Zoë, her expression thunderous, toyed with a knife, one of the several that she carried in her belt or thrust into the uppers of her boots. The side of the blade caught the glow of the fire, shimmering with red and orange.
"A noble lady..." The scorn in her voice cut at him. "A poor lie. A penny-hatiera in the baggage train, more like. Did you bring her fish too, to pay for her time? Was it worth it?"
Dwyrin stiffened at the vitriol in the five-leader's voice. Unconsciously he sat up straighter, his eyes narrowing. "She was a noble lady, well mannered and she could write. She asked me all about our lives in the service of the Emperor—what we eat, how we march, who carries the axes to fell trees, everything in the world, it seemed! In my country," he finished, glaring back to Zoë, "we are polite to strangers and accord them honor."
Zoë half sat up, her face stilling at the implied insult, the knife in her hand sliding forward toward him. Dwyrin felt the air chill, but he did nothing, keeping his balance—though it was hard! Part of him, some thing that lived in his gut, wanted to jump up and smash the Palmyrene's face with his fist or call fire to burn her. But he did nothing. He knew that he was telling the truth.
Zoë breathed out, calming herself, and sat back down.
"I suppose that she was very beautiful," she said, her voice weary and bitter.
"Well, no," Dwyrin replied, accepting the olive branch—if that is what it was. "Very pregnant, though! My mother would guess only a few weeks before she births, I imagine."
Zoë's eyebrow crept up at this, a procession of unreadable, but marked emotions crossing her face. She slid the knife back into its sheath and put it away in the back of her belt.
"Pregnant?" she asked, her voice a study of innocence. "A noble lady, you say?"
"Yes," Dwyrin said, now suspicious that she believed him. "Richly dressed, though the paints not overdone, with green eyes, long brown hair, and soft skin."
Odenathus hissed in delight, leaning over the fire, eager to catch every word.
"Did you touch her?" His voice was touched with a lurid amusement. "What else happened?"
"Nothing, Macha be praised!" Dwyrin said, making a sign for good luck. "We talked by the stream is all."
Zoë curled her arms around her knees, watching Dwyrin over the light of the fire. "Your noble lady, did she have a name? A house perhaps? A bevy of maids? A glowering chaperone? Bands of guardsmen?"
"No." Dwyrin sighed. "More's the pity—if she had, I would have made my escape much easier and been back here hours ago. Why should anyone care how the spearmen lace up their boots, or that we have sour wine one day in three?"
"Well," Odenathus said slowly, unable to contain himself, "did you kiss her?"
Dwyrin turned a freezing glare upon the Palmyrene boy, which made Odenathus sniff and poke industriously at the fire.
"I think," said Odenathus said, when Dwyrin said nothing, "that our barbarian friend was too polite to take such advantage—among his people it is not done, or so I surmise... this is why there are so few of them!" He laughed, but Dwyrin laughed with him too. It was good to sit all around the fire like this, sharing the events of the day.
"And, you say, this noble lady was pregnant too." Zoë's voice cut in from the side. "You did not say whether she had a name or not?"
"Oh," Dwyrin said, scratching his head, trying to remember if he had managed to get a question in amid the flurry of hers. "Yes, Martina—if my memory serves. Her husband is an officer from Africa—from Carthage, I think. I'm not a bard or druid, you know, to remember every little thing that happens..."
Zoë shook her head, then stood, staring up at the stars peeking through the crown of the trees above. She hooked her thumbs into her belt and turned, warming the backs of her legs at the fire. The nights were growing colder, even down here, out of the mountains. "I suppose that you were polite to her."
"I was on my honor," he snapped back, bridling at the implication of poor behavior in her tone. "I treated her as one of my aunts, or my mother—though she is neither or young nor so nosy as that one."
"Good," Zoë said, looking over her shoulder for a moment. "The penalty for such familiarity, you know, is blinding, I believe, or perhaps just torture and death. But still, I suppose that the tribune will understand. He is a caring and forgiving soul."
"Do you think trouble will come of it?" Odenathus tapped a long stick on the rocks at the edge of the fire, watching Zoë carefully. "I have heard that she is rather wise, even for her young age. Surely she saw what a lack-wit our Hibernian friend is..."
Zoë cut him off with a motion of her hand, turning back to the fire. Dwyrin looked from one to the other, a damp chill percolating in his stomach.
"The Empress is not my concern," Zoë grated, "but rather the temper of her husband."
"Empress?" Dwyrin squeaked, feeling dizzy and faint. "What Empress?"
Without sparing him a look, Zoë continued: "The Emperor of the East once had a man cut to bits and fed to swine for insulting her. Granted, he was an enemy of her house and a lying fool, but still... Or the matter of the usurper Phocas—there was a grisly death! He is a man, with a man's rages. He loves her too much, I think, to be as good an Emperor as he might be..." Zoë's voice trailed off.
"Lady Martina is an Empress?" Dwyrin laid down on the cold pine needles. He felt quite faint.
"Yes," Odenathus said, sighing as he removed the trout, now crisping in the heat of the coals, and slid them off the stick onto a wooden platter he had stolen from the ruin of Tauris. "I fear so. The only pregnant noble lady in this army would be Empress Martina, the young and scandalous wife of the Emperor of the East, Heraclius of Carthage."
"Scandalous?" Dwyrin perked up, leaving off from nervously chewing on the end of his thumb. "I didn't hear! What did she do? Did she cavort with stableboys? With gladiators, shining with oil?" Maybe she talks to young barbarians all the time!
Odenathus cuffed the Hibernian gently on the head. "No, you idiot... she is his niece. These Greeks are beside themselves with outrage that the Emperor should follow his heart—it is said that he loves her, and no less because they have known each other for years. Some odd concept that they should spread their seed afar..."
"That," Zoë said, her voice serious, "is not the issue. The problem is that fisher-boy here has poked his nose into a political hornet's nest. We are more likely to be screwed by something political than killed by the Persians. You"—she stabbed a finger at Dwyrin, still lying on the ground, feeling overcome—"are not going anywhere without someone to watch you." She grimaced. "Me, I suppose."
Well, Dwyrin thought, watching the moon slide across the sky, it was a good day after all.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The Walls of Palmyra
Zenobia stood on the battlement of the Damascus gate. Above her the sun blazed, a giant brass disk in a bone-white sky. The valley was filled with terrible heat, raising shimmering waves from the stones and sand. The Queen was garbed in thin silk robes that fluttered around her in the forge-hot breeze, clinging to the curve of her body. Her hair was loose, a dark cloud cascading around her shoulders. She had forgone the heavy crown of the city in favor of a thin band of silver set with a single ruby the size of her thumb. She looked down upon the Persian embassy with narrowed eyes.
"I am the Queen," she said, "if you would speak to the city, you speak to me."
The Persian herald, a thin brown man with a long nose, returned her gaze amiably. He was comfortable in tan and white desert robes and kaffieh, though the men behind him were red-faced and dressed in heavy, ornamental robes and armor. Zenobia guessed that at least one of them would faint from dehydration and the sun if she kept them there long enough. She looked forward to that with a small malicious pleasure.
"My master," the herald said, "bade me bring you his best wishes on this day. He inquires if you would consider yielding the city to the might of Persia and receiving his clemency and gratitude."
Zenobia sneered, her full lips—
outlined with dark henna—twisting into a semblance of a smile. "Give your master my condolences for his imminent death. Assure him that after the buzzards and vultures have picked his bones clean, I will see that his widow receives the remains in a fine burlap sack. I will give honor to his family and grind the bones to powder myself! The city does not desire the clemency of bandits and thieves. Tell your master that we will not bow our necks to him. He, however, may come to me and beg forgiveness of his trespasses. My mercy is well known throughout the whole of the world."
The herald nodded, taking a moment to fix her words in his memory.
"My master," he replied, "the great General Shahr-Baraz, he who is known as the Royal Boar, the favorite of the great King Chrosoes, the King of Kings, is well known for his mercy, O Queen, and for his honorable word."
Zenobia cocked her head to one side, staring down at the brown man. "And what, pray tell, does his honor have to do with murdering my people and looting the tombs of the fathers of the city?"
Overnight there had been odd cracking and thudding sounds from west of the city. Mohammed's men, having slipped out of the city at dusk, returned before dawn with news that the Persians had been looting the tower tombs and carrying off their contents to the Persian camp in the hills. Zenobia had been forced to isolate the scouts in the basement of the palace to keep the word from spreading. If the people of the city learned that the honored ancestors were being violated in such a way, they would have thrown the gates wide and charged out themselves with kitchen knives to take revenge upon the Persian army.
"My master's honor is unimpeachable, O Queen. He has no quarrel with you or your city. His quarrel is with Rome and the murderers of his great and good friend, Emperor Maurice. He does not desire to cause you harm—he desires only peace between the great and noble realm of Persia and the renowned city of Palmyra."
"He expresses his friendship," Zenobia said, her voice languid, "in a strange way. Thousands are dead in this peace, and many more will die here in the dreadful heat before his peace is done."
One of the Persian nobles began to breathe heavily, leaning sideways on his horse. The other nobles glanced at him out of the corner of their eyes, but no one moved to help him. The noble began to flush a bright red and his breathing became more labored.
The herald ignored the soft noises behind him, continuing to watch Zenobia with a mild expression on his face. "O Queen, if this disagreement is pursued to its conclusion, you and all of your people will be slain or driven into the desert. Your city, if it resists, will be utterly destroyed. No stone will remain on stone. Its name will disappear from history, buried by the sand. But peace... peace and friendship with Persia will make you mighty. The entire world will hear of the glory of Palmyra and wonder at the magnificence of it. Do you not chafe under the auspices of Rome? That mean, gray old man who clutches at you with greedy fingers? That miserly father who demands that you pay and pay, without hope of a return? Where is the investment in this? Where is Rome now? You stand alone, brave and glorious, against the might of Persia. None can say that you have not done your duty—the honor of the city is satisfied. Why continue to fight?"
Zenobia leaned forward, resting her palms on the hot ashlar stones of the battlement. "Tell your pig master, this Boar, that Zenobia will not be foresworn. His master is a whoring pustule of evil and his honor is worthless. Palmyra will stand against him."
The herald nodded, his face creased by a slight smile. "Be it so, O Queen. My master makes one final offer, then, though if you call him faithless, then it bears no weight on the balance of your judgment. He will send a champion forth, one man, to face the champion of the city. In single combat, here on the plain before the gates, they will fight. The man who stands the victor will carry the day. If your champion triumphs, my master will withdraw and his army with him. Palmyra will remain free. If my master's champion triumphs, then Palmyra will accept the friendship of Persia and open her gates."
The herald bowed deeply in the saddle and then turned his horse about. The Persian nobles turned as well, though the red-faced man had to be helped by two of his companions. The embassy rode away, seemingly small under the white glare of the sun. Zenobia remained on the wall, watching, until they disappeared into the dun-colored hills. Then she turned away and, surrounded by her guardsmen, descended the broad stone stairs to the courtyard below. Her face was pensive with worry.
—|—
"All rhetoric and disputation aside, my lady," ibn'Adi said, his face grave, "I have never heard that Shahr-Baraz was faithless. He has always served Chrosoes with honor, even when the King was a prisoner in his own keep. Did he not go into exile with the young King to Rome, leaving behind all lands and family? If he swears this, he may well mean it." The sheykh leaned back in his chair, stroking his long white beard in thought.
Zenobia looked around the gathering, gauging the reactions of the men she had assembled in her study to advise her. Her younger brother, Vorodes, and the Southerner, Mohammed, were eyeing each other, seeing who would offer first to bear the honor of the city. The high priest of Bel, old Septimus Haddudan, was sunk in deep depression. Though in his youth he had been a firebrand and a kingmaker in the politics of the city, now he was tired and withdrawn. Once General Zabda would have sat at her council as well, but since his failure at Emesa she would have nothing to do with him. Ahmet she looked to last. His eyes were troubled, but his face was calm.
"The fate of one against the fate of the city," she said slowly. "I too have heard that the Boar is an honorable man. His position is tenuous, trapped here in the desert at our gates. Men in such a place often look for a bold throw to give them victory at little cost."
Her fingernails, long and carefully shaped by her handmaidens, tapped on the smooth surface of the table by her chair. Ahmet watched her, seeing something of her thoughts in her face.
"I shall accept the challenge," she said after a moment of reflection. "Mohammed, send one of your rascals to the Persian camp, under truce, to carry word of my acceptance. Tell the Boar that my champion will meet him on the field before the city tomorrow morning, at dawn."
Mohammed raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You think that he will stand forth himself?"
Zenobia smiled, saying: "Has he ever lost a fight, man to man? No. Or so his legend holds. He is not the kind of man to send another to defend his honor for him. It will be he."
"Then," Vorodes said, breathlessly, "his defeat would wound Persia twice—once in their failure to capture the city and once in his death, for he is their strongest arm!"
A grim look passed over Zenobia's face and her lips thinned to a harsh line. "Yes, that is the prize."
—|—
Ahmet woke in full darkness. Zenobia was curled up in the curve of his body, her head tucked into his shoulder. Her breath whistled softly at his ear. The room was dark; even the narrow band of eastern sky that was visible through the windows was as black as pitch. Gently, he eased out from under her, leaving her among the pillows and quilts, frowning in her sleep. In the faint light, she seemed more beautiful than ever, a perfect alabaster statue among the dark blankets. He pulled on his breechcloth and tunic, smoothing back his hair. He did not bind it, but he did find his longer robe. The door opened silently on well-greased hinges and he went out into the passage.
The wall that girdled the palace formed the southeastern point of the city. Ahmet walked along the parapet in the dim light of torches placed in iron brackets along the battlement. Two of the city guardsmen followed him at a discreet distance, keeping an eye on the shadowed hills to the west. The Egyptian walked slowly, tasting the air, trying to divine what it was that had waked him. There was something, some pressure in the air, that raised hackles along his back. He dimly sensed forces gathering the darkness, out among the narrow canyons and ravines that edged the fertile plain around the city.
He stared out into the night, seeing only the faint light of watchfires among the Persian tents. Soon dawn could come. He shook
his head, still uneasy, and went back inside.
—|—
Pink and amber streaked the sky in the east. Zenobia came to the Damascus gate, riding on a stout-chested mare with Ahmet and Mohammed at her side. Vorodes and the royal guardsmen were waiting, torches held up to banish the lingering night. The Prince was unhappy, and he did not bother to disguise it as he looked up at his sister.
"Peace, little brother," she said. "I am the better swordsman. I should not have to prove it to you again before you open the gate."
The Queen was clad in dull dark armor; a breastplate of iron, worked with the signs of the city, wrapped her torso. Her shoulders and arms were covered with a lamellar mail, a supple coat of iron rings that flowed with her motion. The broken wings had been restored to her helm, and it was snugged tight under her chin. A long sword laid across her saddle, cased in a metal scabbard ornamented with lions and elephants. An inch of the blade peeked out, showing a watery surface that caught the light of the lanterns and held it, glowing like a jewel. Overlapping plates of iron covered her legs, tucked in against the sides of the horse. Tough leather riding boots and gloves protected her hands and feet. Another sword, this one plain and well worn, was clasped behind her on the side of the saddle, and she balanced a long, slim lance with a steel leaf-shaped blade on the right side of the horse.
Vorodes had a sick look in his eyes, and he grasped his sister's stirrup fiercely. "Please, let me go instead. If you die, then the city will lose its heart. If I die, then you will still stand. The Boar has your reach; he outweighs you by a hundred pounds! He is a giant, and though you are faster with a blade than any man I've seen, he will crush you with sheer strength."
Zenobia smiled and ran her hand through his hair. "I love you too, little brother. It was my folly that brought us to this day; it is my responsibility to make amends for it if I can."
The Queen looked around at the faces of the men, their faces somber in the flickering light. "My friends, it has been an honor for me to stand with you in battle and in peace. I have bent my thought to this moment for a day and a night. I am a better swordsman than my brother. You, ibn'Adi, are too old, though I see in your heart and in your tears that you would go forth if I asked you. You, Mohammed, you I might send if you were of the city—but you are a stranger here, though Bel bless us that you have come. Without you and your bravery on the field at Emesa, I fear none of us would have escaped alive. And you, Ahmet, dear Egyptian, have you ever held a sword in your life?"
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