Fallen Eagle

2nd Week of September, 1460

One step after another, and one foot ahead of the pair. That was the most constant thing in Christos’s life these days.

“A-Ah, b-but I do not t-think I have it in me, my Lord,” the bald-faced steward stammered. His soft shoes hurried over the stone as he struggled to keep pace. “J-Just handling the n-new students is already a t-task I-I am ill-suited for-”

“Nonsense. You handled the previous ones well enough.” The commander waved the concern aside as they strode through Suyren’s corridors.

One step after another, and one iron-shod ahead of the pair.

Christos followed with half an ear turned toward the conversation while his eyes worked over everything else. Doorways, windows, servants carrying baskets, and militia who looked away as quickly as they could.

Most days, half his job involved looking as though he expected a knife to come flying from every dark hole in the keep. The other half involved making sure anyone thinking about it changed their damned mind.

That had been his life since his promotion to sergeant and his appointment as the Commander’s personal bodyguard. Less standing in formation, more walking behind important men while they discussed matters Christos understood only every third word of.

“B-but what y-you are asking…” Theophylact trailed off, looking as though someone had asked him to wrestle a bear in his smallclothes.

Christos was still surprised the man had managed to grow a spine when it came to saving the captain. He would never have given the steward that much credit before, yet when it had mattered, he had done what needed doing.

That was probably why the Commander handled such judgments instead of Christos. Christos would have looked at the fellow, seen a trembling bald head and wet palms, and decided he was useless.

“Only you can do it,” the Commander’s voice grew firmer, though it never became harsh. It reminded Christos of a farmer easing a frightened chicken from beneath a cart, moving slowly enough not to send the fool creature running while still blocking every path except the one he wanted it to take.

The Commander had a gift for speaking to men in the way they needed to hear. He could soothe one, shame another, and make a third believe the idea had been his own from the beginning. It was one of his many gifts.

Christos was only good at one thing: killing men and putting one foot ahead of the other.

That was two things, now that he thought about it. He was stupid enough that one probably cancelled the other out.

Ahead, two militia guarded the broad double doors to the Lord’s study. Their shoulders had gone slack, and one wore the beginnings of a smile as he muttered something to his companion.

Christos set his jaw, lowered his brow, and put on the ugliest expression he could manage. He tried to summon the same look Leonidas used to give a man who had disappointed him, and it hadn’t failed him yet.

The memory of the Sergeant still brought a sharp sting with it, which was just as well. The pain only hardened his face further. The two militia caught sight of him and snapped upright, their smiles vanishing as quickly as sheep at a loud noise. One swallowed loud enough for Christos to hear it beneath the clank of his own armour.

“So that is decided, then,” the Commander said as they reached the doors. “Stefanos will contact you from time to time. Leave your missives with him. There are to be no direct meetings.”

“Y-Yes, my Lord.” Theophylact bowed so quickly Christos half expected his bald head to strike the floor.

The steward hurried away, his steps pattering back down the corridor.

Christos remained behind the Lord, standing close enough to intervene and far enough not to crowd him. Being there like his shadow had begun to feel natural, though Christos doubted shadows usually stood a head taller than the man casting them.

“You may go too, Christos,” the Lord said as he pulled open the heavy oak door to his study.

“And you, Commander?” Christos asked.

He knew it probably was not proper to leave off the man’s lordly title, especially with militia standing close enough to hear. Still, Christos had followed him through too much for the Lord to be anything but his Commander.

He only smiled by way of answer. Beyond him, Demetrios already waited beside the candlelit desk, surrounded by reports.

The two of them would probably spend half the night bent over calculations and whatever other sorcery the Commander used to dream up his radical policies. Loans, surveys, roads, cement. Every week brought some new bit of madness that somehow became everyone else’s work by morning.

“Go, Sergeant,” the Commander said, following Christos’s gaze, and it was an order.

Christos saw the trap. He could hardly disobey a direct command in front of the militia without setting a poor example, and apparently examples mattered now. Posture mattered. Tone mattered. Whether he scratched his arse while giving instructions probably mattered too.

He had to care about all those little things now, goddamnit.

“Yes, sir.” Christos saluted.

Truthfully, he appreciated the dismissal. He was exhausted, though he would rather bite through his tongue than admit it aloud.

There had been a whole host of things to learn since returning to Suyren. Telling men what to do was simple enough. You pointed, shouted, and struck anyone too stupid to understand. Leading them was different. Every order carried weight once you knew a man might get hurt following it, and every mistake became yours even when some fool had made it with his own two hands.

Christos had never minded carrying armour. Responsibility was heavier.

Still, damn him if he would let the recruits see any tiredness in his face. Before leaving, he Leonidased the two guards beside the study doors one last time, making sure both men stiffened as though a spearshaft had been rammed up their ass.

Christos joined the rest of the Lord’s bodyguard corps, and they made their way down the corridor with armour clinking and boots scraping against the stone.

“We been scurryin’ around like little grain rats all damn day,” Kratos complained once they were beyond the hearing of any nearby militia, ‘sheep’, as he usually called them. “All for this loan business and them land measurin’ fellows. An’ don’t get me started on that cursed cement nonsense. Man can’t even stop long enough to piss proper.”

“If you’re feeling sorry for yourself, think about the Commander,” one of the other men said.

Kratos barked out something close to a laugh. “That man’s touched in the head. I sure as hell ain’t comparin’ myself to him. He’d work till his arms dropped off, then ask somebody to write down why it happened.”

“Put a sock in it,” Christos grumbled.

They entered the great hall as the remains of the evening feast were being cleared away, tables littered with crumbs and dark wine stains. Servants moved between the benches, gathering trenchers while a few lingering retainers tore the last scraps of meat from the bones.

The Lords usually ate with their household men and made certain everyone received their share. The bodyguards, unfortunately, had to remain on watch while everyone else filled their bellies. Their shifts generally ended with them hungry enough to chew boiled leather.

“Tomorrow at second bell,” Christos said. “You know the drill.”

“And what crawled up your arse?” Kratos asked. His eyes had already found a platter with two untouched heels of bread. “You not hungry, big fellow? Never thought I’d live to see such a dark day.”

“Shut your trap before I shut it for you,” Christos muttered. “Then you won’t be able to shove anything into it at all.”

He turned to leave them among the benches. “Got supper with the miss. Can’t miss it.”

She had been going on for days about how late he kept coming home, and with reason, though Christos had wisely kept that part to himself. Being dismissed early had worked out well for once.

Kratos, bastard that he was, must have heard something strange in his voice.

“Everythin’ goin’ well with your girl?” he asked. “Heard she’s some sort of nurse now, or summat. One of them folk that pokes wounds and tells men to bathe once a day because the Lord fancies it.”

“Yeah. All’s good.” Christos’s answer came after a pause, brief enough that Christos hoped no one noticed and long enough that Kratos certainly did.

For once, the country fool showed some sense and did not pry. He only nodded before reaching across the table and stealing the larger piece of bread from under another man’s hand.

Christos left the hall and made for home. He tried to keep his usual steady pace, shoulders square and boots landing evenly, but he could feel his feet dragging against the stone. The day sat heavily across his back, and every turn through the keep seemed farther than he remembered. Used to be he’d made the journey home with a burst of energy. But even that seemed dim now.

It made no real difference. Tired or rested, eager or worn through, the road remained the same.

One step after another, and one foot ahead of the pair.

…

Agape was crouched beside the fireplace when Christos returned, stabbing a wooden spoon through the bubbling pot coating their house in a smell of onions, smoke, and soft grain.

Christos eased the door shut and tried to cross quietly. For once he thanked the ugly thing beneath his feet. Above the packed earth floor was a woven mat Agape had fallen in love with at the latest Market Fair, a dull red-and-yellow thing that looked like someone had wiped mud across a blanket and charged coin for it. He had complained for three days after she bought it.

Then he realised it helped not only when he came home late and did not want to wake her, but also in moments like this.

He came up behind Agape and slid a hand over her backside.

“What the-” She jolted upright, nearly sloshing broth over the pot, but Christos caught her around the waist and pulled her against him. “Christos, what are you doing?”

“Reminding myself what you smell like,” he said, burying his face in her dark almond-coloured hair.

Once, she had smelled of flour, warm dough, and the sweet glaze her father brushed over the better loaves at the bakery. Now there was smoke in her hair, sharp herbs, and something underneath that came too close to blood and opened guts.

The smell made him want to draw back. He knew it all too well. Instead, he tightened his arms around her.

“I have a burning spoon in my hand, you fool,” Agape said, raising it where he could see the steam curling from the wood. “You’ll scorch both of us carrying on like this.”

She sounded far less pleased than he had imagined. Christos ignored that and leaned into her. He had missed the warmth of her skin and the easy way she used to fit against him. Lately, they passed one another like sentries changing watch, one coming in as the other went out.

“That spoon’s not the only thing burning,” he rasped.

Agape twisted in his grip. “Christos, no.”

He told himself she did not mean it. She had always enjoyed making him work for affection, batting his hands away with a smile before drawing him back. Christos liked the chase because he understood chasing. You saw what you wanted and kept after it until one of you gave way. That wasn’t the case today.

“I said no, Christos.” Her voice hardened, stripping away any playfulness he had imagined.

This book was originally published on NovelPhoenix. Check it out there for the real experience.

Irritation pricked beneath his skin. She complained that he was never home, yet now that he stood there with his arms around her, she wanted nothing to do with him. It made no damned sense to him.

“Just tonight,” Christos said, half pleading, half commanding. “We might not get another like this.”

His hand moved over the folds of her skirt, searching for the closeness he thought he was owed after weeks of cold meals, empty bedding, and watching her hurry away before dawn.

Movement stirred near the curtain dividing the sleeping space from the rest of the house. The brat stood there with one hand curled around the cloth, a single lilac-hazel eye fixed upon him with awful stillness.

It was no proper look for a child. Then again, Christos had never seen it behave like any proper child would.

“Is everything all right, Agape?” she asked in a thin, sweet voice utterly at odds with the flat warning in her gaze.

Christos did not care a wet fart for the brat’s threats, but Agape did.

“Stop, Christos!” She tore herself from his arms and drove the back of her head into his nose hard to reel him back.

“Aagh, fuck!” Christos staggered away, clamping a hand over his face. Warm blood spilled between his fingers, thick and metallic against his tongue. “Why did you do that?” he demanded, though the words came out clogged and nasal.

Agape had already crossed to Valeria and placed herself between them. The girl clutched at her skirts, putting on her best imitation of a frightened child.

“Why did you have to be such a fuckhead?” Agape snapped. “Valeria is right here. Can’t you think with anything except your cock?”

“Oh, so I’m meant to live like a fucking priest now?” Christos’s voice rose, his temper rushing in with familiar quickness. “I’ve barely seen you since you became a nurse, or whatever they’re calling it. I come home to cold food or nothing at all, while the pissers under my command return to warm suppers and loving wives.”

He heard how ugly the words sounded and seemed to gain strength from them. Why did he have to put up with this shit?

“Why can’t you act like a faithful wife?”

“A faithful wife?” Agape sneered, planting both hands on her hips. “I left my damned village for you. I waited alone while you marched off trying to get yourself killed, never knowing when you would return, or whether you would return at all. I have been faithful plenty.”

She ground out the last words through clenched teeth. That fire was part of why Christos had fallen in love with her in the first place, though right then he wished she would shut her damned mouth.

“You don’t keep the house. You barely cook anymore.” He jabbed a bloody hand toward Valeria. “You dragged some stinking brat in from the street, feed her from my pay, and treat her like she came from your own belly. Yet you can’t even do the work needed to give me a proper one of my own.”

The words came faster once they started, each one uglier than the last. Things had gone downhill ever since the brat appeared, and Christos had had it up to here with the little cunt.

Agape looked as though he had struck her. Horror crossed her face first, followed by fury.

Her hand cracked across his cheek, snapping his head aside. Christos stared at the blood streaking her fingers, unable to believe she had actually slapped him.

Agape swallowed and steadied herself. “I am doing something with my life,” she said, her voice quieter now. “I help people. I have work I can point to and be proud of, work I enjoy. I let you chase what you wanted. I waited while you became a soldier, then a sergeant. I will do the same for myself.”

She turned back toward the pot and stirred it with slow, deliberate motions.

“Where are you going?” Christos demanded. “We are not done talking.”

“Antonis and Stella are coming for supper,” Agape said without looking at him. “Go clean yourself.”

Christos stood there breathing through his mouth, anger crowding his chest. Part of him wanted to seize her, force her to face him, and remind her who the man of the house was.

Then a pinewood cane flashed through his memory, followed by broken pieces of an older night: his father’s hand around the polished grip, blood on the floorboards, and his mother curled against the wall while Christos watched from the doorway.

He drew a breath through his bloodied nose and immediately regretted it. Whatever else happened, he would not become his father.

Christos trudged to the washbasin and scrubbed the blood away with angry splashes, striking the water hard enough to spray the wall. From the corner of his eye, he caught Valeria watching him.

The brat smiled, mouth twisted in a satisfied little curl. Then she arranged her face into something sweet and worried, went to Agape’s side, and whispered whatever poisonous nonsense had formed in that strange little head of hers.

So that was the game being played. Christos might not know many things, but waging war was familiar to him by now. And he didn’t tend to show quarter to his enemies.

“The food is wonderful, dear,” Stella said, making a show of scraping the last streaks from her bowl.

“Not too salty?” Agape asked, trying to keep her voice light. “I worried I had added too much.”

“Not at all. It is much better than the first time-” Stella’s eyes widened. “I mean, it is astonishingly good now.”

Her dark curls bounced as she shook her head so firmly that Agape almost laughed. The frantic attempt to repair the mistake eased some of the tightness from Agape’s shoulders.

Their friendship had begun badly in Mangup, about as badly as two people could without drawing knives. Yet when Stella moved to Suyren because of Antonis’s work, the balance between them changed. Stella became the outsider, trying to fit into a smaller, poorer town where strangers were watched closely.

She had worked as a midwife in Mangup and soon began helping Suyren’s small, overburdened group, which Agape worked beside as well during her duties, and the two had struck up conversation out of that.

“How did the wheelwright’s daughter fare after the labour?” Agape asked. “I could not stay until the end, but I heard it went on for nearly a whole day.”

“She survived it well enough,” Stella said, her expression sobering. “The babe too, though both were exhausted.”

Agape nodded, relief loosening her chest. Midwives often changed places during a long labour, especially now that the new rules demanded constant washing, cleaner cloths, and more care than many women were accustomed to giving.

Agape had suggested shorter shifts with fresher hands, reasoning that exhaustion would only lead to mistakes. To her surprise, the idea had stuck around, and the others had begun listening whenever she offered one.

“She went pale like you wouldn’t believe,” Stella said more softly, leaning across the table as though the men might somehow overhear it through their own muttering. “We had to pull the child out with those strange metal tongs the Lord commissioned.”

“Forceps,” Agape supplied.

They were crude-looking things, little better than a pair of curved iron spoons fitted together. Yet if a babe’s head became trapped and the mother lacked the strength to push any longer, they could reach where fingers could not and ease the child free. Agape still did not understand how the Lord thought of such things. It beggared belief.

“I’ve seen plenty of labours turn that way, hun,” Stella continued. “That girl ought to be dead. The babe too.”

There was fear beneath her wonder, as though saving someone who should have died felt like tempting God to notice them. People feared change, the Lord had once told Agape, even when the change was plainly for the better. They trusted what their mothers had done, and what their mothers’ mothers had done before them, because familiar misery could feel safer than strange hope.

Part of Agape’s work now was making them see sense.

She had begun assisting more directly with births soon after the Lord judged that she and the other women had learned enough from Suyren’s midwives and their new rules on cleanliness. Then came instruction under Suyren’s barber-surgeon, a bald, hard-faced bastard who seemed far happier shaving beards than treating wounds, but knew his knife and stitch work well enough.

They even learned from the local healers and wisewomen, though had to care for which roots actually soothed a fever, and which old remedies were nothing more than goat piss dressed up with prayer.

When it was all done, the Lord had named them the castle’s nursemaids, and tasked them with caring for the ill and injured in the household.

Agape had risen through the training faster than the others, and she would have been lying if she said that did not please her. People now came looking for Agape because her hands were useful and her judgment mattered.

The Lord wanted her working more among Suyren’s townsfolk, treating minor complaints and teaching families how to keep their homes, water, and wounds cleaner. Convincing people was half the labour. So Agape had gotten good at that.

“We saved her, Stella,” Agape said firmly. “That has to mean we’re doing God’s work. Clean hands and boiled cloth don’t offend Him.”

Stella reached across and squeezed her hand, managing a weak smile.

On the other side of the table, the men spoke in lowered voices. By chance or circumstance, they worked together and had fought together. Men of war seemed to grow their own language after a time, one made mostly from looks and things left unsaid.

Watching Christos, Agape could not help thinking how much he had changed.

He spoke with greater certainty now, and with less of the wild anger that had once burst from him whenever he felt cornered. The anger had not disappeared. She knew him too well to know that. He had only buried it beneath whatever bandages a soldier learned to wrap around his wounds

Sometimes she caught him staring at nothing. That was when she saw the ghosts haunting him come up to the surface to nibble and bite.

Their eyes met across the table. Christos looked away first, and the words he had thrown at her earlier returned with enough force to sour the food in her stomach. Part of her wanted to believe the man who had said them was someone else entirely, some ugly creature the war had dragged home wearing Christos’s face.

She knew blaming the war was easier than blaming him.

“What are you boys yapping about?” Stella asked, tugging herself into their conversation. She seemed to possess a sixth sense for knowing when a silence couldn’t be held, and the ease to know how to break it.

Christos and Antonis exchanged a glance. It was quick, though there was nothing light in it.

“I was telling Christos that the cement has been coming out of Suyren quicker by the week,” Antonis said.

Agape was fairly certain the whispered mentions of ‘new orders’ and ‘a northern alarm line’ had nothing to do with cement. Still, she kept her mouth shut. Pointing it out would only make both men clamp their jaws tighter.

“The grunts we hired are finally getting the hang of the work,” Antonis continued. “We’re sending more batches to the capital now, and the quality’s improving.” He folded his thick arms across the table, the heavy muscle along them lined with dark hair so dense it looked almost brushed on. Even sitting down, Antonis had the build of a man meant to lift stones other men preferred to walk around. “It’s beginning to grow into something proper. The Lord sent word that Mangup is already putting it to use. You remember the old cistern beneath the church?” he turned to his wife.

“That leaky old thing?” Stella asked.

Agape remembered it well enough. Mangup boasted of three cisterns, though only two still provided anything resembling clean water, and in truth most families relied on the central shaft near the city courtyard.

“They repaired that one and the Keep’s cistern besides,” Antonis said, nodding. “The eastern wall is getting fresh cement to seal the cracks and patch the old holes. They reckon the work will be finished by next month. After that, our next proper shipment is bound for Eski Kermen, so they can begin work on that behemoth.”

“And Kalamita?” Christos asked.

It was the sort of question he would never have bothered with before. In war, at least, he had learned to think beyond the next blow. Agape wished some of that thought followed him home.

“Kalamita still gets half the shipments,” Antonis replied. “Most of the lower-grade mix is heading there already. They want the road between the port and Mangup finished before the wine harvest, but I’d wager they won’t manage it.”

“Sounds like the castle’s finding plenty of coin from this whole cement enterprise,” Stella said, mouth in a flat line. “Perhaps they might spare some food for the poor again, like proper Christians ought to.”

It was the chief complaint Agape heard against the Lord’s new rule. Suyren’s lanes were cleaner and work was easier to find, yet the old food alms had nearly vanished.

“They are receiving food, just not freely,” Antonis explained. “Plenty of the folk under me hadn’t held steady work in years. Now they earn enough grain and broth to feed their families.”

“And those who cannot work?” Stella pressed. “The crippled, the sick, the children?”

She tipped her chin toward the far end of the table, where Valeria and Stella’s boy sat as far apart as the narrow room allowed. Valeria had not spoken to him once. Considering how they first met in Mangup, Agape supposed silence was the best anyone could hope for.

Antonis opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no answer for that.

...

The conversation gradually petered out after that. Eventually Antonis thanked Agape for the meal and helped Stella gather their boy’s things. Stella embraced Agape at the door and promised to visit again, though her eyes lingered on Agape’s face as if she sensed the strain beneath the smiles.

Then the door shut behind them, and the house seemed to shrink.

The fire had burned down to red coals, throwing weak light over the table. Soon there was nothing but the crackle of embers and Christos breathing through his swollen nose.

Agape began stacking the bowls because her hands needed somewhere to go.

She wanted to apologize, though she still burned at what he had said. Christos had done much for her. He followed his lord into battles that should have killed him and worked hours that left him stumbling home. Guarding the Lord was not a duty he could set aside because supper was ready. Missing her was natural, and God knew she missed him too.

She spent her days boiling cloth and cleaning blood from floors, yet Christos still expected the food warm, the room swept, and his bed waiting as though her work vanished when she crossed the threshold.

Perhaps that was how most wives lived. Her mother had done more work than any three men Agape knew, but even she demanded help when seven children filled the house. Agape’s brothers hauled water, peeled onions, swept flour from the bakery floor, and rocked the youngest when their mother’s arms were busy. Her father grumbled, but he had kneaded dough beside his sons and never claimed his manhood would fall off if he washed a bowl.

There had to be some middle path between being a dutiful wife and being worked like a mule.

Agape opened her mouth, and the words wedged themselves behind her tongue.

Christos sat across from her with both hands planted on his knees. He had stared at the table so long she wondered whether he was counting every knife mark in the wood. His anger had cooled into something harder to read, perhaps shame, or exhaustion.

He looked up at last. “Agape, I…”

“We need to clean up, Mom,” Valeria said.

Agape went still. The bowls shifted in her hands with a soft clack, and for a moment she thought she had misheard.

“What did you say?” she breathed.

Valeria stood from her stool, one hand curled around her skirt. Through all the months since Agape brought her home, the girl had never called her that. It was the one line that was never crossed.

“I said we should clean up, Mom.” Valeria’s voice lost some certainty on the second attempt. “I can help more. I don’t want you everything alone.”

Something warm pressed beneath Agape’s ribs. She hadn’t imagined how good it felt to be called like that, with such tenderness and innocence.

Valeria glanced toward Christos and his face darkened. Whatever he had meant to say disappeared behind a tightening jaw.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, the question sharp. Valeria flinched and moved behind Agape, her fingers catching in the back of Agape’s dress.

“That you won’t help,” she whispered.

Christos shoved himself upright, and the stool legs scraped over the packed earth. “Why, you little-”

“Stop.” Agape stepped fully in front of Valeria.

Christos’s chest rose and fell. Agape had never feared his size before. It had made her feel safe.

Now, with Valeria pressed behind her, something inside Agape turned fearful. The old Christos might have cursed or stomped outside to cool his head, but he would never have risen against a child for speaking out of turn.

War had changed him.

“Come, Valeria,” Agape said.

She took the girl’s hand and gathered the bowls and cutlery with her free arm.

Christos remained beside the table, fists opening and closing. “So that’s it?” he demanded. “You let the brat insult me in my own house?”

“She offered to help,” Agape said without turning.

“She called me useless.”

Agape did not answer him.

For several moments Christos stood there, as though a statue on the brink of breaking.

Agape poured water into the basin and dipped the first bowl beneath the surface, muscles tense and ready should he snap. Valeria came beside her with a cloth and began wiping the spoons one by one, cuddling up beside her for protection.

Behind them, Christos muttered something too low to catch and strode toward the curtained sleeping space.

The bedframe creaked beneath his weight and before long, his breathing deepened into soft, uneven snores.

Agape scrubbed at the same bowl until Valeria touched her wrist.

“It’s already clean, Mom,” she said, almond eyes searching her for wounds.

Agape looked down. The wood beneath her fingers had been rubbed pale. “You’re right. I’m sorry, little pup. My mind was just drifting off.” She hoped she didn’t let her pain show through.

They worked by candlelight after that, trying to scrub their worries away.

It hurt Agape more than she wanted to admit.