“I confess that you have always struck me as not only a beautiful woman, but a sensible one. My sister is a dancer too, and so I appreciate the art of that form, and know you to be a very fine practitioner.”
“Thank you,” she said guardedly. “I have danced with Scylla, and she is very good.”
“In fact, I deem you to be the equal of my sister, the only woman I have encountered to be so.”
“Thank you,” she repeated, even more guardedly. What was the man working up to? He was being surprisingly social, considering the situation. She knew his reputation, and therefore trusted this not at all.
He glanced at the children, who were tensely quiet. “Perhaps these two are hungry. They could go and eat with the slave while we converse here.”
This was definitely trouble, but she needed to know its nature and extent. “Go with the slave woman,” Annai told them.
Chipp seemed to want to protest, but Annai silenced him with a glance. Reluctantly he and his sister went out of the cell to join the waiting slave.
“You are indeed sensible, and your children well disciplined,” Zebub remarked. “I appreciate that.”
“Say what you have to say,” she said, schooling herself not to clench her teeth. Did he intend to rape her now, knowing she would not scream lest it alert her children? Yet why should he care about their reactions? His ultimate motive remained a sinister mystery.
“You are now a widow. You would do well to remarry, after a suitable interval. I have perhaps understated my admiration for you. Do you understand?”
Annai's jaw dropped. “You can't mean—!”
“My sister is the finest woman I know. But I can not marry her. You, however, I can. I realize that you lack a similar interest in me. But I point out that if you marry me, I will adopt your children and guarantee their success in life, exactly as I will those I have with you. You yourself will have all the privileges of the lady you are.”
This was worse than anything she had feared. But now she had to ask. “And the alternative?”
“I think we need not explore that.”
“I think we do. What gives you the notion that I would ever in life accede to such a relationship?”
Zebub shook his head. “I feared it would come to this distasteful discussion, which is why I preferred to have it private. I will of course give you time to consider, for you are in mourning for your husband. But you are surely aware that your children, however important to you, would be something of an encumbrance to me.”
“My children!” she said, experiencing the worst of chills.
“I see we understand each other. If, after a reasonable period of consideration, you appear to be unreasonable, we should have to test the issue with one child. If that did not suffice—”
“May I speak with candor?” she inquired, emulating his phraseology.
“By all means.”
“You are an unspeakable son of a beaten dog, grandson of a festering pig, and cousin of a rabid bat. The dung beetles would sicken on your refuse. The stench of your personality causes the underworld itself to recoil. When the criminals of all time are reckoned by the gods, your name will surely be listed seven times, and the very parchment will smolder with indignation at the insult of bearing it.”
Zebub smiled. “I appreciate your felicity of expression, which indicates a ready mind—something I value almost as much as a lovely body. I take that as the commencement of your consideration of the offer,” he said, making a small bow. “I am gratified that you are not turning it down.”
He departed, leaving her to her consideration. The notion revolted her, but he was in essence correct: short of killing herself and her children, she would probably in the end have to accede to his desire. The alternative would be to see first one child tortured and killed, and then the other, and then to be ravished until he tired of her, after which her tongue would be cut out and she would be dumped in some distant slave market to finish her life in degrading menial work under the whip. It might actually be better to let him marry her and sire his brats on her. She would ponder the matter. So for all her emotional “felicity of expression,” she had indeed not actually turned him down.
Soon Chipp and Minah returned to the cell. They had been fed, and not hurt. But Zebub had made his point: they were hostage to her cooperation. She could stall only so long before giving him an answer, and he would accept only one.
He knew, of course, that once she gave him her word, even under cruel duress, she would honor it. She would be given more freedom. But he would probably keep the children confined for a while anyway, just to be sure.
Suppose she attacked him before giving her answer? She had once used her skill as a dancer to foil a man's untoward advance, but she suspected that Zebub would be alert for just such a move. She would have to catch him by surprise, with a weapon he didn't anticipate.
What she needed was a knife. Since there was no prospect of getting one, she would have to see whether she could make one. It was her only realistic chance.
With that decision made, she was able to focus on her emotion. It was time to morn for Huuo.
Crystal brought fruits and bread and set to work preparing the noon meal. Huuo was diffident about talking with her, fearing that she would realize that he had been intimate with Scylla. He knew she would not approve, and he agreed with her nonapproval; she was in a sense the embodiment of his conscience. But guilty as he felt, he now recognized that he was in a fashion smitten with the lovely dancer, and would be bedding her again. It was the only way he could experience any part of the joy he had felt with his wife.
And Scylla wanted to marry him. By coincidence, her home city was Gaza—the same one Jaoch had invited him to go to. He could go there and have a good life, and he could take her there. She was probably right: she would be allowed to return, if she were with him. It would be an easy situation to step into, and he would not be left floundering.
But first he had to conclude his business here. So he braced himself and approached Crystal. “You could not finish your search for the bones yesterday, because of the storm,” he said. “But did you locate any?”
“No. I shall have to search again today.”
“I will go with you, since this is my duty.” It was a duty he dreaded, but he was resolved not to continue in his dereliction.
“There is no need, master,” she said quickly. She always called him that, in this house, rather than betraying the informality of friendship they had. “I will do a better job, so that you will not be burdened.”
“As you will,” he said, relieved.
Crystal completed the preparation of the meal, and departed on her mission. They ate, and it was good. “Your servant is competent,” Scylla remarked.
“Yes. I trust her completely.”
She half smiled. “Yet you did not tell her what we did.”
“I am less trustworthy than she is, I fear.”
The day passed, and Scylla persuaded him to play his flutes, and she danced for him, her art marred only by her bandaged hand. Then they retired to the bedroom again, inevitably.
But when another day passed, and Crystal still did not locate the bones, Huuo knew that something was wrong. “They must be there,” he said. “I will find them.”
“No, master,” Crystal begged. “Give me one more day. They can't hide from me forever.”
“I don't understand this,” he said after the Canaanite left. “She should have found them by this time.”
“They must be deeply buried,” Scylla said. “I am sorry that this agony is being prolonged for you.”
“It allows me to postpone the awful confirmation,” he said. Then one thing led to another, and they were making love again.
On the third day Crystal admitted defeat. “Master, I have poked repeatedly through every part of the ruin, and have not found the bones. I think they are not there.”
“But where else can they be?” he asked, his dismay mitigated by the faintly fli
ckering hope that his family had somehow escaped the fire.
“Maybe—maybe there are no bones,” Crystal said.
“No bones?” Scylla asked, startled.
“If the fire was so hot it burned them all up,” Crystal said.
“I don't believe that,” Huuo said, appreciating reality once the foolish notion had been uttered aloud. “Now I will find them.”
“I am so sorry to have failed you in this.” Crystal looked really upset, as if her emotions, too, were mixed.
“They must be there,” Scylla said. “You must sift through every ash.”
Huuo went with Crystal to the site of the burnout, for the first time since the night of his return to Mor. The ashes had been badly disturbed. It was evident that she had gone through them extremely carefully. It would be pointless for him to look; he could not find what she had not. “What does this mean?” he asked.
She glanced around, as if to make sure that they could not be overheard. “Huuo, it means there are no bones.”
“But there have to be!”
“I had to get you alone, to tell you,” she said. “There are none.”
He stared at her. “Are you suggesting that—?”
“Huuo, when I couldn't find them on the first day, I suspected something was wrong. I told my husband, and he agreed to search more widely. Today he told me what he learned. A terrible, devious plot. Your family was not killed. Annai, Chipp, and Minah were carried away by the raiders. They are alive in another city.”
He was stunned. “Alive?”
“We think it was a plot to deprive you of your family.”
Huuo's world was turning over. “Where are they?”
“In a daughter city near Gaza. Captives of Scylla's brother Zebub.”
“Scylla!” he cried. “She's part of this plot?”
“Yes. She wants to bring you to Gaza to serve Jaoch. But I think she does not know that Annai is alive. Your wife was supposed to be killed.”
“This is a plot by Jaoch of Gaza, to get me to serve him?” Huuo asked, his anger building like a terrible storm. “To kill my family, and have Scylla bring me there?”
“That is as it seems to us,” she agreed. “But Zebub coveted Annai for himself, so instead of having her killed he bribed the hill folk to secretly abduct her. And the children too, to be levers against her.”
“But how could such a thing happen, here in Mor?”
“We think Zebub bribed some hill folk to spook their cattle on market day, and to strike directly at this house. He also bribed the chief of guards, so that there were no guards assigned to prevent the stampede or rioting. But the real purpose was to destroy your family, freeing you to move.”
“And when Scylla met me on the ship, it was no coincidence,” he said, working it out. “Her constant kindness to me—all part of the plot.”
Crystal nodded wisely. “Actually I think she does like you. I see the signs in her. So this plot did not go against her grain. But she is laboring on behalf of her brother.”
“And what is his reward for this?”
“We understand he will be promoted to chief tax collector.”
“Where he will squeeze the people unmercifully, and retire extremely rich,” Huuo said. “Yes, that is sufficient motive for him.” He put his hand on his knife. “But as for Scylla—I will slay her today.”
“No, Huuo, you must not!” Crystal cried.
“Why not? She was satisfied to see my wife and children slain, so she could seduce me.”
“Because Annai and your children remain captive of her brother. If you kill Scylla, Zebub will know you have learned the truth, and will kill them.”
He froze. It was true. “Then what am I to do?”
“My husband believes he can rescue them, with your approval. Let him do that. Then you can settle with Scylla.”
“But how can I delay, knowing what I know?”
“You must make Scylla believe you do not know. Only thus can you protect your family.”
“But that means—Crystal, do you know I have bedded her? When I thought—”
“As Anat thought Baal was dead.”
“But Anat did not—oh, I should have been constant! But now, with this news, after what has passed between Scylla and me—”
“Then you must bed her again,” she said.
He sat down in the ashes. “This is a wonderful and awful thing you have brought me to, my friend. My wife alive—and I must embrace her enemy!”
She kneeled beside him. “I know, Huuo. I delayed telling you until I was sure. But if you do not deceive Scylla, what you believed may well come true. You must make yourself do it.”
“Oh, Crystal, I am ashamed of this,” he said. “Were it any other person than you who told me this, I would not believe it. But you I must believe.”
“I know.” She put her arms around him, and held him while he wept.
Then they forged a suitable story, and he covered himself with ashes, and returned to Scylla's house.
“You searched thoroughly,” Scylla remarked, eying him.
“No, I covered myself with the ashes, overcome with chagrin for what has happened,” he said. “My wife not yet sent to the other realm, and I have dallied with another woman. How great is my shame!”
“Do not blame yourself,” she said quickly. “I desired you though I knew you were in mourning. Blame me.” She dropped her gaze, coloring.
Now, with the scales from his eyes, he saw the art of her presentation. She was a dancer, skilled in miming emotions, even to a blush of shame. Her act was perfect. Her robe, supposedly forgotten, had fallen slightly open in front so that the curve of one firm breast was revealed, and it fell away from one thigh. All pretense, so cleverly done that he had been deceived despite having seen similar mimes many times. Had he not been blinded by grief, he should have seen instantly through the show.
Yet to the extent that her attitude promised immediate physical rapture, it had been no pretense. She had delivered in full measure, the cup overflowing, time and again. Her body was excellent, and her performance delightful. No man could have had more satisfactory sexual experience, not even in the arms of the head priestess of the temple, a truly experienced and talented woman. Could it be that Crystal was right, and that Scylla did have genuine feeling for him? In times past she had hinted that she found him intriguing, but he had dismissed it as artifice. Now he saw the artifice, and could not dismiss the possible reality. She loved her home city, true, and sought to use him to achieve her return, but she could also find him compatible.
And so, despite what he knew, he found his desire stirring again. Just as he performed music for plays at festivals many times, and was stirred anew each time, the sight of a beautiful body and appealing manner stirred him despite his awareness of the falsity behind it. He had to hate Scylla for what she had done—what she still was doing—but also to give credit to the finesse with which she did it.
She became aware that he had not automatically reassured her, as he had done when she used a similar ploy before. She thought that the depth of his renewed grief had dulled him to such nuances. So she proceeded smoothly to the next ploy. “But come, Huuo; we must make you comfortable.” She fetched a damp cloth and began to wipe his ash-grimed face, her touch gentle. More of her body showed, seemingly coincidentally, in her supposedly exclusive focus on him. He thought he should strike her down, but he knew he must not; he must let her seduce him yet again, so that he could deceive her as she had deceived him. So he let her do it.
Soon she had his face clean and was working on his body. She stripped away the soiled robe and washed him naked, and when she had him clean she brought him to her bed and down on it with her so naturally that it was as if they had been married for years. He viewed the process in the manner of a spectator, but his body responded as it had to, and soon he was in her again, his passion undiminished. But this time he appreciated the other level of it, and the quality of the manner in which she managed him
. She was good at it—as good as he could imagine any woman being. Better than Annai, because Annai never pretended a passion she did not feel. Scylla had made seduction an art.
And so he realized that he did not need to pretend. He had merely to let her carry her pretense through, while he reacted as any audience would. Until the time of revelation arrived, and Baal was clear of the underworld.
Annai's quest for a knife was not going well. She had found a chip of stone, but it had chipped because it was weathering, and its point would crumble when used. She needed metal, and even if she got it, she would not be able to forge it into anything effective.
She had also sought a way to escape, but the stone was solid and the mute slave woman watchful. With a sledge she might have pounded out a stone from the wall, had she the strength and endurance to do it, and if the noise of the effort did not bring the slave to disarm her. But she lacked any such tool. Her prison was tight.
Meanwhile Zebub was growing impatient. He had been away again for several days on some illicit business, but when he returned he intended to have her answer, and she knew that her son Chipp would be made to scream horribly as he died, if that answer was wrong. Without a knife she had little hope of hurting her fell captor, and if she tried and failed, Chipp would be punished in lieu of her. Realistically she had no choice: she would have to agree to Zebub's repulsive suit.
Yet somehow she hoped that the gods would deliver her from this terrible strait. “Oh, Huuo,” she murmured. “If you lived, this could not endure!” For the news of his death had shriveled the heart in her, depriving her of much of her will to fight. Were it not for the children, she would have strangled herself on a rope made from her torn-up robe. But she had to do whatever she could to preserve them in body and spirit.
She lay awake in the closing darkness of dusk, beside her children. She had, she hoped, succeeded in shielding them from the worst of it, but she feared that Chipp suspected what was wanted of her, and she feared that Minah, with her attunement to the realms of the spirits, knew. For the little girl was strangely sanguine. “Don't worry, Mommy,” she had whispered. “Daddy isn't dead.”