Sorry no replies tonight, but I wanted to get the first part of the update online ASAP. Enjoy!
January 3rd, 1176
Rodrigo Jimenez, best friend of Basil Komnenos and a
Logothetes of the Empire, let his sweat drenched form collapse back onto his disheveled bed with a sigh of relief. The previous two hour’s entertainment had be strenuous enough – exactly like Rodrigo enjoyed it, even if his mind wasn’t fully on the “task at hand.”
He opened his eyes, and found a pair of blue eyes, framed by unkempt blonde tresses, only inches from his face. There were times he appreciated his work, and every night he enjoyed the presence of Brunhilde von Oesengaarde was a night of work he enjoyed far more than others.
“That was wonderful, Rodrigo!” Brunhilde sighed into the Spaniard’s chest. “You amaze me…” she said breathlessly.
Rodrigo took in those blue eyes yet again. They seemed warm and open, her face flushed as a lover’s should be. Every part of her body said the same thing it’d said for the past two years of their dalliance – that she was utterly, madly in love with him.
Too bad, Rodrigo thought, it was all a sham.
“Not as amazing as the double life you’ve been leading,” Rodrigo looked up at her and smiled. Immediately, Brunhilde shot upright. Normally the Spaniard would have leaned back, smiled, and taken in the view, but not tonight – his eyes looked, and caught she had no weapons. There was only shock in her eyes, and predictably, denials on her lips. Truth is often the cruelest mistress.
“What? What do you mean?” she said in her accented Greek.
“It was a pity Amalric didn’t teach you any new tricks, Brunhilde,” Rodrigo permitted himself to smile. “The same old things, both in bed and in spywork. Quite dull.” He caught her eyes flicking around – so she had brought a weapon. Rodrigo’s hand flashed under his pillow, and before Brunhilde’s hand could find the dirk she’d hidden on her clothes, now carelessly tossed on the back of the bed, Rodrigo had his own dagger between her breasts.
“If you reach any further, I’m afraid I’ll have to spoil these,” Rodrigo said, somewhat lasciviously. He saw her hand, slide to a position in front of her, her eyes downcast. “Now, be a good girl, and using the side of your leg, kick that dirk onto the floor.”
There was a ruffle of sheets, as she did what she was told, all the while the Spaniard’s dagger pricking just under her sternum. At the slightest push, they both knew, he could slice between her ribs, directly for her heart.
“Do you expect me to talk?” she said sourly a minute later.
“Yes, eventually,” Rodrigo said simply.
“How… how did you know?”
Rodrigo permitted himself a smile. He’d never tell her how by the smells under her perfume he could tell where she’d been in the city, and take a good guess as to who she’d visited. She’d never know he’d had several agents tailing her since she first came back in the city years before – instinct had told him to never trust a seemingly impeccable agent, and he’d been proven right. She’d also never know that other than information Rodrigo was sure her master could get from other sources, the Spaniard had only let loose useless or false information. Or finally, that he’d kept her around not for her prowess in the bedchamber, but simply because he had used her to find ever nook, every cranny used by Amalric’s agents in the city.
“Believe me, Brunhilde, I
know all,” Rodrigo smiled. “Now, get yourself dressed – you won’t exactly be wanted back in this bed anytime soon. I’m finished with you.”
“W…what do you intend to do with me?” the German asked. By her face, Rodrigo could tell the brave front she put up was a façade. She was facing possible death, and she knew it.
“You will continue to report to Amalric, just as before, and you will visit me, just as before. But instead of here,” he gestured towards the sheets with his free hand, “you’ll meet me in my study and tell me
everyone that Amalric met with and
everything he did. I know most of it already, but you will be certainly useful corroborating information.”
“And how do you know I won’t just slip in through a window and kill you in your sleep?” Brunhilde blurted out. Rodrigo’s smile grew wider – he’d clearly rattled her. A more prudent soul would have confronted Brunhilde von Oesengaarde with a squad of guardsmen around him, but Rodrigo knew better than that. Brunhilde would have expected that,
planned for that. But for her lover, fresh from coitus, to put a dagger to her heart, and coldly tell her all her plots were known?
Clearly she’d never expected that in a million years. Now, she was making foolish errors one often saw only in the greenest of agents, such as attempting to threaten someone who clearly had an advantage. Rodrigo had caught her by surprise, had a dagger to her chest – surely she couldn’t rattle someone who consciously made love to a woman whom he knew could kill him at any moment? Wouldn’t he have already considered something as mundane as her climbing through the window in the dead of night? This
was Konstantinopolis, after all.
“When you sleep at Amalric’s, your favorite sheets are the green silken ones,” Rodrigo said simply. “Amalric purchased them from an agent of mine, a very skilled poisoner, that one. When you sleep in your official quarters, you sometimes dally with one of your maidservants, Lysystrata by name? I am sure you two do not engage in Greek wrestling.” Rodrigo’s smile faded into a dark, menacing glare. “At any point of your day, one of my agents is always within twenty feet of you. You don’t know who they are, where they are, but they know
you. If you cross me, I won’t have you killed… or physically maimed even. Such would be an insult to beauty itself. Instead, I’ll have you tossed on the rack, and your tongue taken out for starters. I won’t leave a single scratch, a single bruise on your body, but you will scream in pain and horror before that hour ends…”
Rodrigo Jimenez often in the past had discovered that unspoken threats were often the best. No matter how descriptive and violent his threat was, he had learned leaving much of it unspoken, to rattle about in the victims imagination, caused them to think a fate far more fearful was in store for them. He resisted the urge to smile when he saw Brunhilde’s eyes go wide again. Likely she was thinking of snakes – her greatest fear, he knew. He didn’t even have to mention the fact that somewhere in the Blacharenae complex there was a special den of snakes to deal with people like that.
“I have your cooperation then?” Rodrigo asked, pressing the dagger a little harder into her sternum.
“Y…yes…” she said quietly.
“Good,” Rodrigo smiled, taking one last look at the naked form before him. Too bad it never worked out – she was fun while she lasted, and sometime when he was old and gray, the Spaniard might look back on this fun with fondness. For now, there were more immediate concerns. “Get dressed. First we’re going to my study, where you will answer every question I have for you. Then, you will go back to Amalric, and act as if none of this ever happened…”
Brunhilde has been discovered – will she hold to her end of the bargain, or will Rodrigo have to destroy this invaluable mole inside Amalric’s household?
==========*===========
March 5th, 1176
Prince David Komnenos, eldest son and heir presumptive to the Empire, eyed his opponent carefully. The twelve year old was, like his father, already tall for his age, inheriting the same thin but wiry frame. His bright blue eyes – a homage to his paternal grandmother’s mixed heritage – flicked about, gauging his opponent’s ability and reactions with the uncanny gaze of an expert. He held his practice blade high over his head, the Guard of the Hawk, just as his father had shown him before his injury.
David watched his opponent uncomfortably match the move. It wasn’t as if his nine year old brother Thomas couldn’t fight – indeed, the littler Komnenos constantly seemed in search of a brawl. Despite being smaller than either of his old brothers, Thomas never seemed to back down, or realize when it would be prudent to do so.
“Thomas, your strength is your smaller size. You shouldn't match my hawk stance,” David adviced.
“I’ll do as I wish. You should get ready to be defeated,” Thomas shot back with a scowl.
“Okay,” David sighed, waiting. He kept his blade high, and simply stood there. From this upward position, it would be easy for the larger prince to bring his blade down in an attack or a parry as he saw fit. Thomas’ smaller frame would also tire quicker… and as David expected, soon he heard his younger brother grunting.
That is when he struck.
First swing, Thomas’ wooden sword flew aside. Before the younger prince could throw himself down to grab it, the point of David’s blade was at his neck.
“Unfair!” Thomas complained, picking up his blade with a huff. The younger prince stormed off to the side of the practice area, clearly hoping David would call for him to come back. The elder prince did no such thing – calling to Thomas only seemed to encourage his pouting, and David was eager to practice on his own. Thomas would come around – and just as David predicted, a few minutes later, Thomas spoke up again.
“You fight like father,” he said quietly.
“Thank you,” David said breathlessly, effortlessly moving between forms of swordfighting. As a quick practice, he switched to the off-hand. It was something the young prince had started practicing ever since his father had returned from Hispania two years before with a debilitating arm injury. The Emperor had been fortunate, in a way – he’d lost much of the use of an arm, but it was a shield arm. He could still wield a blade. David wanted to be ready in case he lost his primary sword arm...
“Father is just as good an Emperor as Augustus, isn’t he?” Thomas offered.
“They have already started to call father the new Trajan, the Megos did not even hear such praise,” David huffed, elegantly finishing up his practice of the Varangian defense. “Have you covered Trajan in your lessons?”
“No,” Thomas said.
“He was a great philosopher, and a great conqueror – never lost a battle, never lost a war!” David said, practicing an intricate defense with his off hand. It was tiring. “He was so great that supposedly he was granted special permission to enter heaven, despite being a pagan. And father is ranked up alongside him! Two-thirds of Hispania, taken in three years. Do you know how large of a land area that is?”
“Larger than your mouth,” the third Komnenid son present said dryly. Manuel, the second son of the Emperor, sat idly on a truncated column nearby, chewing on some dates laying on the silk covered pillow next to him. Thin, almost delicate, his equally dainty fingers toyed with his food before eating. Two of his perennial body servants stood at attention by the 10 year olds side, the other four were off fetching him water, a quill and parchment, limes, and his favorite pet ferret respectively. “Father knows how to fight, but the man knows little else of being Emperor. An Emperor must dress in the finest silks, be bathed in the greatest perfumes, unlike yourself,” Manuel said, wrinkling his nose at his sweat covered older brother and his stained tunic.
“What, so they look like a peacock and smell like a flower?” David shot back harshly, seamlessly flowing from Varangian to Frankish attacks.
“So they can convey, by sight and sound, the power and might of the Empire,” Manuel said haughtily.
“The Roman Empire!” Thomas said proudly.
“Yes, you twit, do you have any other useful knowledge to give us today?” Manuel said sharply.
“I have a question,” Thomas offered dully.
“God help us all,” Manuel rolled his eyes.
“Father is the Emperor of Rome, is he not? Why does he not rule from Rome?”
“Pay attention to your tutors, Thomas!” David sighed without missing a beat in his sword practice.
“He is the Emperor of the
Romans,” Manuel rolled his eyes at his younger brother. “No rightful Roman Emperor has ruled from Rome in hundreds of years. Besides, Rome is a backwater, especially when compared to
this,” Manuel gestured all around him. “There’s nothing in Rome except decrepit ruins lorded over by even more decrepit old men.”
“You used decrepit correctly in a sentence, I’m surprised,” David laughed as his blade formed intricate patterns in the air. “Mother would be proud of you, her illiterate son!”
“Better than being one of her stupid sons,” Manuel snarled. “Thomas, what would you have father do? Attack Rome?”
“Yes,” the young boy answered in a heartbeat. “Rome is Roman. By rights, we should control the city, and the old Empire! Think of it, Manuel! A Roman Emperor…”
“…ruling from Rome? See?” Manuel pointed to his younger brother, “Foolishness does run in this family! Spain was a stupid idea, Rome is even stupider! Rome and the West have gone the way of the barbarian. To the east, where wine, silks, fur and… ah!” The young prince leapt from his perch and rushed over to one of his returning bodyservants, to fetch his favorite pet from the man’s grasp. The animal scurried and clawed trying to get away.
“Ow! Psellos!” the young prince howled as the creature’s claws caught themselves in his hands. Quickly the bodyservant took the hapless ferret from the equally hapless prince’s grasp.
“To the East lies the Turk,” David said simply, finishing the last of his practice. He started to walk over towards his younger siblings. “Why not turn West as father has done? Eradicate the Muslims that surround the Mediterranean, and turn it once again into a Christian sea?”
“It was all Roman before anyways!” Thomas eagerly agreed. “And after that, turn back east and wipe out the Turks!”
“Idiots,” Manuel shrugged. “Thomas, you’d have us declare war on all of Christendom, then declare war on the Turks? You truly do have rocks for brains! Why make war when you can make – silk?” Manuel held up a bolt of the brightest cloth, proffered by one of his bodyservants. “Does this match my robe? I am thinking of having a belt made for myself.”
David walked over, and looked at the bolt carefully. He didn’t touch it – that would have made Manuel scream bloody murder. “I’d say it matches! It matches your mind – all shiny with little substance.”
“You… sniveling snot!” Manuel yelled, kicking at his brother. Artfully David dodged the blow and grabbed Manuel’s leg, pulling him off of the column and to the floor with a clatter.
“You’re a mangy little cur, you know that?!” David barked, doing his best impression of his father on the battlefield. “Caring about bolts of silk and coins in hand! There are greater things than that!”
“Yeah! Better things than silk and coins!” Thomas shouted in agreement. That annoyed David – Thomas also tended to dogpile on Manuel once the second son had been verbally or physically beaten. In the elder prince’s mind, he had all the makings of a future bully.
“Thank God I am the elder, else I would fear for the Empire,” David fumed, before storming out.
==========*==========
David Komnenos, the future of the Empire
So Rodrigo knew Brunhilde was a double agent, and has used her to gain information on Amalric’s organization. What will he do with that information? And things are not well amongst the imperial heirs… how will all of this play out?
Basil can make him a prince of the Empire and give him Spain to rule. 
