‘He is bird-footed,’ Huy said, ‘he has the feet of the sacred Sunbird of Baal.’ And there was a rustle and murmur from the watchers. They craned forward with a ghoulish, superstitious curiosity.
Huy raised his voice. ‘I declare this man god-marked. He is favoured by the gods - and cannot be sent as a messenger.’
As he spoke the sun dropped below the rim of the world and there was a chill and a dankness in the air.
Lannon was in a towering, shaking rage that paled his lips and face so that the black clotted scab of his wound stood out clearly on his cheek.
‘You defied me!’ he said it softly, but in a voice that trembled with his rage.
‘He is god-marked!’ Huy protested.
‘Do not try to hide behind your gods, Priest. You and I both know that many of Baal’s decisions are made by Huy Ben-Amon, for Huy Ben-Amon.’
‘Majesty,’ Huy gasped at the accusation, at the dreadful blasphemy of it.
‘You defied me,’ Lannon repeated. ‘You think to place this barbarian beyond my reach, you aspire to play the game of power and politics with me.’
‘It is not true, my lord. I would not dare.’
‘You
‘My lord, I am your true, your most loyal—’
‘Tread lightly, Priest. I warn you. You fly high in the tour kingdoms, but remember always that you do so by my favour alone.’
‘I know this well.’
‘I who exalted you, have it in my power to throw you down as readily.’
‘I know this also, my lord,’ said Huy humbly.
‘Then give me this barbarian,’ Lannon demanded, and Huy looked up at him with an expression of deep regret.
‘He is not mine to give, my lord. He belongs to the gods.’
Lannon let out a bellow of frustrated rage, and snatched up a heavy amphora of wine. He hurled it at Huy’s head, and Huy ducked nimbly. The amphora slapped into the leather side of the tent, cushioning the impact and it dropped to the ground without breaking, wine gurgled from the mouth and soaked into the dry earth.
Lannon was on his feet now, towering over Huy, holding out towards him fists bunched into bony clubs, the muscles in his forearms knotted and ridged with exasperation. He held those fists under Huy’s nose, and his eyes were pale glittering blue and deadly, the thick red-golden ringlets danced on his shoulders as he shook with the tempests of his rage.
‘Go!’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘Go quickly - before -before I—’
Huy did not wait to hear the rest of it.
Lannon Hycanus marched from Sett with a bodyguard of 200 men, and Huy watched him go from the walls of the garrison. He felt a chill of apprehension, vulnerable now and lonely without the king’s favour.
Huy watched the small travelling party march out between the ranks of the legion, and saw that Lannon wore only a light tunic and that he was bareheaded in the early morning sunlight, his hair shining like a beacon fire. His armour-bearers followed him with helmet and breastplate, bow and sword and javelins. At Lannon’s heels followed the little pygmy hunt-master, Xhai the bushman; he was attentive as a shadow to the king.
The legion cheered Lannon away, their voices ringing from the escarpment of the valley, and Lannon moved through the gates. He stood taller than those that surrounded him. smiling and proud and beautiful.
He looked up and saw Huy on the wall, and the smile changed to a quick fierce scowl; ignoring Huy’s hesitant salute he marched out through the gates and took the road that ran southwards into the pass, and over the hills to the middle kingdom.
Huy watched until the forest hid him from sight, and then he turned away, feeling very alone. He went down to where the slave king lay dying on a bed of dry straw in a corner of Huy’s own tent.
In the rising heat of the morning the smell of the wound was the rank, fetid odour of fever swamps and things long dead.
One of the old slave women was bathing his body, trying to lower the fever. She looked up as Huy entered and answered his query with a shake of her head. Huy squatted beside the pallet, and touched the slave king’s skin. It was burning hot and dry, and Manatassi moaned in delirium.
‘Send for a slave-master,’ Huy ordered irritably, ‘Have him strike away these chains.’
It was amazing to watch the fever eat away the flesh from that huge black frame, to see the bone appear beneath the skin, to watch the face collapse, and the skin change colour from shiny purple black to dry dusty grey,
The wound in his groin swelled up hot and hard, with a crusty evil-smelling scab from which a watery greenish-yellow fluid wept slowly. Each hour the slave king’s hold on life seemed to slacken, his body grew hotter, the wound swelled to the size of a man’s bunched fist.
In the noon of the second day Huy left the camp alone and climbed to a high place upon the escarpment where he could be alone with his god. Here in the valley of the great river the sun-god’s presence seemed all-pervading and his usually warm benevolent countenance was oppressive. It seemed to fill the entire sky, and to beat down upon the earth like the hammer of a smith upon the anvil.
Huy sang the prayer of approach, but he did so in a perfunctory fashion, gabbling out the last lines, for Huy was very angry with his gods, and he wanted them to be aware of his displeasure.
