M. Scott: The Coming of the King

Iksahra gained in stature with Naso and his legionaries with each gate, so that by the time they approached the last, set in the western wall behind the beast gardens, they were no longer drawing wards against evil when she passed them by, but were sketching instead the sign for good luck.

The process was not fast, though; the city’s cockerels were clearing their throats and the small coloured birds of the gardens and groves were already courting by the time they reached that last gate, tucked away behind the palace. The morning was lighter than it should have been; the perimeter of the beast garden was etched clearly across a grey sky.

Kleopatra caught Iksahra’s arm. ‘It’s too late; dawn’s nearly on us. They’ll see you’re not a ghul.’

‘I know. This time we have to fight. They are ten and we are seven, but we have the cheetah, and Mergus’ men have the advantage of surprise: the Guard will not expect to be attacked by men they know. Still, we need to get closer. Will you go forward now and ask them if your family has already left? Keep them talking until we get near.’

It was easier, this time, for Kleopatra to walk up the road, and, this close to the palace, the guards were civil.

‘The king left before dusk, lady, and all his family with him. You’ve missed them, but you can’t leave now. The zealot army is already outside the walls. They’ve armed themselves and moved north of the city in the night. There’ll be a battle before noon. You should be indoors.’

It was the captain who spoke, first of ten men, stationed five on each side of the locked and barred gate. Each of them held his sword out, his shield off his shoulder, ready against ghuls and zealots equally.

‘I have to join them.’ Kleopatra bit her lip and stared at her feet and found that the morning had progressed so far that she could easily see the detail of her toes. She looked back up at the guard. ‘Would it be possible to-’

His raised hand stopped her. To his men, not to her, he said, ‘Here she comes. See? It’s the king’s Berber beastwoman. I told Antonius it wasn’t a ghul. Make a line on me and advance on my word. My lady, if you could step behind us, you’ll be safer there.’

They made a line of iron and bull’s hide; men who had fought and killed all their adult lives. They guarded the gate nearest the palace, likely first focus of any assault from the north and west.

Kleopatra was pushed behind, so that she saw Iksahra through the gaps between their shields. She was walking down the road with the cheetah at her heels, making no effort at all to stretch her arms, or to appear as an apparition. She came to a halt ten feet away from the line of guards.

There followed a moment’s hush in which ten men braced themselves, waiting for an order. In her bones, Kleopatra felt the thrill of preparation run through them. She saw the captain take a breath to shout and slid her own hand into her sleeve where her knife was hidden: better to die trying to cut his throat than to see them crucify Iksahra alongside Estaph.

Iksahra lifted her arm. The captain said, ‘Steady, steady…’

Iksahra dropped her arm. The cheetah sprang forward as commanded and its fluid gold-black flight merged with Iksahra’s battle shout, for as her arm came down her thrown knife caught the first edge of the dawn and carried it forward, lancing the throat of the captain as he, in his turn, launched himself at Iksahra.

The captain tumbled forward, retching, his own blade spinning and clattering to the ground. Iksahra stooped to gather it and so ducked under the swing from the rush of incoming guards: five against one. Their blades hacked out and down — and missed.

Iksahra was as fluid as her own hunting cat, dodging, sliding, skipping back, and laughing in their faces, so that at first they did not see Mergus and his five legionaries who came out of the shadows on either side of the road, advancing fast and silent.

‘Look out!’ Kleopatra shouted, when she was sure they’d been seen. ‘Enemies to both sides!’

The men of the garrison thought her a friend and shouted thanks even as they turned, five on four, back to back in a single snatched step. Their captain would have been proud of them. He was not yet fully dead; his blood still pulsed in a dark sheet across the road, but the waves were less with each ripple and his eyes had already turned up to show the whites.

Men and iron blurred in the paltry light. One fell from each side, but no more; they were too evenly matched, trained in the same vein by the same men in the same tactics.

Iksahra was there, ahead of anyone else, still singing, with her knife blood-wet in her hand, flashing — it was light enough now for more than a glimmer — as she slashed right and left at the guards on either side. They fell back from her as they had not from their fellow Romans, but not far; the men behind them acted as a wall that held their backs and kept them firm and, with the instinct of men who have trained and fought together for decades, they stepped away together, giving each man more space to move, and then attacked in perfect synchrony, their blades swinging in, hard, at the height of Iksahra’s heart.

‘Iksahra!’

Kleopatra had stood still for less than three breaths and she was not breathing slowly. Now, with terrible clarity, she saw the blades coming in, set to cut Iksahra in half, and, in the passing of a single heartbeat, she saw the place where she could act, considered it, found it good and, stooping, picked up a blade from the clutter that lay on the ground at her feet.

Lifting became a swing, became a slice up, under the legionary’s half-mailed skirt. The blow was the same she had used to kill the guard in the beast garden not ten days before, but this time she held on, and drove it deeper and on until blood spilled from between his lips. Only then did she twist as Jucundus had taught her, and pull out again.

Her enemy choked on his own blood, and sank to the road. Kleopatra stood back, struck to sudden stillness.

It was said that the Chosen of Isis could see the shades of the dead and speak to them. In the beast garden, she had not known she was Chosen, had not looked for the signs of death or tried to see anything. Here, harried by new knowledge and new doubts, with bile stripping the lining of her throat, Kleopatra stared at the dense air about the dead man’s head for some sign of life. Or death.

Nothing was there, but in the echo of her mind she heard him say, with some surprise, and no hurry, Am I free?

Always before, she had conducted her conversations with the dead in her head, and had thought them hers alone. Now, she answered aloud, ‘You are. Go to your god soon, before the gods and spirits of the desert find you.’

She felt, but did not see, him bow to her and turn and march east, to the rising sun.

‘Kleopatra?’

Her own name came at her oddly, as if through other ears. She looked up and saw the cheetah first, and wondered how it could speak; then she looked again and saw Iksahra, not ten feet away. The beastwoman had killed another guard and had caught his falling body. She stood, cradling it across her chest like a lover. That one’s voice was more distant, softer, but he, too, was glad to be free. Iksahra let him down to lie on the ground. Her eyes were fixed on Kleopatra’s face. ‘Are you ill?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Kleopatra held herself tight, arms wrapped across her chest, hugging ever tighter. Time was returning to its own speed, leaving her feeling seasick. She said, ‘It was too easy. That was my third kill. Each time was the same.’

‘It wasn’t the same and I don’t believe it was easy. You are a credit to your teachers. Look now, we are done: Mergus’ men have taken heart from your action and finished the enemy.’