Thomas Harlan - The shadow of Ararat

She sat up, turning to face him, her hand on his thigh. "Listen to me, my lord. You are a Prince of your people, not some common man. It is the duty of a Prince, or a King, or a chieftain, to see the greater good for his whole people. The lives of individuals must be weighed against the lives of a whole people." Her voice was strong and sure. "In desperate times, some must be spent to save the tribe."

"Have I done that?" Maxian's voice was distant, his face troubled by evil memories. "Have I saved anyone? Everything that I have touched, trying to save, has died so far, and those who remain are so close to death with each day…"

"You will save them," she said, digging her claws into his leg. "You will save the world. You are strong enough, my Prince, to pay the cost."

Alais stood, her hair swinging out behind her shoulders. She took the Prince's hand in her own, pulling him up. "Come, my lord, the sun will rise soon. Time for one more race."

The Valley of the Araxes, Persian Armenia

Dwyrin bent close over the surface of the stream, the round disk of the sun glittering up from the waters into his eyes. The water was cold, born in high mountain springs and melted snow. He was stripped to his waist, his pale freckled skin dewed with sweat. Each hand he held just above the water, drifting this way and that like the shadows of the few clouds that marred the otherwise perfect blue bowl of the sky. Around him, spreading out on either side of the stream, was the army of the Emperors. A camp was rising on either bank, the armies segregated not by race or nation but by the order of their march.

Soon, within days, the Romans would meet their allies for the first time. At the moment, however, Dwyrin shut out the sound of axes on wood, the shouting of centurions eager to see their men complete the raising of their tents, and the preparation of cleared lanes among the brush and stands of trees. He focused on the flickering shadows of fish in the stream. Old experience, from when he was only a lad, taken in hand by the great paw of his father, told him that fat-bellied fish, their flanks stippled with pink and gray and black, were waiting.

His hand dipped into the water slowly, without making even a ripple on the fast-moving surface. He ignored the chill in his feet, clammy dampness of his trousers. His hands nestled between a pair of rocks, matching the current. He waited, his breathing steady and even. A fine fat trout swam into the channel among the rocks, brushing over his hand with its supple skin of tiny scales. A grin flickered for a moment on his features, and his fingers moved gently, caressing the flanks of the fish. It shivered at his light touch, but he continued to tickle it gently.

Then Dwyrin's hand darted and the fish thrashed in his grip, but it was too late. The Hibernian laughed and strung it on a line of cord that hung from his waist, sliding an arrow of bone through its gills. It joined six of its fellows on his belt. Dwyrin turned at a sound.

On the bank, clad in a simple white gown and half cloak of pale green, a young woman was clapping her hands in delight.

"Oh, well done!" she called out, shading her eyes with one pale white hand. Dwyrin flushed and, remembering his manners, bowed. The woman bowed back but then sat down heavily. Dwyrin splashed through the stream, weaving his way among the rocks, to the bank. The lady, for the quality of her bracelets and hairpins marked her as one, was a little pale. The Hibernian could see, too, that she was very pregnant.

"Domina," he said, his voice concerned, "are you all right? Should I call your servants?"

"No!" she said, though she was short of breath. "They cosset me to death. Here it is, a gorgeous late-summer day-the sky like the sea, the air freshened by wind. I refuse to sit inside and listen to the natterings of my maids. We are in uncharted lands, filled with savages and Persian spies-I should like to see something of the land I travel through."

Dwyrin nodded sympathetically, though the thought of being cosseted by white-limbed maids with golden hair was distracting. Still, it was far better to be out and about than stuck in some sweltering hide tent, in the dark, wondering what was going on. "True words, my lady, though in your condition you should take care."

"Feh." She snorted. "My condition is held up to me as a fine example of all the things that I should not do. I am tired of it. Tell me, young man, where are you from and where did you learn to beguile fish so?"

She smiled at him, her green eyes merry, her perfect complexion like lustrous pearl. Dwyrin felt a little faint, but somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that she was barely older than he was. A young woman, being carted around by some rich husband-doubtless one of the grandees of the Eastern army-well with child. Distantly, the great brass gong of the school sounded in his head. He looked around furtively.

"Ah, my lady, shouldn't you have a chaperone, or a maid, or someone with you? Your fair skin and soft hands mark you for a noble's wife! I'm only a soldier in the Legion-I'm not supposed to traffic with the likes of you. No disrespect meant!"

The lady sighed and looked around as well. The line of her neck did not match the classical beauty of the Greek sculptors, and her nose was too pert and rounded for the image of Athena, but her good humor and ready wit had already captured Dwyrin's heart. She made a moue and pouted, putting her hands on her cheeks. "Oh, I hate a chaperone! And look at you, a soldier, brave in the face of the enemy, doubtless noted for your daring and courage-looking like a schoolboy caught with an extra pastry! I will be driven mad by this… I am sure of it."

Dwyrin forbore telling her that he was, in fact, a schoolboy.

"I should go," he said, mumbling and trying not to look at her. She frowned and patted a rock next to her.

"Sit," she said with asperity, "and tell me of your life in the Legion. I see so many soldiers, but I never know what they are doing! If you do not, then I shall cry out, making a scene, and you will be punished!"

"I will be killed!" he blurted, then covered his mouth. The lady smiled sweetly at him and patted the rock again. He sat down, though he was not in the least pleased by it.

"Now," she said, pulling a waxed tablet out of a pocket sewn into the inside of her cloak, "tell me about the life of a soldier in the army of Rome. Spare no detail-the sun is still high."

Dwyrin sighed and arranged himself cross-legged on the rock, the hooked fish carefully laid in the stream. They twitched, trying to escape the line through their gills, but could not. He felt much the same.

– |Well after nightfall, Dwyrin trudged up the hill, through stands of birch and cedar, to the edge of a meadow where his five had made camp the day before. He scratched at his shoulders, sunburned again, and muttered darkly to himself about the nosy nature of young Greek ladies. He had retained the fish, at least, and that would make dinner far more palatable than the hardtack and salt pork they had lived on in the mountains. He passed through a sentry line, giving the password of the day to two long-bearded Armenians leaning on their spears. The tents of his five were couched under tall red-barked trees, and a little fire was going in front of them.

Zoe looked up with a murderous expression as he shuffled into camp and flopped down next to the fire. Odenathus looked guiltily at him too, making him surmise that the five-leader had been holding forth upon his unprofessional behavior and the extent to which it merited punishment. He smiled weakly at them.

"I found some fish," he said, mumbling. A cooking stick was near the coals in the fire and he began gutting his catch. "A noble lady saw me in the stream and called me over-then she pestered me with questions all day! I couldn't leave, it wouldn't have been polite…"