The Storm of Heaven (65 page)

"Together, Lord Mohammed—"

"No!" Zoë shouted, throwing off Odenathus' arm and striding to Mohammed's side. "We will not have an alliance with this dog! He is tomorrow's enemy. We should kill him now, while we can. Then Persia will be thrown into chaos again, and we will have time to deal with Rome."

The corner of Mohammed's mouth twitched up. He settled back against the table. "Lord Baraz, your... offer will be discussed. Good day."

The Persian king nodded, then strode out of the room. The gray-beard followed him, nodding amiably to Khalid and Odenathus. Zoë watched the two men go with ill-disguised hatred. When they were gone, she turned to Mohammed, smoldering. He raised an eyebrow, then sighed. "Khalid, where is that food?"

Shahr-Baraz walked along the seawall of the port, his attention idle on the waves rolling against the sloping wall of rubble. Khadames paced along beside him, head sunk in thought. The Boar stopped, looking out upon the broad waters of the
Mare Internum
. He had seen it before, many times, as his armies marched along the Roman shore. "I have always wondered, old friend, if Egypt is as grand as travelers say."

Khadames snorted, hooking his thumbs into his belt. "I don't think we'll see, my lord. Not without some blood spilt."

The Boar laughed, a big, booming sound that drowned out the waves for a moment. "We've spilled so much, you and I. Why not a little more?"

The general frowned, pursing his lips. His eyes seemed very old. "Not so long ago, you said that you wanted a realm at peace. You vowed it, in fact. Have you changed your mind?"

Shahr-Baraz tugged at his mustaches. "I have not. But, do you see another way? I cannot."

Khadames shook his head, feeling very weary. "We do not have to fight. We can go home—aren't Antioch and the lands around it enough? Our nation is still splintered, racked by chaos. Let us set things right there, in the land between the two rivers!"

Shahr-Baraz looked out to sea, watching the late-afternoon light glitter on the water.

"My lord," Khadames continued, his voice low and urgent. "You are
Shahanshah
now! King of Kings—you have all the choice in the world. Let us go home."

The Boar's chin rose a little as he looked to the west. "Rome is weak now, stunned by these two defeats. If that dog of a Hun is right, the road lies open from Antioch all the way to Chalcedon."

"We have been on the shore of the Propontis before!" Khadames' voice was almost shrill. "It gained us nothing. Constantinople is invincible. We would waste another ten thousand lives trying to break her walls. Yes, even with this fleet of Mohammed's! The Western Empire will come to Heraclius' aid and we will have to fight two empires on their own ground."

"If Mohammed accepts my help," Shahr-Baraz said, grinning, "then there will be two empires to match against these Romans. You know the power I can command now. It would be enough to break even Constantinople!"

The old general cursed then, violently and for a long time. His face turned beet red under the thick, graying beard.

"You are a fool," Khadames said at last, when he had mastered himself enough to speak intelligibly. "I have seen this power you dote on. You do
not
control him. That is a charade! This strength will control you, if you use it. You have not seen the pits under Damawand, or the forges and furnaces that labor there, unceasing."

"I
am
King of Kings," the Boar snorted, standing up from the wall. "I rule Persia now. You forget yourself, Khadames. Even the power of Damawand bows to me."

"Does it?" Khadames coughed, feeling a little faint. "You forget that I have seen the true master there, though it almost destroyed my mind. The will of a king is insignificant."

"Old woman." Shahr-Baraz snorted, sounding like his namesake, rooting in the forest. "Well, then, since you are overwrought, I will say this—if the Arabs accept my offer, we will make war on Rome. If they do not, we will go home and I will see just what occurs in this mountain valley of yours."

Khadames nodded weakly, heart thudding violently in his chest and vision blurring.

"Zoë, listen to me." Mohammed maintained his composure, even when the Palmyrene woman's tirade reached particularly violent levels. She stopped, breathing heavily, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Do you just want revenge? Nothing more, just to destroy your enemy?"

Odenathus, Shadin and Khalid had been watching in interest as the Quraysh and the Queen went back and forth. An hour or more had passed. Neither side had budged. Mohammed wanted to discuss the Persian offer, Zoë did not.

"If that is all that you want, then we will reject this offer. Indeed, we should try and capture Shahr-Baraz and his men and hold them for ransom, at least. But if you want anything more than to destroy the nations who brought down Palmyra, then we will have to consider this."

"He," Zoë jabbed a finger at the window, "set that monster upon the city. This
noble
Boar of yours fed my family, my people, my home into the furnace. It does not matter that he left—if he had not been there, this creature would have been elsewhere too. You urged me to strike against Rome first, and I agreed, for we thought Persia would be mired in civil war for a decade or more. We were wrong! Well, now chance comes around again, driven by the Fates. Let us seize this moment and strike a double blow!"

"Do you only want revenge?" Mohammed, at last, raised his voice a little. "Does your city mean nothing to you?"

"It means everything!" Zoë glowered at the Quraysh. "But it is dead and buried in the sand."

Mohammed shook his head, pointing at the harbor with his chin. "I saw the ships come in, just as you did. Palmyra was a mighty trading empire, not just a single city in the desert. Thousands of her citizens are still alive, scattered and disheartened.
They
are not dead. The city is not dead. It can rise again, built by Palmyrene hands, repaired by Palmyrene wealth. But it can only do that if there is peace."

Zoë was silent, her fists on the tabletop. She looked over her shoulder at Odenathus. "Cousin, what do you think?"

"I think," he said, his long, tanned face grave, "the city can live again, but it will be a mighty undertaking. We are rich, true, and many of our people still live, but our city was a fragile thing, balanced at the edge of the desert. It had been carefully cultivated over hundreds of years, built up stone by stone. All of that has been destroyed. Perhaps it cannot be regained. Perhaps we should abandon that dream of a new home."

"Is revenge enough?" Mohammed's voice was soft, making Zoë turn back to him. "Would you rather have victory? A victory where Palmyra is once again the queen of cities, mighty and cultured? If that is what you want, then revenge will not suffice."

"I want," Zoë said, grinding her fist into the table, "my aunt back, my mother back, all the dead haunting me back. But I will not get that, will I? No, there is only this war and this struggle. What do you intend, Lord Mohammed? Shall we make peace with this Persian? Shall we ally ourselves with him to defeat Rome? What then? What happens after Rome is cast down?"

Mohammed nodded, rubbing his nose. "That is the crux, Lady Zoë. What happens after victory?" He sighed and picked up a cup of water from the table. It was cool on his throat.

"Lord Mohammed?" Khalid ventured to break the silence. "I have not asked before, since there seemed to be no point... but can we, ourselves, take the Imperial capital?"

"No," Mohammed said, smoothing his beard with a scarred hand. "It is far too strong for us to take, even with this fleet and the army we have gathered."

Odenathus looked around, surprised, then coughed.

"Yes?" Mohammed was smiling.

"Then what did you intend?" Odenathus was nonplussed.

"I hoped," Mohammed replied, "to draw Heraclius into a field battle outside the city. With a fleet to blockade the ports, he would have to come out to drive us off so food could come into the city. I knew we could not possibly field and ship an army large enough to
capture
the Imperial capital, but we could lure the Emperor out to crush us."

Khalid laughed and slapped his thigh in delight. "Like baiting a leopard out of its den!"

"Yes, just so. Then, in open battle, I could kill this faithless emperor and have done."

Zoë raised an eyebrow, summoning a ghost of a smile on her weary face. "That was enough for you, then, just the death of one man? This smacks of revenge, Lord Mohammed."

"It does." Mohammed smiled back. "It does. It is romantic, too, one man against one man. The kind of thing that would appeal to any warrior of the tribes. Great honor could be had that way, for the daring."

Zoë stepped to Mohammed's side and put her hand on his weathered old face.

"You didn't think anyone would follow such a reckless romantic, did you? You've been surprised all along that an army came to you, and a fleet, and victory after victory."

"Yes, I was surprised." He took her hand and held it in his, searching her face. "But I should not have been, for the voice from the clear air guides me and it has the power to overcome all obstacles."

Zoë blushed at the softness of his voice and drew back her hand.

"What will you do now?" Odenathus pulled a chair out from the table and sat. "What comes after victory?"

"Peace, I hope." Mohammed stepped away from Zoë, smiling gently. "I think we must take this Persian offer, if for only one thing." The Quraysh glanced at Khalid, who nodded in agreement.

"For time," Zoë growled, pacing across the room to the window. "We cannot fight both Persia and Rome. Did you see his face when he spoke of standing on the shore of Chalcedon?"

Mohammed nodded. "I did. It galls him like a cancer. For all his valor and cunning, he could not defeat those walls. It is a lure for him, too. You saw the expression on his companion's face, I imagine." The Quraysh laughed softly. "The Boar could not live in peace. He is a man of war, of violent action; it is a drug to him. This Khadames sees the truth, but I wonder if the Boar kens his own nature."

Mohammed looked around the room and saw, in the faces of his companions, decision. "Very well. Khalid, send a runner to Lord Shahr-Baraz. We shall sit and eat and strike a bargain with this fellow, something suitable to both parties."

"Suitable?" Zoë snorted in laughter. "You've a merchant's tongue!"

Mohammed did not smile. A distant look passed over his face, reflecting loss. "I suppose," he said, "but a wise man once told me that there is no finer path in life than to weigh fairly and in full measure in all your dealings, no matter how small or how great. So does the merciful and beneficent Lord weigh the lives of men."

A sharp wind gusted out of the southeast, snapping the banners of the Sahaba on the masts of the harbor towers. Mohammed stood on the docks, a troop of men in full armor behind him. A Palmyrene coaster was loading from the main quay. Persian soldiers filed aboard while their horses, eyes covered, were being hoisted into the hold of the ship. Luckily, the Romans had equipped the port with big, double-winch cranes. The Quraysh watched the commotion with an experienced eye, finding a simple joy in the practiced motions of the harbor crew. The Persians were very nervous, going aboard ship with their horses. Mohammed supposed that it was quite new to them. Persia was not renowned as a maritime power.

"Lord Mohammed?" Shahr-Baraz approached, accompanied by a pair of horses and grooms. "My thanks for lending me the ship. It will cut days off our journey to the port at Seleucia Peria and then Antioch."

"You seemed a man in haste," Mohammed replied evenly. "Allies should help each other. It is my pleasure to speed you on your way."

The Boar laughed at the gibe, wiping a tear from his eye. "Well said. You are a rare man, Mohammed, a king without a crown or throne. We shall see each other again, I expect, before the city of the enemy."

"Yes." Mohammed nodded at the other quays and wharfs, where thousands of men were in motion, beginning the long process of loading the army of the Sahaba onto the Imperial fleet and the merchantmen the Palmyrenes had summoned. It was a huge effort, for the soldiers had stripped the warehouses and Legion armories of everything they might need. Long lines of wagons and mules crowded the roads into the city as well, hauling food and other supplies and fodder in from the countryside. Detachments of Arab troops placed in garrison throughout the highlands were marching in, too. Mohammed had resolved to sortie forth with every man he could put under arms. "You will have to march swiftly to join us in time. It is a long and weary road from Antioch to Constantinople. If the good god smiles upon us, we will hold the crossing for you."

Shahr-Baraz grinned, running a thick-mailed hand across the heavy breastplate on his chest. "That will be a sight! It has been a long time since a Persian army crossed the Propontis. I have dreamed of such a day."

"I know," Mohammed said in a wry voice. "Do not tarry."

"We will not!" The Boar nodded fiercely. "Here, brother king, I've a gift for you."

Shahr-Baraz motioned and the grooms led two horses to the King's side. Each was alike as to be a twin: glossy black with long fetlocks and wild
manes
. There were no markings on them save the whites of their eyes. Even the hooves were coal dark.

"These fellows are from the stable of the
Shahanshah
, bred to the wind and foaled from the storm. They are my gift to you, to seal our bargain. There are suits of armor, too, for I would not lose my new friend to an errant blow, and blades—Indian steel—finer than any seen in Roman lands! Please, take them; they are yours."

Mohammed raised an eyebrow, hand smoothing his beard. He walked around the horses but he did not touch them. They were powerful creatures, very tall, and they watched him with liquid, intelligent eyes. They looked strong, strong enough to run a day and a night. Strong enough to carry a man in full armor and not tire.

"They are Bactrians," Mohammed said, smiling in delight. "They are very fine."