She watched Iksahra take a step forward, and then stop. ‘What do you know of my father?’
Hypatia raised a brow. With a rare diffidence, she said, ‘I know that his name was Anmer ber Ikshel and he served as beastmaster to Herod the Great and then to his son, Herod Agrippa, grandfather to Kleopatra who is standing so quietly by the door. He was renowned for his skill in training beasts; it was said that he had a great cat that followed him everywhere as a hound follows an ordinary huntsman. But it was his horse-breeding that was his undoing. Anmer ber Ikshel bred the best, the fastest, the most beautiful horses the world had seen. The best of them were the colour of almond milk with black manes and tails and they could outrun the wind for days at a time. Shall I go on? Shall I list for you the ways that your father met his end?’ There was compassion there, if you listened hard for it. Kleopatra was listening very hard indeed.
So too, in her way, was Iksahra. Her eyes were wide, showing white at the rims as a horse does when wary. Her long, lean fingers shaped the signs that dispelled ghuls and kept ifrit at bay. ‘How do you know this?’ Her voice was steady, but the effort required to keep it so was clear.
‘There are ways to find out things that do not take a message-bird,’ Hypatia said, gently.
‘What ways? Have you dreamed him? Have the witches of Alexandria sent you his ghost?’
‘Your father was famous, Iksahra. Everyone knew of him and even those now dead told their children details they will remember beyond their last breath. All I had to do was ask the slaves, ask Polyphemos, ask the men of the Watch who were detailed to escort me. They all knew his name, they all knew how he came to die. Shall I tell you what they said to me?’
With cold courage, Iksahra said, ‘Tell me. I would hear it from you, who have no love for me.’
‘King Herod Agrippa was in debt. That was not surprising, he was a profligate man and always so, but unfortunately on this occasion he owed significant sums to Gaius Caesar, known as Caligula, emperor of Rome, who had the power to break him. But Caligula was known for his love of horses and so Herod Agrippa conceived a plan to give Anmer’s horses to the emperor in repayment of his debt. He couldn’t pay for them, of course, he had no money, and he could not be seen to steal them from a man held in such high esteem. So he manufactured a crime, some fictitious treason, and had Anmer ber Ikshel killed, and claimed all his goods.’ Hypatia’s features had softened, and her voice was almost kind. ‘Anmer was warned by those who loved him of what was coming. He could not escape it, and did not try, but I heard that he sent away his nine-year-old daughter, that she might not see his ending, or know how it happened.’
‘I was told about it when I came to adulthood,’ Iksahra said, and her voice was thick with grief and loss. ‘They said he was torn apart between four of his own stud colts. My mother hanged herself. I knew nothing. Three days before, I was sent away to live with my father’s people. I didn’t know why and hated both of my parents, calling them names because they were sending me away from a place and a life that I loved, to live in a tent with people who slept with their horses.’
Iksahra raised her head. Her voice was dry as the desert wind, and as implacable. ‘Then I learned to sleep with my horses. And I learned what had happened to my father and mother. My people are taught how to nurse hate, to hone it, to keep it sharp and ready. When Saulos sought me out, I knew before he had finished his first word that he was the vehicle the storm gods had promised, that I might savour my vengeance. I came with him as he asked, but you are right, he has no honour; less than that, he has its opposite. When the time arises, he, too, will die.’
‘After he has destroyed Jerusalem?’
‘Perhaps; if I can wait that long. But certainly before he has rebuilt it.’ Iksahra tilted her head. ‘You did know, did you not, that he wishes first to destroy this city, but then to rebuild it in the image of his god, to make it great, as Rome is great, with himself as king.’
‘I knew. It has always been Saulos’ dream, but it is not widely known. Did he tell you of it himself?’
‘Not directly. I overheard him tell another, here, at the beast gardens. He spoke last night in secrecy with one who came with news that you were sworn to the service of one Pantera, called the Leopard. That Saulos knew already, but he did not say so to the one who came.’ Iksahra glanced up under lowered lids. Hypatia had fallen still. Iksahra said, ‘That one told Saulos also that this Pantera planned to denounce him before the High Priest this morning. Your Leopard was betrayed. His death was certain before ever he mounted the temple steps. Did he know this?’
‘He knew it was possible, yes.’
‘But still he went.’
‘He seeks to prevent war.’
‘This is not his land. Why should he risk his life for its people?’
‘He has honour. He is the opposite of Saulos. He is, I think, very like your father, but I am not the one to say that; you would have to know him yourself.’
The air came to rest that had swayed back and forth between them; the ferocity of feeling, of grief, of ice-hot fury. And as it rested, it was different, so that Kleopatra could taste on her tongue an opening, a possibility of change.
‘It seems to me,’ Hypatia said, slowly, ‘that Anmer ber Ikshel might best be avenged by your aiding us, not Saulos. And that, avenged or not, he might walk more peacefully through the afterlife knowing his daughter has not sold her honour for the cheap coin of a traitor.’
There followed a long, painful silence. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke further. To Kleopatra, it seemed as if the whole world had been caught somewhere on an inbreath and could do nothing but hold it.
And then Iksahra looked down at her hands, at her knives that lay out of reach on the workbench, at the one that lay in Hypatia’s open palm.
‘Will you kill me, if I choose to differ?’ she asked, and it was the tone with which she asked that said a corner had been turned, more than the words, or the half-smile behind them.
Kleopatra let out her breath in a rush. Hypatia closed her eyes. Relief washed through her. She put her hands together and when they came apart again her own knife had gone. She moved forward to the window that gave out on to the beast garden, leaving Iksahra free either to take up her own three knives, or to join her.
Iksahra did both, and they stood, shoulder to shoulder, black skin to olive, looking out at what had become a place of busy men, of marching guards and shouted orders.
Presently, with no word spoken, and no glance back to Kleopatra, the two women walked together out of the feed room with the great cat at their heels.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The place to which they took Pantera was a vast, open-fronted cage in the back of the beast gardens, caught in full sun, dazzling, hot and disturbingly open.
Always before, he had been questioned in the dark, in low, cold places where a man’s agony could not reach the sunlight, where the intimacy of pain and humiliation was shared only with his inquisitors. Here was big enough to host a banquet and open to the watching beasts, to the flies that gathered waiting for an open wound, to the slaves who dallied, staring, as six vast men of the Jerusalem garrison Guard stripped Pantera of his tunic and tied him to the central stake, with his hands above his head, hauled up, so that his feet held barely half of his weight.
Around his feet was beaten earth, polished black with old blood. There was, however, no fire lit yet, no brazier with which to heat the irons that might burn out his eyes, or draw lines of pain on his body. Pantera fastened on that fact and held it close.
They settled him in his new position and tied off the ropes. Already, his hands began to burn. He drew a surreptitious breath through his mouth and held it and tried to measure how hard it was to lift his ribs and make the air slide into his lungs, how much extra weight it put on his arms. He thought he could speak, at least in short bursts.