A long morning studying supply lists and judging between the demands of one garrison and another did not improve any man’s temper. When Benaiah at last strode through the gateway that led from the guard wing to the open courtyard of the main palace, he thought only of savoring a jar of beer cool from the well.
“Benaiah,” Nikaulis said, and all thought of cool beer fled his mind. The queen’s captain stood in the shadow cast by the open gate; Benaiah turned towards her and looked into her steady eyes.
“I must speak with you.” Although she did not whisper, her words were soft, pitched for his ears alone.
Privately, Benaiah thought, or she would not have asked at all. Now, where?
“Have I shown you the virtues of our city walls?” he said.
She smiled, plainly relieved he had so swiftly grasped her meaning. “Show me again.”
Benaiah led the way to the nearest guard tower; Nikaulis followed, silent as his shadow. He refused to waste time trying to guess what she wished to say. Soon enough he would know. Until it was safe for them to talk, it was sufficient to know that Nikaulis thought the matter urgent and private.
They climbed the winding stone stairs within the tower; when at last they reached the doorway to the city wall, Benaiah said, “The walls shield all; here all the city may look upon us and not hear one word of what we may say to one another. So speak.”
“The king’s daughter courts danger,” she said, staring intently at a rack holding spears for the city guard. “She seeks to use your prophet as her tool. She must be stopped.”
Damn the girl!
But Benaiah’s face betrayed nothing; he lifted the topmost spear as if drawing Nikaulis’s attention to the weapon. “Tell me.”
Nikaulis chose words well and carefully; a few sentences sufficed to enlighten Benaiah. “Princess Baalit desires to return south with Queen Bilqis, who wishes her to rule Sheba as its next queen. King Solomon will not permit this.”
No, I don’t suppose he will. Too bad.
It would be far better to pack Solomon’s favorite child off to the farthest end of the world than to keep her spinning trouble in Jerusalem.
“Now the princess seeks to force the king to release her.” Nikaulis turned and walked on down the wall. Benaiah set the spear back into its rack and followed without haste.
“Force him how?”
“At the next full moon, she plans to be found in the Goddess’s Grove by the prophet Ahijah,” Nikaulis said.
“Is she mad?” demanded Benaiah. “Her great-grandfather Saul died mad; it runs in her blood.”
“Not mad, but desperate. The end will be the same.”
“How do you know this?” asked Benaiah, and Nikaulis smiled wryly.
“I know this because people cannot remain silent even when speech will cost them dear. I remain silent, and so am forgotten. I listen.” Nikaulis set her hands upon the parapet and gazed out over Jerusalem. The soaring sun poured light over the city’s rooftops and gardens; King David’s City seemed formed of gold and fire. “She must be stopped, Benaiah.”
“Yes.” If Ahijah laid violent hands upon King Solomon’s daughter, blood would run in Jerusalem’s gutters. “Now I will tell you what I have overheard: it is said King Solomon thinks to wed Prince Rehoboam to Princess Baalit, and so bind the kingdom close.”
And there’s a marriage made in madness—or in Queen Naamah’s mind.
Certainly neither of the king’s children had dreamed up that pretty plot!
Nikaulis turned to face him. “Is King Solomon such a fool? The princess will slit Rehoboam’s throat in a month.”
“Which would be no bad thing, save that deed would force King Solomon to condemn her to death in her turn. Perhaps she had better poison him; poison is harder to prove.”
Nikaulis stared at him, plainly wondering whether he jested.
“Perhaps I jest so we may laugh rather than weep,” Benaiah said. “How is it that a man as wise as Solomon can deal so foolishly with his own children?”
Nikaulis shrugged. “Is the wedding tale true?”
“That I do not know—but I overheard those jackals Prince Rehoboam calls friends gloating over his victory.”
“And how did they know?” Nikaulis asked.
“Some days ago Prince Rehoboam boasted of it to them—and of how he would tame Princess Baalit once she was his wife, to do with as pleased him.”
“The prince is twice a fool.” Disdain soured Nikaulis’s words.
“Yes. And I will say a thing to you, Nikaulis, that I would not say to any other. King Solomon is the greatest fool of all if he thinks he can summon that future.” Benaiah sighed. “Well, I suppose we must stop this nonsense. I tell you freely, Nikaulis, that it is not easy serving kings:”
“Or queens. No, it is not. How stop them, Benaiah?” Nikaulis then waited, patient as stone, as Benaiah considered the touchy problem.
Some tasks were best postponed indefinitely. Stopping King Solomon’s daughter before she challenged the prophet Ahijah was not one of them. While Nikaulis gazed at sunlight burning across the summer hills, Benaiah silently planned his campaign.
“I will need you,” he said at last; Nikaulis inclined her head in assent.
“Ask,” she said.
“On the night of the full moon, guard the gate to the princess’s courtyard. I can trust no one else with the task. No one is to enter it, or to leave, save King Solomon himself.”
“Not even Benaiah, Commander of the King’s Army?”
He smiled. “I least of all. For were I permitted to see Princess Baalit alone, the temptation to beat her bloody for this trick might prove too strong to resist. Now come with me; we must talk to the priestess of the Grove.”
The Grove’s chief priestess merely stared at them when told what they knew. “Well, we cannot allow that,” she said. “King Solomon’s tolerance is great, but not so great he will overlook his own daughter worshipping here—or pretending to.”
“No,” said Benaiah. “And Ahijah tolerates nothing.”
“No, Ahijah tolerates nothing, not even himself,” agreed Asherah’s priestess. “Poor man; he suffers because he will not yield to the fact that he himself is only a man.”
Benaiah shrugged. “Suffer he may, claw down the king’s daughter to harm the king he may not.”
The priestess inclined her head; long henna-red curls fell across her breasts. “If the princess shows her face at our gate, we will send her away.”
“She won’t,” said Benaiah. “I shall see to that. And you are to see that no woman save your priestesses can be found in the Grove this full moon.”
“You would have me forbid women their worship?” the priestess asked, and Nikaulis saw the sly trap in the woman’s eyes.
“The king’s general forbids nothing.” Nikaulis stepped forward, offering herself as a shield between the priestess and Benaiah. “Let women and men worship as they please—only not this full moon.”
“Not unless you want the Grove’s trees burned and its ground sown with salt,” Benaiah finished.
“King Solomon’s threat?” the priestess asked, and Benaiah shrugged again.
“Men’s folly,” he said, and the priestess smiled.
“Our Lady’s thanks to you, my lord Benaiah, and to you, Sword Maid. Trust me, on the night of the full moon, no man shall find what he seeks here.” She crossed her henna-red palms over her bare breasts and bowed her head; Benaiah nodded and turned away. Nikaulis followed; she glanced back, once, and saw the chief priestess still standing where they had spoken to her before the willow tree.
“She seems a sensible woman,” Benaiah said as they walked back down the path through the Grove towards the gate. “If we have good fortune, we shall thwart both princess and prophet. And I don’t know which I’d like to beat more. King Solomon should have banned that canting prophet from the kingdom years ago. Prophets are never anything but trouble. Samuel, Nathan—although Nathan could be reasonable. But Ahijah is never reasonable.”
Nikaulis had seen the prophet only in passing. But unlike those of the other men here, men who disparaged her skills as both warrior and woman even as lust darkened their eyes, Ahijah’s eyes had held only clean loathing. That iron honesty Nikaulis could admire. “No. Whatever his faults, Ahijah is no hypocrite. I could stand before him naked and the prophet would only turn away.”
As soon as the words left her lips, Nikaulis wished she could recall them.
But it was too late. The Lady’s Grove summoned passion and folly from men’s and women’s hearts.
Benaiah stopped, touched her arm; she turned to face him squarely. “I would not turn away, Nikaulis,” Benaiah said, and then, “Would you?”
Unfair, unjust; how can I answer?
At last she said, “You think this a game. I am not a prize to be won, Benaiah.”
He said nothing; she counted heartbeats, willing her blood to calm. At last he said, “This is the only game and the only prize, Nikaulis. I know that now, and so do you. Tell me it is not too late for me to do honor to the Queen of Heaven. Tell me it is not too late to win you.”
Although his words were humble, his voice rang as firm as if he ordered troops upon a battlefield. Even as petitioner, Benaiah stood straight and strong as a good blade.
I must not soften; he is hard iron, so must I be also.
Nikaulis looked into Benaiah’s steady dark eyes. He lusted for her; desire burned hot behind his eyes, rippled hot beneath his calm words.
“Tell me,” Benaiah repeated. “Tell me, Nikaulis.”
As if kindled by his demand, heat slid serpent-smooth beneath her skin, coiled within her loins. Long years of discipline granted her the power to mask response, but not to quench the fire his had kindled within her.
“You do not command me, Benaiah.” Moon-masked; such control would serve for the moment. “As for the Queen of Heaven—ask her for yourself. You do not need me for that.”
“I command you as you command me.” Still Benaiah did not move; did not attempt to touch her. “You are my match, Nikaulis, as I am yours. I have sought you all my life, war-bride.”
“But I have not sought you.” The words fell from her lips like stones, cold and hard.
How could I seek what I did not know I lacked?
At last Benaiah reached out to her; she braced herself to repulse an embrace, setting her hand upon her dagger’s hilt.
Now he shows himself for what all men are—selfish and greedy.
Such a man was easily denied, easily forgotten.
“Peace,” Benaiah said, and laid his hand over hers. His sword-hardened skin touched hers as gently as water. “Never in my life have I forced a woman; do you think I would start with you?”
“Dare, and learn sorrow.” Nikaulis refused to shrink from the touch of his hand on hers.
Nothing. It means nothing.
For long moments, she thought he would not answer. Then, at last, he let his hand slip from hers.
“Dare, and learn joy,” he said. And before she could summon an answer, he turned and walked away from her through the Grove, down the winding path back to the Lady’s Gate.
Long after Benaiah had walked away, leaving her standing alone within the Grove, Nikaulis still felt his hand press upon hers, an invisible caress. A bond—
Yes, a bond,
she reminded herself.
A chain for a soft-witted woman.
Just as Benaiah’s words sought to command her mind, his hands sought to command her body.
No one commands a woman’s will without her consent.
That lesson Nikaulis had learned before she had breasts, before she had the strength to lift a sword or pull a bow.
Slowly she turned and walked towards the Grove’s edge, following the path Benaiah had used.
Benaiah will not command me; I will not be lured by a man’s strength with sword and spear. I am not to be won like a warrior’s prize. I will not surrender
.
At the Lady’s Gate she paused, looking up at the smiling goddess painted upon the gatepost. Lady of Love, fruitful and profligate; alien to a Sword Maid’s vows. “I will not surrender,” she said to the bright idol above her. “Not to Benaiah. Not to You. Not even to myself.”
So vowing, she walked down the path away from the Grove. As she stepped beyond the trees, into the hot still light of midday, she heard a sound behind her. A whisper of leaves tossed by a playful breeze, a ripple of sun-warm laughter.
But there was no breeze. And when Nikaulis swiftly turned to catch the laughing spy, she saw no one.
Only the Lady’s Gate, and an empty path, and a painted goddess shadowed by dust-gilded trees.
Later, when she lay alone in the bed across her queen’s doorway, Nikaulis found she could not sleep. She had been set a riddle she could not answer, been challenged to a battle she could not win. Turning on her side to stare
into the darkness, she tried to think, and saw Benaiah’s form in the shadows, heard his voice in the murmurs of the night.
A choice lay before her; a choice between the queen she had served so long and well and the man she knew only as a worthy opponent, a match for her own skill.
I care nothing for him. He does not kindle my blood.
Lie; she had only to ask her own heart to know that.
She needs me
. Truth; the queen needed her. But needed her as queen’s captain, not as Nikaulis. Any woman as skilled as she could serve as well. Or any man. Only custom dictated that the queen’s guard be a woman.
And each year it grew harder to find women who owned the needful skills. Women possessed by no one but themselves, who rode and fought and lived as free as any man. Once the Amazons had been a power in the lands, ridden the war-roads, ruled an empire of the wind.
Now the Maiden clans remaining lived hidden, secret; ruled no more than shadows, their ancient customs fading even in their own memories.
A dozen generations ago an Amazon ruled as Queen of Athens beside Theseus Kingslayer. A dozen generations hence, who will remember we once rode beside the kings of men and were counted their equals?
Time rode with iron hooves; no woman and no man could turn its course.
I grow—womanish.
A bitter smile curved her lips. Such thoughts could not aid her in the choice the gods had spread before her. Only cold truth would serve.
The queen, or the man? Duty—or love?
The Lady of Swords owned her service, pledged long ago. And all the years since she had taken that vow, Nikaulis had served Her faithfully and well. Now, without warning, the Lady of Love beckoned, and She, too, was owed worship. But just as the Dark Sister and the Bright owned their own realms, so, too, did they own their own servants.
I cannot serve both Duty and Love.
Wiser and stronger women than she had torn themselves to bloody ruin in the attempt. Nikaulis could not serve both goddesses; she must, in the end, choose.
Time spread two futures before her, a merchant displaying glittering wares. Upon this cloth, a life cool as a string of flawless pearls: Nikaulis the queen’s guard, the Moon Maid, the Amazon walking pure and cool all her
chaste life.
And never again to see him? Never again test my heart and will against his?
Then take up the other offering: a handful of stones bright and dark. The rarest gems glowed beside dull smooth stones; a woman’s days, some bright. Some dark.
Become just a woman like all the others? Become nothing more than his prize?
Neither life held all that she desired; she must choose, knowing that to choose was also to reject.
So which?
Return to her old life, safe and sure?
Or entrust herself to the unknown, and hazard all she was?
So it seems choice, too, is a duty. And whichever course I choose, I choose tears.