"I do." Thyatis moved to take Shirin's hand, but stopped, the gesture quelled by a fierce expression on the Khazar woman's face.
"Do not take me lightly, Roman," Shirin warned sharply. "I am of the house of Asena, and my fathers ruled from distant Chin to the Roman border, from the ice to the mountains of Persia. Our numbers are like the grass, limitless, and our hearts stronger than your steel." She paused, full lips drawn in a tight line. "You say this Prince Maxian caused the eruption that destroyed Baiae? Which laid waste to so many towns and villages? Which strangled my children while they slept, burning the flesh from their bones, wrapping their skeletons in ash?"
Thyatis nodded grimly, understanding the venom in Shirin's voice all too well.
"Then I give you leave to separate yourself from our hand-fasting." The Khazar dug a hand into her gown and drew out a thumb-sized jewel on a heavy chain. The cabochon blazed as it emerged from hiding, catching the last gleam of the fires raging around Alexandria. Thyatis' lips pursed in surprise and she shook her head automatically.
"Shi-the Eye of Ormazd is yours. Given freely, not a token of binding."
Shirin pressed the jewel firmly into Thyatis' palm. "You gave this to me when we parted on Thira, against our time of meeting again. That day has come and I wish you to choose again, without doubt. I know where I am going, but you do not have to ride beside me."
"What do you mean?" Thyatis understood, even as the words flew from her mouth.
"I laid my children in the ground without grave gifts," Shirin said. "I believed accident took them, sky-father gathering them up with gentle hands, as he does those who die before their naming. But if this prince is the cause, if he sacrificed them so he might live, if he murdered them, then they do not rest easy. They do not run in green fields, golden flowers in their hair, rejoicing in the light of the sun through the trees." The Khazar woman lifted her knife, turning the mirror-bright blade to catch the last feeble gleam of the southern horizon. Deep and abiding anger flared in her harsh voice. "They are lost in darkness, shades without sustenance, helpless without weapons, forced to walk without mount or bridle, lacking even the grave gifts to buy entrance into the house of the dead."
"No," Thyatis said firmly, mustering her thoughts. "Not so. Not so. This much I have done, Shirin, I have laved the earth with blood to feed the uneasy dead, to lighten their burden in the sightless world. Thirty warriors I've sent to join them, an honorable guard to bear their cups, to carry their burdens. A dozen ferocious beasts I've offered up, hot blood spilled in fair contest on the sand!"
Shirin's dark eyes widened, understanding dawning in her face. "The arena! I watched you fight-your face was wild, mad, transported… is this the Roman way, to honor the dead with living men's blood, spilled in combat?"
Thyatis nodded, feeling suddenly weak, emptied again. Memories crowded around, thick as Nile mosquitoes, faces emerging from darkness, mouths wide in anger or fear. My men. Our children. Nikos. "Yes, this is the Roman way."
Shirin clasped her hand over Thyatis, enclosing the jewel. "I would put a dog of a slave at my children's feet, my gift to lighten their burden in the world of shades. This is how things were done in my grandfather's time. Will you help me?"
The Roman woman shook herself, feeling a spark flare in her breast. "Shi-you don't know how dangerous this-"
"Yes, I do." The Khazar woman nodded, eyes glittering again, but now her fury was banked, glowing hot behind a shield of purpose. Hidden in their hands, the jewel gleamed with an inner fire. "I swear I will kill this prince of Rome."
Gape-mouthed horns blew mournfully, sending a long, ululating wail out across the fields before the city. Exhausted soldiers raised their heads at the sound, looking up from beside the raised highway, their faces painted with the ruddy, red light of a vast, smoke-bloated sun. Fires continued to burn among a long swathe of grass and drifts of fly-infested corpses. A bitter white haze drifted over the Roman wall, swirling around shattered towers and obscuring the forest of stakes sprouting from the disordered earth.
The horns winded again and men began to limp away from the fortifications, retreating by ones and twos across the fields. Night came winging out of the east, swallowing the land in a black throat and none of the Persians cared to remain among the dead after sunset. All along the wall, points of light began to flare as the legionaries cast pine torches down upon the slope.
The squat shapes of the two gate towers were lit from below by the smoking remains of the great ram, glowing coal-red from the fires that had consumed the wooden frame. The ancient sandstone blocks were burned dark by countless blows. The jagged, gappy parapet of one tower stood black against a sullen orange sky.
Shahr-Baraz, King of Kings, turned away from the doleful view. His army fell back, bloodied and beaten, from the Roman fortifications. On this depressingly flat plain he could not see the full sweep of the disaster, but what lay within sight was enough. A full day had passed in relentless, repeated assault. Four times, the pushtigbahn had stormed forward against the gate. Four times, the legionaries had thrown them back in disarray. Though other attacks had gained the rampart on more than one occasion, sharp Roman counterattacks had driven them back each time. His heart heavy, the Boar paced into the loose collection of tents forming his headquarters.
Bastard Romans… they've denied us even a roof over our heads. Despite the inconvenience, Shahr-Baraz was impressed. The enemy had not wasted any time in recovering from the disastrous retreat across the delta. The approaches to Alexandria had been stripped bare; every house, gyre, barn, temple and chicken coop had been demolished and hauled away. Stone and brick had gone into the massive wall, everything else into the bellies of the Roman soldiers or hidden in the vast city just out of sight. The Boar ducked into his tent, idly twisting the ends of his mustache to even sharper points. He sat in a canvas field chair, hearing the old walnut legs creak with his weight and sighed, rubbing his face with both hands.
A distinctive chill mist crept into the tent, flowing across the damp floor in eddying waves. Shahr-Baraz looked up, weary anger simmering in his eyes. The dark, angular shape of Prince Rustam appeared in the entrance, flanked by the gaunt shapes of his two apprentices.
"Come in, then." Shahr-Baraz gestured to the cots and camp chairs his servants had dumped under the canvas. He tapped an oil lamp with a thick, scarred finger. The wick had dimmed to a pinpoint with the sorcerer's approach. Shahr-Baraz breathed softly, letting the flame catch again and spread a slow, yellow light across table and chairs.
Hiding a mirthless grin, the King of Kings cocked an eyebrow at the sorcerer. "You look well."
Rustam bared his teeth in response, dark lips wrinkling up from long, white incisors. A dry hiss issued from the creature as he sprawled in a canvas seat, but he hadn't the energy for anything more.
Shahr-Baraz nodded to the other two figures, tilting his head to indicate the other chairs.
Pale oval face drawn with fatigue, Zenobia limped stiffly to one of the cots, her jaw pinched as she lay down on the hard boards. The Queen's robes were caked with mud, her hands bruised and streaked with blood. She turned her face towards the King of Kings, brilliant eyes dulled to fractured jewels, barely able to move. Her hands folded on her breast, withered doves lost in the dark, ragged pleats of her gown. "My lord," she whispered, though even so much seemed to drain her.
The jackal-headed man said nothing, squatting on the ground inside the door, his iron mask scored and dented. One ear, never properly repaired after the conflagration at Pelusium, was now entirely torn away, leaving a gaping hole in the metal, showing matted black hair and a pale scalp covered with scars.