He dropped his hand and his smile faded. “Then perhaps I shall not offer to Ashtar after all. She seems only a minor deity, served by barbaric rites in the outlands of the world. Only women worship Ashtar.” One corner of his mouth wavered, not in jest but in renewed challenge.
The voice of the goddess cascaded off Danica’s tongue. “Men and women together worship Ashtar,” she stated quietly. “Women such as Viridis, your mother, and men such as those who fathered you under Ashtar’s eye.”
The sharp intake of his breath made the torches flicker. “You know too much,” he hissed. His head snapped around, his eyes a dark tempest of horror and anger mixed. “So that is your game. That has been your game all along.”
Her own eyes were opaque. The wine turned to vinegar in her mouth and she set her rhyton, very carefully, on the table.
He scowled. “You would hold my birth over my head and name me bastard. You would sever me from my kingship, from the rule of the Empire. You would mock my god.”
“I would bring you back to your mother, Ashtar. When you pay the debt you owe her you will no longer be bastard.”
His reply was short and ugly.
Danica turned, stood, and plucked her sword and shield from where they rested beneath the couch. “I weary of this game,” she said so that none but he could hear. “I shall return to Sabazel, and there shall I await your coming, for your debt is long unpaid. Bellasteros is, after all, a man of honor.” Her voice shook and she clamped her jaw against the tremble.
She stepped down off the platform and walked across the pavilion. The shield hummed on her arm, warm to the touch. The light it reflected was not that of Sardian bronze.
Atalia leaped up to follow, shooting a sharp glance of triumph at the bowed head and shaking shoulders of the conqueror. Ilanit rolled off the couch she’d been sharing with Patros and stood, uncertain. Every voice in the pavilion stopped between one word and the next.
Bellasteros rose to his feet, his fists clenched. “Danica!” he shouted. She stopped but she did not look around. “Danica! I did not give you leave to go!”
Slowly she rounded on him. Her shield flamed with a rivulet of pale starlight and Ashtar’s voice pealed through her mind. “Bellasteros,” she said, “may have the mastery of man and beast, but I am neither, and he does not master me!”
And there, she said to the goddess. There.
No one spoke. No one moved. The conqueror’s teeth glistened between his drawn-back lips. Danica stared him down. She refused to remember for even one moment the discomforting touch of his hand or the disturbing scent of his body.
Then Mardoc stretched, grinned drunkenly, and snickered under his breath. The chuckle echoed through the silence of the pavilion. Bellasteros snapped. His face flushed scarlet and his eyes fired in a mindless frenzy. In one motion, faster than the eye could follow, he snatched the spear from the hand of the guard behind him and threw. The iron point of the weapon ignited, slicing the air into tatters of light, singing as it sought Danica’s heart. The bronze falcons flapped on their perches, ready to take wing after their prey.
Ashtar’s shield sprang up, wrenching Danica’s arm, and the spear burst against the emblazoned star. Burning shards singed the rugs covering the floor and fouled the air. Danica fell back against Atalia, her forearm beneath the shield bruised and numb. Ilanit shivered as she cradled arm and shield together in her hands.
Those men who had leaped to their feet settled down again, shrugging, and reached for their wine.
Bellasteros braced himself on the table, his face as deathly pale as the surface of the moon. Patros went up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, but the conqueror shook it away. “Danica,” he croaked, “by Harus, I meant not to dishonor the bargain.” He was suddenly, desperately sick, his body rejecting the blood-red Sardian wine that had fueled his frenzy.
Danica turned away, sparing him that indignity. “And there, Mother,” she whispered. But she felt only pain. Atalia pushed aside the cloth covering the door of the pavilion and Ilanit lent her shoulder to her mother’s arm. The cool darkness blinded them. The still shapes of the waiting Companions seemed like ghosts.
“Come,” said Danica. “We must seek the borders Sabazel.”
She knew without looking that the conqueror’s eyes followed her. “Danica,” he called quietly, in a voice that seemed to enter her mind without passing through her ears, “Danica, I shall come at the turn of the year. I swear, by Harus and by Ashtar, I shall come to Sabazel.”
She did not reply. The stars appeared out of a pool shadow arid she blinked. The night wind caressed her face cooling it and soothing it. The shield on her arm lightened, drawn toward the sky.
He will come, sighed the goddess. He will come, Sabazel. But only Danica could hear.
Above the encampment, over the high plains and mountains sacred to the goddess, the moon hung suspended in a shining arc, Ashtar’s implacable smile.
Chapter Three
Night filled the mountain hollow. A wind purled through the shadows, stirring them with the melody of distant chimes. Starlight gathered like cool, crystalline fire in the wide basin of water on the flagstones.
Danica knelt an arm’s length from the polished rim of the basin, bowed over her scarred and dented shield. Starshine caressed the high planes of her face and flickered green in her eyes. Her hair fell like spun electrum down her back.
She raised her head, lips parted in a taut eagerness, searching the night sky beyond the mountain peak. There, yes, the eerie glimmer of the rising moon. Tomorrow night would be the full moon of midsummer.
She leaned forward and brushed her fingertips over the water. The mirror of its surface shattered. A slow, pale flare stirred in its depths, molding the light of the stars and moon into a luminescent mist.
Danica, sighed the melody of the wind, and the light in the basin wavered.
“Mother,” responded Danica. “I am here, at your service.”
Starfire sparked in the shadows. He comes tomorrow for the rites. He comes to you and to me. He will be mine.
“Yes, Mother. Yours.” But Danica’s brows tightened as she spoke, and her fingers flexed over the basin.
What do you fear? Him?
“No. Not him. Never him.”
The water in. the basin rippled with swirling flecks of light, splashing over the rim. Star motes fell gently on the shield, and it sparked in a sudden flare of gold. The dents smoothed themselves, the metal buckling silently into place, and the scars shrank and disappeared. The many pointed star shone out bright and clear, humming with one high, sustained note of power. Then the luminescence faded, the music of the star died, and the shield lay mute against Danica’s knees. She laid her hand on its warm curve and her face smoothed.
You are my morning star, daughter. You bear my shield, and you will be true to me.
“Mother …” She looked up. Only a flutter on the water remained, as if a wind stirred waves in molten light. Only a flutter remained in her mind. “Mother,” she sighed, her shoulders heaving. “My thanks.” The waves stilled themselves, slowly, so that her reflection took shape on the surface of the water like a distant memory called into conscious image.
Danica lifted the shield and set it thoughtfully on her arm. As she turned from the basin a figure stepped briskly up the flight of rock-hewn steps leading to the hollow. “Danica?”
“Shandir. Do you need me?”
The healer was a plump turtledove of a woman; her bright eyes missed nothing, and their glance held compassion for everything they saw. “No matter. The preparations are in good order. He will bring twelve men with him, the message said.”
“And Atalia?”
“She will stand guard this midsummer’s eve; she does not trust the Sardians.”
Danica laughed shortly. “And I do? Vigilance, Shandir, now more than ever.”
The woman did not so much as smile. “And you also, my queen. Be wary.”
Danica did not reply. She lifted the
shield, turned, and hurried down the steps, Shandir close behind. Rounding a buttress of the mountain, they came out into the courtyard of the queen’s own chambers. There Danica paused and looked with a sigh over the parapet to the walled city of Sabazel.
The city lay at the end of a steep-sided valley. The wood and stone buildings lapped at the precipices on either side. Beyond the Horn Gate were the farming and grazing lands, the trees and streams of the small country that was Sabazel. Danica heard the fruit trees sighing in the breeze, the delicate notes of a harp, a woman’s song soothing her child into sleep. On the walk above the closed gate was the quick, even sparkle of spear points. The sentries posted farther down the valley and across the high plain did not show themselves as readily.
Danica lowered herself onto a bench against the parapet, set the shield beside her, and looked away from the city. Before her rose the bulk of Cylandra, the moon’s passage, Ashtar’s sacred mountain. Even in the summer the snows of its summit glinted in the moonlight, cloth of silver against the stars. “Many times,” she said quietly to Shandir, “the moon has completed its journey from the underworld up the flank of Cylandra into the heavens. Many times the seasons have turned, since I climbed the mountain alone and slept in the cavern in the snows, waiting for the touch of the goddess’s hand, the visions that would sanctify me a warrior. The walls of the cave are painted with the exploits of our ancestors, when we rode free over the plains and did not huddle like frightened sheep close to Ashtar’s womb.”
Shandir’s skilled fingers closed over Danica’s shoulders, rubbing the tightness from them. “So speaks the high priestess, the queen, who bears the star-shield and hears the voice of the goddess, who is troubled by the changing world.”
“It used to be that the priestess-queen did not have to be a warrior as well,” Danica said. “Long before my mother’s time … She died defending Sabazel from change, and still it comes. My daughter returns from initiation, our future resting in her hands, and still it comes. The Empire fails and Sardis reigns. Bellasteros comes to Sabazel.” She shifted, not angrily, but in a weariness so taut it would not let her rest. “The world changes, but Sabazel shall remain free. As I live, Sabazel shall be free.”
Shandir sighed. “Atalia wishes that you let Bellasteros make his offering with another, that you keep your distance from him.”
“So she has said to me more than once, calling upon the shade of my martyred mother with whom, after all, she was paired. She fears his strength—and well she should. But he is a consecrated king and, thanks to Ashtar, claims the name of emperor. He is destined for me.”
“Then I shall attach myself to as many of his men as possible, to learn their temper.”
“Shandir,” Danica murmured, “my pair, you are as surely my shield as this.” The star-shield beside her rang gently as she touched it.
“I? I never even attempted initiation, fearing the nightmares that come to those unsuited.”
“So you heal those of us who are suited to the savageries of survival. Swordplay is not the only courage.”
“But do I have the courage to fail?”
Danica shot a keen glance upward. “You, fail? No, love, failure is my greatest fear, a chancre eating at my soul …”
“Shh. I should not have spoken.” Shandir stroked Danica’s hair, soothing her, and laid a gentle kiss upon her brow.
The moon mounted inexorably into the sky. The city grew silent, fires banked. Danica at last relaxed in Shandir’s embrace. “I cannot prevent change; I can only try to turn it to our advantage. Bellasteros is strong indeed, but it is his weakness that could be our undoing.” Or mine, she added to herself.
“We are in Ashtar’s hand,” Shandir said.
The queen, her bright eyes focused on the horizon, did not respond.
*
Bellasteros’s movements were abrupt. He might as well have been putting hapless enemies to death as packing a change of clothing in a saddlebag. “I made a vow,” he told Mardoc, who followed him, scowling, from chest to chest. “I must fulfill that vow or lose the favor of the gods.”
“My lord,” protested Mardoc, “that vow was extracted from you by deceit. Harus will absolve you of any promise made to Ashtar and her whores. The gods could only rest more easily knowing that Sabazel had been conquered.”
Bellasteros glanced at his general, making a quick, calculating appraisal of the man’s mottled face and burning eyes. It would never do to turn Mardoc against him. His kingship rested on a sword’s edge. His strength was tested in the flame of Danica’s green eyes … He shook himself. “I should not forswear any god,” he said, as smoothly as the knotted muscles in his jaw would allow. “Ashtar is not without power; witness the power in Danica’s shield. If our campaign into the southern provinces is to be successful, if we are at last to win Iksandarun and the Empire, then we need a strong Sabazel to guard our flank.”
“You trust her to guard our flank? She would as soon plunge a knife into your back when you bow to her wiles.”
“I did not say I trusted her. I said I needed her as an ally in the campaign—as she needs me to secure her borders. She, too, made a bargain.”
Mardoc spat eloquently on the ground. “The witch-shield glows with the sickly sheen of black sorcery. Ashtar’s meager powers can never approach the glory of Harus.”
Bellasteros closed the bag, flung it to a pageboy, reached for his cloak and his helmet. “True,” he said. “But power is power.” More acerbity than he would have wished crept into his voice, and he paused to swallow. “Mardoc. I trust you to stay here and ready the troops to move out on my return. Trouble brews in the south, and we have waited too long. Let me dispose of these warrior-women with soft words and with honey; we have no blades to spare for them now, and Sabazel would not fall without great loss.”
Mardoc’s mouth tightened and his eyes fell. “As you say, my lord. I will respect your decision.”
The conqueror grasped the older man’s arm in an encouraging gesture and nodded. But as he turned out the door of the pavilion his smile grew tighter, stretching his lips until his teeth showed between them in a grimace. Mardoc had once been a father to him; now, increasingly, he was an adversary. This woman took too much—more, perhaps, than she offered. Soft words, indeed; it had not been soft words that had won him the Empire.
But it might, he thought suddenly, be soft words that kept it.
He strode to his horse, leaving his dilemma behind him in the shadowed tent. He snatched the reins from Patros’s hand and leaped onto the animal’s back. The standard-bearer raised the bronze falcon in invocation toward the sky, and the company set forth.
Bellasteros glanced sideways at Patros, glanced again, frowned. “You look like a cream-filled cat,” he snapped. “Perhaps you anticipate disporting yourself with that girl—what was her name?”
“IIanit,” Patros replied, quickly rearranging his features into sterner lines. “I follow your lead.”
You do indeed. Harus, she is only another woman … Bellasteros growled some epithet and spurred his horse to the head of the procession. He acknowledged the salutes of the men he passed, but his gaze was turned inward, his eyes clouded with storm and doubt. The great horse pounded over the drawbridge; white water birds screamed overhead.
Patros bit his lip, hard, and tossed his head to throw away some thought. The short plume in his helmet shivered.
Behind them Mardoc saluted and held the salute until the company had left the encampment. Then, decisively, he dropped his hand and turned back into the pavilion. Within a moment he sat at the conqueror’s writing table, armed with quill and tablet, penning a letter cut with slashing upstrokes and violent crosses:
To His Eminence, Adrastes Falco, the Talon of Harus, Inquisitor of the Kingdom of Sardis; to be delivered into his hand only.
Reverential greeting.
Our lord has been bewitched by the Sabazians; he does not waver in his resolve to consort himself with their Queen. I fear the consequence
s of his actions, even as I assure myself that he acts as always in that temper which has proven him superior to other men. Please to send to the oracle, questioning her closely about the campaign to come, for my mind is troubled.
And please to send to my daughter Chryse, the First Wife of the King, my assurances of our lord’s devotion.
I am, Your Eminence, the most respectful and obedient servant of the God; signed, Mardoc, General of the armies of Sardis.
The dust of the conqueror’s company still lingered in the air, veiling the rising sun, when the courier took the road to the east. Mardoc stood for a long time in the doorway of the pavilion, until at last the hoofbeats, east and west, were swept away by a gentle breeze that had in it the sound of chimes.
*
The Sardians came at midday, riding up the valley in a panoply of jangling saddle buckles and clashing armor. The sun flashed on the bronze of the falcon standard.
The red horsehair plume was in the lead. Bellasteros sat his warhorse as tensely as if he expected any moment to receive an arrow in his back. Beside him Patros shot glance after dubious glance at his king but did not speak.
The Horn Gate opened before them. The sentries there leaned on their spears. With many ribald mutterings, the Sardians entered the capital of Sabazel.
Atalia stood armed on the steps of the temple, watching, letting no expression touch the frozen creases of her face. The soldiers passed through the agora, looking with unconcealed interest at the women gathered there; but many of the women were also armed, and the men’s comments died on their lips. Other men—local peasants, traveling minstrels and tradesmen, several warriors of the Empire—stood gathered in a hot, dusty group to one side. The looks they bent on the panoply of the Sardians were not friendly, but neither did they dare to speak.
Bellasteros reined in his horse, leaped off, and strode up the steps. He threw back his crimson cloak and laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Greeting,” he said to Atalia.
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