The Gate of Fire (73 page)

"Pardon, lad, do you mind if I sit with you?"

Dwyrin looked up, canting back his straw hat. It was the beast-man, Vladimir, looking a little peaked. Dwyrin shrugged. It was unusual for the Walach to come out of the cabin during the day. The motion and vastness of the sea seemed to make him uneasy. "Surely. Pick a plank."

Vladimir sat oddly, with his legs crossed over each other. Like Dwyrin, he had shed shirt and boots, leaving just long linen trousers. These were a fine weave, though, and dyed a dark woad blue. Lacings in green-dyed leather ran down the outside of each leg. Vladimir looked out over the water, shading his eyes with a thick hand. "Do you love the sea?"

Dwyrin raised an eyebrow and pushed his hat back, turning to face the Walach. "The sea is in my blood," he said, pressing two fingers to his chest. "All of my people came to Hibernia from the sea in the great migration. Even if we live in the green heart of the land, the ocean is never far away. You can hear the beat of the surf in the ground, it seems. Of course, it's nothing like this tranquil lake." He indicated the horizon, "The true ocean, beyond the Pillars, is mighty and awesome."

Vladimir nodded, scratching the side of his head with a thick fingernail. "My people... we came out of the Sea of Grass, but even then, when we came to the waters of the Sea of Darkness and tasted them, we knew that something lay beyond. Our old legends, the ones that the
k'shapâcara
elders learn from the memory chant, speak of the great ocean that circles the world. We must have seen it once, long ago."

Dwyrin nodded companionably. He no longer felt ill in the presence of the beast-man, seeing that he and Nicholas were fast friends. It was good that the Walach had come out of his cabin to sit under the open sky. It did no one good to spend their days mewed up in some dank hole. The clear clean air was better. Dwyrin suddenly realized that the dark feeling that had lain over him since Antioch was gone. He missed Zoë and Odenathus terribly, but he hoped to see them again, one day.

Perhaps they will have put their anger aside
. It was a hope, anyway.

"I would like to see the great ocean," Vladimir said, still talking and looking out over the waters. "Some day, before I am called into the close darkness. There are many stories, in the old tales, of the endless sea and the water-that-tastes-like-blood."

Dwyrin clapped the Walach on the shoulder, feeling the fine, soft fur. "You will see it, then, my friend. It is a journey of many days, but between us we can convince Nicholas to turn the ship and take us there. Then you will see the gray vastness..."

Vladimir laughed, a deep throaty sound that reminded Dwyrin of a forest stream spilling over mossy stones.

Torches flared in the wind, casting red-and-orange light high on the walls of the canyon. The shadows of men trembled across the water-carved stone surfaces, growing enormous and small by turns. Fitted stones making a metaled road covered the floor of the canyon where the native stone had not been planed smooth. Boots clattered on the flagstones, and the jingle of armor and the creak of leather filled the air. Water, carried in round, ceramic pipes fitted into channels in the wall of the canyon, gurgled past. Somewhere high above, catchment dams and cisterns gathered the rain and the seepage of tiny springs. The men were tired and footsore and hungry, and the canyon continued to narrow. Even the night sky above, strewn with a field of stars, was soon closed off, and they marched under striated red walls.

At the head of the column, Odenathus led a weary horse by its bridle. He was tired, too, for the sprint across the flat desert wasteland to the east of these hills had been taxing. Ahead of him, the lead scout suddenly stopped and raised a hand in warning. Odenathus shook his head, trying to clear the fog of fatigue away. He handed off the bridle of his horse to one of the Palmyrenes in the van and splashed forward. The scout, a Bostran shepherd who had joined them a week ago, was standing at a turn in the canyon. It was very narrow here, barely wide enough for a horse to pass through.

"What is it?" Odenathus kept his voice down, though the racket of the army at his back was sure to have alerted anyone who might be about. The scout nodded ahead, his dark eyes glittering in the torchlight. The Bostran was clad in the enveloping desert robes of the southern tribes, leaving only the bridge of his nose and his eyes showing. Odenathus stepped to the turn and looked around the corner.

The passage widened out, and there, carved from the living rock of the canyon wall, was a towering palace with doors and windows and deep embrasures holding statues of men and Amazons. Odenathus hissed, seeing the gorgeous building illuminated by the light of a bonfire on the floor of the canyon. Then he silenced himself, for a gate of worked stone stood at the end of the canyon. It stood wide open, though men in desert robes and armor loitered just beyond it. Indeed, banners fluttered in the breeze that forced its way down the narrow slot canyon, and it seemed that they were expected.

The Palmyrene turned and signaled to the men following. A muttered message was passed down the line. Odenathus waited in the shadow of the canyon, watching the men standing in the light of the bonfires. They seemed to be waiting, too. At last there was a muted rattle of boots on stone, and two figures trotted up to his side. Odenathus smiled in relief, seeing that Zoë did not have the dead Queen strapped to her back. The long march across Hauran and the rough passage of Trachontis had convinced her that she did not need to carry the corpse herself. Another wagon had been acquired in a town south of Jerash and outfitted as a catafalque. Now the dead Queen rode in majesty, lying on a bed of rose petals and cedar. Incense and aromatic candles were burned around her at dawn and dusk, shrouding the faint smell of desiccated flesh.

Beyond that, however, Zoë spent much time with her aunt, sometimes sleeping under the funeral wagon. Odenathus and the other men had, slowly, grown used to its presence and now ignored it.

Zoë brushed a trailing lock of raven dark hair out of her face as she came up to Odenathus.

"Our way is blocked?" Here in the dark, with this firelight, she seemed her old self, unmarked by torment and inner demons. Odenathus nodded in the direction of the gate.

"The city is defended—men stand at the door yonder. Lord Prince, is this the usual practice here?"

The man standing at Zoë's side was their new ally, Zamanes, Prince of Bostra and Jerash, the King of Gerasa. He was a stoutly built man of middle height with a thick, curly beard ornamented with small jewels. Despite his young age, he was afflicted with a slight limp and poor vision. The Prince looked around the corner of the cliff as well, then tugged at his beard. "Those are no Petrans," he growled. "That merchant must have been right."

Two days before, as the combined army—such that it was—of the Palmyrenes and Bostrans reached the eastern end of the fertile valley that had led them to this slot canyon, their outriders had captured an Arab merchant on the Roman road. The man was walking alone with his goods in a bag held by a carry-strap that circled his forehead. Zamanes had questioned him while Odenathus watched. The merchant had related an odd tale that "Southerners" had captured the Red City in the mountains and had thrown down all the idols of the gods. This struck Odenathus as being particularly unlucky, but he knew that the southern tribes believed all sorts of superstitions.

"They are enemies of the Empire." Zoë's voice was flat. Odenathus started to dispute the statement, but paused and realized that it might well be true. Anyone who would attack and capture a provincial capital had to be an enemy of the Romans.
But does that make them our friends?

"Let us speak with their chieftain." Zoë pushed away from the wall and walked out onto the sandy canyon floor, her arms raised high in greeting. Odenathus, without thinking, jumped after her and then found himself in the full view of thirty or forty men waiting in the wide oval space between the exit from the slot canyon and the huge rock temple. He looked from side to side and counted the number of bows trained upon him. It would be very difficult to take this place, emerging one at a time from the canyon mouth into a storm of arrows, spears, and javelins.

"Ho! We come to speak with your master. Call him to us, or let us enter." Zoë's voice, high and strong, rang off of the canyon walls, echoing among the entablature and freestanding statues on the pediment of the tomb. On the ramp of steps leading up into the rock temple, a man with thick, broad shoulders looked down upon them. He wore a cloak of white and green over burnished metal armor. Odenathus squinted into the firelight, seeing that he wore the habitual headdress of the southern tribes and bore a long, recurved bow in a wooden case on his back.

"Our lord awaits you, strangers. Send your embassy forward, and we will take you to him."

Within a circling ring of mountains, Petra nestled in a rich and crowded valley. Hundreds of villas and shops climbed the hills that stood on either side of the main road into the city. Above those hills, cliffs rose on every side, riddled with carved tombs and grand funerary temples. Though the city was well-illuminated at night by lanterns and torches, the surrounding mountains were dark. The tomb doors gaped, showing black yawning pits where the old doors had been cracked open by earthquake or vandal.

Odenathus followed Zoë and Zamanes as they passed down the avenue of the city. Everything was built of blocks of stone and roofs of tile or slate. In the darkness he could make out the murmur of many horses and camels, and the smell of water and growing things.
There must be gardens behind these bare walls
, he thought. The stream of Siq ran through the middle of the city alongside a raised roadbed lined with beautiful columns of marble. Little arched bridges crossed the streambed, though unless there were heavy rains, he could see no use for them. They passed an open market on their left, raised up on a great platform and built out from the side of a hill. A Roman-style triumphal gate followed, thick with devotive statues and carved wreaths. Beyond the gate was a long, rectangular plaza fronting a Greek-style temple. A great baths crouched at the side of the elegant temple, seeming crude in comparison.

Unexpectedly, for Odenathus had expected them to be taken to the palace of the Kings of Petra, they turned and climbed the steps leading up into the temple. At the top of the steps their escort paused, a constantly moving ring of Arabs in long cloaks, and the wall-captain—that great-shouldered bowman—spoke with the commander of the watch. After a moment they were allowed within, entering first a portico of fat-bellied pillars in shades of red, and then a vaulted hall lined with statues of men in regal garb. At the end of the hall of statues was a square room with many tables. Behind the tables a great statue rose up, but it was covered in cloth from head to toe. At the largest table, leaning his chin on his fist, was a man of middle years with startling white streaks running through his beard. His face was dominated by a scar, a strong nose, and brilliant dark eyes. The man looked up as they approached, and gestured for the servants lurking about in the corners of the room to leave.

"I am Mohammed, Lord of the City."

Odenathus started, as he had expected the rough, uncultured voice of a barbarian chieftain, but this man spoke Greek like a philosopher of Alexandria or Antioch. "Welcome to Petra. Please, sit and take some tea."

Odenathus accepted a chair, as did Zamanes and Zoë, though the woman was staring fixedly at the desert chieftain. Servants hurried back, carrying trays of beaten gold that held cups of porcelain and a kettle of steaming water.

"I do not imbibe wine," the desert chieftain continued as he took a small yellow cup from the tray. "Nor do my men. Tea, therefore, is in short supply among us. But, please, drink. Are you hungry?"

In answer, Odenathus' stomach growled. Rations had been short since they had left the fertile valleys around Damascus. Even adding the Bostrans to their number, with the support of the tribes that followed Zamanes, had not eased the logistical problems they faced. This was a barren country, not suited for the movement of armies that did not own the cities and towns. Mohammed grinned and rattled off an order to the nearest servant.

"Soon there will be food, my guests. Now, I know you well, Prince Zamanes, but you—young lady and young man—you are new to me. What are your names?"

Zamanes stiffened, cocking his head toward the chieftain with a perplexed look on his face. "You know me, Lord Mohammed? Where have we met?"

Mohammed laughed, a short, sharp bark. He fingered the white in his beard. "Most like you thought me dead, Prince Zamanes. My men and I held your left on the field at Emesa, before the cowardice of that Palmyrene cur Zabda lost us the day."

Odenathus was standing, a snarl on his lips and his sword half drawn before the words fully registered in his mind. The desert men behind him reacted swiftly, and he found the point of a spear at his throat. Zamanes had also risen, his face wreathed in shock, but now he too froze.

"If you impugn the name of Zabda," snapped Odenathus, "Lord Mohammed, you insult all Palmyra. You insult me and my house, for that noble lord was my father."

Mohammed turned, his eyes hard and the line of his mouth grim. "You seem a likely lad, and if you hail from fair Palmyra I would call you friend. But the Queen herself cursed his name on that black day and bade him never set foot within the city again. We were inches from victory over the damnable Persians before his caution threw it all away." The desert chieftain's voice rapped like a chisel on stone.

Odenathus flushed beet red, and his heart hammered. The news of his father's death, delivered in a leaden voice by his own mother, had been very hard to take. This was harder still—his family disgraced by cowardice on the field of battle. The young man struggled with his temper and then slid the
gladius
back into its sheath with an audible click. "Your pardon, Lord Mohammed. I am your guest and spoke out of turn." Odenathus sat down.