The warlord's eyes flared. "Do the gods shield them?"
She offered him a tiny shrug. "My gift does not reveal this, my lord."
Memnon drew in a deep breath, then let it out, before throwing a smiling glance at, first, Takmet, then Thorak. "Give our generals the news of this disarray in Ur. Have them make ready my armies."
"Yes, my lord," Takmet said.
Thorak said the same.
As the advisers made their exit, Memnon approached Cassandra and touched her shoulder, his smile surprisingly gentle. "You think me cruel?"
"I rarely think of you at all," she said, though her tone lacked the apparent contempt of her words.
He strolled to a table of food and ripped a shank of venison from a platter. "You sorely test my good nature, Cassandra."
"I am here only to fulfill a purpose."
He turned to her, holding the shank of meat like a club. "Yes? Perhaps you've forgotten what life is like, outside these palace walls."
The warlord tossed the venison across the room, and his young lion and tiger began to scuffle over it, until finally they were snarling and snapping at the meat and each other.
"That is what it is like out there, my pet," he said to her. "Heartless ... ignornant... savage ..."
What an apt description of Memnon himself, the sorceress thought; but she did not share this view with her host.
With a wave, Memnon summoned guards from the periphery who separated the two beasts, yanking them back on their chains; one guard cleaved the remainder of the shank of meat with his sword, and gave each animal its share.
Memnon returned to the seated woman's side. "That ignorance . .. that barbarism ... I can change it all. Am I not called the Teacher of Men? I can transmute savagery into civilization, in our lifetimes. Just as the prophecy says ..."
As if not even listening, Cassandra rose and wandered to that table of food and drink; she poured herself a goblet of wine. But her words indicated she had indeed paid attention to her lord: "I know the prophecy."
"You should," he said, going to her. "The vision, after all, was yours, Cassandra. ... Say it."
"Don't you know it, my lord? Don't the words ring in your mind at every moment?"
"Say it!"
She sighed. " 'By tolling bell, and thunder's swell... a flaming star falls from the sky. By a full moon's glow, in House of Scorpio ... kneeling men bow, to the king ... on high.' "
"Such lovely words," he said, and with the back of his hand he stroked her cheek. "Such a lovely woman ... what a queen you'll make. For I am that king of legend, my love ... celebrated by the gods themselves."
She looked at him, her lovely face blank, her eyes unblinking, and said nothing.
"When that time comes, when the prophecy is fulfilled," he said, "you shall take your place beside me.... On a throne, of course .. . and in my bed."
She smiled—a tiny smile. "Only a virgin can be blessed with second sight. My lord, in your bed of delight, I would lose my gift .. . and you would lose your advantage on the field of battle."
He returned the smile and studied her perfect features. "Ah, my beautiful sorceress ... When I am king of the world, I will no longer need your visions ... all I will require is the vision of loveliness that you are."
And Memnon ran his hand up the expanse of her bare arm, fingers gentle on her flesh; but even as he savored the thought of the ecstasies that awaited him . . . them ... the sorceress flinched, feeling a chill, and a wave of revulsion.
She drew away from the warlord, brushing the hilt of a knife on his belt, unaware that this weapon was the confiscated throwing knife that had belonged to the Akkadian, Mathayus.
And contact with a belonging of the assassin's sparked a psychic contact, and a new vision seized her mind, her being, took her at once to the desert, where she saw . ..
... a scrawny, scruffily bearded man running alongside a strange, white camel on which rode the Akkadian—Mathayus!
So the assassin lived! Was her life still threatened, then? she wondered.
But she did not share the vision—threat or not— with Memnon, even when—noting the surprise in her eyes, sensing another vision had come—he asked, "What is it?"
Instead she merely informed her lord that she was tired from their journey.
Memnon searched the woman's face for deceit or trickery, but saw nothing, and suggested she rest.
"I will have need of you tomorrow," he told her, "when my generals come caning."
She bowed her head. "Thank you, my lord,"
When she turned and walked away from him, the warlord called to her. "Cassandra)"
She stopped, but she did not turn to him.
He said, quietly, "Your well-being is of the utmost importance to me. You know that, don't you?"
That was as close as this proud warlord could come to telling the woman that he loved her. Admitting his thirst for her—the lust in him—was far easier than acknowledging the tender emotions he felt, which shamed him.
"Yes, my lord," she said, hating him. "You are most generous."
And as she glided from the throne room, the mighty warlord watched her go, drinking in every supple curve of her body, relishing the bounce of her dark hair on her shoulders and the tinkle of her jewelry and the grace of her movements.
Like a drunk who has forsworn the bottle, this strong man wallowed in the weakness of loving her, and longed for the day her purity would no longer matter, when he could love and defile her.
At the crest of a rocky slope, Mathayus—leading his camel, tagged along after by the horse thief-— paused to survey the valley below ... and the fortified, walled city whose structures, humble and grand, were lorded over by a castellated palace.
"So," the Akkadian said with dry bitterness, "this is the house of the hollow king."
"Gomorrah," Arpid said, taking in the view with wide, appreciative eyes. "Grandest city in the world."
To Mathayus there was nothing grand about it— not even the palace, which to the assassin was nothing more than a box for him to crack open and shake that rogue warlord out.
But the scruffy little horse thief was still rhapsodizing, sighing like a man remembering his kiss. kiss. "Let me tell you, partner—after a hard day of looting and pillaging, there's no better place to unwind than Gomorrah..." He frowned in thought. ".. . except for maybe Sodom."
Massive bow already over his shoulder, Mathayus turned to Hanna and began arming himself from the camel's backpacks—knives, arrows, kama, and more. The sight of this seemed to take some of the steam out of the thief.
"Yes, Gomorrah's something, all right," Arpid said, stepping away from the assassin. "And I really do wish I could join you ..."
The Akkadian was paying the man no heed; right now the assassin was withdrawing his long, hooded cloak. As Mathayus slipped into it, his companion plucked a knife from one of the packs and executed a few slashes at invisible adversaries.
"Believe me," Arpid was saying, "I'd like to even up the score with those red guards, myself. .. but with the price on my head, I'd never make it through the gates."
Mathayus turned and finally acknowledged the thief. "Oh, but I have faith in you ... partner."
"I'm afraid my notoriety would only bring you unwanted attention. You should sneak in the back way."
"We're going to Gomorrah, not Sodom."
"Really, Mathayus—I would not want to impede you...."
The Akkadian rested a massive hand on the little man's bony shoulder. "You'll get us in, thief. The front way."
Before long they were approaching the Gomorrah gate, the hooded cloak obscuring Mathayus's face as he walked the camel, the thief following along, hiding behind the Akkadian's bulk.