Fallen Eagle-Chapter 39: Frayed Edges and Dark Secrets

Fallen Eagle-Chapter 39: Frayed Edges and Dark Secrets

The sunlight filtering in through the narrow slit that served the sewing room as a window had soured to a sickly orange, the color of bruised fruit. Thread dust hung in the air like pollen; the tang of lanolin and old linen clung to the rafters. Theodorus’s own patience frayed at the edges like the fabric, hanging on by a thread.
“Helen is possessed of a wide hip and comely features, even if her physical gifts do not spread to her airy mind,” Old Zeta announced, tallying the Ladies-in-waiting of the Suyren court as if reciting inventory. To Theodorus’s growing dismay, there were more of them than he’d imagined. For well over an hour, the old Madame had trodden every path of trivia and minutiae relating to the various women that dotted the Nomikos landscape, a vast landscape indeed.
“Nevertheless, I believe she could be the right match for a man of your calibre, Captain.” The words might have mattered had she not bestowed them upon every candidate she’d paraded for his supposed tastes - which, by her measure, encompassed every eligible woman in Suyren. “Wide hips and an ample bosom, more than enough to offset her stupidity. She is sure to please my Lord and give him many healthy sons.” Each roundup concluded the same way, with Old Zeta objectifying the women to the base functionalities a 15th-century nobleman might take interest in.
“That is very good, Madame Zeta,” Demetrios tried to steer the conversation back on track. He’d been serving as an impromptu interpreter, as it would be considered overly improper for a Christian man to ask too many forward questions about a possible match. Ordinarily, a bachelor’s family would broker such business, but Theodorus - being parentless and distant from the main house succession - was in the rare position of having to find a match for himself.
“As I’ve said before, my Lord’s post and reputation are deserving of a bride of higher stock, as you can imagine. We were hoping for a pedigree to match.” For the last hour, Demetrios had wrestled with the intractable Madame, who, despite his gentle fencing, insisted on detailing every bachelorette as if an auctioneer with a captive crowd.
“And believe I told you,
servant
.” Madame Zeta emphasized the propriety of the word. “Most of our Lord’s ladies are engaged, or otherwise not presently in the marriage market.”
“Most is not all.” A sliver of Demetrios’s exasperation bled through at last; the fight had worn him thinner than parchment. They’d not yet extracted a single crumb of useful information on the Nomikos Lords.
The Madame harrumphed. “Kids really do not have manners these days.” Theodorus couldn’t quite smother the small smile at the jab to Demetrios’s youth - beside Madame Zeta, Demetrios was indeed a child. “Very well, I believe I’ve adequately relayed the various qualities and advantages of our other Ladies.”
Yes, she had, in excruciating detail.
“The youngest of the Nomikos line, Hilda Nomikos, is daughter to the late Lord Kostis and of high noble pedigree, I assure you. Do not let the black hair fool you.” Here, for the first time, the Madame hesitated. Where she had previously flowed like a well-rehearsed chant, she now stalled, picking her way as if over loose stones. “She is… not the most refined of ladies, but she is learning, my lord. A sound character and values, though she perhaps lacks the subtleties required of a lady.”
Theodorus watched the fluster climb her throat as she failed to conjure the usual inventory of virtues. It was almost a kindness, that failure. It meant the speech was blessedly short. It was utterly barbaric to Theodorus’s sensibilities the discussion of a possible betrothal to a little girl who looked no older than thirteen.
“I believe that about sums up the various flowers that our family has to offer,” Madame Zeta declared, speaking as if she held Nomikos blood herself. “Which one fancies your picking, my Lord? I can arrange a meeting - public, of course. It would be unseemly for unwed youngsters to be seen together in clandestine fashion. Although with today’s youth you never know-” Madame Zeta readied herself for a proper rant, the sort that could wear grooves in stone.
“What about Lady Cassandra?”
The voice cut into the lull like a blade through cloth, clean and unhurried, and all eyes turned. It was the first time Theodorus had spoken.
“Ah, Lady Cassandra is not eligible, I’m afraid, my Lord.” Madame Zeta said, sorrow weighing the courtesy. “Though you have a fine eye. Lady Cassandra is accomplished in etiquette and poetry, a student of history, elegant in manner - to not mention her beauty, of course.”
Theodorus was content to let the room misread his interest. “Is she already betrothed, Madame?”
“Not at all, Captain. Lord Adanis is simply very attached to his daughters,” she replied, almost exasperated. “He is not presently entertaining offers.” Theodorus suspected the policy vexed the old Madame.
“Unity, am I correct?” Theodorus ventured.
“Unity, indeed. The Lord is very keen on such matters.” The Madame’s mouth tilted into a proud smile.
“He must have been taught well.” Demetrios said with a light double meaning that won a bark of laughter.
“Hah! Flattery will get you everywhere, boyo. Keep it.”
“It must be quite an honour to serve as an educator to the reigning Lord - and many years from what I hear?” Theodorus made a second, gentler pass with the buttering knife. Ensuring the bread was soft enough to eat.
“Aye.” Zeta straightened, preening, pride softening the lines about her eyes. “They turned out fine and handsome, all of them.”
Theodorus chuckled softly. “Tell me true, Madame, were they rowdy children or humble and obedient?” He had taken the measure of the matriarch, and the question was perfectly framed to her picture: weak to praise and eager to brag of her charges.
Zeta began with pride, “Loyal and together, a shining example of the Nomikos values. Always looking out for one another,” she scoffed, “especially in the nonsense and pranks they contrived.”
“Charming rogues,” Demetrios said, joining Theodorus in a two-pronged assault. “Did they give you much headache?”
“Quite a bit, but never more than they were worth.” Zeta smoothed the fabric of her skirt, then reached for a needle from a pincushion bristling like a hedgehog.
“You must give me details, Madame.” Theodorus pleaded, smiling to disarm the old woman, seeking an advantage in the bout. “What adventures were the brothers up to?”
Zeta’s gaze went thoughtful. “Bring me that blue cloth, boyo,” she commanded Demetrios with a small flick of her fingers.
“Why? Does the tale require it, Madame?” Demetrios hovered between outrage and confusion, managing neither well.
“Of course not,” Zeta said derisively, releasing a worn, spent laugh. “But any good tale is both spoken and woven in equally good measure.” Demetrios fetched the folded square from her stores and placed it in her hands. Zeta spread the cloth, threaded a needle with a strand of gold, and began to stitch as she spoke.
“When they were lads,” she said, “there was talk of a golden rabbit in the woods. Adanis, seventeen then and already bewitched by tales of grand hunts, fancied himself a chance for glory, and dragged his brothers out to prove it true. Kostis, the middle one, grumbled but went; Hypatius, no more than twelve, tried to keep up.” The needle dipped and rose, laying a bright line that caught a stray flicker of light. “They tracked prints and broken fern until the undergrowth tightened and the world smelled of damp bark, pine, and nettle.”
Her needle kissed the cloth, anchoring a small knot. “They saw a golden flash. The rabbit, just within reach! Deep they went after the prize. But the one they found was not of gold but of bristle - a boar, great as a cart, shouldering out of the thicket. Adanis put himself before the younger two without thinking and called for them to charge together on his word. Kostis answered him, always willing to have his brother’s back, but when they looked back for Hypatius, the boy had already fled into the trees.”
The gold thread ran on, a narrow band that began to suggest the jagged outline of an antler. “The beast came. Adanis was left to deal with the beast with a sword more at home in duels than life and death struggles. The boar charged, hell bent on death. They would either kill the beast - or die trying.” Zeta paused, squinting to bite a length of blue thread. “Hypatius reached the manor breathless, babbling in an incoherent rush, and help went out with boar-spears and stretchers. They brought the two brothers home torn and senseless, but not taken from us.”
She set a cross-stitch, then another, a rhythm like a heartbeat. “When the brothers mended, Hypatius swore he had only run for help. That he was no fighter and would have been meat underfoot if he’d stayed. Perhaps it was true.” The needle hesitated, trembling a fraction. “But Adanis… he carried a hardness for years. A lord must forgive, yet a brother must remember.” Sadness thinned her voice. “It marked them all.”
For a few breaths, only the whisper of thread through cloth. The gold braid around the emerging crest grew tidy and sure; a blue field filled beneath it, little by little, under her patient hand. Zeta’s expression cleared as the pattern took shape.
“Once you grow old enough, you realize something,” she said at last, brightening, “there is a season for everything.” She lifted the small tapestry so the light could strike it: a quick, deft rendering of the Nomikos crest, a deep ocean blue marked by clean, golden antlers. “What mattered most endured. Lord Adanis forgave Hypatius, and now loves him as he does his House. And he does so for even the tiniest branch in the tree - legitimate and bastard, hale and sick alike.” She smiled, the pride back, tempered this time by gentleness. “Unity, Captain. He learned it in flesh and in forgiveness.”
She set the work in her lap, smoothing the blue with the flat of her palm. “So, yes, Captain. Lady Cassandra is not for market. But you are right about her father.” Her eyes, hazy and milky, gained an uncanny focus in that moment. “He was taught well - and taught himself better.”
By that point, the sun had gone, and Stefanos - ever discreet - had coaxed a wick to life, the candle breathing against the gloom; a thin halo hovering over thimbles and snipped threads.
“It is late,” Old Zeta proclaimed. “And you have better things to do than humouring an old Lady.”
“Not at all, madame Zeta. It was a pleasure.” Theodorus cut a bow with just enough flourish to satisfy courtesy and excused himself, filing out with Demetrios and Stefanos into the dark corridor.
“We have erred, Demetrios.” Theodorus said, voice low, as the door clicked shut and the candle’s glow dwindled behind them.
“How so, my Lord?”
“We have focused our intelligence gathering efforts almost exclusively on the male servant population because they were easiest to approach,” he murmured, bootheels soft on stone. “In doing so we forewent any expansion into the strongest market of secrets within these walls.”
“Maid gossip, my Lord?” Demetrios asked. “Their tales are oft exaggerated,”
“And yet we learned a piece of crucial information from one such.” Theodorus’s eyes glinted in the dark. “We must send word to the Duke; we finally have something fit to debrief him on.”
“From the ramblings of an old nanny?” Demetrios’s doubt rippled down the hall. “Pretty and insightful, yes, but a fanciful tale. The tidings should be taken with a grain of salt.” Portraits of long-dead Nomikos heads loomed in the periphery, varnished eyes catching silver and seeming to judge them.
“Many tales often hold inklings of truth,” Theodorus said, leading them through the chill and corridors, spotting a familiar opening up ahead. “At least a kernel to dissect.” He tipped his face to the full moon shouldering its way over the black rooftops, a pale coin pressed into a star-sown sky.
They came to a stop at the Lord’s favorite loggia, bathed in silence, cold, and a haze of milk-blue light.
“And what knowledge have we gleamed, my Lord?” It was Stefanos who inquired, as he was the most likely candidate to serve as messenger.
Theodorus’s gaze fell to the bench where the brothers had once sat, figs in hand, talk easy as summer wind. The same bench now hunched into the shadows. “That for all its outward unity, the Nomikos family may guard some dark secrets after all.” He tightened his grip on the small Nomikos tapestry Old Zeta had pressed upon him. “And that the heart of its divide may lie at the very center.” The fabric rasped beneath his thumb; its edges were frayed.
The sunrises and sunsets of Mangup were a miser’s gift of extra light, and Zeno was their most ardent user. Today he meant to finish the formal rebuttal the Doux’s office would place before the court to stall the Privateer initiative set to begin with the new year, one month from now.
To the Principe’s great chagrin, the hostage negotiations had proceeded fully, and all high-ranking beys had been released for well over 80 hyperpera each, bringing a much-needed cushion to the Crown’s treasury. Now the focus had shifted once more to delaying the next moronic scheme.
Zeno was, naturally, the mastermind of the latest response. In it, they would argue for a joint committee of the disparate nobles to review all current treaties and dispatch letters to foreign ports and consuls to ensure such authorities would receive the ill-gotten loot without incident. A necessary protocol - curiously unmentioned until this very moment - yet one that sounded sober and sensible to ‘review’. If you captured a rich hoard but had nowhere to spend it, you were not rich at all, and the privateers might not appreciate that discovery.
Any man with sense, and any familiarity with the machinery of such ventures, would ask why the safeguard had been absent from the original privateer plan. But Zeno already knew the measure of his opponents. Incompetence ran deep in the Principality, and what was usually a burden to be overcome turned into, for the first time, a sweet weakness to exploit.
This procedure would be ironclad, unlike the last two. First, they had tried to raise the value of the surety bonds - the deposit sea captains must post, to be returned only if they held to the strict engagement rules governing the “pirate” work they would undertake for the Principality. Philemon had offered to bankroll part of the bonds off his own pockets.
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Then they proposed a prize-appeal court, where victims might argue that captains had strayed unlawful, especially in cases where no Genoese flag had been taken. The next morning nearly every highborn noble who might have sat judgment discovered an urgent need to “take the waters” or “inspect provincial estates.” Coaches rolled out of the Capital before noon, shutters latched, servants tight-lipped. The plan died an unceremonious death, smothered before it even began.
Makris wealth and influence were proving to be formidable foes. Zeno now understood why the Doux was bald: the work made a man want to strip his own scalp. He and Philemon had been at this tug-of-war since their younger years as officers in the Kalamita conflicts, and their struggle had only increased in scope.
Zeno set the finishing strokes to the new draft, the nib cutting thin channels of black along the ruled lines. It was flawless, ready to be submitted to the Doux. It was also, he knew, utterly useless. Doomed the instant his uncle wished the opposite. Philemon was spending freely to push the initiative through, and Zeno knew his uncle. He was vindictive and nursed a deep hatred for the Italians, yet he was never foolhardy. If he was pressing this hard on the initiative, then there was a scheme coiled somewhere inside the privateer plan.
The thought led, inevitably, to the encounter in the corridor with the soft-handed Makris servant - and to the laurel. Zeno had gnawed on the memory ever since. He hated his uncle to the bone, and yet he’d learned that the ledger between them remained unbalanced. When he had been thrown out of the main household and left to die, he had made two vows. Now they tugged him in opposite directions
What, then, was he to do? Work with Philemon? Stomach the man, for a time, for an end? Zeno was a creature of decisions and steel, not a victim of hesitation. This wavering was beneath him. He had promised himself he would never be this weak again-
He stilled when he felt the parchment buckling under his grip. Carefully, he flattened the draft and set it aside. He drew a fresh sheet, trimmed the quill, and began anew from the title line. He would not carry a creased page into the Doux’s presence. His work was his reputation. And it was unblemished. Perfect.
“The draft, my Lord.” Zeno placed the missive on the Doux’s desk. The man did not look up from his own mountain of papers, digging through with a blunt, deliberate strength, the kind that wears down obstacles by steady pressure.
Zeno turned to leave, already rehearsing the long argument he meant to have with himself in the dark of his bedchamber. Delaying the decision he would have to make indefinitely.
“You’ve been troubled, Zeno.” The heavy rumble followed him as he reached the doorway, freezing his hand on the latch.
“It’s nothing, my Doux,” he said by reflex, closing the door on matters of his heart. One he rarely opened.
The Doux did not press, did not even lift his head. But Zeno recognized the silence he left open. The Doux was uncanny in his way of hearing the slightest tremors of your inner quakes. He had shown it time and time again ever since he’d arrived in the capital - destitute and without meaning, with only a wish of revenge guiding his heart. The Doux had taken him in, put weight in his hand, and sense in his rage. Perhaps he could put shape to this as well.
“When you’re forced to choose between love and vengeance, which one do you choose?” Zeno said quietly, surprised at such sentimental words escaping him.
The Doux stilled in his movements, setting down the quill. Pressure cracked outward in a silent wave, as if the very rock around Zeno were shifting, while the Doux’s gaze fixed on him.
“I once hated a man so much I wished him dead.”
The words unrolled slowly - measured. “He’d taken what I believed was mine, held in his hands what I most wanted to grasp.” His eyes went faraway, seeing another place, another time, yet Zeno felt the pain keenly; it was the same one he felt now.
“I held on to the hatred, let it fuel me. Let it guide me to where I am today. And look where I am now.” He tipped a hand toward the bare chamber - no gilt, no tapestries - only order, steel, and the weight of office: a room stripped of artifice and built as a monument to power.
“I reached the height I dreamed of. I took hold of what I wanted, and so I cherished that feeling.” He rose, the chair legs rasping faintly, and faced the window. A theatric meant to bury feelings hiding beneath the earth, Zeno knew. “When he died, I expected joy, the sweet finish of vindication. Instead, it was pain. No relief. Only a taste of ash.” He fell quiet for a heavy moment. “Vengeance is a hollow cup one can never fill.”
He turned to face Zeno. “I realized that perhaps what brought me here was not vengeance at all, but love. Love for my country. Love for what I have won and must keep.” His eyes hardened, unreadable, boring into the cool calculation on Zeno’s face until even that mask felt thin.
Then the moment snapped shut. The old stone settled. “Take that for what it is.” He lowered himself into the harsh, high-backed chair like a mountain settling into place and bent over the papers again, the scratch of his pen signaling an end to the conversation.
Zeno stood rooted, a torrential downpour of old memories flashing behind his eyes. He drew one long breath and fixed his mind to a single point. He bowed - a silent thank-you the Doux did not so much as nod toward - then exited into Mangup’s corridors, his shoulder brushing past a young man striding purposefully toward the study, the empty sleeve marking him as Captain Theodorus’s messenger and servant. It seems they had news from Suyren at last, but the thought could not be further from Zeno’s mind.
His stride was purposeful for the first time in weeks, his steps measured. He halted in the dark passage where he had been approached before. There, on the bench where the laurel had stood, lounged Markos - the effeminate Makris aide - with an unruffled ease. He watched the small garden with a cat’s contentment, a lily balanced between his fingers, orange shading to red at the petal tips as he breathed in its fragrance.
Catching sight of Zeno, he brightened - a radiant smile blossoming on his face. “Ah, Zeno Makris. To what do I owe the honour of your presence?”
“I’ll work with Philemon.” Zeno’s face was set, his eyes were dark green daggers. He would make the most difficult choice of his life. He would choose love.
“I want my sister back.”
Theodorus put a boot to the stirrup and swung into the saddle with a practiced ease that still felt newly earned. For three weeks he had joined the morning runs with his company, and whenever time allowed he punished himself with calisthenic strength drills.
He had not yet overcome the weakness of his original scholarly body, but between the different labour he’d submitted himself to and the fact that, after starting to train the levy, his sleep schedule had mostly normalized, he was starting to see some gains, finally. His frame had already thickened by degrees.
From atop his stride, his faithful companion Boudicca - the gentle, clever mare he’d poached from his brother all those months ago when he’d left the Sideris estate - he surveyed his troops. Their kit was clean and mended, blades honed, straps re-punched where wear had gnawed. Laughter moved along the ranks like a warming wind; camaraderie had begun to knit itself without orders, a pride gathering around the odd fame they had acquired. They’d heard the word traveling in the barracks and streets: the other companies ate less, slept fitfully, and were driven at a sadistic pace.
They heard the jeering mocks that they didn’t know the first thing about fighting. But they also saw how the townsfolk lingered to gawk at the new earthworks and the angled palisades, at the neat lanes threading the revived southern district.
Most of all, they had started seeing their own transformation.
In between the endless labours and construction, Theodorus had threaded in work that made the labour itself an instrument. Digging ditches was not just moving earth; it drove power up from the heels, trained hips and hamstrings till they burned clean. Ramming floors taught alignment - back straight, knees tracking, the belly braced - so every stroke hardened the core as much as the clay. With this, Theodorus was striking two birds with one stone.
Sleep was mandatory, not optional, and stretching a morning daily ritual. Sanitation had its own drill: trimming nails, scrubbing hands, dabbing salve on cuts and bruises. Feet care was tantamount, the appendages treated like sacred relics: dried, rubbed with vinegar, shoes and hoses changed before they soured. Latrine pits were kept downwind and covered; all water drank was boiled.
No one had fallen ill or been injured so far - a small miracle in itself, and one won by work rather than luck. True sustainable growth came from the plain rhythm of effort and recovery, not from pushing bodies to the limit, and Theodorus’s understanding of this universal truth gave him a stark edge over the competition, one that would go unnoticed until the last second.
The other aides were not stupid; they simply lacked the requisite knowledge, clinging to the traditional methods because they knew nothing else. Their levies already looked harder and meaner, drilled into impressive shapes. But Theodorus was the turtle in this race, and everyone knows how that tale ends.
The wooden palisade stood sharp-edged and new; the ditch cut deep and dry; the chevaux de frise bristled, rebuilt and ready. The men’s faces were fuller, much as their bodies. They looked halfway competent to a clueless observer. And that was enough for what came next.
“I’m c-counting on you, Captain.” Steward Theophylct had come to see them off in person. His paranoia about being usurped had only served to make him even more tethered to Theodorus and his company, ensuring the extra foodstuffs kept being supplied, despite growing pressure from the other aides who sought similar preferential treatment, and the growing discontent amongst the poor who sorely felt the lack of alms.
“We need the fullness of the t-tithe.” The steward said, scratching his wrist, a gesture that had become more obsessive as of late.
“Do not worry, my good Steward, we will collect it promptly for you. Of that, have no doubt.” Theodorus sat almost imperial atop his modest horse, looking down at the hapless steward with a grave nod before turning Boudicca towards the waiting ranks.
Christos was saying farewell to Agape, who looked slightly flustered beneath his shadow. “Be careful in there,” He warned, folding her into a smothering hug and laying the whole breadth of his frame over her slightness.
“Yes, I will be.” For once, Agape did not bristle at his overbearing care; the nerves of her new task had gentled her tongue.
“I assure you, all will go well.” Theodorus cut in, his voice warm and even.
“Captain,” Christos looked startled, while Agape curtsied deep. “I worry for her in the castle,” Christos confessed, face conflicted.
After realizing he needed an informant among the gossiping servants, Theodorus had approached Christos and offered Agape a position as a scullery maid. An easy enough arrangement given his clout, growing influence, and Steward Theophylact’s eagerness to help Theodorus. The man was more than glad to plant a new ‘pair of ears’ to unearth Hypatius’s vile schemes towards him.
“I am honoured, my Lord.” Agape said. For a peasant girl, even the lowest rung of service at court was a once-in-a-lifetime step. The promise of steady food, pay, and shelter was a godsend in the brutal medieval world, where peasant lives were threshed like chaff.
“Nonsense, this is no honour to grant,” Theodorus replied, brushing the praise aside with a small, awkward smile. He had never grown comfortable with the common prostration and murmured titles that trailed his noble stature. “It is the least I could do for the woman who props up Christos.”
“Stratiotes,” he looked to the giant. “We move out in five.”
“Alright, Captain,” Christos answered, the seriousness settling back over him like a helm.
Theodorus moved to the heart of the assembling formation, where men were double-checking their footwear and testing spearheads with a thumbnail’s scrape. One of the skills Theodorus had quietly encouraged in his soldiers was how to properly tie a footwrap or mend a shoe. A soldier’s life was miles - marching and waiting and then marching again - and they would do plenty of that today. It would be a good test for the marching he’d tried to instill in the group. An essential first step towards cultivating discipline - he’d done the same back at Probatofrourio. It taught reaction to command, bred cohesion, and was an undervalued skill both on the battlefield and off it.
“Is the wagon ready?” He asked Stathis, who was discussing the marching formation with the other four veterans - they planned to execute some low-level maneuvers along the march to train coordination between the squads and keep the levy fresh, alert, and occupied.
“Yes, milord. It’s been emptied, and the wheelwright’s checked every pin and spoke; all is well.” They only needed one large wagon for their tithe collection since a good portion of the tax had already been delivered to Suyren via the usual channels. They were only after the surplus the Crown had levied, the one the villages now refused to pay.
“Good. Settle into formation.” Theodorus commanded, placing himself at the heart of the formation, his saddle giving him a vantage point to survey imperfections being corrected by the veterans as the levy prepared to move out.
When all was passable, he saluted Demetrios and Stefanos, who were receiving a still-lost Agape at the castle gate, coaxing her through the threshold.
“Move out!” he called. The column took its first pace, then another, and the town parted before them. They marched straight down the middle, boot-soles finding their cadence through the muddy trudge, and faces in doorways thinning to shadows as they went on into the unknown.
“So you’ve finally come to your senses,” Markos called daintily as he patted the seat next to him on the stone.
Zeno felt the urge to snap out at the goldilocked servant. But he knew that was exactly the man’s aim - to shift his footing before he took a step.
“Yes, I realized that the Lord’s offer was too good to pass up,” Zeno said, forcing an easy smile upon his face as he eased to the spot, closer than pointed to, a subtle statement that he’d dictate where he stood - and that he wasn’t afraid of the man.
If he hoped to unsettle him, he misjudged. Markos’s smile widened, pleased. “Our lord is very generous with his
servants
,” he said, the softness of the title placed onto Zeno like a pin on a cloak.
“And what are his ‘very generous’ terms?” Zeno asked. By coming here, he had already mortgaged his pride. Goads had no purchase. He was above them.
“Quite simple, really.” Markos shrugged. “Enough money to retire comfortably on, a post of higher notice, which we both know you desire,” he held out his hand, stretching the lily towards Zeno, offering him its fragrance. “And, of course, your sister returned to you.”
Those words did make Zeno want to punch the servant. He’d thought her dead. But his uncle had had greater plans for her, it seemed. A piece to be moved and played at the very moment he needed Zeno’s help. For years, Zeno had wondered why his uncle had not simply finished the job. Why he’d let Zeno find his footing and climb up the ranks. He had credited the Doux’s protection. He saw now how wrong he’d been. Philemon had let him grow because he always had this move waiting to be played - and now he would plant an agent at the Doux’s heart.
Zeno showed none of it. “And what does he require?”
“Your ardent support, that is his first and greatest desire.” Markos’s mouth tilted as he withdrew the lily, cheeks puffing in a mock-pout. “And, though of much less importance, I assure you, knowledge of the Doux’s movements and plans.” Markos played with the sentence like a ball of yarn.
Of course. Use Zeno as spy and pawn, and let the enemy believe he chose the square himself. It was so like his uncle. To let his enemies think they were in control.
“It would help if I knew what he is after.” Zeno sought to carve out what information he could.
“Does a pawn really need to know what moves the king makes?” Markos asked, tucking the lily into his pale locks where it flared like a coal. A perfect accentuation of his astounding beauty.
“Yes, if he is to make the best move.” Zeno countered. “A single pawn’s step can often decide the game.”
Markos leaned in closer, breath tinged with cinnamon and rosemary, overwhelming Zeno's senses. “What is it you think he is after, Zeno Makris?” His eyes held a mischievous glint. “Answer it well, and I might grace you with an answer.”
A challenge, and a measuring. Zeno had never lost one of those.
“He is seeking a divide,” Zeno said evenly. “Setting Principe and Prince at quiet cross-purposes, escalating the quarrel, stoking discontent among the elite, all while furthering his anti-Genoese program.” He let the points fall like counters on a board. “I know how deep my uncle’s feud with the Italians runs. But is it worth ostracizing himself from the government as he is? Backing an ignoble Principe who might not inherit for a decade?”
“Perhaps,” Markos murmured, leaning so near his whisper warmed Zeno’s ear, “it is not so far in the future as one thinks.” The breath of the words jolted him awake.
Rebellion.
The shape stood up at last. His uncle meant to pry open the seam between heir and ruler and use it to lever a coup, placing the former in government. The hostage situation, the privateer initiative. They were all smoke screens hidden behind the Principe’s blazing zealotry, blinding onlookers to the maneuvering beneath. To move amongst the crown unseen and force the nobles to pick a side. His side.
While the Doux and the prince drowned in paperwork and counter-measures, they missed the seriousness of the discontent simmering beneath. The nobles were not merely angling for tax relief and pretty petitions. They were settling themselves behind Philemon, using the Principe as a figurehead to wrest away control of the state.
That the measures threatened to destabilize the Principality, pitting it against its neighbours and rivals, something the Prince was notoriously against and sure to take issue with, distracted and moved him out of the equation entirely. And if such measures did pass, they would fray the realm further, and set tongues asking whether the helm lay in steady grip under the Prince. Few would know whose pattern lay beneath the cloth: that Philemon was more than a loud supporter of the Principe - that he was his patron - was a fact held by a very small circle indeed.
Zeno’s breath caught in his throat.
“You’d place the Principe in power as a figurehead.” Awe edged the words despite him; it was a cruelly elegant way to take the Principality’s reins. By pushing towards these foolish, nonsensical orders - killing captives, waging naval war against the Genoese - his uncle was subtly sketching out a portrait of the Principe as a reckless sovereign. A Prince who would need, urgently, a steadier hand to guide him.
“Men often forget that power wielded in shadows is a harder target to reach,” Markos said, and for once Zeno saw a glimpse of his true face beneath - a flash savage glee wedged between sharp, ivory white teeth. “And that dark secrets can have dire consequences if brought into the light.” In a breath, a dagger surged from Markos’s sleeve, its tip coming to kiss Zeno’s throat. The lily in Markos’s hair, orange shading to red, glinted back from the clean metal’s reflection like a captive flame.
Zeno gulped despite himself. But his eyes were clear, iron set behind the calm. “So long as the deal stands,” he said, not leaning away from Markos, “I’ll play my part.”
With those words his fate closed like a clasp. He’d chosen his side in the game of thrones being played under the surface. He would either keep his house of cards standing - fooling both friend and foe alike - or die buried when it fell.

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Chapter 39: Frayed Edges and Dark Secrets