As soon as Chlodvig saw Eirene help Martina out of the basket, way down below, he turned to Rhode.

“Come!” he said simply and started walking quickly along the ramparts. Rhode followed at a slight jog in order to keep up. Soon she was completely out of breath. Chlodvig was so tall, that she needed something like three steps to keep up with one of his. She stopped for a moment, resting her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Sounds of shouting and running reached them from below. Armored men were climbing the stairs inside the tower.

Chlodvig, face unreadable, crouched and said:

“Get on my back.”

Rhode stared. Even as a child she hated being picked up or carried. She only felt comfortable on her own two feet. But this was not the time to make a fuss. Especially given how the whole thing was her idea. She bit her lip and quickly climbed onto his back, trying to ignore how stupid and embarrassing this felt. She wondered briefly if there was any way to hold on without actually touching him. There wasn’t. So she clutched at his shoulders, the cold metal ringlets of the maille-shirt digging into the skin of her palms. He muttered, ‘don’t worry, I won’t drop you!” and broke into a jog.

“What are you doing?!” Rhode gasped. The edge of the roof was getting dangerously close. The mercenary didn’t reply. As they reached the edge of the roof, he leapt into the air. A rush of air hit her. Seconds later, they landed with a heavy ‘thump’ on the opposite roof. The impact of the landing made Rhode’s teeth chatter. The mercenary straightened up quickly and began running again. Rhode groaned and tried to hold on tighter.

They hopped like that from roof to roof. Below them, groups of armed men patrolled the streets. Eirene was right – they were searching for the killers from the citadel. Luckily for them, it was dark enough that Chlodvig’s large frame wasn’t easily visible, up on the high roofs of the expensive houses of the Upper City.

Rhode grasped the mercenary’s shoulders harder. Her knees and arms hurt, almost as if it was she who was running. She was also painfully aware of the fact that her dress had pulled up to her knees. Long dresses were not well suited to piggy-back rides, apparently. She knew it was a foolish thing to worry about now, given the gravity of the last few weeks. And yet there it was, that stupid sense of propriety…How she wished she could be rid of it.

They were getting close to the wall that divided the acropolis from the upper town when the roof under them collapsed. It had been partly burned and mercenary’s considerable weight was too much for it. As they fell, he grabbed one of the roof beams with one hand and secured Rhode with the other. For a few short moments they just hung like that. Then he let go of the beam, now in a more controlled fall, so that their landing was quiet and, hopefully, went unnoticed. Inside the house everything was smoking. Rhode sneezed. The mercenary glanced out of a shattered window and quickly moved further inside the house.

“We have to wait a while,” he said to Rhode. He tore off a piece of his cloak and passed it to her, “cover your mouth and nose!” he said flatly.

She nodded. The ash in the air was definitely unpleasant. Her veil, which would have suited the purpose nicely, was already discarded back in the citadel, after she used it to wipe her face after vomiting. He looked at her for a few moments and said:

“Listen, the lower city, it’s even worse than the acropolis...The dead…the sights…”

Rhode nodded again. She had expected that. The gruesome sight of the dead men littering the floor of their corridor in the citadel was still flashing before her eyes when she closed them. A wave of nausea returned each time she remembered the severed head. And that was just one corridor in the citadel. Obviously the lower city had to be much worse. A whole army went through it.

Rhode tried to reassure herself with the thought that it would just be a little longer. Then the books would be safe and she would have her whole life to forget the horrors she witnessed here. 

“I know,” she whispered, glancing at the mercenary. He was untying a leather wineskin from his belt. 

“Water. Drink. Then give me the rest.”

When she passed the wineskin back to him, he dumped the leftover water onto his face. It didn’t do much good though. The blood and dust just smeared together. He looked at her, wiping his face with the another corner of his cloak.

“Were you serious? When you said you’d pay with your house?” he asked curiously.

“Yes. I don’t really own anything else…”

“I see. But that’s way too much. It’s not a fair price.”

Rhode wasn’t sure how to respond. Though she had no idea what a ‘fair price’ for a mercenary was, she did guess an entire house in a central location in Rhodes city exceeded that by far. But if they didn’t go now, the books would be stolen. Or worse, burned to ash. It wasn’t just that she wanted to own them, which she did. Some of them were very rare. It would be a loss to…people in general, if they were destroyed. She looked at her feet helplessly and shrugged.

“Don’t you have anything else you could pay with? Something smaller?” the mercenary pressed “no jewelry, money?”

“My uncle hid my jewelry along with that of my cousins, before the siege. And the money for my upkeep is sent directly to him. I don’t have any control over it.”

The mercenary looked her over and his eyes fell on the little leather bag suspended from her belt.

“What d’you have in your purse?”

Rhode fingered the bag at her waist. She had forgotten about it. Slowly she opened it. The only object inside was the chess piece from her father’s collection. She pulled it out and showed it to the mercenary with a shrug.

“It’s just a zatrikon piece,”

“It’ll do,” he said. Rhode stared.

“A…single chess piece?” she asked, rising an eyebrow. The mercenary nodded and stretched out his hand. Confused, Rhode put the little bone and glass figure into his palm.

“A pawn,” he said, a slight smile playing on his lips, “appropriate. It'll do!” 

He hid the figure into a leather belt pouch, and began walking.

Rhode started to fiddle with her hair again. This didn’t make sense. She didn’t like it when things didn’t make sense. People's motivations were always so difficult to understand...

“That’s not even worth a gold piece!" she said, frustrated, "why would you…?” she didn’t finish the question. She wasn’t sure how to phrase it. 

“You remind me of someone,” the mercenary said with a slight shrug, “he would also want to save books!”

*

They passed the wall which divided the Acropolis from the Lower City in a place where the catapults had seriously damaged it. On the other side the stench was much worse. Chlodvig glanced at Rhode. She was covering her face with her forearm, and hadn't yet notice where the smell was coming from: a pile of human corpses stacked against the wall, almost like a grotesque ramp. The arms and legs of the dead stuck out from the pile in odd angles. The mercenary maneuvered in such a way to put himself between Rhode and the heap of bodies. His large frame partially blocked the view. The thick layer of clouds and dust that blocked the moon did the rest. Anyone with regular eyes would find it hard to see anything in this darkness. And so Rhode passed some of the worst sights in the besieged city without seeing them.

Chlodvig was surprised at his sudden urge to spare this woman the terrible sight. Human feelings were not something he usually paid any attention to. It’s not that he was blind to them. In fact, he was relatively good at recognizing how other people felt. But their emotions did not concern him. They only mattered to the extent that they could influence the outcome of a mission. Pride, fear, or anger all had their cost. The pride of a client, the anger of an enemy commander, or the fear of a tentative ally, could have serious consequences. Because of that, Chlodvig forced himself, reluctantly, not to ignore them. Just as he didn’t ignore weather conditions or ground level. The feelings of Rhode Dokeiana, on the other hand, were completely inconsequential. And yet Chlodvig found himself vaguely interested in them. He rubbed the back of his neck curiously. Just then Rhode pointed to a house from which thick spirals of smoke were rising. 

"This is it!" she said in a voice that was both grim and excited. 

________________

Things 

Zatrikon: 'Roman' chess. Played on a round board. The rules were almost the same as regular chess. It was a game often played by the nobility, but less popular than backgammon, a Byzantine favorite. 

Places

Lower town: Most large Byzantine towns were divided into two; the upper town, which was usually located near the citadel and was usually the location of administrative buildings and some temples. And the lower town where most of the people lived. The lower town also had important churches, as well as important meeting places like the forum, the hippodrome etc. The two sections were usually divided off by a wall, as is the case here.