In the same way Huy, despite his loss of the king’s ear, kept a guiding hand on the rudder of the ship of state. Huy was certain that Lannon Hycanus was fully aware of the ultimate source of the advice and guidance which he received from Tanith. In any event, Lannon visited the oracle regularly in her shrine in the grotto beside the silent green pool of Astarte.
On the morrow Lannon’s visit to the oracle would be his first official act that would signal the commencement of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. This was the true reason why Huy had summoned Tanith to his residence. He must brief her carefully on the replies she would make to the king’s queries. Huy knew with a high degree of accuracy what these would be, for his informers were close to the king and again Huy guessed that Lannon intentionally leaked his questions in advance, certain that they would reach Huy and that the replies would come through the oracle.
Thinking of Lannon always brought on a mood of deep melancholy. Two years Huy had been without the solace of Lannon’s smile and hand clasp and companionship, and during that time the sharp edge of his loss had not blunted but grown keener. He would wait for hours for a passing glimpse of his old friend, he would pester others for accounts of the banquets at the palace to which he was not invited. On each anniversary of the king’s birth, and also on his throne day Huy had composed a sonnet and sent it with a handsome gift to the palace. The gift had been unacknowledged and the sonnet unsung - as far as he knew.
Huy tore himself out of this sad mood, and looked instead at his love. The children had crowded her now, silent and big-eyed and intent. Four-year-old Hannibal, named after his illustrious ancestor, had crawled into Tanith’s lap and was sucking his thumb as he stared up into her face.
Tanith’s mask of solemnity had slipped a little, with these children she was childlike, her expression animated and her voice excited. Seeing her thus seemed to add a new dimension to Huy’s feelings for her, and his heart swelled in his chest until it seemed his chest must burst. How much longer must he wait, he wondered, and for what? If it had taken two long carefully planned years to win her confidence, how much longer to win her heart, and having won it what could he hope for - for she was dedicated to the goddess and could never belong to mortal man.
Tanith’s story ended, and the children exclaimed and clamoured for more, besieging her with demands and entreaties and bribery kisses - but Huy feigned outrage, and scolded them while they laughed and clapped their hands with delight. He shouted for the nursemaids and they came -among them that tall, brooding, fiery woman who always made Huy feel disquiet when she looked at him from those unfathomably dark eyes.
He said to her, ‘Sellene, darkness falls, tell Timon to carry a lamp for you to the palace gate.’ And she acknowledged him with an inclination of the head, showing no gratitude at the order nor resentment either.
After the children had gone they ate the evening meal, the three of them, Tanith, Huy and Aina the ancient priestess who was Tanith’s chaperone. Huy had selected her for two good reasons. She was half blind and completely deaf. Huy had tested her by making obscene gestures at her from a range of twenty paces. Aina had shown no reaction, nor had she when Huy crept up behind her and shouted a rude name in her ear. She was just the type of chaperone that Huy wanted.
They ate with the lamps trimmed low and the food served by one of the ancient slaves, and when they were finished Huy led Tanith up the outside staircase to the roof and they sat together below the parapet on reed mats and leather cushions. The night wind off the lake was cool and the stars very yellow and bright. Huy crouched over his lute, and strummed softly the rippling tune which he had trained Tanith’s unconscious mind to accept as the signal for hypnotic concentration. Before he had finished the last bars of the tune she was breathing slowly and evenly, her body still and her eyes dark green and unseeing.
While his fingers ran over the strings of the instrument, repeating the tune again and again, Huy began to speak. He kept his voice at a monotonous sing-song tone, speaking softly but insidiously and Tanith sat in the starlight and listened with an inner ear.
On the first day of the 106th Festival of the Fruitful Earth, Lannon Hycanus the forty-seventh Gry-Lion of Opet went in procession to the temple of Astarte to take the oracle.
He passed through the enclosure of the temple of Baal where the sacred towers pointed to the sun, guarded by the carved sunbird monoliths, and where the silent populace of the city waited, but when he reached the cleft in the red cliffs that guarded the entrance to the sacred grotto he unbuckled his sword and handed it to his little pygmy huntmaster, his shield and helmet he gave to his armour bearers, and bareheaded and unarmed he entered the opening in the cliff.
He passed through the paved tunnel and into the silent beauty of the grotto. The surrounds of the pool were paved with slabs of sandstone and the pool itself was edged with a rounded coping of the same material. Tiers of stone benches rose against the sheer walls of the grotto, and against the far wall the shrine of Astarte was built half into the living rock. Its portals were columned in the Hellenic style, and it contained the cells of the priestesses and the chamber of the oracle.
Beyond the stone throne, of the oracle was concealed the entrance to the city archives cut into the rock, and beyond that again, guarded by a massive stone door and the curse of the gods, was the treasury and the tomb of the kings.
Lannon paused beside the pool, and the priestesses came forward to meet him and escort him to the edge of the pool. Here they helped him to shed his armour and undergarments.
He stood tall and naked, golden-headed and beautifully formed, at the head of the steps leading down into the green water. His body was finely muscled as that of a trained athlete, although there was heavy bunched muscle in the shoulders and neck, the mark of the swordsman. His belly and flanks, however, were lean with the shape of muscle beneath the skin but lightly stated. A gilding of red-gold hair ran down from his navel across the flat stomach to explode in a sunny burst of curls in the angle of his legs. The legs were shapely, long and moulded, and balanced his regal bulk easily.
The High Priestess blessed him, and called down the goddess’s favour upon him. Then Lannon went down the steps and immersed himself in the sacred, life-giving water.
While two young novices dried his body and dressed the king in robes of fresh linen, Huy Ben-Amon sang the praise chant to the goddess and when it ended all eyes looked up to the opening in the roof of the cavern high above the green pool.
Lannon called out in a loud voice, ‘Astarte, mother of moon and earth, receive the messenger we send you - and hear our plea with favour.’
The throng about the pool lifted their hands high in the sign of the sun, and at the signal the body of the sacrifice plunged from the slab that jutted into the opening in the grotto roof. The wail of the doomed soul echoed briefly about the cavern, until he struck the water and was dragged down swiftly into the green depths by the weight of the chains he wore.
Lannon turned from the pool, and passed between the ranks of the priestesses into the entrance of the shrine.
