Men and iron blurred in the paltry light. One fell from each side, but no more; they were too evenly matched, trained in the same vein by the same men in the same tactics.
Iksahra was there, ahead of anyone else, still singing, with her knife blood-wet in her hand, flashing — it was light enough now for more than a glimmer — as she slashed right and left at the guards on either side. They fell back from her as they had not from their fellow Romans, but not far; the men behind them acted as a wall that held their backs and kept them firm and, with the instinct of men who have trained and fought together for decades, they stepped away together, giving each man more space to move, and then attacked in perfect synchrony, their blades swinging in, hard, at the height of Iksahra’s heart.
‘Iksahra!’
Kleopatra had stood still for less than three breaths and she was not breathing slowly. Now, with terrible clarity, she saw the blades coming in, set to cut Iksahra in half, and, in the passing of a single heartbeat, she saw the place where she could act, considered it, found it good and, stooping, picked up a blade from the clutter that lay on the ground at her feet.
Lifting became a swing, became a slice up, under the legionary’s half-mailed skirt. The blow was the same she had used to kill the guard in the beast garden not ten days before, but this time she held on, and drove it deeper and on until blood spilled from between his lips. Only then did she twist as Jucundus had taught her, and pull out again.
Her enemy choked on his own blood, and sank to the road. Kleopatra stood back, struck to sudden stillness.
It was said that the Chosen of Isis could see the shades of the dead and speak to them. In the beast garden, she had not known she was Chosen, had not looked for the signs of death or tried to see anything. Here, harried by new knowledge and new doubts, with bile stripping the lining of her throat, Kleopatra stared at the dense air about the dead man’s head for some sign of life. Or death.
Nothing was there, but in the echo of her mind she heard him say, with some surprise, and no hurry, Am I free?
Always before, she had conducted her conversations with the dead in her head, and had thought them hers alone. Now, she answered aloud, ‘You are. Go to your god soon, before the gods and spirits of the desert find you.’
She felt, but did not see, him bow to her and turn and march east, to the rising sun.
‘Kleopatra?’
Her own name came at her oddly, as if through other ears. She looked up and saw the cheetah first, and wondered how it could speak; then she looked again and saw Iksahra, not ten feet away. The beastwoman had killed another guard and had caught his falling body. She stood, cradling it across her chest like a lover. That one’s voice was more distant, softer, but he, too, was glad to be free. Iksahra let him down to lie on the ground. Her eyes were fixed on Kleopatra’s face. ‘Are you ill?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Kleopatra held herself tight, arms wrapped across her chest, hugging ever tighter. Time was returning to its own speed, leaving her feeling seasick. She said, ‘It was too easy. That was my third kill. Each time was the same.’
‘It wasn’t the same and I don’t believe it was easy. You are a credit to your teachers. Look now, we are done: Mergus’ men have taken heart from your action and finished the enemy.’
They had, indeed. Eleven lay dead; ten Romans of the garrison Guard to one of theirs, a junior officer whose name Kleopatra did not know. His soul spoke Aramaic, while all around him the Roman dead hailed one another in cheerful Latin.
From somewhere closer, Iksahra said, ‘Kleopatra, what is it?’
‘When you see how death frees them, it is no hardship to kill.’
Iksahra stood, staring. In the growing dawn, the whites of her eyes grew narrow and then broad again. Kleopatra said, ‘You can’t hear them, can you?’
‘Nor see them, no. Hypatia can, though, I am sure.’
Iksahra drew closer, laid a hand on Kleopatra’s arm. Her fingers were stiff with dried blood, and cool. ‘My mother told me death was a release. I thought she meant only when the life was lived in pain, or the threat of it, as Estaph is threatened with the cross.’
‘These men were not like that. And yet I swear to you, they were not unhappy to be dead.’ She shook herself free. ‘We have to find Hypatia.’
‘Not now,’ Mergus said urgently, from her side. ‘Now you will turn round and put your back to the wall. Quickly! We are not alone.’
Kleopatra turned and slapped her shoulders against the wall by the guard post. Mergus came in at her left side, and Iksahra at her right with the bloodied cheetah beside her. The other men joined them in ones and twos. And so they stood, seven alone in the still morning, listening to the cockerels take command of the dunghills.
‘Hush!’ Kleopatra held up her hand. ‘I can hear men, marching. And horses. Is it Menachem’s army?’
‘The horses are Menachem’s,’ agreed Mergus bluntly, ‘and his men are behind them, heading for the gate. But if you listen to the noise from the other side, you’ll hear the garrison Guard, and they are faster and closer. We will face them alone.’
Even as he spoke, the peace of the morning was torn apart by the sudden roar of armed men singing, and the ear-breaking clash of a thousand sword hilts beaten on shields, in perfect unison, as the garrison Guard marched up from the Temple.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The King of Israel’s army marched towards the sleeping city with the new sun sending long, raking shadows streaming behind them.
Small groups peeled off through the minor gates: a hundred men under Moshe; a hundred and fifty led by Eleazir, whose men believed he should have been king, although he had not said it aloud himself — Pantera thought them safer away from the main fighting and Eleazir had not argued — and two hundred of the Peace Party under Gideon, who was given, now, heart and soul to the coming battle.
The rest advanced on the west gate, the biggest, that was set behind the palace and still in the shade.
Helmetless, his black hair aflame to his shoulders, Menachem rode Iksahra’s almond-milk mare at the van. The sound of her feet was the clash of cymbals on the hard road.
Pantera rode at his left hand, to be his living shield. He rode with his eyes on the road, but his attention was fixed on the sun, his mind a sand-timer that drained grain by too-fast grain towards the moment when the light might strike the hill of execution behind the wall.
Aloud in the hollows of his mind he said, We’re coming, we’re coming, we’re coming. Don’t lose hope. He had no idea if Hypatia could hear him.
And then the dawn peace was broken, smashed against the wall of a legionary marching song drummed to the beat of sword hilts clashing on iron shield bosses. They sounded like thunder on an iron roof, marching to bring death; even as their enemy, Pantera felt it stir his blood.
‘The garrison Guard!’ Pantera shouted, and raised himself up and gave the battle cry of the new king’s army. ‘ Jerusalem! For the glory of Israel!’
He kept level with Menachem for the first few yards, but the milk-white mare was turned to lightning by the sounds of war, so that Menachem was through the gates, on a mount who screamed her own battle cries over the havoc.
They turned the last corner. Two hundred yards away, the garrison Guard marched towards them four deep across the road, held in tight formation by a captain in a white plumed helmet who shouted orders from the farthest, safest edge.
With the skill of a dance master, he kept them shoulder to shoulder, shield locked to shield, blades of the front lines naked to the fore. They held absolute order, even as Menachem’s front rank of horsemen charged them.