Sunbird (60 page)

^{Huy saw how he had fought against his bonds, tearing his own flesh, smearing the skin on the unyielding iron shackles, and the wound in his groin had been crudely dressed with leaves and bark. There were the first watery yellow discharges of putrefication soiling the dressing, and the flesh around it looked hard and swollen. Although he limped, although the chains jangled mockingly at every pace, and although the slave-masters braced against him as though he were a captured animal, there was no mistaking that he was a king. He stood before Lannon and lowered his head slightly on the thick sinewed neck. His eyes were ferocious, even the whites were smoking yellow and covered with a fine lacework of blood vessels, and he stared at his captors with a hatred that was a palpable thing.}

^{'You captured this - this great black beast, Huy?' Lannon returned the giant's stare. 'Without help, you took him?' Lannon shook his head with wonder and turned to Huy, but Huy was watching the Vendi king.}

^{'What is your name?' Huy asked softly, and the big round head swivelled towards him, the fierce eyes held his}

^{'How do you have the tongue of Vendi?'}

^{'I have many tongues,' Huy assured him. 'Who are you?'}

^{'Manatassi, King of the Vendi,' And Huy translated for Lannon.}

^{'Tell him he is king no longer,' Lannon snapped, and Manatassi shrugged and smiled. His smile was a frightening thing for although the thick purple lips drew back to expose strong white teeth, yet his eyes still smoked with hatred.}

^{'Fifty thousand warriors of Vendi call me king still,' he answered.}

^{'A slave king of a slave people,' Lannon laughed, and then to Huy. 'What of him, Huy? Is he not a dangerous enemy? Can we afford to let him live?'}

^{Huy tore his gaze from the slave king and considered the question, trying to think logically but finding it difficult, Huy had conceived a sudden but powerful proprietary interest in Manatassi. He was impressed with the man's power and presence, with the military skills he had displayed, with the cunning and cleverness and the strange smouldering depths of him. Huy had taken him, he could claim him, even from Lannon, and he was strongly tempted to do so now, for he sensed that here was some extraordinary opportunity. To take this man and educate him, civilize him - what might be made of him! He felt an excitement as a new idea tried to struggle to the surface of his mind.}

^{'I think not,' Lannon answered himself. 'From the first moment I saw him, on the hill above the ford, I knew he was dangerous. Deadly dangerous. I do not think we can let him live, Huy. He would make a fine messenger to the gods. We will dedicate him to Baal and send him as a messenger to express our gratitude for the outcome of the campaign.'}

^{'My lord,' Huy dropped his voice for Lannon alone, 'I have a feeling about this man. I feel I could enlighten him, teach him the true gods. He is young, my lord, I could work upon him, and when we are ready we could return him to his people.'}

^{'Have the birds picked out your brain?' Lannon looked at Huy in astonishment. 'Why should we return him to his people, when we have spent so much effort on capturing him?'}

^{'We could use him as an ally then.' Huy was trying desperately to get his idea over. 'Through him we could make
a
treaty with the tribes. We could win him over and use him to secure our northern borders.'}

^{'Treaties with barbarians!' Lannon was angry now. 'What nonsense is this? Secure our northern borders, you say? One thing, and one thing only will secure our northern borders, and that is a sharp sword in a strong hand.'}

^{'My lord, please hear me out.'}

^{'No, Huy. I will have no more of it. He must die - and quickly.' Lannon stood up. 'Tonight at sunset. Prepare to send him.' And Lannon strode away.}

^{'Dismiss the legion,' Huy ordered his commanders, and nodded to the slave-masters to lead the captive away. But Manatassi stepped forward dragging the slave-masters with him on his chains.}

^{'High born!' Manatassi called Huy, who turned back to him with surprise. He had not expected a title of respect.}

^{'What is it?' Huy looked at him.}

^{'Is it death?' Manatassi asked, and Huy nodded.}

^{'It is death,' he admitted.}

^{'But you argued for me?' Manatassi insisted, and again Huy nodded.}

^{'Why?' demanded the slave king, and Huy could not answer. He spread his hands, a gesture of weariness and incomprehension.}

^{Twice already,' the slave king said. 'First you turned the blade which should have killed, and now you speak for me. Why?'}

^{'I do not know. I cannot explain.'}

^{'You feel the bond - the bond between us,' Manatassi declared, and his voice sank low, rumbling and soft. 'The bond of the spirits. You felt it.'}

^{'No.' Huy shook his head, and hurried away to his tent. He worked on his scrolls for most of the afternoon, recording the campaign, describing the burning and the battle at the ford, listing the battle honours and the slaves taken, the booty and the glory - but he could not bring himself to describe Manatassi. The man would soon be dead, let his memory die with him, let it not linger on to haunt the living. A phrase that Lannon had used stuck in his mind, 'the black beast', and he used it as the only reference to the doomed slave king.}

^{He ate the noon meal with Bakmor and a few others of his young officers, but his mood infected them all and the meal was awkward, the conversation trivial and stilted. Afterwards Huy spent an hour with his adjutant and quartermaster ordering the legion's affairs, then he worked with the axe until his sweat ran down his body in streams. He scraped and oiled and changed into fresh robes for the sacrifice, and went to Lannon's tent. Lannon was in conference, a group of his advisers and officials sitting in a half-circle around him on the skins and cushions. Lannon looked up and smiled and called Huy to him.}

^{'Sit by me, my Sunbird. There is something here on which I would value your thoughts.' And Huy sat and listened to Lannon directing the affairs of the four kingdoms with a quick and confident logic. He made decisions which would have tormented Huy for days, and he made them easily, without doubts or hesitations. Then he dismissed his court, and turned to Huy.}

^{'A bowl of wine with me, Huy. It will be many days before we have the chance again, for in the morning I leave you,'}

^{'Whither, my lord?'}

^{'I return to Opet, but at speed. I will leave you and your slaves and herds to make the best of it.'}

^{They drank together, exchanging the seemingly easy desultory talk of old friends, but Huy was manoeuvring for an opening to speak of Manatassi, and Lannon was deftly denying it to him. At last Huy in desperation approached the subject directly.}

^{'The Vendi king, my lord.' And he got no further, for Lannon slammed the wine bowl down so that it cracked and a ruby gush of the lees spurted onto the furs on which they sat.}

^{'You presume on friendship. I have ordered his death. Except for the axe stroke the matter is settled.'}

^{'I believe it is a mistake.'}

^{'To let him live will be a greater mistake.'}

^{'My lord--'}

^{'Enough, Huy! Enough, I say! Go out now and send him.'}

^{In the sunset they brought the Vendi king to a clear place on the river bank below the garrison walls of Sett. He was dressed in a cloak of leather, worked with the symbols of Baal, and he wore the symbolical chains of the sacrifice. Huy stood with the priests and nobles, and when they led the doomed king forward his eyes fastened on Huy's. Those terrible yellow eyes seemed almost to hook into his flesh, seemed to draw Huy's soul out through his eye sockets.}

^{Huy began the ritual, chanting the offertory, making the obeisance to the flaming god image in the western sky and all the while he could feel those eyes eating into the core of his existence.}

^{Huy's assistant offered him the vulture axe, polished and glinting red and gold in the last rays of the sunset. Huy went to where Manatassi stood, and looked up at him.}

^{The slave-masters stepped forward and lifted the cloak from the shoulders of the sacrifice. Except for the golden chains he was naked and magnificent. They had removed the raw-hide sandals from his feet. The slave-masters waited with the chains in their hands, at Huy's signal they would jerk the sacrifice off his feet and stretch him out upon the ground. His neck drawn out for the axe blade.}

^{Huy hesitated, unable to force himself to give the order, held fascinated by those fierce yellow eyes. With an effort he tore his gaze free and looked downwards. He had started to give the signal, but his hand froze. He was staring at Mana-tassi's bare feet.}

^{Around him the watchers stirred restlessly, glancing towards the horizon where the sun was rapidly sliding below the trees. Soon it would be too late.}

^{Still Huy stared at Manatassi's feet.}

^{'The sun goes, Priest. Strike!' Lannon called abruptly, angrily in the silence and the sound of his voice seemed to arouse Huy. He turned to Lannon.}

^{'My lord, there is something you must see.'}

^{'The sun is going,' Lannon called impatiently.}

^{'You must see it,' Huy insisted, and Lannon strode forward to stand beside him.}

^{'Look!' Huy pointed at the Vendi king's feet, and Lannon frowned on a quick intake of breath.}

^{Manatassi's feet were monstrously deformed, deeply divided between the toes so that they resembled the claws of some preternatural bird. Involuntarily Lannon stepped backwards, making the full-handed sun sign to avert evil.}

^{'He is bird-footed,' Huy said, 'he has the feet of the sacred Sunbird of Baal.' And there was a rustle and murmur from the watchers. They craned forward with a ghoulish, superstitious curiosity.}

^{Huy raised his voice. 'I declare this man god-marked. He is favoured by the gods - and cannot be sent as a messenger.'}

^{As he spoke the sun dropped below the rim of the world and there was a chill and a dankness in the air.}

^{Lannon was in a towering, shaking rage that paled his lips and face so that the black clotted scab of his wound stood out clearly on his cheek.}

^{'You defied me!' he said it softly, but in a voice that trembled with his rage.}

^{'He is god-marked!' Huy protested.}

^{'Do not try to hide behind your gods, Priest. You and I both know that many of Baal's decisions are made by Huy Ben-Amon, for Huy Ben-Amon.'}

^{'Majesty,' Huy gasped at the accusation, at the dreadful blasphemy of it.}

^{'You defied me,' Lannon repeated. 'You think to place this barbarian beyond my reach, you aspire to play the game of power and politics with me.'}

^{'It is not true, my lord. I would not dare.'}

^{'You
would
dare, Priest. You would dare to steal the teeth from the mouth of the living Gry-Lion, it the fancy came upon you.'}

^{'My lord, I am your true, your most loyal--'}

^{'Tread lightly, Priest. I warn you. You fly high in the tour kingdoms, but remember always that you do so by my favour alone.'}