“Do not be alarmed,” the governor said, pressing on through the murmur of his audience. “The count of our own army is equal to that, or greater. Within three days the rest of our forces will have completed the muster here and we shall march north across the mountains to Emesa to meet the invaders. Our will is strong and we will defeat the Per sians, driving them back beyond the Euphrates,“
“With what?” One of the chiefs, dressed in a heavy brocade robe and bare-headed, stood from his couch. He sported a thick dark beard that had been carefully braided at the ends, with small jewels bound into it. “I see many brave men here, but the forces we can put to the field are lancers and bowmen on horseback. I hear fine words from Constantinople, but I see no Roman soldiers here. Where are the Legions? My men and I rode six days from Gerasa and I saw none upon the road. My cousins tell me that the Legion camps at Bostra and Lejjun are empty. I see no Legions here either. Where is Rome? Where is the Emperor of the East?”
Lucius remained seated, his face calm. “The Legions have been sent to the coast, to Tyre, to receive reinforcements from Egypt and the Western Empire. They will meet us at Emesa, having marched up the coastal road. Three legions-the Third Cyrenaicea, the Second Triana, and the Sixth Ferrata-will join us there. With those men, and the auxillia they command, our army will number no less than eighty thousand men to stand against the Persians.”
“I do not believe you!” the Gerasan chief shouted, his face reddening with anger. “When the Iron Hats come at us, there will be no Romans there, only us, with our light mail and bows to stop them. This is a bootless venture! Any man who goes north”-the Gerasan turned about, his gaze challenging the crowd-“will be a dead man.”
“This is not so!” Lucius stood at last, his pale face dark with rage. “Rome will not abandon you. The honor of the Empire stands with you, as will its soldiers on the field!”
“Lies!” the Gerasan shouted back, shaking his fist at the governor. “Rome whores us like it does its daughters on the steps of the Forum!” His men began shouting too, and the German guardsmen rushed forward to stand between the Southerners and their patron. The room filled with noise, and the men in front of Ahmet pressed forward to see if there would be a fight. Ahmet stepped back, out of the way, and hurriedly related the lurid insults that the Gerasan was defaming the governor with. The edge of ibn’Adi’s lip twitched a little, almost into a smile. His guardsmen closed up, hands on their weapons.
It was impossible to see over the heads of the shouting and gesticulating men in front of them and Ahmet stepped back, running into someone standing behind him. He turned, an apology on his lips, and stopped, unable to speak.
A woman stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. At first, all that he was aware of were her “eyes-a cobalt bluer than the open sky-with heavy dark lashes in a delicate oval face. They smiled at him and he felt the shock of that personality all the way to his stomach. She pressed him gently aside with a murmured ”Your pardon, holy one,“ and he had a blurred impression of a cloud of lustrous black curls ornamenting a graceful alabaster neck. Then a very solid-looking breastplate of bronze workings on steel interposed itself and Ahmet could feel the hands of Mohammed and the sheykh holding him up from behind. A phalanx of ebony-skinned men clad in solid armor and heavy links of mail from head to toe pressed through the crowd behind the spear point of the woman. Belatedly Ahmet remembered to breathe. •
“And I say,” the Gerasan roared over the tumult of the crowd, “that I shall not lead my men north to battle unless the Turtlebacks stand with us! No matter your honor, Lucius Ulpius, my duty is to my people, not to the tax coffers of Constantinople and Rome! I do not come so cheap!”“*
“Your father swore to stand with the Empire in the test,” the governor hissed back, his fists clenched, “and so did you, when I stood with you beside his funeral bier. Are you renouncing that oath, then? Do you turn your back on your father? Your honor?”
The Gerasan snarled something unintelligible and the sound of steel rasping from a copper sheath cut across the pandemonium in the room. In the crowded space between the ring of couches, the factions of men formed up behind the governor and the Prince of Jerash froze. Everyone held his breath as the prince’s blade flashed in the air in front of him. Lucius Ulpius’ face drained of color, his eyes fixed on the point of the knife, dancing only a foot from his sternum. The Gerasan, his face flushed, stepped forward and his dagger lurched into the creamy white chest of the woman with the mane of raven hair as she stepped in front of the governor. A tiny pinpoint of blood sprang up where the razor-sharp tip cut into her skin.
“You would murder me, Zamanes?” Her voice cut across the room, reaching every man, though its tone was private, even intimate. “Would you murder the trust between the Empire and the cities of the Decapolis?”
The Gerasan Prince, his eyes wide in utter shock, stepped back, his dagger falling away to one side. One of his servants lifted it from his nerveless fingers and tucked it away in his robes. The woman turned, ignoring the governor, who had also stepped back into the safety of his guardsmen, and stepped up onto the couch next to him.
Ahmet, at the back of the room, forgot to breathe again as she rose up above the heads of the men crowded into the hall. She was slightly built but tall for a woman, about five and a half feet high, and in her presence all other things seemed diminished. The blue lightning spark of her eyes, even across the hall, struck Ahmet like a blow. Her hair, a cascade of heavy curls, swept across her bare white shoulders and down her back. A net of gold wire and pearls held it back away from her smooth forehead and face. She was clad in a deep-purple gown with embroidered traceries of minute roses and lilies along the hems. She was not a heavily endowed woman, but the curve of her breasts against the silk seemed the most perfect shape imaginable to the Egyptian. The tiny spot of blood remained, like a ruby set between them. Her voice was the purr of a languid cat, but it was strong, strong enough to reach clear to the back of the room.
“Rome called us,” she said, her voice ringing like a bell, “but we did not come here for Rome. We came because we are all threatened. We came because, at last, this is our time. The Empire has suffered too grievously to stand alone as our shield against the Persians any longer. It is time for us, the peoples of the Decapolis, of Petra and of Palmyra, to stand apart from our parent and defend ourselves as adults. I will stand against the mad King, Chrosoes. Alone, if need be, as did my namesake. Will you stand with me?”
Ahmet turned and stared into the face of ibn’Adi, who was smiling a long, slow smile like a hunting lion that prepares to feast well.
“Who…?” he whispered.
“Our Queen,” the old chieftain proudly answered. “Zen-obia of Palmyra. The Silk Empress.”
Pale-gold dawn was creeping across the eastern sky when, at last, the conclave of the chiefs broke up. Ahmet, who had spent most of the night in meditation, came fully awake. The desert men were filing out, speaking in low tones among themselves. The lanterns had guttered down to only a dim flame at most, and some had gone out entirely. The tapers and the tallow candles that had replaced them were done as well. The Egyptian rose from his place by the wall, out of the way, and walked amid the couches, strewn with emptied jugs and dirty plates. The air was still heavy with smoke and the tang of many men in an enclosed space. Mohammed, who had stayed up, in the thick of the discussion, sat on the edge of the couch that the Roman governor had occupied, holding his head in his hands.
Ahmet paused, standing at his shoulder, and gently tugged the Southerner’s ear. Mohammed looked up, his face drawn with weariness. The Egyptian smiled down at him and placed fingers on either temple. In his mind he chanted a little lullaby that his mother had once sung over the wicker cradle he had slept in as a baby. Mohammed’s eyelids flickered and then closed. He fell backward with a snore escaping his lips. Ahmet arranged him on the couch. “Can you work such magic for me as well, holy one?” Her voice was no longer, so clear and strong, now it was immensely tired and rough, barely audible. Ahmet turned and settled by her on one knee. Her gown was creased and spattered at the lower hem with food and stains of wine. Her hair had escaped most of the delicate net of gold and now was simply tucked back in a single braid behind her head. The luminous face was still, quiet in extreme exhaustion. Her eyes still held him, though, even in weariness. He met them without freezing, so in a way he had the better of it.