“You sure you want to haul that bow over those roofs?”
Nikos looked up and smiled, fingering the leather case tied to the side of his pack.
“Never know when you might need it,” he said.
Thyatis tested the leather straps that held the four sleeping children to the backs of the Khazars. She clasped hands with the men, searching their bearded faces for signs of fear or dismay. All of them met her gaze with level eyes.
“Kahrmi, Efraim, don’t misplace this baggage, you hear? The owner wants it back.”
The Khazars laughed, their white teeth sparkling behind their bushy brown beards. Thyatis turned to Anagathios and signed, two quick motions. Don’t wait for me at the water gate.
The Syrian frowned but bobbed his head in acknowledgment. Thyatis nodded once to all of them and then strode off through the rooms of the Princess’ apartment.
Nikos stepped to the door and watched until Thyatis had disappeared from sight. Once she had rounded the bend of the corridor outside, he closed the teak panel and latched it.
Anagathios, he signed to the Syrian, take the Khazars to the garden and begin climbing out.
The actor shook his curly locks, his face mournful. Dear Nikos, why do this thing? Chances are passing small that anyone will find out what the centurion is doing. And if she finds out, it will go badly for you!
Nikos shook his head in negation. He had already made up his mind.
It must be done, he signed, otherwise her gamble may be for nothing. This way it will be a long time before anyone suspects.
You are mad, replied Anagathios, she would never countenance such a thing.
True enough, Nikos answered, sighing quietly, she would never think of bringing unhappiness to the Princess. But we are her true friends, and I will do this thing for her, taking the onus of it upon myself, out of my friendship for her.
Anagathios shook his head again. He did not believe the Illyrian was right.
Go, I will clean up here.
Anagathios spread his hands wide and signed something about the gods. Then he slipped out of the other doorway into the garden and the waiting Khazars. Behind him Nikos went through the room carefully, checking in the trunks and behind the curtains for anything that might have been left behind. Once he was done he scoured the other rooms as well-the room of glass where music had played, the banquet room, the Princess’s bedchamber, the quarters of her maidservants. In the little room at the back of the servants’ area, he found that one of the Khazars had left a copper buckle under a chair. Frowning, he pocketed it. As he left each room, he left the door open, sometimes propping them with the edge of a chair or table.
In the last room, the entrance to the baths, a cool stone-floored chamber, he paused, grim eyes counting the men and women trussed on the floor. Of them all, only the lady-in-waiting, Ara, was awake. She had stopped struggling with her bonds when he had appeared in the door. Now she stared at him with a blazing fury in her eyes. -Nikos nodded to her and put down a bundle of clothing he had been carrying on the stone bench inside the door of the room. He slipped an amphora of fine oil off his shoulder and carefully leaned it up against the bench. Ara made a muffled sound, but this too he ignored.
He pulled a knife, long bladed, almost a shortsword, from a scabbard slung over his shoulder. It was a Persian weapon, one quietly taken from the guardroom of the House of the Black Swan where the King of Kings slept. Its edge was keen and the blade itself gleamed in the soft light of the single oil lamp. Nikos knelt and turned the first of the servants over. His thumb rolled back the eyelid of the man-he was still unconscious. With quick sure movements, he cut the simple garments from the man, leaving him naked on the floor.
Nikos looked up, checking the other captives. Ara had rolled over and was watching him with brown eyes wide with fear. The Illyrian looked away and punched the knife junder the rib cage of the man with a single strong blow. The man twitched and his mouth opened silently. After a moment his chest stilled and a trickle of blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth. Nikos, his face still expressionless, quickly dressed the dead man in fur-lined boots and the rough homespun trousers and shirt of a Northern barbarian. This done, he rose and surveyed the others.
Too little time, he thought as he stooped over the next man.
In the end, Ara stared up at him, her eyes sightless with fear, as he bent over her.
Thyatis jogged through the halls of the palace. Great rooms, filled with treasures and glorious murals, blurred past. Her boots fell on expanses of intricate mosaic tile, showing scenes of wonder and delight. The crystal lanterns were falling dark with no one to refill the reservoirs of oil. In those places where there were torches, they had already guttered out. She climbed a great flight of stairs, each step carved from sea-green marble in the shape of breaking waves. In darkness, she hurried through a vaulting chamber lined with a thousand pillars containing a stepped pyramid. Atop the pyramid a throne of silver and gold sat in the darkness, waiting for a claimant. Behind rich red drapes, she found an open door banded with iron and clattered down a narrow sloping stairway. “ •
Hexagonal rooms passed, filled with couches and wardrobes bulging with clothes. A closet door stood half open, showing rows and rows of jeweled shoes. Ahead of her, she could hear faint voices, raised in anger. She crossed a bedchamber dominated by a four-poster bed with a canopy of purple silk sewn with diamond stars. The bedclothes were shoved all to one side, a mountain of fine-brushed Egyptian cotton and silk. Water tinkled from a bowl-shaped fountain. The western wall of the room was composed of wooden doors framing hundreds of squares of colored glass.
There was a garden beyond the bedchamber, filled with thousands of white flowers. The sky was very dark, save in the east, where a dull red glow lit up the low clouds. The flowers gleamed, pale and nacreous, in the light of hundreds of rose-colored paper lanterns hung from the trees. The garden stepped down toward a looming dark wall, in three great terraces. A stairway with steps carved from cedar logs descended the length of the garden. Thyatis came to a halt on a circular platform of wooden slats outside of the bedchamber.
Shirin stood in the darkness on the stairs, a pale-yellow flame in the long dress, her hair undone. Below her, on the second tier, Jusuf stood in the path, his blade glittering in the light of the lanterns. His dark-green robes and tunic blended into the grass and bushes, leaving only his long face illuminated by the rosy light. A heavyset man with very broad shoulders and dark curly hair stood behind Shirin, her arms twisted behind her back in his grip. His own blade, a long cavalry saber, was angled toward the Khazar Prince.
“Stand aside, boy.” The voice of the heavyset man was oddly muffled, echoing. Thyatis drifted to the side of the platform, her left hand resting lightly on the pommel of her sword. The face of the heavyset man gleamed golden and, with a start, she realized that the smooth features and high brow were a mask of cunningly worked gold.
“No, Chrosoes King of Kings. Leave Shirin be. She does not go with you tonight.”
“Jusuf… ah!” Shirin cried out as Chrosoes twisted her arm, her face grimacing in pain.
“Be still, wife. You, boy, once we accounted each other friends. Now you come to my house in the company of enemies and demand my property of me. I will not countenance it. Stand aside and I will allow you life. If you do not, then you will die, faithless, like your brother.”
Thyatis hissed in surprise, but the sound was covered by a growl of rage from Jusuf. “Servant of the Lie! My brothers ride south with an army to end your madness!”