from her to Lannon Hycanus who stood by the casement of the chamber ‘It is your intention to kill me. Nothing I say will alter that. Very well then, I will cherish the name of my child’s father. I shall not let you use this against him also.’
‘You are being stupid and stubborn,’ said Sister Haka. ‘We will find out in the end.’
‘Why is it important?’ Tanith asked. ‘All that matters is that I stand between you and your ambitions.’ Tanith looked directly at Sister Haka, and saw her words had struck by the swarthy rose flushing of the priestess’s scarred cheeks. Tanith smiled and turned to Lannon. ‘All that matters is that I am the source of the prophecy. You seek to destroy that. You seek to have the gods revoke their sentence upon you. It is vain, Lannon Hycanus. The winds of destiny are blowing, the hounds of fate are already hunting.’
‘Enough,’ snapped Lannon, striding to the centre of the chamber. ‘I have no more time to waste. No longer can I listen to your idiot chatter.’ He looked at Sister Haka. ‘Bring the old priestess, the witch’s chaperone.’
When Aina stood blinking and bewildered before the king he looked at her without passion or anger. ‘You had duties. You did not discharge them. Name the bull who mounted the goddess’s heifer.’
Aina wailed protest, disclaimer, pleading her ignorance. She went down on creaking knees before Lannon, crawling to him, kissing the hem of his tunic, drooling with terror. Lannon pushed her away irritably with one foot and looked at Sister Haka.
‘Unless I misjudge your worth, you will not shirk man’s work. Have you the belly for it?’ he asked, and Sister Haka nodded, licking her lips, her eyes lighting with cruel anticipation.
‘Break her arms first,’ commanded Lannon, ‘And let the witch stand close by to watch it.’
Sister Haka pulled Aina to her feet, holding her easily with her strong brown hands on the back of which grew long silky black hairs. Aina flapped and squawked with terror, and Sister Haka turned and pinned her, twisting one arm backwards against the elbow joint. The arm was thin and white with thick blue cords of vein showing through the skin,
‘Wait!’ cried Tanith. ‘Let her go!’
‘Release her,’ ordered Lannon.
Tanith went to the old priestess and kissed her gently on the forehead and cheek. Aina was sobbing.
‘Forgive me, child. I am sorry. I would have told them. Forgive me.’
‘Gently, old mother. Gently now.’ Tanith led her to the doorway and pushed her tenderly out of the chamber. She went back to them and spoke to the king.
‘I will tell you his name - but you alone.’
‘Leave us,’ commanded Lannon, and the Divine Council rose and filed from the chamber.
‘When they were alone Tanith said the name, proudly and defiantly, and she saw Lannon reel as though it had been a physical blow.
‘How long has he been your lover?’ he asked at last.
‘Five years,’ she answered.
‘So, he said, seeing the answer to many questions. ’It seems we shared his love then.‘
‘Nay, Majesty.’ Tanith shook her head. ‘I had all of it.’
You are wise to speak of it as past,‘ Lannon told her. He turned away to stand by the casement, and looked out across the lake. Nothing must come between us, he thought, I need him. I need him.
‘What will it be, Majesty? Poison or the secret dagger? How will you kill a priestess of Astarte? Have you forgotten that I belong to the goddess?’
‘No,’ said Lannon. ‘I have not forgotten, and I will send you to her, on the tenth day of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. You will go as the messenger of Opet to the Gods.’
‘Huy will not allow it,’ whispered Tanith in horror.
‘Huy is in the north - a long way from the pool of Astarte.’
‘He will hate you for it, always. You will lose him forever,’ Tanith warned him, but he shook his head.
‘He will never know that I ordered it so. He will never know that you betrayed him, told me his name.’ He smiled then, a cold and golden smile. ‘No, it is you that will lose him, and I that will have him. You see, I need him, and my need is more important than yours.’
He had been borne in a litter at first, while he was unconscious and then later when he was still too weak to march, so he did not know for how long and in what direction they had travelled.
Even later when he was forced to walk, they bound and blindfolded him, so that he was aware only of the press of their bodies about him and the stench of sweat and the rancid fat with which they smeared their skin. There was no answer when he spoke, and rough hands urged him forward, and a spear blade pricked him when he baulked.
He had been badly beaten and bruised, there were still lumps and gashes in his scalp, and his body was grazed and painfully wrenched, but he had taken no serious wounds, no deep spearthrust nor broken bones. It was as though they had carefully avoided dealing him a killing or crippling injury despite the fact that he had piled the corpses of their comrades in wind-rows about him, the vulture axe taking cruel toll before they overwhelmed him.
On the first night when they camped he began a tentative investigation of his position with escape in mind, but then when he tried to shift his blindfold enough to see out, a heavy blow in the face dissuaded him. They fed him a handful of boiled corn and a strip of badly aired meat, gamey and rank with bacon beetle. Huy ate it hungrily.
In the morning they were marching before the dawn, and when Huy felt the sun’s warmth on his cheek and saw the light through his blindfold, he repeated the praise of Baal silently and asked the god for his help.
Later that day he was aware of the ground levelling beneath his feet as though they journeyed across an open plain, and there was the smell of cow dung and smoke and humanity. Over the thudding rhythm of his escorts’ bare
