Couldn't sleep, and the writing bug finally bit me again. So here's a short part of the longer update.
February 13th, 1232
“Finished, Master Lainez?”
“Finished,” Mehtar smiled. He took the final parchment, rose, and placed it by his own hand on the pile in the far corner of the shelf. Then, he paused, his hand resting on the pile of parchment that had consumed the better part of the past ten years of his life. He had few pretensions that anyone would regard
The True Histoy of the Komnenid Emperors from Basil III to Thomas II as a literary masterpiece, yet it was complete, whole and done. Perhaps, the old man thought wistfully, it might have been
too complete—Mehtar had left nothing he could remember from those pages, and despite his 69 years, his memory was still as sharp as ever. Every drop of blood shed, every murder ordered, every madcap decision.
“So… who will make copies of it?”
Mehtar turned to the sound of the voice, and smiled at what he’d wrought in his
other project of the past few years. Seven years ago, Eleutherios had been a fifteen year old slave boy, dirty, illiterate, unkempt, but something about his eyes stirred thoughts in the old man’s heart that had laid dormant for years. Lainez on the spot bought him. More than simply an object to look at, Eleutherios was something else—someone to teach. Mehtar missed having a pupil around, and the fact the pupil was the opposite of an eyesore was only an added bonus.
“No one, likely,” Mehtar tapped the top of that bundle of pages quietly. Only a fool would agree to have their scribes copy this document, at least within the confines of Konstantinopolis. To do so would undoubtedly bring the ire of the Powers That Be, many of whom were still sensitive to anything against the Imperial Family, even though the Crown Prince had safely returned from Wallachia over a year before. Mehtar had always hoped he could send the script off to some minor clerk in Alexandria, or Antioch… even though Alexios had died a year before, Lainez had even considered possibly going to Spain to spend his final years. There were many clerks there who would willingly copy the work…
…the old man sighed. It was a strange quest, idealistic, foolish even. Yet when age and death stared him in the face each day, Mehtar had wanted something of him to survive, to live on. He’d given his life, his heart, his dreams, his love to this Roman state, and for years now, it’d placed him in an obscurity of his own making. While he knew politically it was the best thing he could have done, he still wanted someone, somewhere in the future, to know that Mehtar Lainez was not
completely the child-eating, poison-laying catamite most of the Roman aristocracy believed him to be.
“Not here, not yet at least,” Lainez sighed, letting his hand tap the page one last time before hobbling back over to the desk that had cramped his small study all these years. His leg throbbed, and by the troubled look on Eleutherios’ face, he realized the old arrow wound earned in Anatolia during Andreas Kaukadenos’ rebellion was causing trouble as well.
“Medicine or a drink?” Eleutherios started to rise from the table. Mehtar took one look at his helper’s ink stained hands and sighed.
“A drink then,” Mehtar smiled, “after you get all the ink from illuminating off of your hands.
Lainez slowly slid into his chair, and let out of a sigh of relief. Eleutherios was already up and in the kitchen—the old man could hear the noise of pots being bumped and pans bumbled. Eleutherios might have made delicious eye candy, but he knew next to nothing of the fine art of cooking. Lainez had resolved that after his small tome was finished, it would be the first thing he’d teach the boy. Maybe after a few other things though…
…Mehtar blinked. He knew his mind had been stuck in a daydream for some time, yet he could still hear his servant bumbling about. What was taking him so long?
“Boy?” Lainez called after a moment.
“Coming!” Eleutherios yelled, momentarily emerging with a goblet of steaming wine. Mehtar frowned—it shouldn’t have taken that long, and Lainez thought he saw his servant’s hands trembling ever so slightly.
“I couldn’t find the Lykian wine jug you like,” Eleutherios hurriedly said, “and the Cretan one was awfully well hidden.” A nervous smile, “sometimes I think you shove them further in back just to get a look at me as I have to bend over and hunt for them!”
That made Mehtar smile. He motioned for Eleutherios to sit, while he took the goblet—he would’ve told the boy to get a goblet of his own, save the slave had never ever drank wine, only
grappa. As Mehtar tipped the goblet back, he wondered what would compel anyone to take a liking to that infernal Italian abomination, which tasted like spit, vinegar and a lavatory rolled into…
…one…
Mehtar’s eyes went wide. He tasted iron, sulfur and foulness rising from the pits of his stomach. His limbs were suddenly heavy, like hundreds of children were pulling on them, holding them down...
…his eyes flashed up towards Eleutherios. The young man was up from the table. On one hand, his eyes were wide, but Mehtar saw calculation in those blue orbs, as if he was silently ticking down the seconds while the poison did its work. Yes… it was Eleutherios… Mehtar himself remembered that mix of glee and terror when
he performed his first assassination almost six decades before…
“I’m sorry, Master,” Eleutherios said quietly.
“Not as sorry as me,” Mehtar said. His lips were screaming for water, but he knew that would only speed up the poison. He wanted to last, needed to last, if only for a few more minutes. It was fruitless—Mehtar knew what this potent combination of wormwood, almonds and blackroot was supposed to do, but he’d never mixed it himself. If it worked as well as the
Mithradatium said…
…5 minutes, perhaps less, was all he had. And to even the keenest eye, it’d look as if Mehtar’s heart had simply given out… something to be expected from an elderly man…
“You’ve helped me a great deal, Master Lainez,” Eleutherios continued, “this is not personal.”
“It never is,” Mehtar said slowly. Talking was becoming hard---his throat felt as if someone had stuck a ball of straw deep in its depths. It felt as if someone was scratching and burning his vocal cords even as they tried to choke him. “How much?”
“Promotion to
mystikos in a
theme,” Eleutherios replied, “and 2,500 gold
solidii. I read about what you did for so many years, reading as you wrote your story” the boy continued, “and I learned. You said reading would prove useful—I didn’t know it’d provide me with a position.”
Mehtar wanted to nod, but his muscles wouldn’t respond. His mind, however, was still racing. There was no shortage of people who would have wanted him dead—in his years of service, both noble and self-serving, he’d built up an impressive list of enemies and foes. But who could have found Eleutherios, and found his price?
“Who paid you?” Mehtar rasped. His head was far too heavy, he had to lay it down on the table. Despite his efforts at control, Lainez felt it hit the hard wood with an audible
thump. He was surprised he felt no pain from the hit. Somewhere, a distant part of his mind whispered it was the sedatives in the poison.
“Does it matter?” Eleutherios whispered back.
“Prince Adrianos?” Mehtar whispered. Now he could feel his throat muscles starting to constrict, thousands of little hands wrapping themselves around his windpipe, cutting off his air…
“No, not Edessa,” Eleutherios said. Mehtar made out the noise of papers being torn above the beating of his own heart. So,
The True History would never see the light of day. Such a pity…
“He did.”
Mehtar squinted, as shadows started to creep around the edge of his vision. Something bright, shiny was suddenly before his eyes. Lainez blinked three times, before he was finally able to make out a coin. Mehtar looked, stared hard at the chunk of gold. The face was bearded, marred from years of slipping through the fingers of countless men and women across the Mediterranean. The Spaniard’s eyes finally reached the golden raised letters on the sides, and slowly he was able to make out the word
Despotes, before his mind started to slip, and the darkness started to rush in. Mehtar tried to push it back, hold off the end so he could finish what he started, but the weight of his years and his drink came crashing down on him.
A curtain of black descended as Mehtar Lainez left life’s stage.
