan often joined us. I would eat alone, I told the cook. I had things I wanted to think about.
But as I turned to leave, one of the kitchen girls came running in, her bucket spilling water in her haste. “There is a crowd,” she gasped, her voice high. “At the gates. So many men!”
“What do they want?” The cook, the girl’s fear reflected in her voice.
“The guard is there, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes, but...” Her words trailed off. She stood, still holding the dripping bucket, unsure. I left her to the cook. Tendrils of apprehension curled along my spine. Crowds were dangerous. They were why I travelled by litter, and my father with guards.
I could hear shouts now: my father’s name, demands for him to come out. I stopped in the cool of the hall. I should stay inside. But I was mistress of this household. I would go to the door and look out, I decided.
Nishan was there before me. He glanced over his shoulder at my footsteps on the tiles. He didn’t look worried, I noted. “Come,” he said.
There wasn’t danger, then. He moved over so I could see out. “Who are they? Why are they here?”
“They are your father’s clients. They have heard of his appointment, and have come to congratulate him, and escort him to the palace.”
Relief made me laugh. “How do they know so soon?”
Nishan shrugged. “Palace servants know everything. Things are said in front of them, or they are listening from their hidden passageways. Someone told a friend or lover, and they told someone else, and now the whole city knows.”
“Unfortunately,” my father said from behind us. Nishan stepped aside.
“Varos,” he said. “Should a litter be sent for? These men mean well, but—”
“No,” my father said firmly. He was freshly shaven and smelling of lavender from the sprigs kept among his clothes. The tunic he wore was his best. My breath caught: my father, advising the prince of Casil. The Emperor, one day.
“I will walk,” my father was saying. “Let them do their duty, and have their pride in their patron. I will come to no harm.” He turned to me. “Do not wait up, Eudekia. I may well be late. We will talk tomorrow.” He strode towards the gates. The men began cheering. He held up a hand to stop them, but it had little effect.
I watched, Nishan beside me, until the last of his impromptu escort were out of sight. “Will they come every day?” I asked my tutor, as we walked back into the cool of the house.
“Some will,” he replied. “It is their responsibility to their patron.”
I ate my supper in the atrium, a brazier ensuring I took no chill, although the evening was warm. A merula trilled from on top the wall, its song rising and falling. I glanced up at it once or twice, silhouetted against the deep blue sky, the first stars appearing behind it.
How would my father manage to be both the prince’s tutor and handle his own affairs? He would leave more to Mahir, I supposed. I wasn’t sure I liked that. Those men who had gathered to escort him to the palace—they were there for Varos, their patron, who took time to see them, to listen to them, help them solve their problems—not his secretary, as competent and as loyal as he might be.
But perhaps—if my father would allow it—they would see his daughter as an acceptable substitute? And why else had I been shown the records today? I curled a strand of hair around my finger, until I felt the tug and snatched my hand away. No. That was a child’s action, and I was not a child.
The kitchen girl came for the plates. I asked for more wine. The merula sang on, untroubled. My days would have to be reordered, my lessons moved to the afternoon. I had no wish to stop learning—and, I realized, perhaps my father would not be required at the palace every day? I could begin with the minor requests, the ones Mahir could have handled alone, and leave the complex ones—and the political favours, of course—to my father. At least until I was more experienced.
He had brought me up, educated me, given me his time and his love. It was time I began to repay him.
Discover more of the extended world of Druisius and Eudekia (for free!) at https://www.bookmotion.pro/our-authors/marian-l-thorpe
Impatient to read more?
Find Empress & Soldier at: https://scarletferret.com/books/empress-soldier
or
most on-line bookstores.
The pace has changed, I think, perhaps because the mc is female and the setting is a domestic one. I am enjoying the richer textures.