The Coming of the King

Chapter Thirty-Five

Kleopatra had not wanted to go hunting with Iksahra. She had made it clear, in fact, that she considered Iksahra’s offer to be a bribe that dishonoured them both. But she pulled herself together enough to hold her tongue while the slaves presented the horses, and Iksahra lifted the tiercel that had been her cousin’s bird and set it on Kleopatra’s gloved fist; her temper had not spilled over into making a scene in front of the slaves.

In crisp, uncomfortable silence, they rode from the women’s gate below the palace, trotting north over sloping pastures where goats grazed in the perpetual shade of Jerusalem’s wall, and out past olive and lemon groves and pomegranate trees, along the ridge above the wadi, to the higher ground, where Iksahra released the falcon, sending her high on the morning’s warm air.

The bird climbed in slow, lazy spirals until she was a speck against the lightening blue of the sky. Iksahra had no sight of prey, but there was something in the bird’s attention that made her look where it looked, so that she saw the moment when it slewed round in its turn and gave the sharp, high cry that was the signal for oncoming prey.

Iksahra directed her gaze west, where the old night still held the sky. There, a blur sped along the hazed horizon, flying hard and straight in the way of a message-bird, bred for speed. The falcon reached the top of the sky and cried a second time. The tiercel heard its mate and bated from Kleopatra’s fist, hurling itself against the jesses, screaming.

‘Hold him,’ Iksahra said, without turning. ‘Talk to him. Tell him how proud he is, and how well he will hunt when his time comes. Keep him still or he’ll throw her off her kill.’

She spoke as she might have done to a skittish horse, not looking, not scolding, yet certain of the outcome, and was rewarded presently by the beginnings of a murmur and the sounds of the male bird rattling its wings, and the small chirruping whine that said his pride had been dented, but he was prepared to be mollified.

Iksahra felt a depth of satisfaction that surprised her. It seemed to her then, under the morning sun, with the dew still wet on the grass and the yellow-eyed goats stepping sideways from the cheetah, that the day shone, and her heart ached and she was not sure, yet, that she wanted to name the reason.

The falcon cried, high in the air. Iksahra raised her hand to shield her eyes.

‘See now?’ For Kleopatra’s benefit, she jutted her elbow out towards the soaring falcon. ‘She’s at the top of her rise, where the air thins and won’t hold her any more; she can’t go higher, but she can hang there, resting, as you rest in calm water when you swim in a river.’ She wasn’t sure that Kleopatra had ever swum in a river, but the point was made. ‘And if you look along the tree line, you’ll see the message-dove coming in, there — where the land meets the sky.’

‘Just above the lemon grove? Where the trees are taller than the olives?’ Kleopatra was engaged, in spite of herself.

‘Exactly there. The falcon will wait until it comes out across the lighter pasture, where the goats are grazing. We can move the horses down there and be close to the kill. Carefully now; there are stones among the grasses, it’s not safe to go fast.’

They went slowly, moving with the sway of the horses, stepping around the boulders that had been left, perhaps, for this reason: to stop men riding hard in a straight line towards the city.

From behind, without warning, Kleopatra said, ‘Is Saulos going to kill Hypatia? Is that why she’s sent us both away, so we’ll be free from harm?’

The warm and mellow morning became suddenly chill. Sweat grew in cold drops along the flat blades of Iksahra’s shoulders as she spun her horse. Flatly, she said, ‘Saulos is not going to kill Hypatia.’

‘Are you sure? She’s set herself against him and he’s the governor now in all but name. He could.’

‘He won’t.’

‘Saying it won’t make it true.’ Kleopatra brought her horse alongside. She was still white, but not now with rage. Her gaze flicked past Iksahra’s shoulder. ‘Look, your bird is coming down for the kill.’

The falcon was dropping from the sky, wings closed in the impeccable moon-curve beloved of the Berber people. It was as perfect a stoop as Iksahra had ever seen and it should have roused her to a fierce and savage passion where the glory of the kill was hers as much as the bird’s.

Today, now, she watched through fear so dense that it took an effort of will to reach through it, to lift the bird from its kill, and unwind the message cylinder from the leg of the stricken dove, to open the tiny capsule and lift out the paper therein and ‘What does it say?’ Kleopatra asked.

Shaking her head, Iksahra passed it over. Saulos had never imagined she could read. She did not know if Kleopatra’s easy assumption was a compliment, or its opposite.

‘It’s in code.’ Kleopatra was frowning at it, biting her lip. She looked younger than she had done moments before. Her mouth moved as she read, framing the words, then stopped. ‘Latin writing, but not Latin words.’ She looked up, her features brightening. ‘Pantera will be able to read it. He knows the emperor’s codes. If someone can get it to him in the desert, he’ll know what it means.’

‘It might not be one of the emperor’s codes.’

‘Even so, Pantera will be able to read it.’ Kleopatra levelled her gaze at Iksahra. Her eyes were the blue of a late-night sky. Her grandmother’s, it was said, had been the same. She was fourteen years old and could have been forty, or four hundred. ‘We should go back.’

‘Not yet,’ said Iksahra. ‘It’s too soon.’

‘By whose accounting?’

‘My own.’

‘No, it’s not!’ The girl wrenched her horse round, sawing at its mouth. ‘Hypatia made you do this! She wants me kept away from the palace, so I can’t sway the king, or my aunt or mother or any of the others and make them stay. They’re going to flee again and leave Jerusalem in the hands of that filth, to…’ Kleopatra straggled to a halt, and put her hand to her throat, and then her face. ‘To those men who are coming for us,’ she said, flatly.

Ahead, a company of men trotted four abreast along the path that led from the city. Iron glinted in the sun, and polished brass on their helmets.

‘We must run.’

Iksahra caught her reins. ‘No. It’s too late.’

‘Those are Saulos’ men. Our horses are better than theirs. We could-’

‘They have archers. I will not risk your life.’ Iksahra took her hand from the girl’s bridle. The day was young, and bright, and she wanted to hunt, and to kill, and, for the sake of a child, could not. ‘We will be civil to them, and expect they will extend the same courtesy to us. I will command the cat not to hurt them, and you will hold the tiercel.’

‘But the message cylinder… the one you took from the bird — they’ll find it!’

‘What cylinder?’ Iksahra spread her arms and both the naked hand and the gloved one that had borne the falcon on its wrist were empty. She fixed Kleopatra with a stare of the kind that calmed horses. ‘Don’t speak of it. We will not be harmed.’

Iksahra spoke to the cat, and when the men came, it did not fight, but settled behind her horse. Iksahra addressed them civilly, and Kleopatra archly, in the tones of royalty, so that both were allowed to direct their horses into the midst of the company as it turned back to the city.

They were even left with their hunting birds, and thus did Iksahra return with the falcon feeding on her fist, each twist of its head throwing out evidence of what they had caught.

It fed to fullness before they reached the city and she had time to drop the dove beneath the feet of the trotting horses, and hood the falcon, so that when Saulos met them at the city gates, all that remained was a spot of blood on her hunting glove.

‘Your majesty!’ He was dressed in his sand-coloured silks, fulsome in his greeting of Kleopatra, smiling his victory. ‘If you would be so kind, the full council of the Sanhedrin has convened in the heart of the city to address certain matters pertaining to the recent… disturbances. We will honour them with our attendance.’

He nodded to Iksahra, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘Your beasts will be treated with utmost respect, I guarantee it.’

Polyphemos brought the message, written on papyrus, rolled and sealed. It came to Berenice, in her private apartments, not to the king. Hypatia alone was present.

Hypatia watched the queen break the seal, and read, and sit suddenly, pale to the point of death. She saw her wave Polyphemos from the door; he did not want to go, so it took a swifter motion than it used to.

‘What?’ Hypatia asked, when he was gone. Dread lay on her like a morning fog, draining her as surely as any ghul.

Berenice spoke in a voice devoid of inflection. ‘They have Kleopatra. And Iksahra.’

‘Where?’

‘They stand before the Sanhedrin. They will be charged with killing Governor Florus. The penalty is death by stoning.’

Hypatia said, ‘I killed the governor.’

‘I know that. Saulos knows it; he saw you. This is a trap. You will not walk into it.’

‘I must,’ Hypatia said, and heard her own voice as if from a distance, with a tunnel’s echo between. ‘Kleopatra is the next Chosen of Isis.’

Berenice turned her head. Her eyes were blank channels that led straight to her soul. In their depths, Hypatia saw a name form, and saw it taken away again, out of tact, or kindness, and was grateful. If Iksahra had been named aloud, she might well have lost what remained of her composure.

Berenice, queen in Caesarea, rose. ‘Then I will come too,’ she said. ‘No — do not argue. You are my gift, given by the empress. Saulos cannot touch you while I am present.’

She rang a bell for her personal maid. ‘We must change our clothing. The men of the Sanhedrin have… certain ways of viewing women. I am a widow before I am a queen and must be seen as both. You are my handmaid, and must be appropriate. We will do this alone, you and I. We have too much to lose to leave it to anyone else.’