then I’m sure that that could be arranged.’
‘Done, quaestor.’ Ahmose spat into his hand and proffered it; Vespasian took it rather gingerly. ‘But that is all the help that I can give you; if I give you men it might upset the delicate balance that we have with the Marmaridae.’
‘I could requisition them as well.’
‘You could but I think you would have a problem: we are celebrating a festival of Amun at the moment, it runs from today for three days, in memory of Alexander coming here three hundred and sixty-seven years ago to receive the wisdom of Amun. There will be a feast tonight in honour of him; you are welcome to join us. I will have the horses and weapons ready by dawn; you can leave then.’
Vespasian opened his eyes; it was thick night. His head spun slightly from the effects of the date wine that had been served in copious quantities during the feast. Magnus had been able to consume cup after cup without too many ill-effects but Corvinus and all of the troopers had drunk themselves, very quickly, unconscious. Vespasian had not been surprised, it was heady stuff and he had limited himself, very early, to just a cup every so often; even so he was still less than sober. Ziri had not touched a drop all evening as he waited upon Magnus’ every need; he now lay curled up, sleeping at his master’s feet.
A metallic clink from outside the window caught Vespasian’s attention; he was sure that it was the same noise that had just woken him. He listened intently trying to filter out Corvinus’ snores and Magnus’ heavy breathing. There it was again; there was someone or some people just outside the window, he was sure of it.
He reached with his left hand for his spatha on the floor next to his mattress and eased it onto his chest; his right hand gripped the hilt as he listened again.
Nothing; he started to relax.
A distant, sudden crack of wood breaking followed by shouts jerked him upright; he unsheathed his spatha.
‘Magnus!’ he shouted but got no further.
The door crashed to the floor; moonlight and dark figures spilled in.
With a roar he leapt to his feet and hurled himself at them, spatha in the air. Briefly aware of Magnus drawing his sword and Ziri jumping up, he slashed wildly in the dark, felt his blade make contact and was rewarded with a shrill scream and a jet of blood in his face. He kept his forward momentum going and with a backhand cut felled another of his shadowy assailants; Magnus hurtled into the man next to him, flooring him with a body-check and a jab to the belly. Ziri threw himself at another of them, crunching his forehead into the man’s nose, taking him down. Driving his left foot forwards, Vespasian brought his right knee up, squelching into the groin of the next figure who dropped like a dead man to the ground with a guttural roar that was stifled as he started to hyperventilate with pain. Strangulated gurgles came from the floor as Ziri despatched his opponent with his bare hands. Magnus’ straight thrust into the right eye of his next opponent was enough to convince their attackers to withdraw at speed.
‘What the fuck was that all about?’ Magnus asked, breathing heavily.
‘Don’t know, but we certainly should get out of here; help me with Corvinus,’ Vespasian replied, thrusting the tip of his spatha into the throat of the man clutching his crushed testicles.
Finding Corvinus in the dark from the direction of his snoring proved easy enough; what was not easy was waking him.
‘Shit, we’ll have to carry the bugger; Ziri, here,’ Magnus said after a third sharp slap had proven fruitless.
Magnus and Ziri quickly slung an arm over each shoulder and dragged Corvinus to the open door.
Peering outside into the moonlit agora, Vespasian could see no one close by, but their attackers were running over to the other side of the square where a group of figures surrounded the storeroom to which the comatose troopers had earlier been dragged to sleep off the date wine.
‘There’s nothing that we can do about them,’ Vespasian hissed, turning away and grabbing Corvinus’ ankles, ‘they’ll have butchered them by now. Let’s get out before those bastards get their reinforcements.’
Running as fast as possible with the dead weight of Corvinus between them, they skirted around the edge of the agora; coming to an alley leading away, they turned up it as an almighty shout came from over by the storeroom.
‘Shit! That’s them after us,’ Magnus said as they raced up the dark alley. Corvinus started to moan; his head lolled from side to side. ‘I fucking wish old matey-boy here could hold his drink.’
Suddenly the alley opened onto a main street; they paused and looked each way, it was deserted. Darting across the road they found another alley and sprinted up it. Behind them they could hear the shouts of their pursuers growing closer.
Almost a hundred pounding heartbeats later the mean houses on either side of the alley abruptly ended and they came out into a date palm forest.
‘Straight ahead!’ Vespasian puffed. ‘And keep an eye out for somewhere to hide; we’ll never outrun them with him dragging us down. Let’s pray that they didn’t see which alley we went up.’
‘Why don’t we just leave him?’
‘If it comes to a choice between all four of us getting killed or just him, we will.’
‘I think we’ve just reached that point, sir,’ Magnus observed as a horde of silhouetted figures flooded out of the alley, just over a hundred paces behind them.
With a quick glance between them they dropped Corvinus and sprinted away.
Weaving through the moonlit palms they managed to put on a good turn of speed but their pursuers, more used to the terrain, were gaining on them.
‘Split up,’ Vespasian shouted, veering left, ‘we’ll meet up back at that lake soon after dawn.’
With a grunt of acknowledgement Magnus ran off to the right, taking Ziri with him, leaving Vespasian pelting through the night on his own; his legs were beginning to ache with the exertion. His chest started to tighten and his heartbeat thumped in his inner ears. The shouts of the pursuers told him that they were following him and catching up.
He burst out into a clearing, cursed himself for breaking cover and sprinted towards the far side.
Ten paces before gaining the comparative safety of the palms an ear-splitting cry stopped him in his tracks; he fell to the ground, hands over his ears. The cry then turned into a wailing note, mid-range and wavering at first, like a beautiful, mourning hymn of the gods; it worked its way ever higher until it reached peaks of such a piercing intensity and clarity that all other senses retreated as Vespasian listened to the sublime sound. Gradually it started to slow and ease down in pitch, as if the singer, tired by the emotion of the song, had decided to bring the piece to a close with a series of exquisite notes, ever lowering, ever softening, until, after one final gentle breath, there was silence.
Vespasian got to his knees, stunned by the aural experience that he had just been subjected to. He looked back; his pursuers were all grovelling on the ground on the far side of the clearing.
A sudden, golden flash caused him to shut his eyes tight and lower his head; he felt a warmth on his skin that began to grow gradually. He opened his eyes; the clearing was awash with light, gaining in intensity as if it were imitating visually the song just sung.
‘Bennu! Bennu!’ the grovelling men cried.
Vespasian looked up and, shielding his eyes, saw that the source of the light was a beacon perched implausibly on top of a tall date palm close to him on the edge of the clearing. Golden sparks fell from it, turning orange and then red as they floated to the ground to collect in an ever growing pile of glowing embers at the base of the tree.
Burning with increasing ferocity the flame became pure white at its peak; heat from it scorched Vespasian’s face and hands as it bathed him, kneeling on the ground, in a pool of light.
Cries of ‘Bennu! Bennu!’ filled the air.
With a sharp crack, like a Titan crashing two boulders together, the fire was suddenly extinguished as if it had unexpectedly consumed all its fuel, leaving no morsels with which it could die down gradually.
The last of the sparks fell to the ground and the light died.
In the dark the mound of embers glowed softly, like an untended campfire in the cold hours before dawn.
Vespasian turned to see his pursuers on their feet, still chanting ‘Bennu’, halfway across the clearing, walking
