“I have a message from the queen. Her father is dead. He died last night. Now listen to me carefully. The queen is ready to support us in our cause if we support her. The chief princes and officials of the court are low men like the tyrant himself and they support him. However, this support for the king is not strong among the men who came with the queen. She seeks allies in Hybron. We here, who have been robbed by this heathen on the throne and the queen also wish to see the proper order of things restored to the land. And a proper nobleman upon the throne.”
“What of her uncle?” Asked one of the priests.
“What of him?”
“Won't he try to exert influence with the king now that her father is dead?”
“It is a possibility. . .”
“Rather, it is an eventuality.” Interjected Silam.
“Not if we put our full support behind the queen and the Egians at court. Besides, he is intolerant to any people or religion not born of Egi. We have only an enemy in him. It is through her that we can gain control. Both we and she can take care of any trouble from him if we support her. She will need our help and we will need hers to rid the land of the tyrant. Besides, we have our own militia to deal with Teraht, should he decide to rouse himself and come to Hybron.”
“And there are ways for a man to meet his end on the road.” Said Shishak. This sent a wave of frank and relieved murmurs among the old men and oldest priests among them but some shot him dark looks.
“With the Egian warriors who came with the queen's house and the Hatchet Men, we have our own power base!” Said the young nobleman with excitement in his voice, banging the table with his fist.
“But is it strong enough to contend with the king's army? Or the queen's uncle and his army? The Hatchet Men are cutthroats and criminals, not a military force. If we move against him without surety of success it will be fatal for us and our families!” Said a priest named Zarhaz.
“It is still not enough. We need another lever. Something else is in the way that needs to be moved.” Said Silam.
“What?”
“The king.”
“That simple is it? Just move the king. And what will move the king? Can you move him?” Argued Zarhaz.
“He is easily moved enough.” Said Shishak.
“Pah! That from a man who was nearly torn apart by lions in the arena, per the king's whim! We all were nearly finished because of your stupidity, Shishak!” Spat one of the priests, an elderly man named Garu.
“I see you had no issue with more coppers for the temple when we all went in to the king for that!” Countered Shishak.
“So what? You went too far and without our consent! We ought to have you and Teman removed from the council!” Shouted Zarhaz.
“Those two ought to be whipped!” Shouted another priest. Shishak turned dark with anger which only angered the others more. Emotions were running high again.
“Men, brothers! Calm yourselves, please! What matters now is that we are still alive and that next time,” he stared pointedly at Shishak, “none of us will act without the consent with everyone on the council.” He reached out his hand toward Shishak.
“The seal, Shishak.” Shishak reluctantly took the forged seal out of a fold in his robe and handed it to him.
“Next time I shall be more wise in who I allow to have such a precious thing.” He said coldly and then he put the forged signet ring away in a small wooden box and continued. “Change is in the air. Can you not feel it? I have spoken with many wise men. Things will change in our favor.” Said Bakku.
“What do you mean, Bakku? Have you some knowledge we do not?” Asked another priest.
“It is not just for desert madmen to get to know the times and the seasons. Many wise men of the temple of Hec I have spoken with. They have seen the death of the king in battle, a tower in Gamina. They see a change of power but have not spoken with anyone on the matter outside of their temple, besides me. These visions are in our favor. All we must do is bide our time and wait for an opportunity. We need not do anything yet. “The snake shall strike down the lion while he rears his mighty head.” As the priests of Hec say.” Said Bakku. At this many eager voices rose with questions.
“The death of the king. Are you sure?” Asked the high priest.
“It has been seen by the high priest of Hec himself.”
“What mean you? Since when does a man of our community consult with fortune-tellers and sorcerers?” Zarhaz spat.
“Since I have an interest in keeping my family name, lands and position intact. You would do well to do the same, Zarhaz.” Said Bakku.
“Yes, I agree with this. All we must do is wait.” Said another nobleman.
“The snake. You mean this new woman of his?” Asked Silam, who seemed to be thinking the matter over seriously.
“The same.” Said Bakku. “She is our key. She will help us rid ourselves of the tyrant. And there are others in the land who would support a plan to remove him from the throne. We have allies in different places but she is our key ally.”
“Aich! A woman! Could not her father or uncles do the same for us?” Said the nobleman in disdain.
“They are not here. She is here and women are malleable.”
“A puppet? How delightful.” Said Silam. Some of the priests looked doubtful and Zarhaz looked downright unhappy.
“I do not like this. If she is the so-called snake to do this, perhaps she is not so malleable as you suppose?” He said. Silam waved his hand in dismissal of Zarhaz's protest.
“Prophecies contain obscure sayings and figures of speech, Zarhaz. Could your thoughts be any more concrete? So Bakku, how long must we wait for this vision?” He asked.
“Not long. There will come a time for us to act. It will be obvious when it comes. No need to act before thinking and before it is necessary, like some have.” He gave Shishak another withering stare. Shishak was angry and shamed but remained silent. The high-priest cleared his throat.
“It would seem the way forward is easier than we thought. Signs and portents and seasons have always been heeded by our people. We have been saved from death by God Himself. Let us wait upon Him for the sign. Bakku has found allies all around. It is wise to listen to the signs and portents of all wise men. How do we know what will or will not benefit us if we do not consider all sides? Let us listen to his voice. I perceive that Bakku is speaking wisdom on this matter. This woman will be the key to eventually bringing the city-states back to the land.”
“A queen in a city-state? How can this be?” Asked young nobleman.
“I see no reason why there cannot be a figure-head queen.” Said Garu.
“We will have to contend with her family, eventually.” Said another nobleman.
“A wall is built, one stone at a time, my brother. We will lift that stone when we get to it.” Said Silam.
“The lord high-priest is wise like his father. Let us listen to his voice, brothers.” Said one of the older noblemen and finally there seemed to be some consensus forming around Bakku's plans to back the queen.
“And also, let us listen to Bakku. I trust he knows the way out and forward for our purpose, being a friend of the queen.” Said Garu and then he took a sip of tea. He motioned for Bakku to continue.
“Just smile and bow as before, my brothers. It will be only a matter of weeks and the king will die.” Said Bakku. This gained their sudden and rapt attention. Bakku grinned. “Only a matter of weeks. . .”
The matter was birthed that very night. It was Rhajit who would unwittingly give the Ainash priesthood their chance. The guard at the Victor's House had various ties to rogues, good-for-nothing men, the arena and underground brotherhoods. He had eventually learned from a source who knew a man that worked at the arena of Teman's movements; when Teman went into the temple and when he left to go home and all his other movements. Shishak, he found out, was not as easy to get to. Yet. One villain at a time. he thought. He had Teman followed for weeks until the night when he was ready to ac
t. It was the twelfth day of the month of Aiphaz and the yearly harvest festival was coming in three weeks. The city was unusually busy and Rhajit saw this as his time to see about his business. Teman was often spied coming through the Southern Quarter on certain nights, on the whispered information from his guard. He slipped out under cloak and made his way toward the temple and waited patiently in the shadows. It was before Night Prayers and he was told that Teman had taken to leaving before the call to Night Prayers on the fifth night of the week – to visit the house of a woman named Seena. Rhajit, along with some fellow toughs came to see Seena one night and made it clear to her that he had business with Teman and that she would go along. He paid her handsomely to go along with his plan the following week. She saw that it was the one who had defeated the two lions in the arena and her demeanor changed from fear and suspicion to coyness.
That next fifth night he donned her veils while she lit a bar of incense, a few candles and strewed the petals of kata flowers in a path toward the bed. Rhajit sat himself on her bed behind the hangings, waiting. Sure enough came Teman, covered in a black, hooded cloak, a few hours later to his nightly affair with Seena.
“Seena.” Teman called. The door was unlocked and Rhajit heard Teman's footsteps padding toward the bedroom. Rhajit unsheathed a long knife as Teman took off his robe and grappled at his tunic. Seena smiled and disrobed. A noisy stirring came up behind the scribe. The bed hangings flew back with a sharp whip of breeze against her back. When Teman looked up, Rhajit was upon him. Teman gasped and cried out.
“Whore! Deceiver!” Rhajit knocked the woman to the side and bore down on the scribe. Teman tried to run, now naked as the night but Rhajit pinned him to the ground on his belly. He wrapped a powerful arm around the man's head and with the knife in his left hand cut his throat. He got up and looked at the twitching body.
“What did you expect from a harlot?” He said with scorn. He glowered at the woman. “You did not see anything here.” The woman nodded, a sly look crept across her face. He threw the bed hangings over the body and rolled it up. She gathered a robe and threw it over herself and sat in a nearby chair, watching him.
“If anyone comes asking, what am I to say?” She asked.
“He is a priest. Why would anyone come asking?” She laughed.
“Many priests have come in and out of here.” Rhajit glared at her.
“Tell them he did not come in to you this week. That he never made it here.”
“Are you not Rhajit the Ram? The one who killed two lions?” He did not answer her, heaving the dead weight over his back.
“Come and see me anytime, love.” She said.
“Just keep your mouth shut or I will have business with you as well.” He disappeared with the body down a dark alley. Besides the faint, scattered sounds of people inside readying for bed there were only the noises of small scavengers skulking the streets. Rhajit was growing tired under Teman's dead weight. He finally found what looked like an abandoned stall. He threw the body in the stall. Finding a long stick he tore a piece from the hanging around the body and wrapped it around the end, went to a lone, guttering torch ensconced on a wall on an old building nearby and lit the rag and threw it into the stall. He lit the hanging wrapped around the body and then threw the stick inside the stall as well, setting it on fire, then slipped off into the night.
The fire spread from that stall to half of the Southern Quarter. Later, many older people would remember that when they woke and saw the fires it seemed as if the eternal fires had engulfed the city, finally, in divine anger over the evil in Jhis. It seemed that the whole world had descended into the pit. Others said the dark fires of the Unnamed One had rushed from a crack in the earth from within the eternal fires and cast everyone into his realm. Either way, it was a nightmare that no one forgot and that many did not even live to see because they died in their sleep, unaware or died burning, struggling to get out of their houses, trapped by the fires. It was as if Hec's brother Heros opened up his forge and pitched coals into the city to smelt it. The smoke ascended to the sky for nights and days afterward and in the morning much of the Southern Quarter was destroyed and hundreds of people dead. The Southern Quarter comprised much of the people who worshiped Hec and when they found that their great temple of marble and majestic columns was burned down the cry arose that the priests of Airend-Ur were behind it for Lady Diti's public mourning was still called to remembrance. And yet, the Ainash priesthood's Golden Temple, their grand temple still stood, “protected by the Hatchet Men!”, it was said. Just days afterward there were numerous clashes between the worshipers of Hec and the worshipers of Airend-Ur and fights so vicious that the death toll went from seven hundred from the fires to one thousand five-hundred dead. The king called for Hard Law, as in seven days so many people had died. Anyone caught on the streets after dark who was not on city or royal business was executed.
The priests of the Golden Temple, through Bakku, seized upon this incident to go to the queen with a solution. As they put it, there was the problem of the desert women. “We are innocent of this wickedness! A curse this was! It is the witches,” they said, “who sit in their tower in Gamina committing many sorts of evils, speaking black treacheries, inciting the people to call down evil upon their queen and wreaking havoc on the entire kingdom, who must not be endured any longer if the kingdom is to survive.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The queen was deathly ill and it greatly disturbed the king as she was carrying his hoped for son. Her maidservants and the royal physician were all at her side. She was wet with sweat, fading in and out of delirium.
“What has happened to her!” Demanded the king.
“Your Greatness, I believe she has caught a chill but these women insist other things more sinister.”
“Do not let my lord king become incensed at us! For it is one of your concubines behind this. One who has bragged to you all this time of carrying a son and yet she has had a daughter instead. She has breathed threat and murder among her own women against the queen and consulted with diviners and witches to curse your future son and the queen!” Said Tryga.
“Salayma? She is too simple. . .” His attention snapped back to the queen as she rose from unconsciousness again. The queen's feverish murmurs grew louder.
“Salayma cursed me! She cursed me!” She whispered, her eyes rolling sightlessly. Sweat beaded upon her brow. The king came to the other side of the bed.
“When? How?” He demanded.
“She cursed. . .me. . .” She fell silent again. Her whole body was red and the skin burning hot. She closed her eyes.
“What is she saying?” Demanded the king to the maidservants.
“The queen invited Salayma to dine with her yesterday and then this morning. . .she became ill!” Cried Setimet.
“Your Greatness, we will keep her well covered and swaddled to make the fever burn out and subside.” Said the physician.
“How long has she been like this?”
“Only a few hours. I was called in as soon as she began to complain of sickness. My lord king, I have never seen a fever take hold so quickly!”
“She has cursed her with evil magic! She has seen witches, I tell you, Your Greatness! We do not lie! We have watched over the queen and would protect her with our very lives! There was no poison in the food nor in anything near the queen when she came or we would all be dead as we handle and taste everything before she does.”
“Yet, my queen suffers on the brink of death and my son may not live! You women I will put to death if she dies! Physician, do what you can! Bring Salayma to me!” He shouted to the guards behind the door. The maidservants all bowed low to the ground before the king as he left, calling for every physician in the city to be brought to the palace.
Miraculously a few hours later, the queen recovered and sat amidst many little jade figurines of Elyshe and Nimnet around her bed. Incense burned on a small alter in the queen's bedroom. She sat propped up on pillows, her hair disheve
led but herself fully recovered.
Salayma was brought before the king, terrified and in ignorance of the queen's episode.
“You have committed treason!” He accused and laid out the charges against her. The queen's maidservants were called in to recount what they knew and saw.
“My lord! I have not done this! She invited me to dine with her and I thought we would be friends! I thought. . .”
“You took that as a reason to move against her! She deigned to show loving kindness to you and you would turn it into black witchcraft to kill her and my son! My son, who is descended from the very gods and you would lift your hand against him in treason! A son, which you did not have. If I recall it, was a daughter you gave me. Jealousy and envy in a woman is deadly. I have had enough of you, Salayma! Throw her in the furnace!” They grabbed her, screaming and wailing in terror, stripped her and threw her into the fires.
And when the king found that the queen was recovered and doing well, his rage finally subsided.
. . .
It was early morning that found the prophet Ilim back in Jhis after he had been warned that the priests and scribes sought his life. He hid himself in a small village west of Jhis and came back two weeks later to resume his commission. He found that things had grown worse since he'd left. Summer was gone with the chill of fall finally settling in. The harvest festival had already started and the holy season of First Things would soon be upon the land. Except that the festive air that usually permeated the city during this time was not in evidence. Although it was quiet and only a few were beginning to stir for the daily morning ministrations Ilim could feel rage, bitterness, despair like an oppressive wave. Since he had changed, since he had seen and heard the glory of the Lord of the Heavens Ilim was sensitive to the emotions of others. He could feel it as a physical thing like waves washing over him at sea. It was nearly a frightening experience and it seemed to grow stronger every day, this new perception. Besides, he saw evidence of great trouble before he had even gotten to the city. Smoke rising and not from the usual direction in the north. It was coming from inside the city! It was on fire, or had been. Ilim's heart grew heavy with fear and worry for the Lady Diti. The men at the gate knew him instantly upon seeing him and did not question or stop him but merely bowed curtly at his approach.
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