"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Olivia 1 - A Flame in Byzantium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

Four armed guards uniformed in the manner of Belisarius personal soldiers flanked the door to the
house as Olivia was helped from the palanquin. All the men watched her closely, each with a hand on the
hilt of his sword.
"I am Olivia Clemens, a widow from Roma," she told the majordomo of Belisarius' house. "I would
like the honor of spending a little time with the august lady who is wife to the great General Belisarius."
She hoped that was formal enough for these ceremony- and ritual-loving Byzantines.
The majordomo, a smooth-faced eunuch in garments far richer than what most merchants could
afford to wear, made her a deep reverence as he admitted her to the vestibule of the enormous house.
"Be kind enough to wait here; one of the household women will escort you to the august lady."
"How good of you," said Olivia mendaciously.
The eunuch said nothing as he moved away from her, leaving her to stand by herself in the huge
octagon-shaped entryroom with nothing more to look at than a series of dreadful frescoes of military
Saints in battle against devils and other foreigners all in grotesque and frozen postures. Olivia found
herself longing for the mosaics of her youth. Where, amid this vehement and abstracted suffering, was
one dolphin, one dog worrying a bone, one cherub dangling a flute or a wine cup? These were the scenes
she recalled most affectionately from those long-ago days when she grew up. In her father's villa there
was one wall showing Jupiter turning into a bull, with a buxom Europa waiting for her lover with more
enthusiasm than awe. There had been two swineherds in the corner of the fresco, off to the lower
right-hand corner. They had been sharing a wineskin and bread, and they idly watched the
transformation. One of them was forever in the act of tossing a scrap to a tabby cat. There had been
nothing so everyday, so human in the art Olivia had seen here in Byzantium; even in Roma now, the
touches she loved were disappearing.
"Great lady?" repeated the eunuch, who had returned.
Olivia looked up sharply. "Oh; excuse me. These picturesтАФ" She indicated the walls.
"Antonina is a woman of much piety, and this is only the outward sign of it," said the eunuch,
apparently favorably impressed by Olivia's interest. "If you will condescend to follow me, I will bring you
to Antonina."
"Thank you," said Olivia, falling into step behind the slave.
"You are not the only great lady to visit Antonina today," said the eunuch. His voice was low and
mature: he had been emasculated after manhood. Because he had run to fat it was hard to say if he had
ever been handsome, but there was a sweetness to his round face that could once have been more
attractive than it was safe for a slave to be.
"What is your name, slave?" asked Olivia.
"I am Arius," he told her, apparently surprised at the question.
"In Roma, I always wanted to know the names of those who did me service so that I would be able
to leave some token of my appreciation for good service," she said, remembering how many slaves had
once been able eventually to buy their freedom with those accumulated tokens. Olivia was still distressed
that those laws had been changed.
"No token is necessary. This is Konstantinoupolis, great lady, not Roma, and here we give thanks to
God, not to those whose place it is to serve." He had led the way down a long hall and now stopped at
two tall doors. "These are the reception apartments of the august lady Antonina."
"I am looking forward to the honor of meeting her," said Olivia, doing her best not to be impatient.
Arius made his reverence as he opened the door. It was a graceful gesture, as formal and unnatural as
the attitudes of the figures in the ikons that flanked the doors. "August lady, this is the great lady Olivia,"
said the eunuch before he stepped aside to let Olivia enter.
Antonina was seated on a silk-covered couch; she was a magnificent woman, all stark contrasts. Her
hair, black as onyx, had two white streaks that only served to make the dark more impressive. Her eyes
were large, rimmed with heavy lashes and accented by curving dark brows. Her skin was the lightest
shade of peach that Olivia had ever seen. Her clothes were silken, the paenula so extensive that it
surrounded and engulfed her in vast folds of shimmering red. At her shoulder, her tablion was the size of