‘I reject you!’ he shouted. ‘You and your bloodless mate. I want no more of you - I hate you. Do you hear me, I hate you! ’
Then he fell silent, and bowed his head. The water surged softly about him and after a while he scooped handfuls of it and washed his face. Then he rose and walked back to the hut above the beach. He felt a sense of fateful release, the peace which follows an irrevocable decision. He was priest no longer.
He ate a piece of smoked fish and drank a bowl of lake water, before he began work on the scrolls.
Again he wrote of Tanith, trying to recall every tone of her voice, every smile and frown, the way she laughed, and the way she held her head - as though he could give her immortality in words, as though he could give her life for the next 1,000 years in words cut into a sheet of imperishable gold.
Once he looked up from the scroll with peering shortsighted eyes and saw that the day was passing, and the long shadows of the palms cast tiger-stripes upon the yellow sands of the beach. He stooped again to the scroll and worked on.
There was the crunch of a footstep in the sand outside the hut, and a dark shape blocked out the light.
Again Huy looked up, and Lannon Hycanus stood in the doorway.
‘I need you,’ he said.
Huy did not reply. He sat hunched over the scroll blinking up at Lannon.
‘It was on this island that you promised me you would never desert me,’ Lannon went on softly. ‘Do you remember?’
Huy stared at him. He saw the deep lines of care and suffering cut into Lannon’s flesh, the dark shadowed eye sockets in the gaunt face. He saw the greyish tone of the skin and the silver glint of old man’s hair in the beard and at the temples.
He saw the wounds half healed, and freshly weeping through the linen bindings. He saw a man who was extended to the limits of his strength and determination, and in whose throat was the bitter taste of defeat.
‘Yes,’ said Huy. ‘I remember.’ He stood up and went to Lannon.
They came back to Opet in the early morning. All night they had sat together beside the fire in Huy’s hut and they had talked.
Lannon told him of the course of the campaign, and the state of the nation. He told him of each battle, every strategy the enemy had employed.
‘I had placed much reliance upon the war elephants. That trust was ill-founded. We lost most of them in the very first encounter. They used spears dipped in the poison taken from countless bees. I learned from a prisoner how they had smoked out hundreds of hives and laboriously squeezed out the poison sack from each sting. The burning pain of the wounds drove my elephants insane. They raged through our lines, and we had to use spikes on them.
‘Also they had trained athletes who could vault onto the elephants’ backs. They half leapt and were half thrown by their companions, flipped through the air like professional tumblers to kill the drivers and then stab the beast in the back of the neck.’
‘I was to blame for that,’ said Huy. ‘I told him of those tactics that the Romans used against Hannibal’s elephants. He has not forgotten a single word of my teaching.’
Lannon went on to tell Huy of each battle which, though victorious, left Opet weakened, of the slow retreat before the black hordes, of the mounting despair amongst the legions, of the desertions and mutinies, of the destruction of the greater part of the fleet upon the beaches and the blocking of the channel.
‘How many ships remain?’
‘Nine galleys,’ Lannon replied, ‘and an assortment of fishing craft.’
‘Enough to carry all of us across the lake, to the southern shores?’
‘No,’ Lannon shook his head. ‘Not nearly enough.’
They talked on through the night, and in the dark hour before the first glimmer of dawn Lannon asked the question that had hovered on his lips all evening. He knew Huy would expect it.
‘Why did you desert me, Huy?’ Lannon asked softly. If Huy were to believe that Lannon knew nothing of his relationship with the witch, if he were to believe that Lannon’s choice of sacrifice was accidental, then Lannon must pretend ignorance.
Huy looked up at the question and the firelight lit his face from below, leaving his eyes as dark pits.
‘You do not know?’ he asked, watching Lannon intently.
‘I know only that you called out the witch’s name, and then you were gone.’
Huy went on studying Lannon’s face in the firelight, searching for some sign of guilt, some flicker of deceit. There was none. Lannon’s face was tired and strained, but the pale eyes were direct and steadfast.
‘What was it, Huy?’ he insisted. ‘I have puzzled over it so often now. What drove you from the temple?’
‘Tanith. I loved her,’ said Huy, and Lannon’s expression changed. He stared at Huy for long seconds, appalled and stricken.
‘Oh, my friend, what have I done to you? I did not know, Huy, I did not know.’
Huy dropped his gaze to the fire, and he sighed.
‘I believe you,’ he said.
‘Pray Baal’s forgiveness for me, Huy,’ whispered Lannon and leaned across to grip Huy’s shoulder, ‘that I should ever have given you grief.’
‘No, Lannon,’ Huy answered. ‘I shall never pray again. I have lost my love, and denied my gods. Now I have nothing.’
