Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (61 page)

Gisco shrugged his shoulders. He shook his head and carefully selected a large piece of flatbread from Isis.

“She is quite ruthless. You know that but always want to forget. It is a good thing Akmu-en-Swnw had the sense to come and find me. You would be hanging from a cross outside the city gate by now.” Gisco plucked a succulent date from Isis’s hand and took a dainty bite.

Himilco’s face turned dark. “Why did they let me go? They knew what I set out to do.”

Gisco gave a short laugh. “They hoped you would fail in the great ocean. And they had to get rid of the queen. Simple as that. Even yet, you don’t understand. With their own network, they don’t have to build the ships, or take the risks that their ships might founder or be attacked. Your cartel put all that sure profit at risk.”

He popped the rest of the date neatly into his mouth and reached for another.

“I see all of the harbor master’s invoices and contracts. There is a pattern of huge shipments. Silver and tin is smuggled in as grain, as wine in amphorae, or in sacks of lentils. More than even hungry Carthage can consume. If Hanno knew I figured this out, he would have
me
killed. And be sure my dearest brother, they will kill you to safeguard that.”

“What can I do?” Himilco stood in the center of the room, hands raised.

Gisco took a few more dates and bread and placed them carefully in his purse. He gave a sharp knock on the door, summoning the guards. He smiled, bowing low to Sabrann, and then, a grim look on his round face, turned to his brother.

“What can you do? You want to save this girl and what’s left of your people? Repent! Plead to Maris and promise her anything she wants. You will hate it, but it is the only way around Hanno.” Gisco started out the door then stopped.

“You know, it has always been you she wanted.”

Himilco slumped down against the wall and covered his face with his hands.

After Gisco left, a pall hung over the room, and no one spoke. Late in the afternoon, heavy footsteps outside in the hall roused everyone. The door swung open and the queen’s special guards, in their red tunics and bronze helmets, entered the room, a priest with them. They grabbed the Admiral by the arms. The priest dabbed red ocher on the Admiral’s forehead, making a sign—one straight line, crossed by another.

Wide-eyed, Sabrann watched. He was her only protection. When they led the Admiral from the room, Akmu shook his head and touched his amulet of the goddess Sekhmet. The door slammed shut and the bolt slid into place. She looked at Hero.

“The sign when written is
tau
; it is the last sound,” he said.

“And death,” Akmu said. They were on their own.

CHAPTER 40

The early morning air was moist and cool, a relief from yesterday’s heat, and a damp, earthy smell rose up from the dirt floor. Nothing brought any comfort to Sabrann. She had barely slept all night waiting for the Admiral to return, and jumped at each small sound. Hero lay against the wall in the corner of the small room, his eyes open, watching her.

“Sabrann,” he whispered painfully. “I’m sorry. You are angry. But it was too painful. I would have said anything to have it stop.” She looked at his wrecked hand—two fingers lay twisted like a claw.

“I know that now,” she said, and gently touched his arm.

With the first light, Akmu and Isis returned, safe under Gisco’s power as magistrate. Akmu knelt by Hero. With closed eyes he held his golden Sekhmet amulet over Hero, and chanted an Egyptian prayer. Then he pressed a few drops of poppy to Hero’s lips—for the healing would be almost as painful as the torture. When the queen’s guards questioned Hero, his arm had been pulled out of place, and hung useless by his side. Isis held him up as Akmu knelt behind Hero and putting his arms around his chest, pulled and twisted the arm until it popped back into its proper place. Hero groaned with the pain and passed out, his head on Sabrann’s lap. He barely moved when Akmu set his twisted and broken fingers in sticks and thick layers of linen.

The sun rose high in the latticed window. A clatter of heavy-sounding footsteps and clanging metal echoed from the hall. The door opened silently, and the
Rab-kohanim
entered. His gaze swept the room and then rested on Sabrann, a cold look in his eyes.

“You are ordered to attend the queen—all of you. Follow me.”

They followed the priest through a maze of dim halls and then were outside in blinding, bright sunlight, walking uphill on a narrow street. Surrounded by Sacred Battalion guards, Akmu walked on one side of Sabrann and Isis on the other. Hero was carried along on the back of a slave. Akmu looked worried.

“Where are we going?” she asked in a low voice. “I thought it was all over.”

“Oh, no. Now we must get past the queen,” he said. “Only then will it be over.”

He didn’t say anything about the Admiral. The skin on the nape of Sabrann’s neck prickled, like it always did when she was close to something dangerous. She reached out and clutched Akmu’s hand.

He bent his head and whispered, “Pay attention, young maid, and do whatever she says. Perhaps the gods will hear and take pity on us.” He quickly touched his amulet.

The narrow street ended at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs.

“I know this place,” he said. “I was here with the Admiral before the voyage started. There are sixty steps to the top and the queen’s palace. This hill is sacred to all Carthaginians; it marks the beginning of the city. They call it the
Byrsa
.”

He held Sabrann’s hand as they climbed. “There is a story they love to tell. Eight hundred years ago, the first Queen Elissa’s brother wanted her dead, and she fled her city of Tyre, far to the east in the Great Sea. She landed here and tricked a Libyan king into giving her all this land. He was a crafty soul and offered her as much land as an oxhide could reach, thinking to discourage her and send her and her people away from his land. But she was more devious than he imagined. She cut an oxhide into hundreds of razor thin strips to mark the boundaries and ended up taking all his land.”

Akmu stopped to catch his breath. A guard poked him to keep moving. Akmu held up his gold Sekhmet and hissed at him. He turned to Sabrann.

“Carthaginians are very proud of this first queen’s deceit. It was not wise to trust Elissa, that royal woman of Tyre. She was beautiful, but tainted by evil. Now we have Elissa-Maris—the fourteenth Queen Elissa—and she is just as treacherous as her ancestor. Beware of her, small maid!”

At the top of the stairs, she turned and looked down. The whole of Carthage lay spread out below, sprawling along the coast. Rich and powerful people ruled here in their great columned houses, white-walled and flowered, some many stories high.

Out beyond the city, as far as she could see, the movement of small, choppy waves caught thousands of reflections of light, sparkling and flashing white. A fleet of fishing boats sailed from the harbor, red-and-white striped sails filled with the wind. In deeper water, they would throw their nets. Sabrann shuddered. They were caught like fish in a net, and she prayed they would not be eaten.

All because the Admiral had wanted the tin. People killed and lied to gain those black pieces of metal. Long ago, Maigrid said the seeds of Taranis were cursed, and Sabrann had never understood why. Until now.

Breathless from the climb, they stood at the top of the
Byrsa
. The queen’s court, a stone building with long red pennants flying, stood next to a temple.

“The temple of Baal Eschmoun,” Akmu said, “the god of healing, and the richest temple in all Carthage. There is a price paid to the priests for each healing, and people are always sick.”

Guards in red tunics lined the entrance to Elissa-Maris’s court. White plumes on their helmets blew straight back in the constant breeze. Twisted pines lay bent like old men before the wind. Everything looked old. The queen’s palace was ancient and worn, not like the gleaming white city below. Dark gray stones formed the entrance, and strange carvings scored immense pillars. Astarte’s crescent moon and sun symbols hung over them all. The only thing new was a symbol above the entrance that looked like a person. It was freshly carved and stood out.

Akmu shook his head. “They call it the goddess
Tanit
. The priests say it is the queen’s sacred symbol.” The same symbol was on the portico floor—stick-like arms extended above a triangular body, outlined in small pieces of black stone.

He sniffed in distain. “It looks like an
ankh
, the Egyptian symbol of life. They stole it; it’s our sign, not the Carthaginians’.” His hand rested on his gold, Egyptian amulet—an
ankh
.

The music of a plucked, stringed instrument and heavy incense floated in the air. Sabrann stumbled as the guards shoved her wordlessly through a great doorway into a large stone-faced room. Two giant torches, just inside the door, cast a flickering light. At first, she saw nothing but a crowd of people, their faces a blur in the torch light.

“Kneel!” A guard barked and kicked the back of her legs. She fell forward into a prostrate position and kept her head down, not knowing what to do. She lay motionless, suddenly remembering the corral at Vannes, and knew, once again, she was the rabbit under a hunting dog’s eye.

The music stopped. Voices faded away. Someone came and stood near her head. A scent stronger than the incense filled her nose. Heavy and cloying, it was like nothing she had ever smelled before. Sabrann lifted her head a little, and two jeweled feet in gold sandals appeared before her eyes. From high above her head came a voice, and not a welcome one; it was the same imperious voice she had heard in the golden walled temple of Baal Reshef. There, it had summoned Admiral Himilco. Here, it called her by the despised name.

“Rise, barbarian. Let me see this wondrous person my Himilco has brought to me.”

Sabrann rose slowly, her head bent, and found the Queen of Carthage standing before her. Fathomless eyes, like blackened crystals, told one dark story while the beauty of the face seduced with another. And behind the queen stood the Admiral!

She placed a hand under Sabrann’s chin and turned her head to one side. The queen turned to him and laughed.

“Did you brand her so, Himilco? She is tattooed like one of my
Yoruba
slaves. Truly, her people are barbarians to mark their women so.”

Sabrann glanced away, pretending she did not understand. The queen’s hand tightened its hold. The Admiral was smiling at the queen! He did not even look at Sabrann or Akmu or Hero. Only at the dangerous woman.

She gave Sabrann’s face a small slap as she withdrew her hand. The slap felt cold and sharp as a death blow. Sabrann breathed in the queen’s heavy perfume and felt her presence seep into her lungs, invading her body. The queen’s aura had settled around Sabrann’s shoulders, like a heavy cloak, and she could not move. Queen Elissa-Maris placed a possessive hand on the Admiral’s shoulder. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. She smiled.

The
Rab-Kohanim
stood in front of a group of priests, all dressed in white, wearing tall cone-shaped hats. Heavy gold amulets, in the shape of Tanit, swung from their necks. The high priest
,
a frown on his thin yellow face, stepped forward and glared at Sabrann.

“You are here, barbarian, because it is my queen’s will. The scribe Hero has told us you are a seer and can see into a person’s life by the laying on of a hand. It is a lie, no doubt. Gods only speak with priests, not through a barbarian girl.”

Shocked, Sabrann looked at Hero, and he wordlessly met her eye. The one person she trusted with her secret had betrayed her to this queen. His fair face turned white, his eyes round as moons. He shook his head silently.

The
Rab-Kohamin
bowed low before Elissa-Maris. “Our beloved queen, the living goddess Tanit and consort of Baal Hammon, desires to see it demonstrated, and in all things we honor her.”

He turned his skeletal face to Sabrann. “You will choose a person in this room. Lay your hands on them, and then tell us what you see. I, the
Rab-Kohanim
, will ask the gods to be the judge. A false prophecy condemns you to die.”