by Wilbur Smith
‘Have the birds picked out your brain?’ Lannon looked at Huy in astonishment. ‘Why should we return him to his people, when we have spent so much effort on capturing him?’
‘We could use him as an ally then.’ Huy was trying desperately to get his idea over. ‘Through him we could make a treaty with the tribes. We could win him over and use him to secure our northern borders.’
‘Treaties with barbarians!’ Lannon was angry now. ‘What nonsense is this? Secure our northern borders, you say? One thing, and one thing only will secure our northern borders, and that is a sharp sword in a strong hand.’
‘My lord, please hear me out.’
‘No, Huy. I will have no more of it. He must die - and quickly.’ Lannon stood up. ‘Tonight at sunset. Prepare to send him.’ And Lannon strode away.
‘Dismiss the legion,’ Huy ordered his commanders, and nodded to the slave-masters to lead the captive away. But Manatassi stepped forward dragging the slave-masters with him on his chains.
‘High born!’ Manatassi called Huy, who turned back to him with surprise. He had not expected a title of respect.
‘What is it?’ Huy looked at him.
‘Is it death?’ Manatassi asked, and Huy nodded.
‘It is death,’ he admitted.
‘But you argued for me?’ Manatassi insisted, and again Huy nodded.
‘Why?’ demanded the slave king, and Huy could not answer. He spread his hands, a gesture of weariness and incomprehension.
Twice already,‘ the slave king said. ’First you turned the blade which should have killed, and now you speak for me. Why?‘
‘I do not know. I cannot explain.’
‘You feel the bond - the bond between us,’ Manatassi declared, and his voice sank low, rumbling and soft. ‘The bond of the spirits. You felt it.’
‘No.’ Huy shook his head, and hurried away to his tent. He worked on his scrolls for most of the afternoon, recording the campaign, describing the burning and the battle at the ford, listing the battle honours and the slaves taken, the booty and the glory - but he could not bring himself to describe Manatassi. The man would soon be dead, let his memory die with him, let it not linger on to haunt the living. A phrase that Lannon had used stuck in his mind, ‘the black beast’, and he used it as the only reference to the doomed slave king.
He ate the noon meal with Bakmor and a few others of his young officers, but his mood infected them all and the meal was awkward, the conversation trivial and stilted. Afterwards Huy spent an hour with his adjutant and quartermaster ordering the legion’s affairs, then he worked with the axe until his sweat ran down his body in streams. He scraped and oiled and changed into fresh robes for the sacrifice, and went to Lannon’s tent. Lannon was in conference, a group of his advisers and officials sitting in a half-circle around him on the skins and cushions. Lannon looked up and smiled and called Huy to him.
‘Sit by me, my Sunbird. There is something here on which I would value your thoughts.’ And Huy sat and listened to Lannon directing the affairs of the four kingdoms with a quick and confident logic. He made decisions which would have tormented Huy for days, and he made them easily, without doubts or hesitations. Then he dismissed his court, and turned to Huy.
‘A bowl of wine with me, Huy. It will be many days before we have the chance again, for in the morning I leave you,’
‘Whither, my lord?’
‘I return to Opet, but at speed. I will leave you and your slaves and herds to make the best of it.’
They drank together, exchanging the seemingly easy desultory talk of old friends, but Huy was manoeuvring for an opening to speak of Manatassi, and Lannon was deftly denying it to him. At last Huy in desperation approached the subject directly.
‘The Vendi king, my lord.’ And he got no further, for Lannon slammed the wine bowl down so that it cracked and a ruby gush of the lees spurted onto the furs on which they sat.
‘You presume on friendship. I have ordered his death. Except for the axe stroke the matter is settled.’
‘I believe it is a mistake.’
‘To let him live will be a greater mistake.’
‘My lord—’
‘Enough, Huy! Enough, I say! Go out now and send him.’
In the sunset they brought the Vendi king to a clear place on the river bank below the garrison walls of Sett. He was dressed in a cloak of leather, worked with the symbols of Baal, and he wore the symbolical chains of the sacrifice. Huy stood with the priests and nobles, and when they led the doomed king forward his eyes fastened on Huy’s. Those terrible yellow eyes seemed almost to hook into his flesh, seemed to draw Huy’s soul out through his eye sockets.
Huy began the ritual, chanting the offertory, making the obeisance to the flaming god image in the western sky and all the while he could feel those eyes eating into the core of his existence.
Huy’s assistant offered him the vulture axe, polished and glinting red and gold in the last rays of the sunset. Huy went to where Manatassi stood, and looked up at him.
The slave-masters stepped forward and lifted the cloak from the shoulders of the sacrifice. Except for the golden chains he was naked and magnificent. They had removed the raw-hide sandals from his feet. The slave-masters waited with the chains in their hands, at Huy’s signal they would jerk the sacrifice off his feet and stretch him out upon the ground. His neck drawn out for the axe blade.
Huy hesitated, unable to force himself to give the order, held fascinated by those fierce yellow eyes. With an effort he tore his gaze free and looked downwards. He had started to give the signal, but his hand froze. He was staring at Mana-tassi’s bare feet.
Around him the watchers stirred restlessly, glancing towards the horizon where the sun was rapidly sliding below the trees. Soon it would be too late.
Still Huy stared at Manatassi’s feet.
‘The sun goes, Priest. Strike!’ Lannon called abruptly, angrily in the silence and the sound of his voice seemed to arouse Huy. He turned to Lannon.
‘My lord, there is something you must see.’
‘The sun is going,’ Lannon called impatiently.
‘You must see it,’ Huy insisted, and Lannon strode forward to stand beside him.
‘Look!’ Huy pointed at the Vendi king’s feet, and Lannon frowned on a quick intake of breath.
Manatassi’s feet were monstrously deformed, deeply divided between the toes so that they resembled the claws of some preternatural bird. Involuntarily Lannon stepped backwards, making the full-handed sun sign to avert evil.
‘He is bird-footed,’ Huy said, ‘he has the feet of the sacred Sunbird of Baal.’ And there was a rustle and murmur from the watchers. They craned forward with a ghoulish, superstitious curiosity.
Huy raised his voice. ‘I declare this man god-marked. He is favoured by the gods - and cannot be sent as a messenger.’
As he spoke the sun dropped below the rim of the world and there was a chill and a dankness in the air.
Lannon was in a towering, shaking rage that paled his lips and face so that the black clotted scab of his wound stood out clearly on his cheek.
‘You defied me!’ he said it softly, but in a voice that trembled with his rage.
‘He is god-marked!’ Huy protested.
‘Do not try to hide behind your gods, Priest. You and I both know that many of Baal’s decisions are made by Huy Ben-Amon, for Huy Ben-Amon.’
‘Majesty,’ Huy gasped at the accusation, at the dreadful blasphemy of it.
‘You defied me,’ Lannon repeated. ‘You think to place this barbarian beyond my reach, you aspire to play the game of power and politics with me.’
‘It is not true, my lord. I would not dare.’
‘You would dare, Priest. You would dare to steal the teeth from the mouth of the living Gry-Lion, it the fancy came upon you.’
‘My lord, I am your true, your most loyal—’
‘Tread lightly, Priest. I warn you. You fly high in the tour kingdoms, but remember al
ways that you do so by my favour alone.’
‘I know this well.’
‘I who exalted you, have it in my power to throw you down as readily.’
‘I know this also, my lord,’ said Huy humbly.
‘Then give me this barbarian,’ Lannon demanded, and Huy looked up at him with an expression of deep regret.
‘He is not mine to give, my lord. He belongs to the gods.’
Lannon let out a bellow of frustrated rage, and snatched up a heavy amphora of wine. He hurled it at Huy’s head, and Huy ducked nimbly. The amphora slapped into the leather side of the tent, cushioning the impact and it dropped to the ground without breaking, wine gurgled from the mouth and soaked into the dry earth.
Lannon was on his feet now, towering over Huy, holding out towards him fists bunched into bony clubs, the muscles in his forearms knotted and ridged with exasperation. He held those fists under Huy’s nose, and his eyes were pale glittering blue and deadly, the thick red-golden ringlets danced on his shoulders as he shook with the tempests of his rage.
‘Go!’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘Go quickly - before -before I—’
Huy did not wait to hear the rest of it.
Lannon Hycanus marched from Sett with a bodyguard of 200 men, and Huy watched him go from the walls of the garrison. He felt a chill of apprehension, vulnerable now and lonely without the king’s favour.
Huy watched the small travelling party march out between the ranks of the legion, and saw that Lannon wore only a light tunic and that he was bareheaded in the early morning sunlight, his hair shining like a beacon fire. His armour-bearers followed him with helmet and breastplate, bow and sword and javelins. At Lannon’s heels followed the little pygmy hunt-master, Xhai the bushman; he was attentive as a shadow to the king.
The legion cheered Lannon away, their voices ringing from the escarpment of the valley, and Lannon moved through the gates. He stood taller than those that surrounded him. smiling and proud and beautiful.
He looked up and saw Huy on the wall, and the smile changed to a quick fierce scowl; ignoring Huy’s hesitant salute he marched out through the gates and took the road that ran southwards into the pass, and over the hills to the middle kingdom.
Huy watched until the forest hid him from sight, and then he turned away, feeling very alone. He went down to where the slave king lay dying on a bed of dry straw in a corner of Huy’s own tent.
In the rising heat of the morning the smell of the wound was the rank, fetid odour of fever swamps and things long dead.
One of the old slave women was bathing his body, trying to lower the fever. She looked up as Huy entered and answered his query with a shake of her head. Huy squatted beside the pallet, and touched the slave king’s skin. It was burning hot and dry, and Manatassi moaned in delirium.
‘Send for a slave-master,’ Huy ordered irritably, ‘Have him strike away these chains.’
It was amazing to watch the fever eat away the flesh from that huge black frame, to see the bone appear beneath the skin, to watch the face collapse, and the skin change colour from shiny purple black to dry dusty grey,
The wound in his groin swelled up hot and hard, with a crusty evil-smelling scab from which a watery greenish-yellow fluid wept slowly. Each hour the slave king’s hold on life seemed to slacken, his body grew hotter, the wound swelled to the size of a man’s bunched fist.
In the noon of the second day Huy left the camp alone and climbed to a high place upon the escarpment where he could be alone with his god. Here in the valley of the great river the sun-god’s presence seemed all-pervading and his usually warm benevolent countenance was oppressive. It seemed to fill the entire sky, and to beat down upon the earth like the hammer of a smith upon the anvil.
Huy sang the prayer of approach, but he did so in a perfunctory fashion, gabbling out the last lines, for Huy was very angry with his gods, and he wanted them to be aware of his displeasure.
‘Great Baal,’ he omitted the more flowery titles, and came swiftly to the main body of his protest, ‘following your evident wishes, I have saved this one who bears your marks. Although I do not wish to complain, nor to question your motives, yet you should know that this has been no easy task. I have made serious sacrifices. I have weakened the position of the High Priest of Baal in the king’s favour - I think not of myself, naturally, but only of my influence as your agent and servant. What weakens me, weakens the worship of the gods.’ Huy said this with relish, that must surely catch their attention, and Huy was delighted with it. He felt it was entirely justified, it was high time that certain things were said and that the reciprocal duties of loyalty were stated.
‘You know of old that no command of yours is too difficult of execution, no burden you place upon me but I shoulder it cheerfully, for always I have been secure in the certainty of your wisdom and purpose.’
Huy paused for breath, and thought. He was angry, but he must not let anger run away with his tongue. He had offended the king, best not offend the gods also. Quickly he moderated his closing address.
‘However, in the matter of this marked barbarian I have no such certainty. I have saved him at great cost - to what purpose? Is it your intention that he must now die?’ Huy paused again, letting his point sink in.
‘I ask you now, most humbly,’ Huy spread a drop of honey, ‘most humbly, to make your intentions plain to your always attentive and obedient servant.’
Huy paused once more, should he dare the use of stronger terms? He decided against it, and instead spread both hands in the sun sign and sang the praise of Baal, with all the skill and beauty at his command. The sound of his voice shimmering and aching sweet in the breathless heat-hush of the wilderness was enough to make the gods weep, and when the last pure note had died upon the heated air Huy went down to the camp and with a bronze razor he lanced the grotesque swelling in the slave king’s loin. Manatassi screamed with pain even in his delirium, and the poison gushed out thick yellow and stinking. Huy poulticed the open wound with boiled corn wrapped in a linen cloth, scalding hot to drain the poisons.
By evening the fever had passed, and Manatassi lay in exhausted, but natural sleep. Huy stood over him smiling and nodding happily. He felt that he had won this wasted giant, wrested him from death’s dark jaws with prayer and endeavour. He experienced a proud warmth of ownership and when the old slave crone brought him a brimming bowl of good Zeng wine, Huy lifted it in a salute to the sleeping giant.
‘The gods have given you to me. You are mine. You live under my protection now, and I pledge it to you,’ And he drained the bowl.
The weakness of his body smothered him, pressing him down on the hard mattress of straw. It was an effort to lift head or hand, and he hated his body that had failed him now. He rolled his head slowly and opened his eyes.
Across the tent, on a mat of woven reeds sat the strange little man. Manatassi watched him with a quick flaring of interest. He was stooped over a roll of the strange glowing metal that had been beaten out into a thin pliable length, and with a pointed knife he was scratching and cutting marks into the soft surface. He spent many hours of each day at this unusual activity. Manatassi watched him, noticing the quick nervous birdlike movements of head and hands that set the golden earrings jangling and the thick black plaits of hair dangling down his back.
The head seemed too large for the oddly hunched body, and the legs and arms were long and thick and brutal-looking, dark hair grew on the forearms and the back of the long tapered hands - and Manatassi remembered the speed and strength of that body in battle. He lifted his head slightly and glanced down at the linen bandages which swathed his lower body.
At the movement Huy was on his feet in one swift movement, and he came to the pallet and stooped over him, smiling.
Huy said, ‘You sleep like a breastfed baby.’ And Manatassi looked up at him, wondering that a man could speak such a deadly insult to the paramount king of Vendi - and smile as he said it.
‘Aia, bring food,’ Huy
shouted for the old slave woman, and settled down on a cushion beside Manatassi’s couch. While Manatassi ate with huge appetite he listened with only a small part of his attention to a ridiculous description of the moon as a white-faced woman. He wondered that such a skilled warrior could be so naive. It was only necessary to look at the moon to see that it was a cake of ground corn, and as the Mitasi-Mitasi the one great god devoured it, so the shape of his bite could clearly be seen cut from the round cake.
‘Do you understand this?’ Huy asked with deep concern, and Manatassi answered readily, ‘I understand, high-born.’
‘You believe it?’ Huy insisted.
I believe it.‘ Manatassi gave the answer which he knew would please, and Huy nodded happily. His efforts to teach the slave king were most rewarding. He had explained the theory of symbolic representation very carefully, showing Manatassi that the moon was not Astarte but her symbol, her coin, her sign and promise. He had explained the waning and waxing as the symbolic subjugation of the female to the male, repeated in the human female by the periodic moon-sickness.
‘Now, the great god Baal,’ Huy said, and Manatassi sighed inwardly. He knew what was coming. This strange person would now talk about the hole in the sky through which Mitasi-Mitasi made his entrances and exits. He would try to make Manatassi believe that this was a man with a flowing red beard. What a contradictory people they were, these pale ghost-like beings. On the one hand they had weapons and clothes and wonderful possessions and almost magical skills in civil and military matters. He had seen them fight and work, and it had amazed him. Yet these same people could not recognize truths that even the unweaned infants of his tribe understood completely.
Manatassi’s first conscious thoughts when he had emerged from the hot mists of fever had been of escape. But now, forced by his weakness into the role of observer, he had time to reconstruct his plans. He was safe here, this hunch-backed manikin wielded some strange power, and he was under its protection. He knew this now. No one would touch him as long as his new master held his shield over him.