The Coming of the King

Chapter Twenty-Seven

‘ What’s happening? Is it war? It sounds like war.’

Caught too far from the tall, narrow window, Kleopatra tugged at Hypatia’s elbow, trying to see past her to the shouting men, the clashing weapons, the screaming, stamping horses that were causing such mayhem around the Temple below.

She was used to people who stepped out of her way. She was used to a lot of things that Hypatia, Chosen of Isis, did not do, and just now, Kleopatra wanted to see what Hypatia was seeing, and could not.

‘It sounds like war,’ she said again, in frustration.

‘It’s not,’ Hypatia said, pressing her brow to the window’s edge. ‘It’s the prelude to an execution. The High Priest has arrested Pantera and the men of Menachem’s party are trying to free him.’

She stepped out of the way at last, and Kleopatra pushed past in time to see two men of the War Party hurl themselves at the line of the garrison Guard. The legionaries, by a miracle of self-control, held up their shields but did not respond.

‘Why are the Guard not fighting back?’

‘Someone’s ordered them not to,’ Hypatia said. ‘They’re trying not to provoke a war.’ She turned at last away from the window. Her face was white, frightening in its intensity. ‘Where are prisoners kept in this palace?’

Kleopatra closed her eyes, the easier to think. ‘There are two places: the beast garden and the cellars. For questioning, they take them to a man-cage in the back of the beast garden, behind the stables. Sometimes, if the prisoners won’t answer, they set the wild beasts on them: hounds or boar. The Hebrews can’t bear it. Before an execution, they keep them in the cellars.’ She opened her eyes. ‘But in the dream of blood and gold, Pantera is always in sunlight. It’s how we can see the blood. The cold and the dark come later.’

‘And Saulos will want to “question” him, even if he already knows the answers.’ Hypatia gave a tight, hard smile. ‘Go now, find your aunt and tell her to petition the king for his release. Use whatever power she can. I’ll go to the beast-’

Hypatia was already leaving. Kleopatra grabbed her arm. ‘You can’t leave me behind. You can’t! It’s my dream too. I’m always in it.’

Hypatia stopped. ‘In the dream, are you watching, or are you acting?’

‘Both. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. It’s always different, you know that.’

‘But some things are always the same. What happens now, in the next hours, will change everything.’

Desperate, Kleopatra said, ‘I can show you the swiftest way to get there, through the slaves’ entrance. At least let me take you there. I won’t ask to go further.’

Hypatia took a moment longer to reach her decision. ‘Lead then,’ she said. ‘As fast as you can. But only to the door of the slaves’ entrance, no further.’

The fastest route to the beast garden ran through the slaves’ corridors on the first floor. Kleopatra led the way at a run, down the stairs and down again, then left along a corridor and right.

They passed three slaves, two carrying silver baskets of grapes, peaches, apricots. The last carried wine and goblets of gold, chased with emeralds. They smiled dutifully at Hypatia, in friendship at Kleopatra.

When they were safely gone, Kleopatra pointed along the corridor towards the vast oak door at the far end. ‘We need to go through that door.’ Black iron banded it and the lock was a hand’s length high. ‘The feeding room’s on the other side. The beasts are all fed at dawn; nobody will be there at this time of day. The door will be locked, but the key’s in a box on the right. People might break in, but they never think anyone’s going to break out.’

‘Thank you,’ Hypatia said. ‘Now go to your aunt. Tell her- What?’

Kleopatra set her jaw, mulishly. ‘You said I could come to the door. All the way to the door. We’re not there yet and there’s someone on the other side. You might need help. You promised.’

She spoke to Hypatia’s back; the woman was already walking forward, silently now, as if her feet made bare contact with the floor. The door to the feed room hung a hair’s breadth ajar. Even with so small a crack, the air in the corridor was heavy with scents of fresh meat and old fruit, of grain and milk and water. By the time Kleopatra reached her — walking silently was difficult and slow — Hypatia had laid her head against the heavy oak, pressing her ear into the grain.

At her gesture, Kleopatra came forward and did the same. With her ear hard on the wood, she closed her eyes and sent her mind through the door, a thing she had been doing since childhood.

She thought she might hear slaves preparing feed for the animals brought in late. What she heard instead were the soft movements of someone moving amongst the crates and jars and buckets and bales, picking things up, moving them. A slave would not have been so confident. Kleopatra inhaled, and smelled cat, and so…

She signalled towards the door. Hypatia shook her head, held up one finger, pointed it to herself and made a walking motion with her fingers; then, with emphasis, she held up the flat of her hand in the same signal she used to order the hounds to stay still.

Kleopatra took a breath to argue, saw the look on Hypatia’s face — and stepped smartly back to the corner, from where she watched Hypatia push open the door.

A blur of white skin and black; a taken breath; a woman moving — two women — and between them knives, as silver birds, flying.

The knives hit wood, solidly, to stand juddering, vibrating tuneful as arrows, but on a lower note.

One hit Iksahra, the Berber woman, on the shoulder. Or didn’t. Looking again, Kleopatra saw that the knife’s point had caught the loose flow of her draped clothes just above her shoulder, pinning her to the wooden panel behind.

Iksahra’s own knife stood out of the oak doorpost where Hypatia’s heart had been. But Hypatia was there no longer. She was in the room, to the right, by the tall barrels that held grain for the horses.

‘Will you drop the other knife now? Kleopatra, stay out. She has another, hidden.’

She has a cheetah, Kleopatra thought, what need has she of another knife? But the cheetah wasn’t there; she could smell it, she could hear its breathing, but not see it. Outside the door, possibly? Or elsewhere, ready to leap out when they least expected it.

If Hypatia was concerned she hid it well, and Iksahra was… Iksahra; ice wrapped round fire, hating the world and everyone in it.

For icy calm, they matched each other; both dark-haired, both tall, both much too full just now of unspoken rage. When it seemed their fury might crest, might spill over and cause untold damage, a blade clattered to the worn wooden floor, and then another, to lie among the feed bins.

Iksahra had held two knives in secret, then, not just one. But now none. Having thus disarmed herself, she crooked her finger and the cheetah was there, creeping belly-low from its hiding place behind the feed bins, ears flat to its head, white teeth flashing, tail a-twitch. It was commanded to stillness.

‘Why are you here?’ Hypatia stooped to pick up the dropped knives by feel; her eyes never left the other woman’s face.

Iksahra stood where she had been when the door opened, a figure of black and white, wreathed in loathing. ‘My business does not concern you.’

‘Everything you do concerns me,’ Hypatia said. She laid the blades on a workbench at the side, beyond reach. ‘Why do you hate the Hebrews?’

Iksahra blinked. No other muscle moved, but it was as great an expression of surprise as if she’d thrown her hands in front of her face as the Gaulish slaves did when they saw a snake.

When no answer came, Hypatia said, ‘We are here to free Pantera, prisoner of Saulos. You are Saulos’ servant, and yet you, too, are here, bearing knives and in the company of your cat which can kill a man as easily as it might an antelope. Whom do you seek to kill?’

‘Him.’ Iksahra jerked her head back, towards the beast garden. ‘The prisoner. Saulos has asked that I set the cat on him.’

‘To kill him?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think it will take a remarkable degree of control to set a cat on a man and then call it off before it kills, while it has yet done enough damage to satisfy Saulos.’

‘You think I have not the skill?’

Hypatia smiled, not kindly. ‘I would not question your skill. I would question that you let Saulos command you so. Has he honour? Is he the kind of man your father was? Is he worth your service?’

Kleopatra wanted to cover her eyes, to stop her ears. No one had ever told her exactly what the Berber did to those who impugned their honour, but she had an imagination, and it fed her visions of bloody, raw-red vengeance.

She watched Iksahra take a step forward, and then stop. ‘What do you know of my father?’

Hypatia raised a brow. With a rare diffidence, she said, ‘I know that his name was Anmer ber Ikshel and he served as beastmaster to Herod the Great and then to his son, Herod Agrippa, grandfather to Kleopatra who is standing so quietly by the door. He was renowned for his skill in training beasts; it was said that he had a great cat that followed him everywhere as a hound follows an ordinary huntsman. But it was his horse-breeding that was his undoing. Anmer ber Ikshel bred the best, the fastest, the most beautiful horses the world had seen. The best of them were the colour of almond milk with black manes and tails and they could outrun the wind for days at a time. Shall I go on? Shall I list for you the ways that your father met his end?’ There was compassion there, if you listened hard for it. Kleopatra was listening very hard indeed.

So too, in her way, was Iksahra. Her eyes were wide, showing white at the rims as a horse does when wary. Her long, lean fingers shaped the signs that dispelled ghuls and kept ifrit at bay. ‘How do you know this?’ Her voice was steady, but the effort required to keep it so was clear.

‘There are ways to find out things that do not take a message-bird,’ Hypatia said, gently.

‘What ways? Have you dreamed him? Have the witches of Alexandria sent you his ghost?’

‘Your father was famous, Iksahra. Everyone knew of him and even those now dead told their children details they will remember beyond their last breath. All I had to do was ask the slaves, ask Polyphemos, ask the men of the Watch who were detailed to escort me. They all knew his name, they all knew how he came to die. Shall I tell you what they said to me?’

With cold courage, Iksahra said, ‘Tell me. I would hear it from you, who have no love for me.’

‘King Herod Agrippa was in debt. That was not surprising, he was a profligate man and always so, but unfortunately on this occasion he owed significant sums to Gaius Caesar, known as Caligula, emperor of Rome, who had the power to break him. But Caligula was known for his love of horses and so Herod Agrippa conceived a plan to give Anmer’s horses to the emperor in repayment of his debt. He couldn’t pay for them, of course, he had no money, and he could not be seen to steal them from a man held in such high esteem. So he manufactured a crime, some fictitious treason, and had Anmer ber Ikshel killed, and claimed all his goods.’ Hypatia’s features had softened, and her voice was almost kind. ‘Anmer was warned by those who loved him of what was coming. He could not escape it, and did not try, but I heard that he sent away his nine-year-old daughter, that she might not see his ending, or know how it happened.’

‘I was told about it when I came to adulthood,’ Iksahra said, and her voice was thick with grief and loss. ‘They said he was torn apart between four of his own stud colts. My mother hanged herself. I knew nothing. Three days before, I was sent away to live with my father’s people. I didn’t know why and hated both of my parents, calling them names because they were sending me away from a place and a life that I loved, to live in a tent with people who slept with their horses.’

Iksahra raised her head. Her voice was dry as the desert wind, and as implacable. ‘Then I learned to sleep with my horses. And I learned what had happened to my father and mother. My people are taught how to nurse hate, to hone it, to keep it sharp and ready. When Saulos sought me out, I knew before he had finished his first word that he was the vehicle the storm gods had promised, that I might savour my vengeance. I came with him as he asked, but you are right, he has no honour; less than that, he has its opposite. When the time arises, he, too, will die.’

‘After he has destroyed Jerusalem?’

‘Perhaps; if I can wait that long. But certainly before he has rebuilt it.’ Iksahra tilted her head. ‘You did know, did you not, that he wishes first to destroy this city, but then to rebuild it in the image of his god, to make it great, as Rome is great, with himself as king.’

‘I knew. It has always been Saulos’ dream, but it is not widely known. Did he tell you of it himself?’

‘Not directly. I overheard him tell another, here, at the beast gardens. He spoke last night in secrecy with one who came with news that you were sworn to the service of one Pantera, called the Leopard. That Saulos knew already, but he did not say so to the one who came.’ Iksahra glanced up under lowered lids. Hypatia had fallen still. Iksahra said, ‘That one told Saulos also that this Pantera planned to denounce him before the High Priest this morning. Your Leopard was betrayed. His death was certain before ever he mounted the temple steps. Did he know this?’

‘He knew it was possible, yes.’

‘But still he went.’

‘He seeks to prevent war.’

‘This is not his land. Why should he risk his life for its people?’

‘He has honour. He is the opposite of Saulos. He is, I think, very like your father, but I am not the one to say that; you would have to know him yourself.’

The air came to rest that had swayed back and forth between them; the ferocity of feeling, of grief, of ice-hot fury. And as it rested, it was different, so that Kleopatra could taste on her tongue an opening, a possibility of change.

‘It seems to me,’ Hypatia said, slowly, ‘that Anmer ber Ikshel might best be avenged by your aiding us, not Saulos. And that, avenged or not, he might walk more peacefully through the afterlife knowing his daughter has not sold her honour for the cheap coin of a traitor.’

There followed a long, painful silence. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke further. To Kleopatra, it seemed as if the whole world had been caught somewhere on an inbreath and could do nothing but hold it.

And then Iksahra looked down at her hands, at her knives that lay out of reach on the workbench, at the one that lay in Hypatia’s open palm.

‘Will you kill me, if I choose to differ?’ she asked, and it was the tone with which she asked that said a corner had been turned, more than the words, or the half-smile behind them.

Kleopatra let out her breath in a rush. Hypatia closed her eyes. Relief washed through her. She put her hands together and when they came apart again her own knife had gone. She moved forward to the window that gave out on to the beast garden, leaving Iksahra free either to take up her own three knives, or to join her.

Iksahra did both, and they stood, shoulder to shoulder, black skin to olive, looking out at what had become a place of busy men, of marching guards and shouted orders.

Presently, with no word spoken, and no glance back to Kleopatra, the two women walked together out of the feed room with the great cat at their heels.