by Wilbur Smith
Once they came upon a lion in the path. A big male whose body was ghostly grey in the moonlight, with a dark ruff of mane. They stared at each other for long seconds before the lion grunted softly and leapt into the undergrowth beside the path. He had fed recently, and the two human shapes did not interest him.
The moon, four days past full, wheeled across the star-furry sky and sank towards the dark horizon. When it set, there was only the indistinct glow of the stars to light their way, and at a steep and broken place in the path Sellene fell heavily.
Timon heard her cry out and he turned back quickly. She was lying on her side, making a soft moaning sound.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked as he dropped to his knees beside her.
‘My ankle.’ she whispered, agony making her voice husky and Timon groped down her leg. Already the ankle was hot to the touch, and as he held it he could feel it swelling, blowing up into a hard hot ball.
With the sword Timon cut strips from his cloak, and he bound the ankle tightly as Huy had taught him. He worked with frantic haste, and the worms of dread were already gnawing his guts.
When he lifted Sellene to her feet, she cried out as her weight came on the injured foot.
‘Can you walk on it?’ Timon asked, and she tried a few painful hobbling steps. She was panting with pain and her breathing whistled in her throat. She clung to Timon and shook her head hopelessly,
‘I cannot go on. Leave me here.’ Timon lowered her to the ground, and then straightened up as he discarded his weapons and her provisions. He kept only the short sword. He folded and knotted the two leather cloaks into a sling seat for Sellene, and placed it about her body. Then he looped the end over his neck and shoulder and lifted her. She was in his arms, with her own clasped about his shoulders. Half of her weight was taken by the sling, hanging about Timon’s neck. He started forward, striding out down the steep path towards the valley floor.
By mid-morning the sling had rubbed the skin from his neck, a weeping pink graze through the dark skin. The heat was strong now, that heavy oppressive heat of the valley floor sucking away the last of his energy. The spring had long gone from Timon’s step, and he reeled forward with spirit outlasting his physical strength.
On the edge of one of the glades of open grass, Timon stopped and leaned against the trunk of a mhoba-hoba tree. He was afraid to lower the girl’s body to the ground lest he could not find the strength to lift it again. His lips were white and rimmed with dried spittle, and his eyes were laced with red veins. His chest heaved and shook with his breathing.
‘Leave me, Timon,’ Sellene whispered, ‘This way both of us will die.’
Timon did not answer, but gestured her to silence with an impatient inclination of his head. He held his breath and listened. She heard it also then, the faint and distant baying of the hound pack.
He said, ‘It is too late for that.’ And he looked about quickly tor a place to stand. They could not hope to outrun the dogs.
‘You can still escape,’ she urged him. ‘The river is not far.’
‘Without you there is no escape,’ he said, and she clung to him as he carried her across the glade to a place where the mother rock outcropped. A jumble of fragmented granite like the ruins of an ancient castle.
He laid her gently amongst the rocks, with her back against one of the slabs. He folded her cloak and placed it as a pillow for her head, then he squatted beside her and caressed her face and neck with a surprisingly gentle touch for so big a man.
‘They will kill us,’ Sellene said. ‘They always kill those who run.’
Timon did not answer, but his fingers stroked her cheek lightly.
‘They kill in the worst way,’ Sellene said, turning her head to look at him. ‘Would it not be better if we died now, before the dogs come?’ But he did not answer, and after a while she went on. ‘You have the sword, Timon. Will you not use it?’
‘If the little priest is with them, then we have a chance. He has power over the king - and there is a thing between him and me. There is a bond. He will save us.’
The dogs were closer now, and it seemed that their baying had become more urgent as the scent ran hotter, Timon stood up and unsheathed the sword. He went out amongst the rocks and looked back towards the escarpment. Half a mile back the pack streamed from the forest into the glade. There were thirty of the tall sinewy hounds, long-legged and with rough ginger-brown coats and the heads and fangs of wolves. They were bred to chase and drag down the quarry.
Timon felt his skin tighten and prickle as he watched them string out across the glade towards him. Behind them, running on the heels of the pack were the handlers, with their distinctive green tunics and the dog-whips over their shoulders.
Beyond them again came the war elephants, five of them with the knights and slave-masters in their castles. The elephants followed the pack easily, in that ambling gait which could cover fifty miles in a day.
Timon shaded his eyes and tried to pick out the distinctive figure of the priest amongst the men in the castles. They were too far off still, but the hounds were closing swiftly.
He wrapped his cloak carefully about his left forearm, and settled his grip on the sword, swinging the weapon in a short arc to stretch his muscles.
The leading hounds saw him amongst the rocks, and immediately the deep regular baying changed to an excited yammering. Their ears flattened as they ran, and long pink tongues flopped over white fangs in the wolf jaws, and they fanned out across his front.
Timon stepped back into the opening where Sellene lay, guarding her from the vicious clamouring rush of brown bodies.
The first hound rushed in at him, with its jaws snapping, and it leapt at his face.
Timon took him on the point, in the base of his throat, killing the dog instantly, but before he could clear his blade another had sprung at him. He thrust his cloaked arm into its jaws, and hacked at a third hound.
They swarmed over him as he stabbed and hacked and thrust. He swung the hound that hung on his arm against the rock beside him, crushing in its ribs, but another had locked its fangs in his calf and was tugging him cruelly off balance. He drove the point into its shaggy back and the hound shrieked and released him.
Another went for his face and he struck at its head with the sword hilt. A great furry body smashed into his chest, a tang ripped his shoulder muscles.
There were too many of them, overwhelming him, ripping and tearing at him, smothering him with their weight and strength. He went down on his knees, holding a frothing slavering animal away from his throat and face with one hand, strangling it, but he felt other teeth slashing at his back and belly and thighs.
Then abruptly the dog-handlers were there, whipping the pack away from him, shouting to the animals by name, dragging them back and leashing them in the strangling collars.
Slowly Timon pulled himself up onto his feet. He had lost his sword, and blood streamed down his shining black body from the deep cuts and lacerations that covered him.
He looked up at the war elephant which towered over him. His last hope faded as he saw that Huy Ben-Amon was not amongst the hunters - and that Lannon Hycanus, the Gry-Lion of Opet was laughing.
‘A good run, slave,’ Lannon laughed. ‘I thought that you might reach the river.’ He looked beyond Timon to where Sellene lay. ‘My huntmasters were correct, then. They judged by the sign that the woman had damaged her leg and that you were carrying her. A noble gesture, slave, most unusual for a pagan. All the same it will cost you dear.’ Lannon looked away to one of his slave-masters. ‘There seems little to be gained by returning with them. Execute them here.’
Timon looked up at the king and spoke in a strong clear voice.
‘I am the living symbol of that love,’ he said, and Lannon’s head jerked around as he remembered the words. With the laughter gone from his lips he stared at the bleeding slave king, meeting those smoky yellow eyes. For long seconds, Timon’s life teetered on the verge of extinction, then suddenly La
nnon’s eyes dropped away from those of Timon.
‘Very well,’ he nodded. ‘You remind me of my duty to a friend. I will honour it, but I swear you will live to curse the moment you spoke those words. You will live - but in life you will long for the sweetness of death.’ Lannon’s face was a mask of cold anger, as he turned back to his slave-masters. ‘This man will not be executed, but he is declared “incorrigible” and he will be chained with a weight of two talents.’ Almost a hundred pounds’ weight of chains to be carried night and day, waking and sleeping. ‘Send him to the mines at Hulya, tell the overseer there that he is to be used at the deep levels.’
Lannon watched Timon’s face as he went on. ‘The woman cannot claim my protection, but we will take her back with us, none the less. Let her be chained to the castle of one of the war elephants and marched.’
For the first time Timon showed emotion. He stepped forward and in appeal lifted one badly savaged arm from which the dark tattered flesh hung.
‘My lord, the woman is hurt. She cannot walk.’
‘She will walk,’ said Lannon. ‘Or she will be dragged. You will ride upon the elephant and encourage her. You will have time to decide if the swift death I offered you would not have been preferable to the life you have chosen.’
They chained Sellene at the wrists with a light marching chain twenty paces long. The other end of the chain was shackled to the rear wall of the elephant castle.
Timon, wearing his massive chains at neck and ankles, was seated in the castle. He was made to face backwards to where Sellene stood swaying slightly on one leg, favouring her grotesquely swollen ankle. Her face was greyish with pain, but she tried to smile up at Timon.
The first jerk of the chain as the elephant started forward pulled her face downwards on the hard earth, with its sharp shales and harsh clumps of razor grass. She was dragged fifty paces before she managed to roll onto her feet again and hop and stumble after the striding elephant. Her knees and elbows were raw, and there were scratches across her belly and breasts.
She fell and regained her feet a dozen times, each time her body was more battered and torn. She went down for the last time a little before sunset.
As Timon sat in the castle, draped in his chains, he swore an oath. In his anger and grief and pain he swore an oath of vengeance, watching Sellene’s lifeless body bounce and slide over the rough places, leaving a damp brown smear across the dry red African earth. Then Timon wept, for the last time in his life he succumbed to tears. They ran down his face and dripped from his chin to mingle with the blood and dust that caked his body.
Huy filled a wine bowl from one of his choice amphorae, one that he had set aside for a rare occasion. He was humming softly to himself, and there was a small smile which came and went upon his lips and made his dark eyes sparkle.
He had returned to Opet in the middle of the night, slept five hours and now, bathed and dressed in his best linen, he had sent a slave to summon the oracle of Opet to meet with him. All the blood and passion of these last weeks upon the escarpment of the great river were forgotten now in his anticipation of his reunion with Tanith. Forgotten were the memories of Sellene’s mutilated corpse dragged into camp behind the war elephant, the tall figure of Timon bowed beneath his chains and grief, led away by the slave-masters, those terrible accusing eyes turned towards Huy, the manacled wrists lifted in a gesture of menace or of appeal - Huy could not guess which. Then the slave-master’s whip hissing and snapping across the purple black shoulders, lifting a welt as thick as a finger without cutting the skin. For the first time since it had happened Huy was free of it, his whole being taken up with the joy of his love.
Pursing his lips thoughtfully he let four drops of the clear liquid drop from the blue glass vial into the wine. He stoppered the bottle and stirred the wine with his forefinger, sucking his finger thoughtfully and wrinkling his nose at the faint musty taste of the opiate. He added a little wild honey to mask it, tasted again and at last satisfied he set the bowl on one of the wooden stools beside the pile of cushions. There was a dish of cakes and sweetmeats there already. Huy covered the wine bowl with a silken cloth, then surveyed his preparations with pleasure. He picked up his lute, and climbed the staircase to the parapet of the roof and seated himself. He tuned the instrument and strummed upon it, loosening his voice and fingers, watching the narrow lane that led up to the front gate.
In the bright morning sunlight the lake waters were a cheery blue, only slightly darker than the sky The breeze had flecked the surface with little floppy waves, and one of Hab-bakuk Lal’s galleys had shipped her oars and was running in towards the harbour under a big lateen sail. The sea birds followed her, planing and soaring across her stern.
High above the lake the midday clouds were building tall, frothy thunder-heads. There would be rain before sunset, Huy thought, feeling the thunder in the air, in the touch of his garments upon his skin and the curl of his beard.
His breath caught, and the music died under his fingers as two figures turned into the lane and came up towards the gate. They wore the coarse brown-hooded robes that the priestesses of Astarte affected while travelling abroad. However, the bulky garments could not disguise the quick step and youthful carriage of the taller figure that hurried ahead, nor the age and aggravation of the bent figure that hobbled after her. The ancient voice, breathless and high, called with exasperation.
‘My lady, slower! I pray you.’ And Huy grinned. A slave opened the gate, and as they crossed the courtyard Huy struck a single authoritative note on the lute, and Tanith stopped dead. The old chaperone, unhearing, moved on into the house mumbling and muttering while Tanith looked up at Huy upon the parapet of the roof.
He began to sing, and the girl below him lifted the hood from her face and let it fall back on her shoulders. She shook her hair loose, watching his face with large green eyes and her expression was rapt and solemn. He sang the song he had written in the wilderness, the song to Tanith inscribed in the golden book, and as he let the last sweet note fall on the bright morning, Tanith’s cheeks were flushed and her lips trembled.
Huy went down the staircase and stood close to her, without touching her.
‘You are my soul,’ he said gently, and she swayed towards him as if drawn by a force beyond her control.
‘My lord, I cannot trust myself to be with you where other eyes may see us. I fear I shall betray my love to the blindest of them. Be strong for me.’
Huy touched her elbow, guiding her towards the house. As they passed through into the main room, Tanith stumbled slightly, for a moment pressed against him.
‘Oh! I cannot bear it,’ she said, and Huy’s voice shook as he answered.
‘In a while, my love, In a very short while.’
The old priestess was seated on the cushions already, mouthing a cake with bald gums, dropping crumbs and spittle down her robe and mumbling bitterly about her pains and aches.
Huy moved around behind her, and picked up the prepared wine bowl in both hands. Secure in the old priestess’s deafness he asked Tanith, ‘Is she strong?’
‘As strong as most men,’ Tanith smiled. ‘Though she’ll not admit it.’
‘She does not complain of chest pains or shortness of breath?’
‘Never.’ Tanith was intrigued. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I have placed star-drops in her wine,’ Huy explained. ‘But I do not want her sleep to be eternal.’
Tanith’s smile flamed, lighting the green depths of her eyes and sparkling on her teeth. ‘Oh, Holy Father, how clever of you.’ She clapped her hands, a childlike gesture that never failed to touch Huy to the core of his being.
‘How many drops?’ Tanith demanded
‘Four,’ Huy admitted.
‘Perhaps a few more would not hurt her,’ Tanith said. ‘I have not seen you in many weeks, Holiness. There is much to discuss.’
During this exchange the old priestess had been nodding and grimacing intelligently, quite as though she had unders
tood every word. Huy studied her a moment, then firmly thrust aside the temptation.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Four is sufficient.’ And he came around in front of the priestess. The wrinkled monkey-like face split into a huge toothless grin and she reached for the bowl with a pair of bony claws, on which the old-age blotches and blue veins stood out clearly.
‘You have a kind heart. Holiness,’ she keened.
They seated themselves in front of her, and while they talked they watched her anxiously. The crone was drawing out her pleasure, sipping the wine and rolling it noisily around her mouth before swallowing and smacking her gums.
‘Since we have been apart, I have thought much upon what has happened between us,’ Huy admitted, without looking at Tanith.
‘I have thought of nothing else.’
‘As a man whose life is devoted to the service of the gods, I was greatly troubled that we had sinned against them,’ Huy told her.
‘There can be no sin in something which gives so much pleasure and happiness.’
‘I asked the gods to set a test for me, a trial of my sins.’ Huy had still not looked at her, but Tanith glanced at him sharply and her voice snapped.
‘You did not indulge in foolish risk, did you?’
‘The trial was a fair one - the gods were not cheated.’ Huy wanted her to understand, and she understood too well.
‘I forbid you to do these stupid male things. I shiver to think of what madness you committed out there in the wilderness.’ She was angry now.
‘It was necessary. They must have the opportunity to express their wrath.’
‘They could as readily express their wrath with a lightning bolt or a falling tree! I will not have you provoking them to destroy you.’
‘Tanith, please let me—’
‘I can see, my lord, that you will require stricter supervision in the future. I want a lover not a hero.’
