The Phoenix and the Falcon

PROLOGUE

415 A.D.

Framed by the square courtyard, the open sky was bright. Noise from the city of Constantinople intruded, but the house's thick, stone walls muffled the din. Water danced in the large alabaster fountain, filling the inner sanctum with sparkling sounds.
A young child, no more than six, played quietly, almost secretively in the shadows behind two tall pottery jars. Her dress was like a patch of indigo blue against the mosaic floor. Sunlight filtered through potted trees and glittered on the glazed urns. The jars, holding cooking oil, were decorated with painted birds, some on the threshold of flight, others already in air. It was as if they were alive in the brilliant light.
The child, Helena, felt safe in her nest, hidden from her current nurse, a woman who always found fault with her. She was happy, engrossed in a world of make believe. Fiery white toy horses pulled Alexander the Great's chariot. Her five soldiers, by the magic of pretend, had become at least thirty; the tall urns were enormous mountains, blocking Alexander's passage to Persia. Her grandfather, a gifted storyteller, had brought the ancient conqueror to life during her lessons, but referred to him only as Sikunder the Destroyer because of the devastation he had wrought in Persia.
The miniatures, once her father's, had many nicks and scratches, having seen much in the way of “military” action. Helena remembered little about him, except his deep voice and the way his laughter filled a room. Though he had forgotten all of her birthdays, she treasured the toys because they had been his.
Her grandfather said that her father would return for another visit someday, but Helena had stopped believing. The last letter from her father was well over two years old. Her mother was long dead, dying a few weeks after her birth. Soon after, her grieving father resumed his command in the Imperial Persian Army, leaving his infant daughter in his father's care. She would stare at the small portrait of him that hung in her grandfather’s study and wonder if he ever thought of them.
Despite her grandfather's careful explanations, Helena felt sad when she thought of her father - not really understanding why he went away. "Helena! Helena!" a woman's voice called. The nurse stood at the top of the central stone staircase; her middle-aged face was creased, her lips pursed. The child edged back into the shadows, scarcely breathing, clutching her toys.
“Go away!” she thought.
Helena stared at her talisman: a large mosaic phoenix in the floor near the marble fountain. She thought it magical, almost believing that if she looked at nothing else, it would make her invisible. Family tradition maintained that anyone who crossed its flaming wings with joy would have good fortune for a full day and night. Of course, now that the Empire had become Christian, such beliefs remained within the family.
"Nurse! Have you lost your charge again?" Helena's grandfather asked in his baritone voice.
Startled, the woman screeched. When Grandfather willed it, he could move with the stealth of a cat.
"She-she ran off, master. Not wanting her lessons!" The nurse said with a panicked stutter.
"And what had you planned to teach today?"
"The usual things. How to dress the hair; the art of pedicure, showing a maiden's feet with perfection in her thongs..."
Helena's grandfather cut into the cooing recital.
"Enough! I never gave orders for such instruction. You are to keep her clean, freshly clothed, and well nourished."
Miriam clutched her hands to her chest. "I-I must have misunderstood!"
"Perhaps you'll do better tomorrow," he said more gently. "Now be off!"
The nurse hurried down the stairs, around the fountain, and across the phoenix. Helena stared with quiet exultation at her rapid departure.
"Come out now," her grandfather said, looking down from over the urns. "It's time for your lesson."
She had not even heard his steps! He was a magician, she just knew it.
"Oh, Grandfather!" she said, laughing, running toward his open arms.

The rhythmic beat of a solitary horse, galloping hard across the wind-swept steppes intruded upon her dream. Her grandfather’s face receded into shadow. Still half-asleep, Helena whispered, “No!"
Not breaking stride, the horse whinnied. It was deep, like a stallion’s.
She opened her eyes.
She was cold, far from the warmth of that summer day in Constantinople. The chill wind rushed through the cracks of the mud and thatch house into the darkness crowded with sleeping women and children. She shut her eyes quickly, trying to go back to sleep, to her dream and to her childhood, where the safety of home and Grandfather waited.

CHAPTER ONE

427 A.D.

"Huns! A day’s journey! In the name of the gods, awake!" a man's voice ripped through the air, slicing through the last fragments of her dream.
Groggy from sleep, Helena rubbed her green eyes. Her ears strained, listening for another call. Her throat constricted as she inhaled the close odor of stale sweat and dirty clothes. Her son, only three, slept at her side. The courtyard in Constantinople was long gone. After all, at eighteen wasn't she a woman grown?
Blinking away tears, Helena remembered the hoof beats. They had awakened her, robbing her of Grandfather's embrace. She shivered, not from the cold night air, but from sudden fear.
The man's voice rang out. "Water for my horse!" he shouted outside in the chill autumn air.
She sat up, flinging long, dark hair from a wide brow, alarmed, yet obscurely disappointed. The horseman had not come for her. Marooned for five years in a small, primitive village, Helena had made a religion of hope. She prayed for rescue, yet continually speculated on avenues of escape. She waited and watched, and planned for the eventual day when Mikael would be old enough to survive the journey to Persia where her grandfather's family lived.
Brushing aside disappointment, she pulsed with curiosity about the night traveler.