“Quintus,” she said, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Quintus, I feared for you. You have been gone so long.”
He stroked her hair, kissing the softness of her temple. “Not so long that you forgot me,” he said.
She sniffed and drew back with an exaggerated frown. “Forget you? Did you forget me?”
“You told me to forget, not so long ago.”
Her ivory skin took on a tinge of red. “You refer to the lion hunt.”
“You led me to believe that you never wanted to see me again.”
She backed away and reached for a wine cup with uncharacteristic clumsiness, nearly knocking it over. “I believed it was best for you. For both of us. I…” She set the cup down again and gave a short laugh. “I missed you terribly, Quintus. It is one thing to stay away when I know you’re in Karchedon and quite another when you are risking your life in another country.”
He studied her intently, searching for some sign of malady or unhappiness. There were shadows under her eyes, and a certain thinness in face and body he didn’t remember, but no trace of physical affliction.
“I was never in any danger,” he said. “My mission was a success.”
“So I hear. All the palace knows.”
“Nikodemos will not see me.”
“He has been…most preoccupied. There is rumor of rebellion in Tyros.” Her flush deepened. “I would speak to him for you, if I…” Suddenly she sat down in the nearest chair. “I’m sorry, Quintus. I am not myself today.”
“Hylas suggested that all is not well with you. What is it, Danae?”
She waved her fingers in a dismissive gesture. “It’s nothing. Hylas worries too much.”
Quintus cupped her chin and forced her to look up. “There is something wrong. Is it Nikodemos?”
She shrugged. “Do you remember Gulbanu?”
“The princess from Persis, who rode in the hunt.”
“She has…made herself very much at home in Karchedon. Nikodemos approves of her. He admires her so much that he keeps her at his side nearly every moment.”
Quintus knelt before her. “She has replaced you in the emperor’s favor.”
She looked away. “I have always understood that it is the ultimate fate of the king’s most favored hetaira to be replaced.”
“By that virago?” Quintus slammed his fist on the table. “Has Nikodemos gone blind in my absence? You are as superior to Gulbanu as a lioness is to a sow.”
She laid her palm against his cheek. “Ah, Quintus. I knew you would find a few kind words for me.”
He snorted in disgust and got to his feet. “Nikodemos is a fool.” He paced from one end of the room to the other. “I would make him understand his error of judgment—”
“But it is not within your power.” Danae came up behind him, her breath warm on the nape of his neck. “Just as it is not within mine to keep Nikodemos’s love.”
“But you still love him.”
“I didn’t believe it possible to love two men so different, and yet so much alike.”
He didn’t dare look into her eyes. “You said yourself that Nikodemos would never let you go.”
“He cannot command what lies in my heart.”
“Your body belongs to him.”
“Do you still want me, Quintus?”
He turned on her, trembling. “Look at me, Danae, and tell me what you see.”
“I see a prince, a man destined for greatness.”
“A man who can’t have the woman he wants.”
“No. I see a man who will do what he must to achieve all he desires for himself, his people and the world.”
He stared out the small window that faced the harbor. “You’d better go, Danae.”
She returned to the chair, undisturbed. “Is it true that you discovered a rebel sanctuary in Italia?”
“Yes.”
“Nikodemos will be very pleased.” She folded her hands in her lap as if she and Quintus had merely been discussing the latest grape harvest. “There must be more to the tale than the rumors say.”
“Buteo was Baalshillek’s agent. Baalshillek freed him and then suggested that I be sent to capture or kill him, but he intended that Buteo should kill me, instead.”
“He underestimated you.” She smoothed a wrinkle in her chiton. “Was it difficult…exposing the people you once served?”
Her voice was full of gentle sympathy, but he flinched from the words. “I took no pleasure in it.”
“Yet it had to be done. Now the emperor has no reason to doubt your loyalty ever again, and Baalshillek has used his last gambit.” She drew small circles on the tabletop with her fingertips.
“Will you tell Nikodemos of Baalshillek’s treachery?”
“If it will help him to see that we must sever all ties to the Temple.” He strode back to Danae’s chair. “The world can’t endure much more, Danae. Nikodemos must be made to see that the Stone God will destroy him and his Companions as surely as it’s destroying all traces of freedom in the provinces. He must put an end to the priesthood before it becomes too powerful to be stopped.”
“At any price?”
“At any price. I have passed all his tests of loyalty, and I’m ready to make use of my power.” He clenched and unclenched his right fist. “Nikodemos implied that he would grant me governorship of Italia, but that’s no longer enough. When he calls for me, I’ll be ready.”
“Ready to convince him that you are right.”
“I know I am, Danae. He will listen.”
“And if he does not?”
He met her gaze. “Who will you choose, Danae, if I must turn against Nikodemos?”
She rose in a whisper of linen, took his face in her hands and kissed him, igniting a passion that almost made him forget the purpose that warmed his heart with such fierce joy. He bent her supple body in his arms and returned the kiss. It was she who broke off, her breath coming short and her chiton disarranged by his caresses.
“Not here,” she said. “Not now. I will find a place where we can meet in safety. Follow the messenger I send.” She went to the door and looked back, her eyes bright with desire and anticipation. “Sleep well, my love.”
The messenger came just after midnight. She led Quintus down darkened corridors to the abandoned wing where Danae had once shown him the portal to the secret passages under the palace, ushering him through the door of a seemingly vacant room.
But it was not entirely empty. In the adjoining chamber Danae waited for him beside a couch heaped with furs and a table spread with delicacies fit to tempt the most fastidious of lovers. She dismissed the servant, took Quintus’s hand and began to remove his clothing with arousing care. He could barely restrain himself from tearing her chiton to shreds.
They fell on the couch together and made love with equal urgency, kissing and licking and touching as if they rediscovered the planes and hollows of each other’s bodies. After they had sated the first deluge of need, they paused to dine on sweat-meets and sip cups of the emperor’s finest vintage. Danae drank far more than was her wont, and giggled when Quintus kissed the back of her neck.
Soon her laughter changed to moans of pleasure, and they began again. Three times Danae gave herself to Quintus, each encounter more uninhibited than the last. Quintus fell asleep in Danae’s arms, exhausted and heavy with contentment.
He woke to the sounds of strange voices and booted footsteps on the floor of the outer chamber. Danae stirred; Quintus lifted his head, still dazed with sleep, and saw the glint of dying lamplight on armor.
“Lady Danae.” The soldier stopped inside the door and bowed stiffly. “You will come with us.”
She sat up, clutching a fur to her breast. “What is this? What—”
Quintus swung his legs over the side of the couch just as two more soldiers closed in on him with lowered spears. He struck out with his fist, but he was outnumbered and not fully awake. The soldiers seized his arms and forced him to his knees.
; “Danae!” he cried.
“I am all right, Quintus,” she said from the doorway, still wrapped in her furs. “Don’t fight them. I will explain to Nikodemos.”
Explain to Nikodemos. These were the emperor’s men, and they had discovered the emperor’s half-brother lying with the emperor’s former mistress. It was no accident. Somehow the soldiers had been led to this place.
Quintus struggled to rise. “Let me talk to the emperor,” he said.
“You’ll see him soon enough,” one of the soldiers said. He and another hauled Quintus up between them and pushed him through the door.
But they didn’t take him to see Nikodemos. They left him in the dungeon where Danae had freed Nyx so long ago, throwing him down on stale straw and barring the door behind them.
The day of triumph was over.
“I grieve for you, my lord,” Baalshillek said. “How could you have foreseen such treachery from one who served you so well in Italia?”
Nikodemos scowled and scraped the back of his hand across his mouth. “You shed the tears of a crocodile, Baalshillek,” he said. “How long have you known that Quintus was dallying with Danae?”
“But I did not know, Lord Emperor.” Baalshillek hid a smile and offered Nikodemos another cup of wine. “It was not I who alerted the guards to your brother’s indiscretion.”
“I still haven’t discovered who did. I have no use for informers.”
“And surely no use for a former rebel who takes what is yours.”
Nikodemos grunted. “Foolish,” he said. “Stupid, but not treacherous enough to deserve the punishment you would give him, priest.”
Baalshillek sighed. “I think only of your welfare. If young Alexandros would do this, what more is he capable of? What other of your possessions does he covet?”
“If he is like me…” Nikodemos gazed into his cup, swirling the wine within as if he could see the future in its dregs. “But he’s not. He’s a cub, Baalshillek, and he wants training, not death.”
“Once you would not have been so sanguine where Lady Danae is concerned,” Baalshillek said. “But you gave him the use of her once, and he simply took the rest. Just as he will judge you weak if you show leniency now.”
Nikodemos pretended to disregard Baalshillek’s advice, but Baalshillek saw that he listened. His fingers bit into the silver cup.
“Do you think I can’t control one boy, priest?” he said softly. “You sent my brother to take the rebel, and he did. Would you devise a similar test for me?”
Baalshillek lowered his head in mock humility. “Quintus is no ordinary boy, but kin of Alexandros the Conqueror. He shares your blood as well as your ambition. And he has power you do not, my lord.”
“Power you have reason to fear, priest. Not I.”
“Are you so certain?”
Nikodemos ran a hand through his untamed mane of hair. “I’ll never let you have him, no matter what I decide.”
Because you are not quite prepared to surrender a weapon that can be turned against my masters, Baalshillek thought. He imagined summoning Ag and penetrating the emperor’s mind, compelling him to do the god’s will, but it was too soon, and too dangerous.
“If you will not consider a direct threat from Quintus,” he said, “then think of your reputation among your subjects. Danae is known even in the most distant provinces of the empire. She has been much praised for her beauty. If you allow this to pass and rumors escape the palace—as they inevitably will, despite all our efforts—it will seem evidence of vulnerability, which your enemies will regard as proof that you may be defied with impunity.”
“My enemies.” He barked a laugh. “Do you speak of the Tiberian rebels, who have been driven from their hole, or of the feeble bands in Persis and Phoinike? I certainly have nothing to fear from the wretches who’ve succumbed to your god.”
“I need not tell you that enemies lurk everywhere, even in your own halls.”
Nikodemos jumped to his feet. “You would bid me look for disloyalty in those I trust with my life.”
“As you trusted young Alexandros?”
The emperor smashed his cup on the floor, cracking a delicately tinted tile. “You’ve made your position clear enough, priest. I’ll hear from my brother before I decide his fate.”
“He will do whatever he can to save himself…tell any lies, create wild tales to shake the emperor’s will.”
Nikodemos glared into Baalshillek’s eyes and abruptly sank back down in his chair. “Will he tell me tales of you, I wonder?”
“I will tell you a tale you did not know,” Baalshillek said gently. “It was reported that the rebels killed the priest I sent with Alexandros to Italia. But I believe that your brother himself killed the priest…so that you and I would not learn something my servant would have revealed.”
“Learn what?”
“That Quintus is still loyal to his former countrymen.”
“I’ve seen Buteo’s head.”
“A dedicated insurgent might consider that a small price to pay for the ultimate defeat of the empire.”
“You weary me, priest,” Nikodemos said, but the fight had gone out of his voice, and his words were laced with doubt. “Begone. Let me think.”
“Of course, my lord.” Baalshillek backed toward the door. “I will be available should you require my assistance.”
Nikodemos made no answer. Baalshillek closed the door and smiled to himself as he returned to the Temple.
Quintus, Annihilator and enemy of the One True God, was as good as dead.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
N ew Meroe was gone.
Nothing remained of the holy city but rubble and dust. Rhenna crouched outside the ring of debris that had been the city walls, Tahvo kneeling at her side, while straggling refugees limped and stumbled away from the wreckage of their lives.
The horror of Cian’s transformation and disappearance continued to circle through Rhenna’s mind. She vaguely remembered running to the edge of the chasm and lying with her head over the blackness, reaching down as if she could catch some part of Cian before he fell. She remembered the sting of fire raining down on her flesh, and Tahvo’s soft voice urging her to come away. And she remembered, with endless sorrow, how the earth had given another great shudder and closed the rift, sealing the wound as if it had never existed.
She knew, even without hearing Tahvo’s hushed affirmation, that Cian would not return. Not to this place. Not to her.
“He is not dead,” Tahvo said, her hand resting on Rhenna’s shoulder. “I would feel it if his spirit had left this world. So would you.”
“Our feelings can’t be trusted, Tahvo. We should have known that Yseul wouldn’t give up. We should have known she had powerful allies, like your Urho. And Farkas.” She swallowed. “I never saw Farkas again after Sutekh attacked him. Do they still live, Tahvo?”
“I do not know.”
“Then we must assume the worst.”
Tahvo gave her a quick, fierce hug and got to her feet. “There are many wounded who need a healer’s care,” she said. “I do not know how much longer Dakka’s gift of sight will last….”
“Go. I’ll be all right.”
Tahvo nodded and headed for the nearest group of survivors, who huddled, dazed and leaderless, on the plain. A few of the hardiest Meroites had collected brush and made small fires; they shone like fragile beacons of hope in the gathering darkness. A full moon rose over the hills to the east. When the stars came out, Rhenna opened the sack that Tahvo had brought from the Archives, unrolled a scroll and gazed at the rows of meaningless symbols.
For this Cian had gone mad. For this a city had died.
“At least some of the sacred writings were saved.”
She turned to face the man who spoke, too weary for surprise. Khaleme dropped an armful of branches and sank to his heels, black eyes unreadable.
“I am glad to see that you and the healer survived,” he said, sorting the branches according to size. “Do
you have flints to start a fire?”
Something in Khaleme’s pragmatic manner shook Rhenna from her misery. She drew her flints from the pouch at her belt and tossed them to the warrior.
“I didn’t see you after we entered the city,” she said.
He struck the flints, raising a spark on the first try. “I was unable to accompany you to the palace,” he said, “and then, when the trouble began…”
Trouble. It was a strange word to describe what must be the end of the world he had known. “Have you seen Nyx?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I have heard rumors that the king is dead, along with many of his soldiers. I pray that Lady Netiquert lives, so that she may lead our people.”
“Lead them where?” Rhenna asked. “To what?”
Khaleme nursed the spark into a flame. “To a new beginning,” he said. “The old order has ended, but the prophecies remain true. The great battle lies ahead.”
Rhenna covered her face with her hands, sick to death of noble causes. An animal, perhaps some hungry scavenger in search of an easy meal, cried out near the scattered stones of the wall. A male voice carried sweet and clear from another fire.
“He sings a song of mourning,” Khaleme said.
And what right have I to mourn? Rhenna thought. How many lives were lost today because of the monster Cian became? If we had never come to this city…
“The past cannot be undone,” Khaleme said, feeding sticks into the fire. “We must go on. This is what the Watcher would wish.”
She stared at him across the fire. “How do you know what became of Cian?”
“Even in a dying city, such tragedies do not long remain secret.”
“Don’t you blame him for this?” she asked, waving toward the ruins. “Don’t you blame all of us?”
“Surely the prophecies foretold the city’s end.”
Rhenna laughed bitterly. “You should curse your prophecies, and all the gods who abandoned you.”
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