‘It is death,’ he admitted.
‘But you argued for me?’ Manatassi insisted, and again Huy nodded.
‘Why?’ demanded the slave king, and Huy could not answer. He spread his hands, a gesture of weariness and incomprehension.
Twice already,‘ the slave king said. ’First you turned the blade which should have killed, and now you speak for me. Why?‘
‘I do not know. I cannot explain.’
‘You feel the bond - the bond between us,’ Manatassi declared, and his voice sank low, rumbling and soft. ‘The bond of the spirits. You felt it.’
‘No.’ Huy shook his head, and hurried away to his tent. He worked on his scrolls for most of the afternoon, recording the campaign, describing the burning and the battle at the ford, listing the battle honours and the slaves taken, the booty and the glory - but he could not bring himself to describe Manatassi. The man would soon be dead, let his memory die with him, let it not linger on to haunt the living. A phrase that Lannon had used stuck in his mind, ‘the black beast’, and he used it as the only reference to the doomed slave king.
He ate the noon meal with Bakmor and a few others of his young officers, but his mood infected them all and the meal was awkward, the conversation trivial and stilted. Afterwards Huy spent an hour with his adjutant and quartermaster ordering the legion’s affairs, then he worked with the axe until his sweat ran down his body in streams. He scraped and oiled and changed into fresh robes for the sacrifice, and went to Lannon’s tent. Lannon was in conference, a group of his advisers and officials sitting in a half-circle around him on the skins and cushions. Lannon looked up and smiled and called Huy to him.
‘Sit by me, my Sunbird. There is something here on which I would value your thoughts.’ And Huy sat and listened to Lannon directing the affairs of the four kingdoms with a quick and confident logic. He made decisions which would have tormented Huy for days, and he made them easily, without doubts or hesitations. Then he dismissed his court, and turned to Huy.
‘A bowl of wine with me, Huy. It will be many days before we have the chance again, for in the morning I leave you,’
‘Whither, my lord?’
‘I return to Opet, but at speed. I will leave you and your slaves and herds to make the best of it.’
They drank together, exchanging the seemingly easy desultory talk of old friends, but Huy was manoeuvring for an opening to speak of Manatassi, and Lannon was deftly denying it to him. At last Huy in desperation approached the subject directly.
‘The Vendi king, my lord.’ And he got no further, for Lannon slammed the wine bowl down so that it cracked and a ruby gush of the lees spurted onto the furs on which they sat.
‘You presume on friendship. I have ordered his death. Except for the axe stroke the matter is settled.’
‘I believe it is a mistake.’
‘To let him live will be a greater mistake.’
‘My lord—’
‘Enough, Huy! Enough, I say! Go out now and send him.’
In the sunset they brought the Vendi king to a clear place on the river bank below the garrison walls of Sett. He was dressed in a cloak of leather, worked with the symbols of Baal, and he wore the symbolical chains of the sacrifice. Huy stood with the priests and nobles, and when they led the doomed king forward his eyes fastened on Huy’s. Those terrible yellow eyes seemed almost to hook into his flesh, seemed to draw Huy’s soul out through his eye sockets.
Huy began the ritual, chanting the offertory, making the obeisance to the flaming god image in the western sky and all the while he could feel those eyes eating into the core of his existence.
Huy’s assistant offered him the vulture axe, polished and glinting red and gold in the last rays of the sunset. Huy went to where Manatassi stood, and looked up at him.
The slave-masters stepped forward and lifted the cloak from the shoulders of the sacrifice. Except for the golden chains he was naked and magnificent. They had removed the raw-hide sandals from his feet. The slave- masters waited with the chains in their hands, at Huy’s signal they would jerk the sacrifice off his feet and stretch him out upon the ground. His neck drawn out for the axe blade.
Huy hesitated, unable to force himself to give the order, held fascinated by those fierce yellow eyes. With an effort he tore his gaze free and looked downwards. He had started to give the signal, but his hand froze. He was staring at Mana-tassi’s bare feet.
Around him the watchers stirred restlessly, glancing towards the horizon where the sun was rapidly sliding below the trees. Soon it would be too late.
Still Huy stared at Manatassi’s feet.
‘The sun goes, Priest. Strike!’ Lannon called abruptly, angrily in the silence and the sound of his voice seemed to arouse Huy. He turned to Lannon.
‘My lord, there is something you must see.’
‘The sun is going,’ Lannon called impatiently.
‘You must see it,’ Huy insisted, and Lannon strode forward to stand beside him.
‘Look!’ Huy pointed at the Vendi king’s feet, and Lannon frowned on a quick intake of breath.
Manatassi’s feet were monstrously deformed, deeply divided between the toes so that they resembled the claws of some preternatural bird. Involuntarily Lannon stepped backwards, making the full-handed sun sign to avert evil.
