Gry-Lion expects or realizes.’
The guests stirred, glancing at each other, whispering, pondering the answer. Lannon frowned over the girl’s words.
‘Do you speak of a harvest of death?’ Lannon asked.
‘You will take death with you, but death will return with you unknown and secretly,’ Tanith replied. It was an unfavourable oracle, the young officers were restless, sobering rapidly. Huy wanted to intervene - he was regretting the whole business. He knew his king, knew he would not readily forget or forgive.
‘What must I fear?’ Lannon asked.
‘Blackness,’ Tanith answered readily.
‘How will I find death?’ Lannon was shaking with anger now, his voice guttural and his pale blue eyes deadly.
‘At the hand of a friend.’
‘Who will reign in Opet after me?’
‘He who kills the gry-lion,’ Tanith replied, and Lannon struck the wine bowl aside and it shattered on the earthen floor, the red wine splattering the feet of a waiting slave.
‘The gry-lion is finished,’ he shouted. ‘I killed the last of them - do you dare prophesy the death of house Barca?’
‘That is your sixth question, my lord.’ Tanith looked up. ‘1 cannot see the answer to it.’
‘Get her out of here,’ Lannon roared. ‘Take the witch away.’
And Huy signalled quickly for the High Priestess to take her, for a slave to replace Lannon’s wine bowl, and for another to fetch his lute. After Huy’s third song Lannon laughed again.
On the eve of the departure of the legions from Zeng-Hanno, Huy sent for the priestess and the novice Tanith. It was five days since her disastrous prophecies to Lannon Hycanus, and it had taken all Huy’s strength of will not to send for her earlier.
When she came she was fresher and lovelier than he remembered. While the priestess sat in the shade, Huy walked with Tanith upon the walls of the city, looking down on the one hand upon the streets and courtyards with the bustle of the army preparing for its march, while on the other hand they looked across the wooded hills and terraces where the slaves tended the neatly laid out vineyards and orchards.
‘I have instructed the reverend mother that you will join the convoy to Opet through the middle kingdom. You will travel with the wives of the king, and at Opet you will enter the sisterhood of Astarte - and await my return.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Her humble tone was at odds with her saucy expression. Huy stopped and looked into her green eyes, she held his gaze easily, smiling a little.
‘Do you truly possess the sight, Tanith?’
‘I do not know, my lord.’
‘The words you spoke to the king, what did they mean?’
‘I do not know. They are words that came into my mind unbidden. 1 cannot explain them.’
Huy nodded, and paced on in silence. There was an appealing innocence about this girl, coupled with a bright mind and a sunny disposition it was impossible to resist. Huy stopped again, and she waited for him to speak.
‘Do you love the gods, Tanith?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you believe that I am their appointed one?’
‘I do, Holy Father,’ she answered with such conviction, with such transparent honesty and respect, that Huy’s reservations were set at rest. There was no doubt that she was an instrument which could be used, as long as it was used with skill.
‘What is your destiny, Tanith?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I cannot see it,’ she answered, but she hesitated then and for the first time Huy knew she was uncertain. ‘But this I know, that this - this meeting between you and me is part of that destiny.’
Huy felt his heart swell, but his voice was gruff as he replied. ‘Caution, child. You are a priestess, dedicated to the goddess. You know better than to speak like that to a man.’
Tanith dropped her eyes and colour stained her skin a dusky rose. The soft wing of dark hair swung forward against her cheek, and she pushed it away with her hand. Huy felt his soul shrivel with despair. Her presence was a physical agony, for no matter how great his need of her it could never be slaked. She belonged to the gods, forbidden, untouchable.
‘You know that,’ Huy warned her sternly. ‘Do not trifle with the gods.’
She looked up at him demurely, but Huy could have sworn there were glints of laughter and teasing mockery in the green eyes.
‘Holiness, you wrong me. I did not mean as man and maid.’
‘How then?’ demanded Huy, disappointed and with a hollow feeling in his guts at the denial.
‘We will find the answer to that when we meet at Opet, Holiness,’ she murmured and Huy knew that the months until then would pass slowly.
Lannon stood over a clay box in which was modelled a relief map of the great river area. In the east rose the Clouds of Baal, a mighty waterfall where the river fell hundreds of feet into a dark gorge and the spray from the torrent rose high into the heavens, a perpetual cloud that stood upon the plains.* From here the river flowed into a deep valley, a hot unhealthy place where rough and rocky ramparts rose on each bank, heavily forested and rich with the ivory-bearing herds. Six hundred miles
