Beloved (6 page)

“So be it,” said Antonius Porcius, relieved to have the whole messy affair over with. Well, he thought to himself, one good thing came from this. That young blond prostitute was the loveliest creature he had seen in months. He intended buying her from her
owners, for he was tired of his current mistress, the wife of a rich Palmyran merchant. Impatiently he signaled to his litter bearers.

“The gods go with you this winter, Zabaai ben Selim. We shall be happy to see you back in Palmyra come the spring.” The Roman governor then climbed into the litter and commanded his bearers to hurry back into the city.

Prince Odenathus watched him go, and then he smiled a mischievous smile. “He is as transparent as a crystal vase, our Roman friend,” he said to Zabaai ben Selim. “His desire for the blond whore was quite apparent, but he shall not have her. Such a brave girl deserves better than our fat Roman governor.”

“She is, I take it, already on her way to the palace,” was Zabaai ben Selim’s amused reply.

“Of course, my cousin! The couch of a Bedawi prince is far preferable to that of a mere Roman.”

Zabaai ben Selim could not help but smile at his younger cousin. The Prince of Palmyra was a charming young man with not only an intelligent mind, but a keen sense of humor. But like many others in Palmyra, Zabaai still worried that Odenathus was not yet married, and had no heir, for Palmyran law dictated that no illegitimate child might inherit the throne. He looked closely at Odenathus, and asked, “When are you going to wed, my Prince?”

“You sound like my council. It is a question they ask daily.” He sighed. “Life’s garden is filled with many beautiful flowers, my cousin. I have yet, however, to find one sweet bud that attracts me enough to make my princess. Perhaps,” he chuckled, “I shall wait for your little Zenobia to grow up, Zabaai.”

It had been said in jest, but no sooner were the words out of Prince Odenathus’s mouth than Zabaai ben Selim realized that it was the very solution to his problem of a husband for his daughter. It was something that both he and Iris had worried about, for none of the young men of his tribe would have been suitable for their daughter. There was simply no getting around the fact that Zenobia was different from other girls. Not only was she far more beautiful than the ordinary Bedawi girl, but she was highly educated, fearless, and quite outgoing.

She could ride and race both camel and horse as well as any man. Because she had begged him to do so, he had let her take arms training with her younger brothers, and he was forced to admit that she was the best pupil he had taught in years, even better than her eldest brother, Akbar. She had a natural grace, and a flair with weapons that was surprising for someone so young.
Strangely, no one gave a second thought to the unconventional things she did, for she was Zenobia, and unlike any girl his tribe had ever produced. He was proud of his daughter.

Still no young male Bedawi wanted a wife who not only rode better than he, but could surpass him in handling a sword, a spear, and a sling. A woman needed to know how to cook, how to birth children, how to herd animals, and sew. Zenobia was definitely not the kind of wife a man of his tribe could love and cherish, but Odenathus was a different type of man. Bedawi in his heritage on his father’s side, he was yet a man of the city, and men of the city preferred their women more educated.

Zabaai ben Selim looked at his young cousin, and said, “Would you actually consider Zenobia for a wife, Odenathus? My daughter would make you a magnificent wife, my cousin! You could have no better. She is more than well born enough for you, for on my side you share the same great-grandfather, and on her mother’s side she descends from Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. She is not yet a woman, but in a few years she will be of marriageable age. I will only give her as a wife, not a concubine, and it must be agreed that her sons be your heirs.”

Prince Odenathus was thoughtful for a long moment. It was certainly not a bad idea, and would solve his problem as well. Zenobia bat Zabaai was dynastically a good match for him. She was also an educated and intelligent girl from what he had seen of her. If a man was to have intelligent sons then he must marry an intelligent wife, Odenathus thought. She might be an interesting woman someday.

“How soon after Zenobia becomes a woman would you be willing to give her to me, Zabaai?” he asked.

“A year at the very least,” came the reply. “I will not even broach this matter with her until she has begun her show of blood, and then she will need time to adjust to the idea of marriage. She has lived all her life in the simple surroundings of the tribe, but my daughter is not just any girl, Odenathus. She is a pearl without price.”

Palmyra’s young ruler looked across the sand to where the girl child Zenobia sat cross-legged upon the desert floor, watching with strangely dispassionate eyes the agony of her mother’s killer. She sat very straight, and very still, seemingly carved out of some inanimate material. He had seen young rabbits sit just that way. She seemed not even to be breathing.

He shook his head in wonder. The Gaul was suffering horribly,
and yet the child showed no signs of compassion, or even of revulsion. A man could breed up strong sons on the loins of such a woman as this child would one day become; but he wondered fleetingly if such a woman would recognize in her husband a master? Perhaps if he took her to wife early enough, and molded her woman’s character himself, it would be possible. Odenathus found that he was willing to take a chance. He found himself inexplicably drawn to Zenobia, for her very strength of character intrigued him greatly.

He smiled at himself. He would not, however, give Zabaai ben Selim too great an advantage, and so he said in what he hoped was a slightly bored and jaded tone, “A match between Zenobia and myself is a possibility, my cousin. Do not give her to anyone else yet, and let us talk on it again when the child becomes a woman if my heart has not become engaged elsewhere.”

Zabaai smiled toothily. “It will be as you have said, my lord Prince, and my cousin,” he replied smoothly. He was not for one moment fooled by Odenathus’s cool attitude, or his nonchalance. He had seen the genuine look of interest in the young man’s warm brown eyes when he had gazed so long and so thoughtfully at Zenobia.

“Will you bid my daughter farewell, my Prince?” he asked. “We will not re-enter the city again until late spring. Once the soldiers have died, we will go on our way into the desert as we have planned.”

Odenathus nodded, and bade Zabaai ben Selim a safe trip. Then he walked across the desert floor to where Zenobia sat. Seating himself beside her, he took her little hand in his own. It was cold, and instinctively he sought to warm it, holding it tightly in his own.

“The Roman dies well,” she said, acknowledging his presence, “but it is early yet, and he will in the end cry to his gods for mercy.”

“It is important to you, that he beg for mercy?”

“Yes!” She spat the word out vehemently, and he could see that she was once more going to withdraw into her private thoughts. She hated well for one so young and, until today, so sheltered. More and more this child fascinated him.

“I would bid you good-bye, Zenobia,” he said, piercing again into her self-absorption.

Zenobia looked up. How handsome he is, she thought. If only
he hadn’t given in to the Romans so easily. If only he weren’t such a weakling.

“Farewell, my lord Prince,” she said coldly, and then she turned back to contemplate the dying man.

“Good-bye, Zenobia,” he said softly, lightly touching her soft dark hair with his hand; but she didn’t notice. He stood up and walked away.

The sun was close to setting now, and had turned the white marble towers and porticos of Palmyra scarlet and gold with its clear light; but Zenobia saw none of it. Campfires sprang up on the desert floor as she sat silently watching her mother’s despoiler. About her the Bedawi went about their own business of the evening. They understood, and waited patiently for the child’s thirst for vengeance to be satisfied.

Vinctus Sextus had been unconscious for some time, but then he began to revive slightly, roused by the waves of pain that ate into his body and his soul as the painkillers given him earlier wore off. That he wasn’t already in Hades surprised him. Slowly he forced his eyes open to find a slender girl child sitting by his head, contemplating his misery.

“W-who … are … you?” he managed to ask through parched and cracked lips.

“I am Zenobia bat Zabaai,” the child answered him in a Latin far purer than any he had been able to learn. “It was my mother that you slaughtered, pig!”

“Give … me … a drink,” he said weakly.

“We do not waste water here in the desert, Roman. You are a dying man. To give you water would be to waste it.” Her eyes were gray stones and totally without feeling as they stared at him.

“You … have … no … mercy?” He was curious.

“Did you show my sweet mother mercy?” The child’s eyes blazed intense hatred at him. “You showed her none, and I will show you no mercy, pig! None!”

He managed a wolfish parody of a grin at her, and they understood each other. He had shown her blond beauty of a mother no kindness or mercy. He wondered if, having been given a glimpse of his fate, he would do it all over again, and decided that he would. Death was death, and the blonde had been more than worth it. Men had died for less. He blinked rapidly several times to clear the fog over his blue eyes so he might see the child better. She was a little beauty facially, but she yet had the flat, unformed body of a child.

“All women … beg … when beneath a man. Didn’t … your mother … ever … tell you … that?”

Zenobia looked away from him and across the desert, not quite understanding his words. The sun had now set, and the night had come swiftly. About her, the golden campfires blazed merrily, while the stars stared down in their silvery silence. “You will die slowly, Roman,” she said quietly, “and I will stay to see it all.”

Vinctus Sextus nodded his head slightly. He could certainly understand vengeance. The child was one to be proud of even if she was only a girl. “I will do … my best … to oblige you,” he said with a scornful and defiant sneer. Then he drifted into unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes again it was pitch black but for the light of the campfires that darted across the sand. The child still sat motionless and totally alert by his side. He drifted off again, returning as dawn came. He watched it creep across the desert floor with tiny slim fingers of violet and apricot and crimson. He could still feel the pain, worse now than it had ever been, and he knew death was near to him.

The narrow stripes upon his back had festered in the night; the thousand ant bites on his body stung and burned unbearably. The rawhide bindings on his arms and legs had now dried, and were cutting painfully into his ankles and his wrists. His throat was so parched that even the simple act of swallowing hurt him. Above, the sun rose higher and higher until it blinded him even when he closed his eyes. He could hear his surviving companions moaning and crying out to their own gods, to their mothers, as they hung upon their crosses. He tried turning his head to look at them, but he could not. He was stretched wide, and tight. Movement was now quite impossible.

“Five are already dead,” the child said brutally. “You Romans are not very strong. A Bedawi could last at least three days.”

Soon the groans stopped, and the child announced, “You alone are left, Roman, but I can tell that you will not last a great deal longer. Your eyes have a milky haze over them, and your breathing is rough.”

He knew that she was right, for already he felt his spirit attempting to leave his body. He closed his eyes wearily, and suddenly he was back in the forests of his native Gaul. The tall trees soared green and graceful toward the sky, their branches waving in the
gentle breeze. Ahead was a beautiful and cool blue lake. He almost cried aloud with joy, and then his lips formed the word,
“Water!”

“No water!”
the child’s voice cut ruthlessly into his pleasure, and he opened his eyes to face the broiling, blazing sun. It was too much! By the gods it was too much!

Vinctus Sextus opened his mouth, and howled with frustrated outrage and pain. The sound of the child’s triumphant laughter was the last thing he heard. It mocked him straight into Hell as he fell back dead upon the desert floor.

Zenobia arose swaying, for her legs were stiff. She had sat by Vinctus Sextus for over eighteen hours, and in all that time she had neither eaten nor drunk anything. Suddenly she was swept up in a pair of strong arms, and she looked into the admiring face of her eldest half-brother, Akbar. His white teeth flashed in his sun-browned face.

“You are Bedawi!” he said. “I am proud of you, my little sister. You are as tough as any warrior! I would fight by your side anytime.”

His words gave her pleasure, but she only said, “Where is Father?” Her voice was suddenly very adult.

“Our father has gone to bury your mother with the honor and the dignity she deserves. She will be put in the tomb in the garden of the house.”

Zenobia nodded, satisfied, and then said, “He begged, Akbar. In the end he begged the same way that he forced my mother to beg.” She paused as if considering that, and then she said softly, “I will
never
beg, Akbar! Whatever happens to me in my lifetime, I will never beg!
Never!”

Akbar hugged the child to his breast. “Never say never, Zenobia,” he warned her gently. “Life often plays odd tricks upon us, for the gods are known to be capricious, and not always kind to us mortals.”

“I will never beg
,” she repeated firmly. Then she smiled sweetly at her brother. “Besides, am I not the beloved of the gods, Akbar? They will defend me always!”