Quietly, Pantera said, ‘We will not sue for peace now. We must fight and win, else Jerusalem will wade thigh-deep in the blood of innocence. And we must do it soon, before the legions march from Syria.’
Kleopatra could not look at either man. Instead, she looked down again at Iksahra, and at the piles of chain mail shirts that surrounded her. ‘How did you get these in?’ she asked. ‘All the gates are watched.’
‘On the mule.’ Pantera shrugged, as if it was an easy thing. ‘The blades and helms were in one of the panniers. Iksahra wore the shirts bunched about her body. The guard thought…’
With a wry grin, he glanced at Iksahra, who ghosted a shadow of Pantera’s smile and said, ‘We choose not to imagine what he thought. But he did not search us.’
‘And the cat?’
‘The cat was in the other pannier, on the right-hand side. It will forgive me eventually, particularly if we fight in the night.’
The cat had come to tolerate Kleopatra, if not to like her; she could come near it now and it did not harden its eyes.
She reached past its head and lifted a mail shirt from the nearest pile. She had seen them often worn by the guards in Caesarea and Jerusalem, but never held one. It rippled across her hands like sharkskin.
‘How many did you bring?’ she asked.
Iksahra said, ‘Nine. Mergus is coming later with some men, but he won’t need all of them. We think that one will fit you.’
‘Me?’ She spread it out, looking at the width between the shoulders, at the length. ‘It could-’
Pantera was ahead of her. ‘Iksahra, no! We spoke of this.’ He caught Kleopatra’s arm, drawing her towards him. ‘You should come with me to the encampment, or at the very worst stay here until the fighting is over. Nothing else is safe.’
‘So you say, and yet Kleopatra of Caesarea has killed once already in my sight. She has, I think, practised with the sword more than any other member of her family.’ Iksahra stooped, scooping a blade from the floor, and passed it, hilt first, to Kleopatra. ‘Is he right? Must you be kept safe with men about you for protection while we open the city’s gates from the inside to let in Menachem’s army?’
In a clear invitation, Iksahra lifted a blade of similar length and held it out, as men will who offer a fight to another.
Kleopatra took a step away from Pantera. The blade she had been given was fine, well balanced, a little shorter than the cavalry blades Jucundus had given her to practise with, but she swung it once, twice, and found that point of harmony where the end of her elbow became the true end of the blade, so that its killing edges were a part of her arm, and she could defend without thinking. Or attack.
She swept a strike at Iksahra’s head. The other woman swung her sword up in a block that hurt all the way down Kleopatra’s arm to her feet, but she let the power of it throw her own blade out and round and down, cutting for Iksahra’s ankles. The second block was faster, but she was ready for it, and already moving, twisting, angling sideways and up and through and… so close, but not close enough; Iksahra was faster, sharper, harder and continued to be so for a spray of strikes, again and again, and again, until the world was a whirl of iron and Kleopatra’s sword arm was numb from the impact.
She sprang back, breathing hard, and held her blade high above her head in surrender. ‘How are we going to open the gates?’ she asked.
‘By stealth, for the most part.’ Iksahra lowered her own sword. ‘We have to remove the guards in such a way that they don’t alert their brethren to the possibility of attack.’
‘Are we alone? We two?’
‘No. Mergus will bring five men into the city as soon as Pantera has left, in case we need to attack. Gideon goes with Pantera.’
‘Gideon is invited to go with me,’ Pantera said. As his gaze sought the Peacemaker, there was a challenge in it that Kleopatra did not understand. ‘Does he wish to accept?’
‘I do.’ Gideon laid both hands on his chest. ‘Before God, I will do whatever may be done to aid Menachem. I have not done so in the past, but the bloodshed at Caesarea changes everything.’
‘In that case, we’ll need to make you as large as Iksahra was with her mail shirts. If necessary, we’ll cut up some of Yusaf’s bedding rolls.’ Pantera shifted his gaze to Iksahra. To her he said, ‘It’s not too late to change your mind. I could still take you and Kleopatra to safety outside the walls.’
The Berber woman laughed, softly. ‘No guard is so stupid as to let you in with one pregnant wife and then let you out that same night with two wives and a fourteen-year-old daughter.’
‘Guards can die.’
‘Guards will die, but if they do so before dawn their brethren will know that you are on your way and your surprise is lost. Without it, you will lose the battle that is to come with the sunrise. I will not allow that.’
Pantera ran his tongue round his teeth, nodding, as if she had said something quite different. ‘Hypatia is not dead yet,’ he said, slowly. ‘We don’t know the time set for her execution. We may still-’
‘Don’t! Don’t speak of what we may or may not do, when the first parts are not yet even set in train!’ Iksahra spat at him, not a throaty human spit, but the hissing, teeth-baring spit of the cheetah. It rose, stiff-legged, like a hound, and pushed its broad muzzle into her hand.
Iksahra shook her head at its touch, and spoke to it in her own tongue. It settled again, crouching at her heel. In a short, violent movement, she jerked her head towards the open door.
‘Leave now. Kleopatra and I will do what needs to be done so that Menachem’s men may enter with the dawn. That is our task. Yours is to make sure Menachem is ready to lead them.’
Chapter Forty-Three
Scarcely an hour after the crazy Syrian and his wife had entered the city, they returned to the gate.
That was against the law, but a sliver of silver was slid into Laelius’ palm, and another to Bibulus, and each looked at the other and shrugged. These two were not so crazy, Laelius thought; leaving now was a sure sign of sanity. He waved them on through.
A short while later, a centurion approached from the hills south of the city, cloaked against the dark, with five men at his back.
Mindful of his duties, Laelius stood in his way. ‘State your business.’
‘Mentos of the Twentieth.’ The man let his sleeve rise up, showing the marks on his arm, of valour in the worst of circumstances. ‘Our business is the emperor’s. We are seeking a man dressed as a Syrian, who takes with him another man, dressed as if he were his wife. They may have an ass or a mule.’
Laelius felt his bowels churn. Fervently, and silently, he cursed the crazy Syrian and his fat wife. He considered the lies he might tell, and abandoned them. Nearly twenty years in the legions had taught him that honesty was generally less trouble. He said, ‘Centurion, I know the man you mean. He and his accomplice entered the city at the night’s dark and left again less than a quarter-hour ago.’
‘Excellent! Then we may yet be in time to find the men they came to meet.’ The centurion produced a salute of a crispness that the garrison Guard had long ago abandoned, and a silver denarius, still sharp from the mint. ‘Spend this in my memory when you are next off duty. Your name?’
‘Gaius Laelius.’ Out of charity, Laelius said, ‘And this is Publius Vera. We call him Bibulus.’
‘I will remember those names.’ The centurion gave a small and solemn bow. ‘But best for you both not to say anything to anyone. If we succeed, your names will be mentioned. If we fail…’
If they failed, it was safer to know nothing.
He resisted the temptation to bite the coin to see if there was copper beneath the bright silver and dropped it instead into his belt pouch. ‘Not a word,’ he said, ‘unless I hear from you.’