Slaves roared with laughter and openly mocked the whip-master.
I did it. Elissa grinned, and she shot out of the hatch. She shot out and discovered a ring of soldiers waiting on deck, two holding nets. One net twirled. She somersaulted over planks. The lead pellets that weighted the net’s edge rattled harmlessly on the deck behind her. The other net entangled her. Soldiers charged. Clubs thwacked against her spine and on her sides. One club thudded against her skull. I've failed… She slid bonelessly into unconsciousness.
-13-
“This is the Rhune?” a man asked, “This sick animal that can’t even straighten its eyes.”
Elissa lay in a heap before a curule chair, fevered and concussed. The chair’s occupant, she observed hazily, wore a sleeveless tunic and kept flexing his right thigh. He was boyishly handsome, but there was something evil about him. He had yellow curls and the most insincere smile, lacking even Himilco’s dubious charm.
“Do you call that beautiful?” the man asked.
“No, Lord,” a soldier said.
The sun glinting off the soldier’s shiny breastplate hurt Elissa’s eyes. The soldier had a shaggy beard and gnarled, war-ravaged limbs. The scars merged into an ugly, twisted mass.
It was then she realized her world was moving. It tilted one way and then the other, each shift accompanied by a loud creaking sound. That caused a thunderous pounding in her head. She turned away and retched on the boards.
“That’s disgusting,” the man said.
“They clubbed her on the head, Lord.”
“Out of revulsion?”
“She bolted out of the rowing hold, Lord. She cut one of your men.”
“This preposterous story of her hiding in the bilge, was there anything to it?”
“The men swear she climbed out of the bilge, Lord.”
“Would you crawl into the bilge to hide?”
The shaggy-bearded soldier hesitated.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” the man said. “It’s disgusting. It’s revolting. Some things aren’t worth doing in order to stay alive.”
“No, Lord.”
“Don’t say that just to please me. You know I hate liars.”
“You’ve built your reputation on the truth, Lord.”
“Hmm. Toe her, would you. Does the Rhune think it can vomit all over my deck and then fall asleep on us?”
Something pressed into Elissa’s side.
“Kick it.”
Elissa tried to say that she was awake, but only managed a groan. Before the kick arrived, she dragged herself to a crouched position.
“It looks like a feral cat about to leap,” the man said.
Swords slid out of scabbards.
“You disarmed it?” the man asked.
“The captain of Glorious Reign said his men took a knife—”
“This magic knife?” the man asked.
“It’s mine,” Elissa said.
“What did it say?”
“I believe—”
Elissa opened her eyes and stared into the blue orbs of the curly-haired Tyrant.
“She’s hideous.” Alexon leaned toward her as he held out his palm. The soldier handed his lord something shiny. Alexon held a mirror before her.
“Look how ugly you are,” he said.
Elissa tried to focus. She saw dark circles around her eyes. Her lean features were wan, almost dried out.
“Legend says that Rhunes are beautiful,” Alexon said. “Are you beautiful?”
Elissa began to shake her head, but that hurt too much.
“It’s honest, at least.”
“Alexon,” she whispered.
The handsome man scowled. “I’m Tyrant Alexon. You may call me ‘Lord’ or ‘Gracious Tyrant.’ You soil my name by speaking it, so I forbid you to do so.”
“Yes, Lord,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrows and then resumed his normal posture, with his right leg outstretched. He flexed his thigh again and ran his hand over the muscle.
A purple awning snapped in the breeze. Sunlight slanted past it to shine on the soldier’s bronze breastplate. There were other armored men. Some wore bronze helmets with horsetails flowing out of the top. Gems flashed from their scabbards. Their kilts were richly woven. Elissa suspected they were captains and commanders, likely all nobles.
A big sailor behind Alexon’s curule chair grasped a steering strut. There was another strut, another steersman and another steering oar on the opposite side. The very end of the quinquereme, the stern, curved upward like a swan’s tail. Golden nails hammered into the wood glittered from it.
It was hard to turn her head, so Elissa didn’t try. A smear on the horizon seemed as if it was Karchedon. The music from pipes and flutes floated across the choppy stomach-churning waters. Many more galleys floated nearby.
“She has a fever, Lord.”
“My first instinct was to destroy it,” Alexon said. “Now that I see it and its hideous ugliness…”
“Gracious Tyrant,” Elissa whispered.
“Yes?” he asked. “Speak. You have our attention.”
“Water,” she whispered.
“We should beat it to death,” another man said.
Strained silence fell upon the assembly of soldiers. Elissa felt it enough to peer around. Alexon stared at a soldier. The Tyrant wore a nasty smile.
The soldier ripped off his helmet and held it in the crook of his arm. He bent on one knee before Alexon and bowed his head. “I am a lout, Gracious Alexon. I spoke out of turn. I beg you, Lord, punish me as I so richly deserve.”
Alexon laughed and glanced around at the others. “What nonsense is this? We are a band of warriors. You are my companions. We may speak freely with each other. Yes, perhaps it was rude to shout such a barbarous thing before I’d decided its fate. Ah, I know. A joke, we need a small joke to help enliven our spirits. Captain, fill your helmet with water and hold it for the Rhune to drink.”
Several soldiers laughed. The soldier with the shiny breastplate smiled within his bramble of a beard.
A servant ran forward with a flagon and gurgled water into the captain’s helmet. The captain approached Elissa, and he bent on one knee.
“Nobles of Delium are the most courteous in the world!” Alexon shouted.
“Here is your drink, madam,” the captain said.
Elissa managed a bare nod and slurped greedily. She gasped for air and drank more. At first, the captain held the helmet awkwardly. Halfway through, he began to tilt it just right. Perhaps he recognized her need.
“How touching,” Alexon said, and he glanced around.
Soldiers laughed.
“You’d better throw away that helmet, Captain,” Alexon said. “They say Rhunes spew poisons with their breath. They’re like vipers.” The Tyrant leaned toward Elissa. “Are you planning to spit poison at me, you ugly little viper?”
“I came to warn you, Gracious Tyrant,” Elissa said.
The blond eyebrows shot up theatrically. “I’m touched. So warn me.”
Elissa swallowed and tried to hold her thoughts together. A dull beat kept ringing in her head, making her want to vomit again.
“I flew out of Karchedon,” she whispered.
“We found your kite,” he said. “That part is true. Go on.”
“My father was the suffete,” she whispered.
“You’re a Rhune,” he said, “not a Karchedonian.”
“I’m half-Rhune, Gracious Tyrant. My mother was a visiting princess.”
Alexon straightened, and he scowled. “Rhunes and humans mating together. You expect me to believe that?”
“Rhunes are human, Gracious Tyrant.”
“No wonder you’re so ugly,” he said. “Humans and Rhunes. I wonder if apes and humans can successfully breed.”
“My point, Gracious Tyrant, is that as my father’s daughter, I have no great love for Delium. You destroyed our fleet.”
“Something I’ve long planned to do,” he said.
“What proof do you have of this?”
Elissa wanted more water, but felt certain it was the wrong time to ask. His last question was the first proof she had that the Tyrant knew what he was doing.
“You cannot simply spout such things,” Alexon said, “and expect me to believe them. It is the most elementary of strategies to induce bickering among allies. On matters of state policy, one needs concrete evidence regarding such things.”
“Gracious Tyrant,” Elissa said, “I hid on the Temple Mount throughout most of yesterday. Before the Nasamons entered, I witnessed the commander of the Donkey Gate and his soldiery marching up the Processional Way. It is against Karchedonian custom for military formations to walk onto the Temple Mount. The commander’s men all wore yellow armbands.”
“This is war, Rhune. Sometimes a commander breaks customs in order to protect a powerful position.”
“The Nasamons came through the Donkey Gate, Gracious Tyrant. The commander of the Donkey Gate never fought the Nasamons once they were in the city.”
“Your point is what?” Alexon asked.
“Gracious Tyrant, Rhunes pride themselves on logical reasoning. The commander of the Donkey Gate and his men must have marched away from the post because the Nasamons offered them enough to make their treason worth the effort.”
“You approve of treason, do you?”
“I despise it, Gracious Tyrant. It is my belief that the commander and Himilco Nara—”
“Who?”
“The primal traitor,” Elissa said, “a priest of Bel Ruk.”
“Ah,” Alexon said, his blue eyes shining. “You’ve given me a name I’ve sought. Himilco Nara,” he said, as if tasting it.
“Might these men have agreed to let in the Nasamons, if the Nasamons agreed to let the conquered people of Karchedon remain as subjects instead of sold as slaves to you?”
Several of the nobles murmured among themselves.
Alexon rose to his feet. The company grew still. “Did you ride your kite as an assassin?” Alexon asked.
“I do not understand your question, Lord.”
“Your father tried to assassinate me several weeks ago. Several of my courtesans were slain instead.”
Elissa grew faint. How could she have forgotten that?
“Were you his final attempt?” Alexon asked.
“Against you, Gracious Tyrant?”
“Don’t evade the question.”
“I will answer, Lord. I came as a fugitive, driven from my home. I have no love for Delium, but I hate the traitors of Karchedon and the Nasamons more.”
Alexon stared down at her with pitiless eyes.
“You’re hideous to look upon, but you have courage and speak the truth. There is little enough I’ll win from Karchedon now. Why not acquire an oddity, a kite-riding Rhune assassin. First, however, you must prove you hate the traitors more than you hate me.”
“How?”
“Do you see over there?” Alexon asked, pointing.
“I cannot see that far now, Lord,” Elissa said. “My head hurts too much and my eyes are still fuzzy. Your man clubbed me hard.”
“It is Karchedon’s harbor. I need the chain lowered. A surprise lowering would suit my needs better than trying to force it. There may be a few soldiers still on guard there. You, my ugly little Rhune, will join several pearl divers I’m sending. You will help them lower the chain so I can sail into the harbor and pluck it clean. Since the Nasamons plan to cheat me, I will have to take my gains where I can.”
The Tyrant smiled all around. His nobles cheered with enthusiasm.
“Are we agreed?” the Tyrant asked.
“Yes, Lord.”
Elissa knew there was no other answer if she wanted to live. But there was no way she could swim while delirious and aching. Why did life have to be so wretchedly difficult?
-14-
Himilco changed into a black tunic, slid into yellow breeches and buckled on a scarlet belt. He shoved his sore feet into cavalry boots. The boot leather was soft calfskin and cobbled three years ago by a shoemaker just for him. He imagined his feet saying thanks. He slid a baldric over his shoulder. A scimitar dangled at the end under the other shoulder. Lastly, he shoved a felt shako onto his bald dome of a head.
The cavalry boots had heels and made him taller. It was the key reason he’d chosen a cavalier of Utica as his disguise.
Earlier, he had told Javan he needed some implements from his chambers. The newly elevated commander of the Prophetess’s guard had reluctantly given permission. Thirmida was in the baths, preparing for the great ceremony and thus unavailable for consultation. Himilco had waltzed out of the temple with a single Nasamon as protection. They had hurried to his chambers on the other side of the Temple Mount. A draught of drugged wine had taken care of the single guard.
Dressed as a cavalier, with a false black beard and with actor’s clay thickening the bridge of his nose, Himilco hurried to his study. He began plucking rare folios from cubicles concerning the Art. He stashed them in a carrying pouch. He included a small idol of a fat forgotten god, no larger than his palm. It had always brought him luck, and he was going to need that.
Everything had been working. Well, everything since that ungrateful she-donkey of a Prophetess had fallen unconscious instead of dead from his blood bird. It would have worked, too. Thirmida was about to hack open the ingrate’s chest and search for a heart. He wished her luck and could imagine the stir when Thirmida announced that their former Prophetess lacked the organ of love and good deeds. Still, the vile one would die and the innocent girl would have taken her place. Thirmida needed help, and he would have been just the man to supply it. She had to wreck everything by boasting she could pick up the skull scepter. Hadn’t she seen what had happened to Mab?
He’d tried to talk her out of it, but she had proven adamant. Maybe the peacock robe had gone to her head. It had swayed the sheiks, but it had made the young attendant believe that she really was a second Prophetess, that and the stupid dream.
Himilco slung a carrying pouch around the shoulder opposite the baldric. He dared take no more with him. He clumped down the empty corridor, staring at a hand mirror, touching up his disguise.
What would Javan tell Thirmida when she appeared from her bath, ready for the great ceremony? Orders would ring out for his recapture. Himilco knew that. He had to move now, move fast.
Himilco Nara, priest, suffete, sorcerer and traitor, broke into a stumbling run.
-15-
The three pearl divers of Dilmun eyed Elissa with stoically masked features. The four of them crouched in the front of a launch, an outlandishly large rowboat. It had five oars to a side. Ten sweaty sailors plied the oars and took them up and down the two-foot swells.
A touch of storm threatened, which seemed odd. It had been a perfectly fine morning. Clouds now hid the sun. To the east, the clouds looked darker. The breeze had strengthened and might eventually turn into a wind.
Before entering the launch, the soldier with the shiny bronze breastplate had shoved a corked vial against her breasts. His smiles had vanished. He had seemed like an ox then.
“Drink,” the soldier had told her.
Deciding she had little choice, Elissa had drunk. Going down, the oily liquid had burned her throat. She had almost heaved it back up. After a moment, a strange warmth had spread within her. Some of the aches in her head had dulled, and the worst pains in her side and spine had lessened.
“It is a gift from the Tyrant,” the soldier had said.
Feeling marginally better, enough to try to think again, Elissa had reevaluated him. He was no placid ox, but rather, a dangerous bull ready to gore anything that moved. There had been a lethal light in his eyes.
“My knife,” she’d said.
“Is gone.”
“Stolen?”
“Gone,” he said with finality.
>
She hadn’t asked him any more questions.
Now, she bobbed in this launch with the three pearl divers. They could have been triplets. They had wide, deep chests and seal-smooth limbs, with black mops of hair. Each wore a loincloth, each glistened with rancid-smelling grease spread everywhere, and all had hatchets tied to their waists. She still wore her garments from last night.
“Take those off.”
The pearl diver who had spoken pointed at her clothes.
Elissa stared at him.
“You must obey them,” a soldier said.
The soldier sat on a thwart, with a sheathed sword across his knees. A sailor sat at the tiller, completing the launch’s crew. Both men grinned with lust.
No one had given her a weapon. If she dove overboard, the pearl divers could swim after her and attack her with their hatchets. She began to unbutton her garment.
The rowers rowed them closer to the harbor entrance. At the top of a swell, Karchedon was less than a quarter mile away.
Elissa shivered as she shed her garment. She had torn her undergarments yesterday, so everyone aboard now freely examined her small breasts. Soon, all she wore was what remained of the bottom half of her undergarments. She saw now that she was covered in bruises. Some were black, some purple and a few yellow-tinted. She shivered uncontrollably.
“Rub this on your skin,” the pearl diver said, indicating a greasy bucket near her feet. “It will keep you warm.”
Whatever the soldier had made her drink earlier barricaded her against the fever, but it was there, lurking, waiting to engulf her. She felt drained and weak. As she sat stonily, she scooped a mixture of grease and fat from the bucket and began rubbing it onto herself, beginning with her legs. Surprisingly, it coated her against the cold. By the time she reached her neck, she’d stopped shivering, which heightened her feeling of nakedness.
“Seen enough?” she asked the soldier with the sword across his knees.
He’d been the one staring at her the most.
“The Tyrant wants an exact description of what you did and how you reacted,” the soldier told her.
“The Tyrant is an ass,” she said.
Rhune Shadow Page 13