Based on the work of Robyn Bee, In 7 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Connected.
An Empress’ Guard Remembers.
Then, as sudden as the crash after lightning, the weight was gone.
I didn’t immediately react. My mind was a storm of pounding fury, my breath ragged in my ears and my body frozen and tense.
After a few heartbeats of nothing, my soldier’s instincts forced me into motion. I lowered my shield, becoming suddenly aware of my shrieking muscles.
I groaned, swayed, and would have fallen over had another body not leaned into me.
Helena. My shield mate.
Her eyes were glazed and her breath was the uneven, gasping hitch of a body pushed beyond all limits.
But she was alive.
She was here beside me, and together, we steadied each other enough to stand on our own. I blinked my vision into focus and raised my head.
We were in a charnel house.
Dozens lay dead before us, a carpet of blood and pale bodies that stretched from our feet to the splintered entrance. They’d been gutted and cut open, their insides spilled onto the surrounding stones.
And the stench.
It was shit and misery and death; a miasma of horror worse than any sort of butcher’s yard. Beside me, Helena coughed, staggered to the side, and retched. I just swayed in place, breathing through my mouth.
“They ran away,” a voice rasped. “They all ran away.”
It was the Empress. She was just a handful of steps behind us, leaning heavily onto the haft of her spear. Her limbs shook with exhaustion.
“Augusta,” I croaked. “Are you hurt?”
Blood stained the sweat-darkened purple of her dress. Thick droplets of it that were splattered along her chest and shoulders. It oozed from between her fingers, trickling down from the splintered tip of her spear.
“Ah,” she said, seeming to notice herself for the first time. “No. I, I don’t believe any of this is mine. And you?”
She reached a hand up to push at the strip of purple that held back her hair, leaving a streak of red behind on her forehead.
I didn’t answer, refusing to look down and examine myself. I wasn’t ready to see, so I forced myself to stare down the hallway, distracting myself with thoughts of survival.
And indeed, it appeared as if the Empress was correct. Nothing moved within the corridor, and I could hear nothing in the room beyond the shattered portal. The invaders had fled, and not a moment too soon, as I finally noticed that we’d been pushed most of the way back to Theodora’s sitting room.
Not far away, Helena groaned. She managed to push herself upright, leaning heavily against the wall, her face wan.
“Helena,” I said. “Are you,”
I coughed, feeling a wave of bile rise through me. The smell was horrific, made so much worse by the thick summer air and the windless confines of this tunnel. My stomach writhed, but I clamped down on it ruthlessly.
Not yet.
Helena was covered in blood. Her chest, legs, and sword arm were caked in death, her face and neck splattered with it. I staggered over to her, conscious of the gumminess between my own fingers.
"I’m fine,” she said, trying to smile. “I’m fine. It’s just, how,”
She turned and threw up once again. It was a hacking, heaving sort of retch; the kind that left you shaking. I came to stand beside her, pressing my hip to her side, all I could do without dropping my sword and shield. She leaned some of her weight into me.
"Leontius,” the Empress said, moving to join us. She lay a hand on the unarmored part of Helena’s hip, providing what comfort she could. “Is it safe to move?”
I blinked, stirred, and shook my head. “Not yet. We still don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the palace. This is still the safest place for us.”
Theodora nodded, turning her head to gaze down the length of the passageway. An ocean of red dotted with pale islands of green and blue.
“It seems remarkable,” she said. “That we survived against so many.”
“These weren’t soldiers, Augusta,” I said, exhaling. “They were potters, blacksmiths, dockworkers, They were drunk, pushed onto our swords by those further back. They were badly led, unarmored and most didn’t even have any weapons. They were just,”
"People,” Theodora finished for me. “Dead because they believed in something strongly enough to fight for it.”
I shifted, my gaze going back to Helena. She was still bent into the wall, her eyes screwed tightly shut and her frame vibrating with repressed feeling. She’d just gone through her first battle, and every single thought and feeling that she’d pushed aside while in the midst of it was tearing into her.
My own soul felt raw, overused, and stretched near to the point of snapping. I could feel my own crash coming, though experience let me push it away. For a time, at least.
“We believe as well, Augusta,” I said. “In you.”
The Empress smiled, though it was one that I’d yet to see wear. It was an expression of unyielding certainty, of iron-hard conviction; the whole of it framed by a profound sense of grief. It was the smile of the lonely farmer taking his axe to the rabid skull of his favorite dog.
She stepped forward to kiss my cheek. “I’ll be back with a bucket of water.”
The Empress slipped into her private chambers a few moments later, leaving Helena and me alone. My shield mate had managed to straighten herself, though her body still shook. I watched as she breathed deeply, the lines of her face growing looser with every exhalation.
She was eventually able to open her eyes and meet my gaze. I felt something crack within me, like the first axe blow that had split the door.
It was still her.
Though tears traced the lines of her cheeks, and something had changed within the cypress of her eyes, nothing had been lost. I still recognized her. She was still the woman I,
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Helena, I, what?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m here weeping like a child. But I’ll get stronger, Leo.”
I blinked.
“I promise,” she said, looking away. “I won’t hold you back for long. I just, I promise I’ll be stronger.”
Then, despite the blood coating my limbs and the charnel house stink of the hallway, I laughed. I laughed, and I laughed and I felt myself draw back from the edge.
Helena’s face went scarlet. “Fuck you,” she hissed, turning to march away.
“No!” I gasped, lurching to step in front of her. “I’m sorry. It’s not that! It’s,”
I devolved into another peel of laughter. And though Helena’s face burned a shade brighter, she didn’t move away.
When I finally mastered myself, I stepped a bit nearer to her. I looked into her eyes, my face relaxing into a smile. "Helena, you wonderful, amazing, beautiful, and hopelessly blind woman. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”
She snorted, though I saw something shine within her eyes. “You weren’t the one crying and puking.”
“No,” I agreed. “Not yet.”
“It’s coming?”
I nodded.
She made a small sound, moving nearer to me. “Then, I’ll be here when it does.”
The Empress returned a few minutes later with a bucket of water and several strips of clean, white cloth.
We dropped our weapons, washing the worst of the blood and sweat from our hands and faces. Helena and I discovered that we’d each suffered a myriad of cuts, and to my horror, the Empress proceeded to tend to our injuries.
“Leontius, enough!” She snapped, as I tried to squirm away. She looked ferocious in her still bloody dress, her hands clamping down on me. “You risked your lives for me, the least I can do is clean and wrap your wounds.”
“Augusta,” I tried.
“Stop,” she said, taking up a clean rag. “I’ll be quick. I have some experience if that reassures you.”
I frowned, glancing over to Helena.
“At the brothel,” she said. “When the men were too rough; Theodora would patch us up.”
“You didn’t have a guard?” I asked. “Or a bouncer?”
“Not until Helena grew a little older,” the Empress said, pulling over a clean strip of cloth. “Your arm now, Leontius.”
“Augusta, I can handle,” Her glare silenced me, and I meekly held my forearm out for her to inspect.
"Thank you.” She took my arm, her fingers strong and sure. “Please don’t keep fighting me on this. I’m having difficulty sitting still, to tell you the truth. I keep, well, no matter.”
I relaxed, submitting myself to her care. The Empress fell silent, unwilling to explain further. But she didn’t have to, the stiffness in her limbs and the tension at the corners of her eyes mirrored my own.
Our day wasn’t yet done.
The Empress was most of the way through checking over Helena when I heard the sound of boots on stone. The two women heard it with me, and we moved as one. Helena and I had our shields strapped on in moments, the Empress having collected our swords for us in the meantime.
We jogged towards the shattered entrance, my limbs stiff and my heart beating faster.
“Mary’s tits!” A voice loudly swore. “It fucking reeks here. Are you sure we’re going the right way, Serg?”
“I thought you’d be used to the smell of your own sack by now, Grat?”
“Oh, they stink, do they? How about you come lick them clean for me, Niketas?”
Helena and I slowed, exchanging incredulous looks. We stopped before reaching the first body, my eyebrows high in disbelief.
“Shut your hole, Grat,” I heard Sergius growl. “You too Nik. Shields up, lads, we don’t know what we’re going to find here.”
“Why have we stopped?” The Empress said. She’d picked up her broken spear haft. “Are these our men?”
“They’re Leo’s friends,” Helena said with a wide grin. “From his legion days. Since when have they been in the palace?”
The tension rushed from me in a wave, leaving my body light and trembling. I sucked in a deep breath.
“I’ll give ‘em a few licks too, Grat!” I roared. “I’m tired of breathing them in!”
I heard a series of startled curses, while behind me, the Empress laughed. There was a stampede of pounding boots and then a squad of armored soldiers appeared in the shattered doorway.
“Centenarius!” Sergius laughed. “You’re alive! The Empress?”
“She’s here as well!” I called back.
The men whooped, cheering and thanking God as Sergius turned back to them. “We found them, boys! Maurice, run back and tell the General. You three, watch the hall.”
The two women and I moved back as Sergius led his men in towards us. What followed was coarse laughter, back-slapping, wide-eyed realization, and a whole mess of clumsy bows as the Empress stepped out to introduce herself.
Theodora smiled through the men’s stammering apologies. She thanked them each in turn, her voice shifting from a high, courtly accent to the less polished version she’d have grown up with. It was the language these soldiers knew, and the Empress left blushing cheeks and sheepish smiles in her wake.
The gates, we were happy to learn, had been sealed. Though, as of yet, nobody knew who had let the rioters in. The mob still rampaged through parts of the palace, though they’d been beaten back from the outer wall. Belisarius was in command of the palace’s fighting men, coordinating squads like Sergius’ that were sweeping through the halls.
“And my husband?” The Empress asked.
“Safe, Augusta,” Sergius answered. “Last I heard, at any rate. The General was with him when the enemy broke in.”
“Thank you, soldier,” she said, laying a palm on his forearm.
“A, Augusta!” Sergius stammered, and I grinned to see the grizzled old veteran flush.
“Well then, gentlemen,” Theodora said. “I believe that I will leave you here. I’ve got to wash the stink of Gratian’s balls from my skin.”
A few of the men snorted, trying to choke down on their laughter. Grat, for his part, looked positively horrified. He mangled a few words, his entire face blazing a scarlet. He hadn’t produced anything more than a gargle before the Empress slipped away with a wink and a small laugh.
“Grat,” Sergius said in the moment of silence after her departure. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
“It wasn’t me!” Gratian exclaimed, his eyes wide with panic. “Serg, I, Nik, and, the Empress! She,”
"Dumber than a sackful of rocks,” Serg said, shaking his head. “Start piling these bodies outside, and the rest of you grinning monkeys can help.”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on him,” Helena said. “I was worried that he’d start talking about his phallus again.”
Gratian fled, followed by the laughter of his squad mates. Sergius shook his head again, but I saw a smile part the hairs of his worn face.
“Aye, well, we can thank the Lord for that.” The old soldier’s gaze shifted to the doors to Theodora’s salon. “The Empress, she really fought with you?”
My face twisted into a grimace. “I tried talking her out of it, but I didn’t have time.”
“What a woman,” Sergius said, amazed. “And you, Helena, not a lot of stratiotai could have held back so many.”
“Leo did most of the work,” she said.
Both Sergius and I snorted.
“I’m an old soldier, lass. I know what it would have taken to do this.” Sergius suddenly stiffened, saluting her with a fist over his heart. “Stratiotai!”
Helena saluted back, her face flushing. I grinned, sure that she was about to squirm with suppressed pride.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go help the monkeys.”
, ,
Sergius, however, categorically refused our help.
They’d barely fought, he said. And itching to do something after three long days stationed in the palace. This was the least that they could do.
Neither Helena nor I had had the energy to argue, and so we’d taken off our helmets, unstrapped our shields, and sat back against the far wall.
“I guess that now it’s official,” Helena said.
“Hmm?” I answered.
We were seated near enough for our legs to touch, my body throbbing with pain and heavy with exhaustion.
“After today, we’re officially shield mates.”
I tilted my head towards her. “We’ve been shield mates for longer than that.”
“Sure, but now we’ve fought together. I held my place at your side.” And despite the horror of what we’d had to do, I heard the fierce pride in Helena’s voice.
“I knew you would. I’ve trusted you for a long time.”
“Oh yeah?” She said, shifting to rest her sweat-darkened head against mine. “Since when?”
I leaned more of my weight into her, resting my shield hand on her thigh. I could feel the eyes of the others drifting towards us as they worked, and could picture their knowing grins.
But I didn’t care. I was with her.
“Remember the first day we trained together? How difficult you were being?”
“Difficult? Is that what it’s called when your gender makes everyone treat you differently?”
“Hmm,” I said. “That, or simple laziness.”
She swatted me with the back of her hand, swearing as her knuckles rapped on my breastplate. I laughed, squeezing her thigh.
“When you swallowed your pride and your anger,” I said. “When you decided to set all that aside and let me train you. That’s when I knew.”
She snorted, shaking out her sore knuckles. “Well, all I remember from that day is how much you enjoyed hitting me.”
“You don’t remember when I said the words, 'you’re my shield mate’?”
“No,” she said. “You must have done something mean to make me forget.”
I laughed. She brought her hand down atop mine, and I turned it so our fingers intertwined. Her thumb drew a swirling pattern along my skin, and I let myself get lost in the hypnotic motion.
With her here, it felt like I could accomplish anything. Like I might pull myself forward as she had. What might I do, with this woman at my side? Where might I go? What might I build, with her hands working alongside my own?
A little tavern by the sea, perhaps.
“Helena,” I said.
I shifted my hand in hers, and in doing so, my thumb came to rest atop hers, stopping the circle she was making and pulling my vision back into focus.
“Leo,” she answered, and I heard the soft smile in her voice.
“I,” But my words were cut short, pressed back into me by a sudden weight. Blood, there was blood beneath my nails.
I was suddenly reminded of where I was, of what I had done. The charnel stink of the hallway, and the emotions I’d tucked away flooded back into me. I started to shake; my lungs squeezed tight.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood that still crusted my hand.
"Leo?” Helena said, shifting so that she could look at me. “Are you ok?”
I didn’t answer, freeing her hand from my filthy grip. I shifted from her, pulled away by a crushing weight against my side. I clawed at the pocket beneath my armor, ripping something free.
My mother’s letter.
I opened it with unsteady hands, revealing a single slip of yellowed parchment and my mother’s blocky letters.
My little lion, it said. Come home.
I stared at the page, blinking stupidly. Five little words, was that all? I turned the folded parchment over, my fingers smudging its surface.
That was it.
I felt the mad urge to laugh. Come home? Was I some lost, weeping child who needed the comfort of my mother’s arms?
I grit my teeth, reading those words again and again. I ached to tear into the offending letter; to rage and scream and damn my mother to hell.
I’d been expecting something like this but, What the fuck did this mean?
I was happy. For the first time in my fucking life, I was happy. I was the Empress’ guard, sitting beside a woman who was nothing but good. With her, I had a vision of a future where I wouldn’t have to kill anymore.
I wasn’t fucking lost.
“Leo?” Helena whispered.
She was beside me, she’d red the letter too. She once again wrap
