The Sunbird

by Wilbur Smith

  The other thing he knew was that there was much to learn here. If he could acquire the skills and knowledge of this people, he would be armed a thousand times. He would be the greatest war chief the tribes had ever known. They had used these skills to defeat him, he would defeat them with the same skills that he learned from them.

  ‘Do you understand?’ Huy asked earnestly. ‘Do you understand that Baal is the master of the whole of heaven and earth?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Manatassi.

  ‘Do you accept Astarte and great Baal as gods?’

  ‘I accept them,’ Manatassi agreed, and Huy looked very pleased.

  ‘They have placed their mark upon you. It is right that you should be dedicated to their service. When we reach the city I will perform the ceremony in the temple of great Baal. I have chosen a god-name for you - you will no longer use the old style.’

  ‘As you wish, high-born.’

  ‘From henceforth you will be called Timon.’

  ‘Timon,’ the slave king tested the sound of it.

  ‘He was the priest-warrior in the reign of the fifth Gry-Lion. A great man.’

  Timon nodded, not understanding but content to watch and wait and learn.

  ‘High-born,’ he asked softly, ‘the marks you scratch upon the yellow metal - what are they?’

  Huy jumped up and fetched the golden scroll to the couch.

  ‘This is how we store words and stories and ideas.’ He plunged into an explanation of the writing process, and was rewarded by Timon’s quick grasp of the principle of the phonetic alphabet.

  On a scrap of leather he wrote Timon’s name in sooty black ink, and in unison they spelled it out aloud, Timon laughing delightedly at his first achievement.

  ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘there is much to learn here - and so little time.’

  Across the clay box Caius Terentius Varro, Consul of Rome, fought once more, pressing his legions into Hannibal’s soft centre. The centre gave, with the sucky reluctance of dough, the Spaniards and Gauls there withdrew at Hannibal’s design.

  ‘Do you see it, Timon? The beauty of it, the sheer genius of it!’ Huy called excitedly, speaking in Punic now, manipulating the counters.

  ‘And where was Marhabal now?’ Timon demanded as excitedly in the same language. After two years his Punic was fluent, with only the dragging vowels marring its perfection.

  ‘He was here,’ Huy touched the cavalry counters, ‘holding his horse on a short rein.’ Timon understood a horse to be a swift animal like a zebra on whose back armed men rode.

  ‘Varro is entangled now?’ Timon asked.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Hannibal has crumpled his front and enveloped him - then what does he do, Timon?’

  ‘The reserves?’ Timon guessed.

  ‘Yes! You have it! The Numidians and African reserves.’ Huy was hopping up and down in his agitation. ‘With the timing of the great master, he unleashes them. Taking Varro in the flanks, squeezing him in a vice, packing his ranks so they cannot manoeuvre nor wield their weapons. Then what, Timon, what then?’

  ‘The cavalry?’

  ‘Ah! The cavalry - Marhabal! The faithful brother. The master of horse, who has waited all that long day. Go! cries Hannibal.’ Huy threw his arm in a wide gesture. ‘Go! My brother, ride with your wild Iberians! They crash into them, Timon. It is the moment, the exact moment. Five minutes earlier it is too soon - five minutes later and it is too late. Timing! Timing! The talent of the great military commander, timing! Of the statesman, the lover, the businessman, the merchant. The right action, at the right time.’

  ‘And the result, high-born, what was the result?’ Timon pleaded, in an agony of suspense. ‘Was it victory?’

  ‘Victory?’ Huy asked. ‘Yes, Timon. It was victory. Victory and massacre. Eight legions of vaunting Rome wiped out to the man, two entire consular armies.’

  ‘Eight legions, high-born.’ Timon marvelled. ‘Forty-eight thousand men in a single battle?’

  ‘More than that, Timon. The auxiliaries were lost also. Sixty thousand men!’ Huy swept his hand across the board, exterminating the Roman legions. ‘We won the battles, Timon, but they won the wars. Three of them. Three bloody wars, that crushed us—’ Huy broke off. His voice choking. He turned away quickly and went to the water jug. Timon hurried across and held the basin for him while Huy washed his hands and combed his beard. ‘That brings us to the end of our study of Hannibal’s campaigns, Timon. I kept the battle of Cannae for the last.’

  ‘Who will we study next, high-born?’

  ‘The one who Hannibal himself rated the most skilful general of all history.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Alexander III,’ Huy said, ‘King of Macedonia, who smashed the Persian Empire - whom the oracle at Delphi proclaimed invincible, and men called the Great.’

  Timon held Huy’s cloak for him, and Huy fastened the clasp as he left the precincts of the temple college through the small gate in the inner wall. Timon followed a pace behind him, wearing the short blue tunic of Huy’s household with a light gold chain, dagger and purse belting his waist, the mark of high trust as a body slave. He walked a pace behind Huy’s left shoulder, so as not to mask his master’s sword arm, and he kept his hand on the dagger.

  ‘High-born, the manner in which Hannibal invested Varro?’

  ‘Yes?’ Huy encouraged him.

  ‘Could he not have advanced his flanks, and held his centre firm?’

  ‘It is the difference between defence and offence,’ Huy explained, and they plunged into the discussion of battle tactics and strategy until they left the main gate in the outer wall of the temple area. From here any conversation was impossible, for the crowds spotted this strange couple. Giant black slave and diminutive gnomelike master. They cheered Huy, crowding around him to touch his arm in greeting, to listen to his banter and perhaps receive an alms coin from the purse on Timon’s belt.

  Huy loved his popularity. He smiled and joked and pushed his way gently through the press. A successful general - there had been two other campaigns since the great slave-taking - a well-beloved priest, a noted wit and songwriter, and a rich philanthropist (Huy’s investments had prospered exceedingly in the last two years), he was the object of popular adulation throughout the city.

  They crossed the market-place with its fascinating smells and sights and sounds of hides and humanity, of spices and open sewers. On one of the slave blocks was a light-skinned girl of mixed Yuye blood, and the auctioneer spotted Huy in the crowd and called out to him.

  ‘My lord, a work of art for you. A statue in yellow ivory,’ opening the girl’s cloak to display her body.

  Huy laughed and waved a hand in refusal. They moved along the stone jetty at the lakeside where the ships lay with stern almost touching stern, their hatches open and a boiling of stevedores running over them, loading and unloading the merchandise. From the taverns and wineshops flanking the jetty came the sour stench of cheap wine and gusts of drunken laughter. The street girls beckoned from the narrow lanes between the shops. The uncertain light of dusk softened their raddled features and hectic painted cheeks and lips - Huy wondered what solace a man could find with the likes of them.

  Beyond the bustle of the harbour area lay the town houses of the noble families and rich merchants, each protected by the high mud outer wall and a heavy carved wooden gate. Huy’s new residence was one of the least pretentious of these, with the entrance off a narrow walled lane, and a view from the flat roof over the lake.

  Once through the gate Huy shed his sword and cloak and handed them to Timon with a sigh of pleasure at the moment of homecoming, and he went through into the paved central courtyard.

  The princes and princesses were waiting tor him, fourteen of them, headed by the twins, Helanca and Imilce. The two of them had grown in the past years, and they were stranded now in that awkward period between girlhood and womanhood. Too young to giggle, yet too old to greet Huy with a kiss.

  There were no such inh
ibitions upon the younger members of house Barca, and they swarmed forward to engulf Huy. The religious instruction of the children of the royal house was a duty Huy had imposed upon himself, and despite the estrangement between king and priest, Lannon had not interfered with this arrangement. He had not sanctioned it, but he had not forbidden it. Huy led his students through into the airy living-room of the house.

  In the courtyard one of the royal nursemaids waited until her charges had followed the priest before she turned and her eyes sought those of Timon. She was a tall girl with strong shoulders, long-waisted and with fruitful hips. Her legs also were straight and strong, but her hands were narrow and pink-palmed and delicately shaped. She wore her hair oiled and dressed in the manner of the Vendi, for she was of Timon’s tribe. Taken in the great raid, she was not slave born, not of the humble dependent breed that had known nothing but captivity. There was a fierce spirit in her to match Timon’s.

  Her skin was a shade lighter than his, her face was round, moon-shaped, her nose flat and broad, her lips full and pouting, but her teeth were small and even, and very white when she smiled at Timon.

  Timon inclined his head sharply in a command, and Sellene the slave girl nodded in acknowledgement. When Timon left the courtyard and went through the kitchens into the slave quarters she followed him.

  He was waiting for her in his own tiny room with its single pallet of reed mat and furs. She went to him without hesitation, and lay against the great hard muscles of his chest and belly and thighs. Her round breasts jutting through the purple tunic of house Barca pressed against Timon.

  They held their faces together, sniffing softly but eagerly at each other’s eyes and mouth and nostrils, clinging to each other in their need and wanting.

  ‘When I hold you, then once again I am King of Vendi, and no slave dog,’ Timon whispered, and the girl groaned against him with her love.

  With gentle hands that could crush the life from a man Timon loosened her tunic and carried her to the pallet. He laid her upon the bed, and as he came over her he said, ‘You shall be the first of all my wives. You shall be my queen and the mother of my sons.’

  ‘When shall it be?’ she asked him and her voice shook with the emotions locked within her.

  ‘Soon,’ he promised. ‘Very soon now. I have what I came for, and I will take you back beyond the river. I shall be the greatest king the tribes have ever known, and you shall be my queen.’

  ‘I believe you,’ whispered Sellene.

  ‘My royal lords and fair ladies.’ The children squealed with glee, it was one of their jokes when Huy addressed them that way. ‘Today I have a special treat for you!’ Again pandemonium broke out. Huy’s treats were usually something special indeed.

  ‘What is it?’ Imilce demanded breathlessly.

  ‘This evening you will meet the oracle of Opet,’ Huy announced, and the uproar subsided swiftly. The small ones not understanding but none the less infected by the solemnity of their elders. The bigger children had heard of the oracle, their nurses often frightened them into obedience with the name. Now that they were about to meet this mythical creature the atmosphere was charged with tension. They were all of them suffering from an onset of the creeps and ghostlies.

  Anna spoke for all of them when she asked in a very subdued voice, ‘She won’t eat us, will she?’

  When Tanith came she seated herself amongst them, and threw the hood of her cloak back from her face. She smiled at the children, and said softly, ‘I am going to tell you a story.’ The smile and the promise were enough to ease the tension and they edged in closer to her. ‘It’s the story of the marriage of the great god Baal to the goddess Astarte.’

  Tanith began the tale from religious mythology which was the basis of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth, a festival celebrated every five years. This year of Opet 538 was the 106th ceremony since the founding of the city, and the following day would begin the festivities that would last for ten days.

  Tanith held her young audience enthralled, speaking in the compelling voice which Huy had trained so carefully, using the mannerisms and gestures he had taught her. Huy watched her with an unusual mixture of professional appraisal and the adulation of a besotted lover.

  In two years she had lost the last traces of gawkiness and uncertainty, and although she was not yet twenty years of age, there was an inner calm, a serenity of mind and expression, that befitted her role of seeress and occult adviser to a nation. No matter that her pronouncements were carefully coached and rehearsed by Huy Ben-Amon, it was she that made the delivery, and made it convincingly. Much of Huy’s material success in the last two years stemmed from the questions and requests for guidance addressed to Tanith by the rich merchants and trading syndicates of Opet - and Tanith’s replies. The supplicants were usually well satisfied with Tanith’s advice, though it was always couched in terms of ambiguity to insure against recriminations. Did it matter that Huy Ben-Amon was also well satisfied?

  In the same way Huy, despite his loss of the king’s ear, kept a guiding hand on the rudder of the ship of state. Huy was certain that Lannon Hycanus was fully aware of the ultimate source of the advice and guidance which he received from Tanith. In any event, Lannon visited the oracle regularly in her shrine in the grotto beside the silent green pool of Astarte.

  On the morrow Lannon’s visit to the oracle would be his first official act that would signal the commencement of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. This was the true reason why Huy had summoned Tanith to his residence. He must brief her carefully on the replies she would make to the king’s queries. Huy knew with a high degree of accuracy what these would be, for his informers were close to the king and again Huy guessed that Lannon intentionally leaked his questions in advance, certain that they would reach Huy and that the replies would come through the oracle.

  Thinking of Lannon always brought on a mood of deep melancholy. Two years Huy had been without the solace of Lannon’s smile and hand clasp and companionship, and during that time the sharp edge of his loss had not blunted but grown keener. He would wait for hours for a passing glimpse of his old friend, he would pester others for accounts of the banquets at the palace to which he was not invited. On each anniversary of the king’s birth, and also on his throne day Huy had composed a sonnet and sent it with a handsome gift to the palace. The gift had been unacknowledged and the sonnet unsung - as far as he knew.

  Huy tore himself out of this sad mood, and looked instead at his love. The children had crowded her now, silent and big-eyed and intent. Four-year-old Hannibal, named after his illustrious ancestor, had crawled into Tanith’s lap and was sucking his thumb as he stared up into her face.

  Tanith’s mask of solemnity had slipped a little, with these children she was childlike, her expression animated and her voice excited. Seeing her thus seemed to add a new dimension to Huy’s feelings for her, and his heart swelled in his chest until it seemed his chest must burst. How much longer must he wait, he wondered, and for what? If it had taken two long carefully planned years to win her confidence, how much longer to win her heart, and having won it what could he hope for - for she was dedicated to the goddess and could never belong to mortal man.

  Tanith’s story ended, and the children exclaimed and clamoured for more, besieging her with demands and entreaties and bribery kisses - but Huy feigned outrage, and scolded them while they laughed and clapped their hands with delight. He shouted for the nursemaids and they came -among them that tall, brooding, fiery woman who always made Huy feel disquiet when she looked at him from those unfathomably dark eyes.

  He said to her, ‘Sellene, darkness falls, tell Timon to carry a lamp for you to the palace gate.’ And she acknowledged him with an inclination of the head, showing no gratitude at the order nor resentment either.

  After the children had gone they ate the evening meal, the three of them, Tanith, Huy and Aina the ancient priestess who was Tanith’s chaperone. Huy had selected her for two good reasons. She was half blind and
completely deaf. Huy had tested her by making obscene gestures at her from a range of twenty paces. Aina had shown no reaction, nor had she when Huy crept up behind her and shouted a rude name in her ear. She was just the type of chaperone that Huy wanted.

  They ate with the lamps trimmed low and the food served by one of the ancient slaves, and when they were finished Huy led Tanith up the outside staircase to the roof and they sat together below the parapet on reed mats and leather cushions. The night wind off the lake was cool and the stars very yellow and bright. Huy crouched over his lute, and strummed softly the rippling tune which he had trained Tanith’s unconscious mind to accept as the signal for hypnotic concentration. Before he had finished the last bars of the tune she was breathing slowly and evenly, her body still and her eyes dark green and unseeing.

  While his fingers ran over the strings of the instrument, repeating the tune again and again, Huy began to speak. He kept his voice at a monotonous sing-song tone, speaking softly but insidiously and Tanith sat in the starlight and listened with an inner ear.

  On the first day of the 106th Festival of the Fruitful Earth, Lannon Hycanus the forty-seventh Gry-Lion of Opet went in procession to the temple of Astarte to take the oracle.

  He passed through the enclosure of the temple of Baal where the sacred towers pointed to the sun, guarded by the carved sunbird monoliths, and where the silent populace of the city waited, but when he reached the cleft in the red cliffs that guarded the entrance to the sacred grotto he unbuckled his sword and handed it to his little pygmy huntmaster, his shield and helmet he gave to his armour bearers, and bareheaded and unarmed he entered the opening in the cliff.

  He passed through the paved tunnel and into the silent beauty of the grotto. The surrounds of the pool were paved with slabs of sandstone and the pool itself was edged with a rounded coping of the same material. Tiers of stone benches rose against the sheer walls of the grotto, and against the far wall the shrine of Astarte was built half into the living rock. Its portals were columned in the Hellenic style, and it contained the cells of the priestesses and the chamber of the oracle.