The Dark Lord

one.'

'The notoriously famous Kleopatra,' Thyatis said, pretending mild surprise. 'How romantic. You think the account is real? Hecataeus didn't strike me as being reliable...'

'He isn't.' Nicholas grinned over his shoulder at her. 'He's careless. Someone else had gotten to him first, asking the same questions. Guess who?'

'The Persians,' Thyatis replied, feeling her neck prickle. She kept walking, listening with half her attention to Nicholas. Someone watching us? The feeling was very strong. Someone I know? It was an effort to keep from turning abruptly and staring. The avenue was crowded, with shrill chanting peddlers standing on the elevated bases of obelisks marching down the center of the thoroughfare. Wagons rumbled past, dogs barked furiously in the alleys, merchants were shouting from the storefronts. Every scrap of pavement was covered with rugs laden with trinkets, little statues, gewgaws, 'real rubies from Serica,' pens of chickens and goats. Thyatis let her eyes lose focus, her breathing slow to match her pace.

'The Persians,' Nicholas continued with grim humor, barely audible above the din. 'They braced him about Nemathapi before, but he couldn't help. This time they brought some scratchings from a tomb they found down in Saqqara. Now they were looking for Kleopatra's treasure, thinking something 'like a wheel' would be hidden there. Well, he had no idea where the tomb might be and he told them so. They weren't pleased, but went on to the next antiquarian on their list.'

A familiar silhouette darting through the crowd drew her attention and Thyatis blinked, focusing, and saw the little librarian moving swiftly through traffic on the other side of the boulevard. The little woman dodged behind a phalanx of chanting monks wreathed in incense from swinging censers and carrying a bored-looking calico cat on a golden pillow. Thyatis squinted, rising up on tiptoe, but Sheshet had vanished behind a moving wall of silk umbrellas. When the procession passed, there was no sign of the little Egyptian.

Off to buy those books already, Thyatis thought, shaking her head in amusement. The feeling of being watched lingered.

'Fortunately for us, the poet had a nose for profit,' Nicholas continued, unaware of Thyatis bobbing up and down behind him like a giraffe in a tall stand of acanthus. 'He started to apply himself, rummaging through the books and histories. Wanted to find the tomb himself, I'd wager, though he only had a hazy idea of what might be hidden there. I'd swear from the way he acted it was the first time he'd ever found anything in that mausoleum! He showed me the account—crabbed on the back of a lading document.' The Latin patted his belt and Thyatis heard stiff paper rustle.

'How much did Hecataeus want for his fabulous discovery?'

Nicholas glanced sideways at the woman, a smirk dancing on his thin lips. 'Not much,' he said.

'What do you mean?' Thyatis picked up her pace. 'How much did you give him to keep his mouth shut?'

Nicholas laughed sharply and the Roman woman raised an eyebrow at the ugly sound.

'He gave me his back,' he said softly, 'and I paid him in steel—five inches tempered—right at the base of the skull.'

Thyatis felt a peculiar sense of dislocation, as if she walked beside the Latin soldier and also looked down upon him from a height. She felt dizzy for a moment, then the sensation passed. 'What did you do with the body?' her mouth asked automatically.

'Wrapped in a robe and out the window into the garden behind a hedge.' The corners of Nicholas' eyes crinkled up as if he laughed, or smiled, but nothing humorous shone in his face. 'Anyone who happens to see him will think he's asleep. At least, until he starts to smell.'

'We'll have the money for your camels and workers, then.' The queer double vision passed and Thyatis felt herself whole and chilled by the man's careless, offhand murder. His action reminded her too much of her own threat to the little librarian and she felt a little ill. Her thoughts spun for a moment, then settled. The poet can't have found the real sepulcher. Can he? The prospect seemed remote. 'Good. How far away is the tomb?'

'Not far,' Nicholas said, sounding eager. 'The merchant was traveling on the western shore of Lake Mareotis, on his way to the coast with a string of camels. When the storm had passed, he walked for a day northeast to reach the village of Taposiris, which is only a day's ride west of the city. But we can reach the area faster by crossing the lake with a barge.'

Thyatis nodded, suppressing an urge to finger the amulet around her neck. The prince's bauble was cold and still and she prayed to the Hunter it would remain so. Otherwise, she thought, Nicholas will have to be paid, just as he paid poor Hecataeus.

—|—

Thunderheads grumbled in the east and the air had acquired a heavy pearlescent quality as afternoon progressed. Yellow cone-shaped flowers spilled over the garden walls, filling the heavy air with a pungent, cloying aroma. Two figures turned into the lane, walking quickly, heads bent in conversation. At the end of the lane, the muddy track vanished into the flat, glassy water of Lake Mareotis. In the green shadows under the reeds fringing the lake, a quiet, hooded figure watched the man and woman stop at a wooden gate. The man—thin, nervous face radiating impatience even at this distance—rapped sharply on the wood. A moment passed and the woman squared her shoulders and looked around curiously.

The watcher hidden in the reeds froze, lowering her head. Midges and gnats crawled on brown arms and the zzzing of patrolling mosquitoes was very loud. Time dragged, measured by the tiny, prickling movements of the gnats as they crept across smooth, tanned flesh.

Creaking hinges signaled the gate swinging wide. Nicholas and Thyatis disappeared through the archway and the sound of brisk commands and sudden, unexpected activity filtered through the humid air. In the reeds, the watcher ventured to lift her head enough to see the gate again. The tall, redheaded woman was standing inside the arch, the portal nearly closed, watching the lane. Again, the watcher grew entirely still, slowing her breathing.

A grain passed, then two, then—after fifteen grains had slipped through the glass of life—Thyatis shook her head in disgust, and closed the wooden door.

In the reeds, Shirin breathed out a long, slow gasp of relief. Her arms were trembling, on the verge of cramping, and her shoulders rippled with disgust. I hate mosquitoes, she thought viciously. Lord of my fathers, strike them all down! Shuddering again, the Khazar woman crushed the carpet of midges and gnats on her arms with her palms, leaving a smeared, greasy, red-streaked paste. For the moment, she ignored the bugs rustling in her hair and slipped through the forest of reeds to the edge of the lake. A tiny trail of flattened mud led off along the shore.

Keeping a wary eye out for crocodiles and snapping turtles, Shirin padded towards the next break in the reeds. Something had happened and she suspected the Romans would be moving soon. Where are you going? Shirin wondered, the image of the redheaded woman clear as crystal in her memory; Thyatis' face framed by the half-closed gate, a curl of red-gold hair fallen over gray eyes. Did the Egyptian woman tell you something useful? Her full lips twisted into a frown. What was the sleek, dangerous man doing while you were talking to her? Perhaps the other Roman had found something in the archives. Still moving cautiously, she turned onto another path between the huge, softly trembling reeds and moved inland. I think I'll need a horse... no—a camel for heavy sand or sharp stones.

—|—

Veils of falling rain swept across the surface of the lake, alternately revealing and obscuring whitewashed houses along the shoreline. The growl and crack of thunder rolled among the clouds, though the storm itself had moved away to the north. Squatting in the bottom of a long canal boat, Patik waited quietly, water streaming from the brim of his leather hat. Artabanus crouched behind him, coughing softly in the damp, wrapped in a woolen cloak and a conical hat made of straw. Two more of the Persian soldiers were behind him, asleep, or nearly so, under their cloaks.

A hundred yards away, the edge of a stone wall reached down to the water's edge. Patik was watching the opening, waiting patiently in cover. Somewhere to the west, the clouds parted, letting the sun blaze down across the rainy sky. The Persian commander blinked, dipping the brim of his hat to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness. Coruscating rainbows shimmered across the falling rain, gilding the reeds and the brassy surface of