dozen times. She must have learned early on that there was no sympathy from this audience. Now those same empty eyes glared coldly at Sofia, interrogating her motives.
She found Levi on a balcony, already eating. He was dressed like an Egyptian slave, and they teased each other about their costumes. The view from his floor was not as lofty as hers, but from it they could see the considerable breadth of Akka’s walls. Last night they had seen how the city was fortified against the desert; now they saw how the sea was kept at bay.
The walls were patrolled by the Lazars, who carried long, heavy axes, like the one Fulk had used to behead the Sicarii. The lighter battle axes were slung at their hips. In the light of day the Lazars looked more Ebionite than Europan; over the centuries their uniform had become a fusion of Occidental and Oriental that was offensive to all sensibilities.
Sofia looked back at her companion. ‘Arik couldn’t understand why the Sicarii didn’t cut your throat when they found you.’
‘You know me: my tongue’s my best weapon.’
‘You’re Ebionite, aren’t you, Levi?’
‘Me!’ Levi scoffed. ‘You clearly got too much sun out in the Sands.’
Sofia didn’t press him. She looked out at the sea. It was less pristine than it had appeared from her room: drifts of scum and rubbish sat on the water, swarming with hovering flies.
Levi stood up and leaned on the banister. ‘My mother taught me early to pretend I was born Marian. She crossed the Middle Sea on an Ariminumese galley, in chains, and pregnant with yours truly. My father was some dog of a slaver. A fisherman from Syracuse bought her and let her earn her freedom. All she ever wanted was to get back to this place – can you imagine? The day she died, I left for the mainland to join a Company. I didn’t want to be pushed around any more.’
‘You don’t have to keep pretending.’
‘Oh, I think I do. Ebionites are even less popular in Akka.’
‘This alliance was your idea.’
‘Rasenna’s my country now,’ he said testily. ‘I’m no more Ebionite than you.’
As they ate their breakfast of dates, nuts and bread with yogurt and sour milk, they watched a gang of local children playing on the walls. The knights ignored the children as they took turns diving fearlessly from the walls into the sea. Neither the height, nor the filthy water nor the jagged rocks below the surface bothered them, though they had to time their leaps with the tide’s flow to avoid breaking their necks.
A slave pounded his mace to announce the queen’s entry and Sofia and Levi rose as Catrina walked in, followed by her retinue of veiled beauties.
‘Good morning, your Majesty,’ said Levi. ‘We’re admiring your leapers.’
‘Don’t worry; it’s not terribly infectious,’ the queen said cheerfully, then laughed at Sofia’s and Levi’s confused reaction. ‘Oh, you meant the children! Leapers, lepers – I thought you meant the Lazars!’
‘All your knights are lepers?’ Sofia said in disbelief.
‘Yes indeed – but as I said, one has to make a special effort to catch it. The Lazars are very careful; they have their own baths and laundries. They’re as jealous of their disease as the rest of us are disgusted by it.’
‘If it’s not so contagious, how do they all come to have it?’
The queen’s smile thinned at Sofia’s question. ‘Etrurians never understand that holding a kingdom together in this land entails sacrifice. We are surrounded by a people who dream of pushing us into the sea. My ancestors devised a means to push back. The Ebionites dug up the old name of Sicarii to stupefy us with terror, so we responded in kind. The Sicarii consider themselves the only pure Ebionites. They are hypersensitive about cleanliness, so touching the dead is anathema to them. For such an enemy, lepers are the perfect foil.’
The queen threw herself onto a couch and took some grapes from one of the silent servants holding trays of fruit and sweetmeats. ‘But never mind that. Come, let me admire you, Contessa. Now: is that not a more becoming costume for you? And I love how you have made it your own. If any of my ladies were so pretty, I would allow them not to wear a veil too. Let the world see you; why not?’ The queen’s retinue’s obligatory tittering had a dangerous edge that reminded Sofia of the circling dogs in the desert.
Levi was eager to discuss the Etrurian situation,