Lord of Slaughter by M. D. Lachlan Read Free Book Online Page A

reached the door of the building and stepped inside to be met by the doorkeeper. He waved and went to walk through into the teaching cells but the man put up a hand to stop him.
    ‘Visitor for you.’
    The doorkeeper’s face was pale.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Go to the master’s rooms. He’s there.’
    ‘Who?’
    The man said nothing, just scuttled into the little office behind his table. Loys went across the wide atrium, glancing down at the mosaic beneath his feet. Perseus slaying the Medusa, the snake-haired monster whose gaze turned men to stone. The way the doorman had acted you’d think there was one waiting for him in the master’s study.
    He walked to the back of the building, passed the turn into the debating arena and went along a corridor to a single door on the left. He had been here only once before – when he gained admission by interview to the school. Well, actually an appearance before the faculty, at which he had to win through in a debate. It had not been easy – Rouen didn’t have that sort of competition – but he had done it. One debate on a subject of his choosing, one on theirs. Thank God they hadn’t picked the law.
    He knocked on the door and a voice he didn’t recognise said, ‘Come.’ He thought it was a woman, but when he opened the door the master was on one of the guest chairs in his own room and behind the study table, in the master’s normal place, sat an exceptionally finely dressed and – no other word would do – beautiful man of around thirty. He shimmered in white silk and gold and, most tellingly, a bright purple sash worn left to right over his scarlet and brocade tunic. Only the emperor, his family and their very nearest associates had the right to wear that colour.
    Behind him stood two enormous men, one clearly Greek by his short hair and beard, the other an African, his skin a deep black. Both had golden whips at their belts, along with a club and a sword. The whips, Loys knew, were for clearing a way through crowds for their master.
    Loys instantly prostrated himself. He had no idea who this man was, but that sash, combined with the fact he’d turned the university’s master out of his own most comfortable seat, meant it was better to overdo the formalities rather than risk any appearance of arrogance.
    ‘Stand up, scholar, stand up.’ The sing-song voice was of an unusual timbre. The man had smooth skin like a woman’s, beardless; his limbs were long and his hands thin and graceful. His fingers bore three gold rings, one of which looked heavy enough to be an official seal. Certainly a eunuch, thought Loys.
    He stood up.
    ‘Do you know me?’
    ‘No, sir, I do not.’
    The man put his tongue into his lower lip in contemplation. Loys noticed the master had his eyes firmly on the eunuch, a static smile cut into his face like a scar into the skin of an orange.
    ‘I am the chamberlain. The parakoimomeno.’
    Loys instinctively bowed. The parakoimomeno – he who sleeps beside the emperor – was the second most powerful man in the empire after the emperor; some would say more powerful even than he. Basileios was always away fighting his wars. The emperor didn’t enjoy court life even when he wasn’t fighting, and stayed at his estate up the coast. The chamberlain remained in Constantinople and was responsible for all the day-to-day running of the city.
    ‘He doesn’t look clever,’ said the chamberlain to the master.
    ‘He is the best man for the work you describe, sir,’ said the master. ‘I have none better.’
    ‘You’re not just giving him to me because he is a foreigner and you fear to lose a native scholar?’
    ‘This man is steeped in occult lore, sir.’
    A long silence. The chamberlain’s expression was as blank as the moon’s. Loys and the master waited for the chamberlain to speak, and they waited a good while.
    Eventually he said, ‘You are a foreigner. You live here at the school?’
    ‘No, I live—’
    ‘By the lighthouse gate.’
    Loys