across the lily pads and the sinister log-like shapes of the crocodiles slid down the bank into deep water.
They landed on a muddy beach heavily trodden by the hooves of the game that drank here, and Storch hid the canoe. He led Huy up the bank, and into a glade of bright poisonous green swamp grass. They waded waist-deep through the thick clutching stems, and the ground was soggy and yielding underfoot.
In the centre of the glade Storch stopped abruptly and motioned Huy to stand still. He cocked his head in a listening attitude. They stood frozen for a long time, then Storch cautioned Huy to remain where he was and he moved forward.
A hundred paces from Huy, Storch stopped again, but now he turned and looked back at Huy.
For the first time his face showed expression, a wild exultation, a bright burst of triumph.
He lifted his right arm and pointed at Huy, a gesture of denunciation, and he shouted out in Vendi, ‘There he is! Take him!’
The grass of the glade rustled and shook as though a high wind blew across it, and from their places of concealment rose rank upon rank of Vendi warriors. Their shields overlapped, their lines formed concentric circles about Huy, ringing him in completely, and the plumes of their head-dresses were the foaming crest of a menacing wave about him.
Like the tightening of a strangler’s fist upon the throat, the rings of warriors closed in on Huy. Wildly he glared about him, seeking an avenue of escape. There was none, and he stripped the leather guard from the blade of the vulture axe and flew like a terrier at the throat of
‘For Baal!’ he shouted his defiance as he charged into the solid mass of warriors.
‘The air in here is foul,’ Lannon complained, sniffing at it. ‘Is there no way in which we can drive ventilation shafts to the surface?’
‘Majesty!’ Rib-Addi could not hide his horror. ‘Think what that would mean. Workmen in here. He made a wide gesture that took in the entire length of the treasury. ’Can you imagine what tales they would take with them to inflame the greed of every brigand in the four kingdoms.‘
It was for this reason that the location and contents of the royal storehouse were such a closely guarded secret. The best-kept secret in the empire, known only to the king, the High Priest and Priestess, Rib-Addi and four other officials of the treasury.
‘I would have them sent to the gods immediately they had completed the task,’ Lannon explained reasonably.
Rib-Addi blinked with surprise. He had not envisaged such a sweeping solution to the problem. It took him a moment’s beard-scratching and deep thought to unearth his next objection.
‘A ventilation shaft would provide entry for thieves and rodents and damp. All these would damage and destroy.’
‘Oh, very well.’ Lannon dismissed the subject, knowing well that Rib-Addi resisted change merely because it was change. What had been good for the past two hundred years, must be good for the next two hundred.
Lannon watched as the latest shipment of finger ingots from the mines of the middle kingdom was reverently added to the piles of gold already laid down in the recess of the treasury. Rib-Addi noted the quantities meticulously in his scroll, and Lannon affirmed the entry by scrawling his personal sign beside the entry.
The four trusted officials filed out of the long chamber with its piles of treasure. While they climbed the flagged stairs, Rib-Addi sealed the iron gate. He pressed the Gry-Lion’s mark into the clay tablet, then he and Lannon climbed the stairs and passed through the sun door into the state archives. Lannon closed the door, and the massive slab swung into its seating with a solid clunk.
Lannon made the sun sign at the god’s image upon the door, then with Rib-Addi beside him discoursing as ever on wealth in its many manifestations, he passed down the length of the archives. The shelves were loaded with the records of the kingdom, and there was little space left. Soon he must turn his mind to an extension of these catacombs, how to enlarge them without destroying or damaging the existing structure.
They went out through the main portals, with their heavy leather curtains, into the guards’ antechamber where officers of the Sixth Legion guarded the entrance. At all times of the day and night two officers were here, and at their call a century of picked troopers of Legion Ben-Amon waited. The Sixth Legion had originally been formed as a guard to the temples and treasuries of the kingdom, and these still formed an important part of its duties.
Within the maze of the temple of Astarte, Rib-Addi took obsequious leave of Lannon and with his four underlings backed away bowing until he disappeared around the bend of the corridor.
Assisted by four priestesses, Lannon, naked and magnificent, took the ritual bath in the pool of Astarte and while they dressed him in the tunic of the supplicant, Lannon managed to insert a playful hand into the skirts of one of the novices without the others noticing. The novice’s expression did not change, but she pressed eagerly onto Lannon’s fingers for a moment before drawing away, and while Lannon strode down the passage to the audience chamber of the oracle he made the gesture of stroking his moustache to inhale the girl odour that lingered on his fingers.
They were all as hot as corn cakes sizzling on the griddle, these brides of the gods, having to rely as they did on the embraces of their own kind, or the furtive attentions of a priest or temple guard. Lannon grinned as he wondered how many of them took advantage of the licence of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. How often had he committed the mortal sin of sacrilege with some heavy-cloaked and disguised priestess. The Festival was imminent, in two weeks it would begin, and as always he looked forward to it. Then with regret he remembered that Huy was unlikely to return from the north in time to join in the celebrations. It would detract from his own enjoyment. Lannon’s moods were always mercurial and now within a dozen paces his good spirits evaporated. As he entered the audience chamber he was scowling heavily.
He looked up at the oracle on her throne, sitting like an ivory statue with her hands folded on her lap and her face painted with cosmetics to resemble a mask, forehead white with antimony powder, eyelids metallic shiny blue and the mouth a vivid slash of scarlet in the pale face. He found a focus for his bad temper.
As he made a perfunctory obeisance, he remembered how often this witch had thwarted and unsettled him. He detested these sessions of divination, and yet found that they exerted a weird fascination. He realized that much of her oracle was dross, probably inspired by the politically active priesthood. Yet there was also much shrewd comment and excellent counsel amongst it, and occasionally there were nuggets of purest gold to be gleaned from the witch’s lips. During his regular visits he had tuned his ear to catch the nuances of the oracle’s voice. As with Rib-Addi, the witch had shades of conviction or hesitation in the manner in which she delivered the oracle. Lannon was sensitive to these, but more particularly so to a rarer tone, a monotonous low-pitched voice which the witch
