Carrie Vaughn - Kitty's Greatest Hits

“Hush, Daniel. You’re safe.” Suza put her hand on his shoulder.

Groaning, he rested his head on a pillow of grass. His body was his own again. Naked, he was tucked in the hollow under a leafy thicket. Dawn was close. The sky was gray and chill.

Suza propped her head on her hand and watched him. Her hair was tangled in a halo around her face, her eyes shadowed and weary, her smile amused.

She smoothed his hair behind his ear. “Good morning.”

“At least it’s morning.”

“You sound surprised.”

He stared up at the tangled pattern the tree’s branches made. “I’m afraid that one day the lion will not leave me. That I won’t wake up.”

She kissed his forehead and whispered nonsense sounds of comfort.

He continued, “The others who were captured with me when Babylon invaded Jerusalem, they said, ‘Why has God done this to us? Why has He punished us like this?’ But I knew. God sent me here to be an example, to show the empires of idols what it is to be a servant of God. To show them the wisdom of God, so that they might understand.

“But this—this, I don’t understand. I have faith, I must have faith that there is a reason, that God has afflicted me thus for a reason. But I cannot see it.”

“Don’t look for reason from a god. The gods are petty, they act on whims, and we are their playthings.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then perhaps your god did this so that we might meet and become friends. Would we have, otherwise? You a Hebrew and me a Persian, you a respected counselor and me a courtesan?”

She sounded so matter-of-fact, he couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t know, Suza.”

Somehow, as they did every month, they found their clothing, dressed, returned to the city and pretended that they were normal, that they had no affinity for the clawed and fanged statues that populated the city, that watched them from every street.

In his quarters, Daniel prayed, kneeling on bare tile toward the west, toward Jerusalem. The prayer fumbled—on these mornings his faith was weakest. He did not belong to the Hebrew tribe of his forefathers, of his God. He belonged to a tribe he hated, and when he searched for the reasons, his mind was empty. He was used to God answering him with some flash of reason.

He washed and dressed and made his way to the palace of Darius.

The business of the day had already started, earlier than usual. The other advisers were in a flurry, clustered around the king. Not even noon, and they were urging Darius to some action. Across the room, Daniel’s keen sometimes-lion’s ears heard the whispers:

“Sire, it is dangerous to put faith in people who have no faith in you.”

“Sire, this law will curb the influence of foreigners on your glorious empire.”

“Sire, it will protect your own power. You will be the one whom everyone looks to.”

The king had a clay tablet before him, which a moment later he stamped with his seal. A couple of the advisers chanced looks at Daniel. Their smiles were cold.

Then the new law was read aloud. “‘Those who beseech any god shall be put to death. All faithful citizens of the empire shall rightfully seek boons from one being alone, the person of His Most Divine Majesty. All other prayers are unworthy and condemned.’”

Daniel was famous for his piety. The advisers wrote this law and persuaded His Majesty to endorse it for one reason only: to incriminate Daniel.

Suza, clothed in her silk tunic and jewelry, stepped beside Daniel. Her face was still as stone, but her eyes showed fear. “Surely your god will forgive you if you forsake him for this little time, until the king’s whim changes.”

“Every morning I pray. Every evening I pray. That is right and just. In fact, I feel I must pray now. If you’ll excuse me.” He would show them true faith, as he believed he came here to do.

“Daniel—”

He returned to his chamber, to the window that faced west over the city, toward the Promised Land, and he prayed.

My faith has brought me this far. I will not falter now, though I face death. Oh Lord, You are great.

He knew he could be seen, knew his enemies would be watching. He almost taunted them. When, no more than a dozen breaths later, the king’s soldiers splintered the wood of his door, he was not surprised and did not flinch. He went quietly, prepared to be a martyr.

For defying the king’s edict against prayers, he was arrested. By royal decree he was convicted. He was marched under guard down the street, toward whatever death the advisers planned for him. King Darius, carried on his litter and flanked by his advisers, led the procession. Frowning, he kept his gaze above the crowd, to the stone of the walls, and seemed unmoved.

At the gate outside the city, Daniel saw Suza, standing on her toes to better see over the crowd. He decided to look strong, to impart some comfort to her, for he expected to see her upset at his predicament, and was astonished and confused when she was not.

Rather, she wore a smile, thin and puckered as if she was trying to hide it. Her eyes were shining, and she waved to him. He learned later that she had discovered what method of execution was planned for him, and she had no fear at all.

The lid was shut over the pit, the light went out, and the only sensations Daniel could discern were the thick, musky scent of lions and the echoing sound of their breathing. He crouched at the base of the ramp and listened to claws scratch on stone, to the hollow growl as one of them yawned. A dozen of them lived here, fed by victims of the empire’s laws and the king’s whim.

He blinked. His half-lion eyes became accustomed to the darkness. One of the beasts was approaching him—the king of this pride, a tawny giant of thirty stone with a tangled black mane that flared around his head like a crown. Daniel bowed, ducking his gaze as the massive beast came close enough to breathe on him. He let his lion’s instincts fill him and tell him what to do.

Daniel waited, bowing his shoulders in a way that said, I am the weaker of us, I am not here to fight. The king’s nostrils flared. Daniel held his breath, careful not to meet the beast’s gaze in challenge.

Their languages were not so different. It was as if he could hear the lion speak, and he knew how to answer.

“Why are you here?” said the lion.

“I am a traveler seeking rest among your pride.”

Daniel felt the lion’s hot breath on his skin—dry and fierce like the desert and reeking of old blood.

“You smell like beast. But there is also the scent of man on you.”

“The men are all outside.”

The lion lifted his head, and gooseflesh rose on Daniel’s suddenly cool skin. He kept his head low, but in the corner of his vision he saw the lion’s amber gaze judge him. Then, the animal turned and padded back to his place. The other lions had been sitting watchful, but now they rested, stretched out on rocks, cleaning themselves with thick pink tongues.

“Rest here, traveler,” the lion bade him from across the pit.

Tension left Daniel’s muscles as though lifted by a breeze. Slowly, he stood. The lions paid him no more attention than if he had been one of them. Which, he supposed, he was. A young male stretched out a few boulders away from the king looked at him and invited him to share his place. Daniel did, lying on the rock beside the beast, who returned to cleaning his paws. Daniel was warm here, and safe. He closed his eyes and made a silent prayer.

The next day, the lid was lifted from the pit, and Daniel walked up the ramp. He was cramped and tired—even his lion self preferred the cushion of a bed, or at least a tuft of grass, to the rocks of the pit. But he was alive, praise God for it.