Bellasteros’s child leaped within Danica’s womb. Patros tossed the ring aside; Mardoc bent hastily to the maps. Atalia favored Ilanit with a withering look, and the girl withered.
“Iksandarun,” Bellasteros continued, unperturbed. But someone was shouting. Shouts reverberated through the encampment, and running feet passed the tent. Aveyron ripped open the flap, revealing a panting centurion at his side. “My lord,” he called. “His Eminence has uncovered a traitor in our midst…”
That did not take long, Danica thought resignedly. She lifted the shield once again. I have no choice; it will be played to the end, and there is little humor in it. Mercy, Mother, please, on us all.
Bellasteros scowled. With an oath he plunged from the tent, and the others followed. Danica paused only to beckon to the Companions. The gold pavilion was oddly pale in the thin sunlight; the sky, though cloudless, was a faint steel-gray, and the wind pealed raw and cold from its depths.
Lyris hung by her wrists from a pole in the center of the encampment, circled by soldiers hooting away their uncertainty. They had already stripped her of her armor, and her poor wasted limbs glinted through rents torn in her shirt and trousers. Her head lolled to the side and a trickle of blood snaked its way down her face from her temple. The wind plucked at the loose tendrils of her hair as if seeking to free her.
Atalia, swearing, lunged forward. Danica plucked her back again. Her anger, at Lyris, at herself, at the Sardians, welled over and burst in a spray of venom from her lips. “What is this?” she demanded of Bellasteros, even though she knew it was hardly his doing. “This is one of my Companions; how dare …”
But his eyes were focused behind her, their flame suddenly guarded.
It was a carrion bird, talons extended, beak honed to slice flesh from bone. She spun around. No, not a bird; a man, feathered cloak, breastplate like spread wings, hair and beard and eyes the color of a moonless night. Eyes of glittering jet, cutting deep, deep …
The power this man emanated crashed against her like a physical blow. She reeled backward, lifting her shield; it hissed on her arm.
He smiled, the smile of a hunter who has successfully cornered his prey. “Danica, queen of Sabazel,” he said.
Her lips were numb, her head swam, her limbs trembled with a sudden terrifying weakness. She would fall to her knees, here, before him—Ashtar, no! I must be strong! She embraced the tiny pulse in her mind, sending blood like a strong elixir singing through her veins. “Adrastes Falco,” she said, stepping forward, holding the star-sheen of the shield so that the angles of his face glinted with it.
It was only then that she noticed the cloaked and veiled figure of a woman at the priest’s side; only her eyes could be seen, the wide, frightened eyes of a rabbit in a trap. Chryse— she, too, was prey. A young priest stood hesitantly, even fearfully, nearby.
Bellasteros interposed, smooth, rational, tautly controlled. “What is this, Your Eminence?”
“This woman is a traitor to Sardis. She was once a serving-woman of your first wife, but now she rides at this—queen’s— side.”
“But the queen of Sabazel is my ally and my guest. How then do you spell this treason?”
“She is a traitor to Harus; our women do not worship Ashtar.”
“But we respect the gods of our allies.”
Danica bit her lip to keep from speaking. She sensed the rage in Bellasteros, sensed what it cost him to keep that rage curtained. Behind her Atalia scowled, Ilanit and Patros exchanged a wary glance, Mardoc moved into position at Adrastes’s side. The watching soldiers, the Companions, murmured.
“This woman is a thief, my lord,” the priest continued, as if his argument were the most logical of constructs. “She stole the necklace you gave your first wife and sought to hide her crime among the Sabazians, who shielded her.”
“How did you discover this?” demanded Bellasteros.
“She came to the lady Chryse in her quarters, holding the necklace, speaking nonsense—she was once a devoted follower of the god, but Ashtar’s black sorcery has bewitched her, sent her into madness—”
“Watch your tongue, priest,” Danica spat. “Surely it will shrivel in your mouth, speaking such lies.”
Chryse quailed back. Mardoc and Adrastes between them grasped her arms. “A shame,” said Bellasteros, “that the prisoner so suffers from your arrest that she cannot speak. I would like to know why a thief attempts to return her booty, why she returns herself to danger when she has achieved safety.”
“Why question her, my lord?” asked Adrastes. “She is a traitor to you.”
Atalia again lunged forward. “This woman’s only crime was to try to murder the queen, and for that she cannot be held accountable; she was possessed …”
Danica silenced her with a gesture. Wait, wait. No one will believe our words here—except he who cannot act on them.
Bellasteros’s eyes narrowed and Solifrax flamed. But still his words were velvet smooth. “What of this charge, Your Eminence?”
Adrastes frowned. He looked from Bellasteros to Danica and back again, piercing them both with his gaze, gauging them. And his eye fell upon the trembling figure of Chryse. A sorrowful comprehension dawned in his expression. “My lady,” he said, gently, “your devotion to your lord is indeed commendable. But to pay your serving-woman with your necklace to injure his ally … Your necklace, your lord’s gift! You must make penance for such petty jealousy, my child.”
“Chryse!” said Mardoc, looking at his daughter in horror and approval mingled. Horror that she had had the initiative to do anything, Danica thought. Approval of what she had supposedly done. Regicide was only a crime when the ruler was male …
Chryse fell forward, crumpled to her knees, and clutched at Bellasteros’s shining greaves. “My lord, forgive me, I did not—I mean, I intended no …”
“Chryse?” Bellasteros croaked, for once at a loss for words; the magnitude of Adrastes’s lie astounded even him. His outrage, his frustration, seething like acid, impossible to release—they were Danica’s own. Her eyes burned with green fire and the shield hummed. Hear my power, Danica said silently to Adrastes. I will have your blood in the end …
As if he heard her words he turned to her. A smile touched his lips, blandly malignant. You see my power, harlot. Whatever I name truth is truth, and no one dares gainsay me. Check, harlot. Check.
Danica spun away from him, knowing that in another moment she would kill him. The gathered Sardian soldiers parted before her wrath. With one great, ringing blow of her sword she cut Lyris free. “Take her to Shandir,” she ordered, and Atalia and several Companions rushed forward.
Quietly, quietly—she swallowed her fury with such effort that her stomach heaved within her. She sheathed her sword. She retrieved her helmet from Ilanit, put it on, and from its shelter looked; the drama continued, reduced to a domestic squabble.
Bellasteros had somehow achieved regal composure, expressionless, the sword Solifrax a gleaming scepter in his hand. Chryse still knelt before him, her veil wet with tears. Adrastes made soothing gestures over her, a kindly avuncular prelate, and Mardoc stood shaking his head in paternal despair.
Petty jealousy indeed, Danica thought; the priest was jealous of his own power. Pity the woman Chryse, caught among Adrastes, her father, her husband, not realizing what truth was. The last thing she needed now was the queen of Sabazel to defend her. Danica’s gaze crossed that of the young priest—uncannily clear, that gaze …
The soldiers pressed forward; some were amused, no doubt, that Bellasteros could be troubled by his wife just as they were. But some were perturbed at this crack in their god-king’s armor, and they watched, their faces turned to the flame of sword and shield, seeking reassurance. Patros barked an order and the order was echoed by the centurions; reluctantly, the legionaries turned away.
Ilanit appeared with Danica’s horse. She clambered up, advanced a few paces to reach Patros’s ear; “We shall confer at some better time. Give my r
espects to your lord.”
Patros was distinctly pale around the jaw line. He nodded, and for just a moment his eyes met Danica’s. Gods! she thought. Would I not also like to be in the garden of the gods, my lover by my side, in peace …
A sudden jangling gust of wind was like a slap in the face— duty, ever duty. She pulled the horse’s head around, sparing one more glance for Bellasteros himself. He sensed her clear green eyes upon him; she knew that from the almost imperceptible twitch of his mouth, the subtle tilt of his head. But he could not turn to her. One look between them, and Adrastes would know which truth Bellasteros believed. Let him be my enemy only, Danica prayed, and she urged her horse rapidly down the avenue.
Her shield was cold on her arm, the child a heavy, heavy weight in her belly. The wind faded.
*
Evening. A silent darkness crept up the eastern sky, overtook the pale gleam of the sun, and consumed it. The evening star was a bright gemstone set in smoked glass. The Sardian camp lay, a great blot of shadow on its hilltop; the Sabazian camp formed a small smudge behind its hillock.
Chryse knelt, shoulders hunched, before her shrine. “Almighty Harus,” she murmured, “you know that I would not be so forward as to interfere in my lord’s plans. But neither would I dispute the word of His Eminence, your mouthpiece. And my father… Harus, I mean only respect for him.” She inhaled shakily, as if yet one more sob hung in her throat.
Declan, his narrow face knitted with concern, appeared behind her. “Can I be of service, lady?”
She looked up with a start. Her eyes were red and swollen and a bruise marred the softness of her cheek. Declan stiffened. “Who would strike you, lady? The king …”
Quickly she turned, hiding her face. “No, no,” she said quickly. “My lord is too kind to me, and forgives my transgressions with soft words.”
“Who then? Your father the general?”
Her shoulders hunched even more tightly together. “He heeds the words of His Eminence, as should we all,” she whispered. “No blame to him.”
“But my lady,” protested Declan. “Surely you did not engage in this—this attack …”
“We should all heed the words of His Eminence,” she repeated. “We must serve him in his wisdom. Even Lyris, my poor Lyris, has her role.” She stared at the gilt statue of the god, folding her hands in her lap, sighing. “If I cannot believe in Harus, in what then can I believe?”
“In Harus, yes.” Declan nodded. He knelt beside her. “In his followers …”
*
Bellasteros sprawled in his chair, a sheathed Solifrax across his lap, scowling. The luminescence of the solitary lamp sent odd topaz shadows twisting over his face, reshaping its cleanly carved planes into a gargoyle’s sneer.
Patros looked up from the map he copied. “Shall I light the brazier?”
Bellasteros did not reply. His hand slapped the sword rhythmically across his lap. The scales on the scabbard flicked in brief crescents of light.
Patros laid down his pen and regarded the sword narrowly. “Chryse had nothing to do with the attack on Danica, did she?”
“Of course not. It was, as I told you, Adrastes’s scheme. A filthy trick to begin with; filthier still to blame it on Chryse. And Mardoc swallowed it all.”
“You cannot contradict the grand inquisitor.”
“No.” The word was an epithet. “He asserts his power. He rubs my nose in his power, testing me with my own household …” Grimly, Bellasteros laughed. Solifrax hissed in its sheath. “Now we know, do we not, that his power is black sorcery, not the beneficent magic of the gods.”
Patros’s mouth tightened. “At least Theara is safe in the Sabazian camp.”
“Adrastes would call her a traitor, no doubt, because she serves Ashtar, because she is loyal to Sabazel. But she has always been loyal to me as well—I know that.”
“You know.” Patros nodded.
The conqueror’s eyes gleamed with light, the banked embers of rage, the faint green-gold shimmer of remembered vision. “Ah, my friend,” he murmured, “I have seen Harus and Ashtar together …”
An evening breeze gusted through the encampment, echoing with distant chimes. Solifrax sparked. The onyx ring, forgotten, gleamed darkly beneath the table.
*
“Is all ready?” Mardoc asked Hern. Coins jingled in the shadows.
“I have picked twenty strong men, sir,” the soldier answered, pocketing the money. “They have already broached the barrel; fine and rich, they say.”
Mardoc bared his teeth in a vulpine smile. “It is exceptionally rich, I would think, with the herbs so kindly provided by His Eminence.”
Adrastes emerged from the tent beside them. He held his hands clasped before him, stroking his topaz ring. His eyes were hooded, thoughtful. “Theara,” he said. “Who is she?”
“A whore,” replied Mardoc. “A tasty bit for the officers.”
“Could she have been corresponding secretly with the witch-queen in Sabazel? Could she have seen our letters?”
The general puzzled for a moment; then comprehension empurpled his face. “Of course; I thought they knew too much! The traitorous bitch …”
Adrastes turned to the eager Hern. “You hear? Theara is a traitor to Harus and to the king. With her you may be especially … thorough.”
“Yes, of course. Your Eminence.” Hern bowed deeply and trotted off.
The two men watched him thread his way through the encampment. The breeze fluttered the priest’s robes, the general’s cloak. “I hope,” said Adrastes, “that you have not been too harsh with your daughter.”
“Your Eminence is too generous. As is the king, generous indeed.”
“Beyond my … expectations.” Adrastes nodded cordially, blandly, revealing nothing. “You see how this Sabazian divides us, sowing dissent, using the camp followers and even the lady Chryse to bewitch the king; devious, she is, devious, and we must save him from her spell. Tonight, Mardoc, her penance begins.”
Mardoc chuckled. “Yes, yes, and very soon now.”
They listened. The encampment was silent. Silent, except for a distant murmur of drunken revelry, swelling, becoming more raucous each moment …
*
Night. Danica sat on a boulder, contemplating the sky. The slender crescent of a new moon hung above the horizon, the evening star a brilliant gem at its tip. They were silver lamps hanging in the arch of the sky, swaying gently, chiming to Ashtar’s breath … It was no good. She could not concentrate. Her blood pricked in her veins, uneasy, as if eyes watched the back of her neck. And yet nothing was behind her but the faintly luminescent fabric of her tent. Shapes moved against the light as Shandir and Theara tended the injured Lyris.
The soldier Aveyron folded his height just outside the periphery guarded by the Companions; he had brought Lyris’s armor and a note setting another conference for the dawn and had evidently been told to set a guard post of his own.
Lyris. She had not come willingly to Sabazel, had not given herself willingly into Danica’s service—she should not be chastised for her disobedience. Her experience at the hands of the Sardians was chastisement enough.
Bellasteros. His position grew more difficult every day. Would it help if the Sabazians decamped and went home? But no—they were needed here.
Adrastes. What in the name of Ashtar—or of Harus, for that matter—was his game? Did he truly believe himself working for the king?
Her neck prickled and in spite of herself she glanced over her shoulder. Nothing: the shapes of rocks, shadows, the glow of the Sardian encampment. Nothing to fear. But her heart drummed in her chest and the child twisted restlessly in her womb.
Danica leaped up. Footsteps or a pebble shifted by a small animal? A muffled breath or some trick of the wind? But the wind did not trick her.
Aveyron was watching her quizzically. She stared unseeing at him, her nostrils flaring. Wine, herbed wine, and the scent of men—not of the one man before her, but of many men �
�
The sentry burst across the road, calling a warning. “Atalia!” Danica shouted. “Ilanit! To arms!”
She sprinted into the tent, seizing sword and shield. Theara’s hand went to her mouth in fear; Shandir reached for the dagger strapped to her thigh and tested its edge. Lyris pulled herself up, hand reaching for her sword.
Danica blew out the lamp and lifted the star-shield. It chimed at her touch, shedding an aureole of light around her like the glow of a full moon. Theara gasped and fell back. No time for reassurances—Danica spun back out the doorway, followed by Shandir.
Loud voices, heavy bodies crashing through the brush, falling with curses over the rocks … men scrambled into the camp. One Companion was seized and borne down; another rushed forward to free her.
Shouts, screams, running feet. The horses neighed and plunged, but their pickets were secure. Someone—a Sardian— plucked an ember from the campfire and tossed it onto a tent; the fabric caught, burning slowly at first, then flaring up in gouts of scarlet flame. Scarlet-tinted shadow danced over knots of grappling bodies. Shandir seized a water-skin and ran to the fire.
Danica intercepted one man who sought to enter the tent and drove him away with a blow. The men were here to ravish and to pillage, she saw; they were only sparsely armed. But her followers were not cowering village women. Atalia pulled one Sardian soldier from the supine body of a Companion and calmly cut his throat. His blood was dark, a spreading pool of darkness …
Another soldier grabbed for Danica and she kicked him in the groin. As he crumpled she brought the hilt of her sword down on his head and he fell like a slaughtered ox, snorting. Another hand approached her; she spun, blade at the ready— it was Aveyron. His blue eyes flickered orange in the light of the fire. “I would aid you,” he cried, shrinking back.
“I think I shall have to aid you,” Danica told him. Ilanit came leaping across the ground, her teeth glinting in a smudged face, red-tinted sword in one hand, javelin in the other. She saw Aveyron and raised the javelin, but Danica deflected the blow. “He is with us.”
Another attack, this time by soldiers with weapons. They were remarkably clumsy, drunk or drugged; Ilanit sliced one across the arm and he fell back screaming into the tangle of his fellows.
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