XIII. A Good King
"Cassandra!"
She awoke afraid. What had she dreamed? Voices. Running. Screams and cries and the half-seen passage of flaming arrows. She saw again Philos dead on the ground, an arrow piercing his chest. A memory of a vision of a thing that had never happened.
Clenching her fists against her breast, Cassandra suppressed a sob. She'd always had a mentor, even in the blackest of times with Memnon. Philos would be there, always and forever, any time she needed guidance, or a breath of friendship, or simply a smile. He would have known what to do, he would have told her where to go. But Philos, like Menes, was dead, and she was only Cassandra.
The air was heavy, like a thick blanket. Something was happening; far off outside the city gates, something stirred. Beside her, the shadowed form of the king slumbered on, unaware of his sorceress' distress. She took a deep, fluttering breath, then rose, dressed silently, and made for the door.
One of her sandals scuffed on the floor. Cassandra froze, turned back, watched Mathayus breathing deeply and evenly for several long moments. Then she slipped without another sound through the door.
She remembered coming this way, to this gate, garbed in nothing but a few strips of cloth, a veil thrown over her hair, a threatening knife held almost invisibly against her waist. Just so had the future king kidnapped her. But this time, the soldiers at the gates did not ignore her transit, instead snapping a salute to the king's sorceress and consort.
"Open the gates," Cassandra ordered.
"Pardon, m'lady, but we can't let 'em in till sunrise. And even then, no wise all of 'em."
Ever the sorceress, Cassandra kept her posture still and dignified, and her gaze calm. "I did not say to let them in, guardsman." The man hesitated, moved, hesitated again. Then, shrugging, he nodded to his comrade, and they heaved the gates open just enough to let Cassandra through.
The gate guard watched the sorceress slip into the night. He nodded to his junior again, and the young man trotted off in the direction of the palace.
The gate shut with a thud behind Cassandra. Glancing nervously back at it, she offered up a prayer to whichever god might be listening, then strode into the shantytown of Nubian refugees that had sprung up in the night before the western wall of Gomorrah.
Rat-chewed tents flapped like crows' wings in the wind. A handful of starving dogs let out pitiful whines and slunk away, whipcord tails tucked between bony legs. Cassandra swallowed hard. Lining the sketchy paths like garbage were bodies and heaps of rags, each indistinguishable from the next; but she did not care to discover which was which.
The stench was impossible.
Something drew the sorceress on, something she knew better than to question. Soon, she found herself ducking into one of the many patchwork tents in the camp. There was only one occupant, a woman, curled up in a filthy rug.
"Nephthys."
The woman shot up like a startled bird. "Who...?" Even through the darkness, Cassandra could see the woman's resemblance to Queen Isis.
"Leave. You must be gone by morning."
Nephthys shook her head and blinked up at the sorceress. "What--why?"
"You'll find no succor here. Mathayus has turned against you. If you stay, you'll all be killed."
"Mathayus has--you mean he's alive?" The slender Nubian woman leapt up. "But... by all the gods, why? Surely this isn't about Balthazar's refusal to school the boy--"
"Menes... is dead." Cassandra's throat closed again in grief. "He was murdered by the red guards sent to escort him--the very guards your king sent in trust to Mathayus."
"No!" Nephthys shouted. Not far away, several dogs began to bark. "Balthazar would never--sorceress, you must believe me! He is a good man, a good king!"
Cassandra was trembling now. Her breath came in short, ragged, gasps, but she managed to say, "It wasn't Balthazar's doing."
Nephthys' lips twisted in a snarl. "Anakronos. When I find that dog, I will personally rip out his..." She trailed off, her eyes narrowing. When she continued, her voice was like ice. "Balthazar traveled to the Valley of the Dead to retrieve Mathayus' body. But you say that Mathayus is not dead. So where is my king, sorceress? Where is my sister's husband?"
Sorrow and shame and a choking terror smothered Cassandra, spotting her vision and turning her knees to water. Dead, she thought she said aloud, but there was a rushing in her ears, and for the space of a heartbeat, she knew nothing. When she came back to herself, she was lying on the ground, curled about her misery like a cat suckling kittens.
At first, she thought the cries were her own.
Then the rushing in her ears resolved itself into the muted roar of flames, and she scrambled out of the tent to a vision that had never come to pass.
"Dates?" the boy had offered. "Oh, thank you," she had replied with a smile, laying an affectionate hand on his head.
Men, women, and children ran screaming in all directions while flaming arrows--flew from the cliffs above--whirred from the battlements. Philos and Arpid--an old man and his son--lay dead--arrow shafts jutting obscenely from their chests. She turned just in time--her hair whipping across her face--to see a man on horseback riding hard toward her.
"Cassandra!" It was Memnon, come to recapture her. It was Mathayus, and he caught her up in his strong arms and heaved her over the horse's back.
The western gates closed again around Mathayus and Cassandra, and the arrows continued falling like the wrath of the gods onto the undefended camp.