Ardashir's bodyguards spilled out of the infirmary, stringing their bows as they ran. The first Hun outside saw the Latin woman running from his king toward the enemy, and deftly notched an arrow onto his bowstring. The man squinted along the shaft, aiming at the center of Arcadia's saffron-colored gown

  CHAPTER XXII

  Ardashir IV raised a hand to stop the archer and spoke to him in Hunnic. If the Latin woman knew the man who had stumbled out of the camel tent, then he and the others were here to rescue her from Warlord Shamz. The sheikh's men had been taken by surprise, thus it would be wise not to interfere, only to await the outcome in safety.

  Ignoring her husband's muddied tunic, Arcadia hugged him, trembling with relief and sobbing without embarrassment on his shoulder. "I…didn't think you…you were coming. They were going to…to sell me off like an animal."

  Abd al-Shira appeared at the platform entrance, grinning down at their reunion. "Domina, you not hurt. Kalos…Good."

  Getorius told her she could thank the guide for locating her. Arcadia could only sob her gratitude.

  After the attack on Ahmed, the two gate sentries had fled into the orchards. The guard in the tower, protected by a mud brick parapet, continued ringing the warning bell, trying to alert anyone from the sheikh's war band who might be in the vicinity.

  The bathhouse door abruptly opened. One of al-Shams's men let loose an arrow from that direction. The shaft imbedded itself in the camel's upper shoulder, next to Getorius. The beast bellowed in shock and pain, then charged toward the sheep pens and stables. As it ran, al-Shira managed to jump off the tent platform, rolling several times when he hit the soft ground, but wrenching one knee.

  "The men in that building have weapons," Getorius shouted to the camel drivers, then put an arm around Arcadia and hurried toward the building from which she had come.

  Nursing his injured knee with one hand, al-Shira limped after them.

  The three other camel drivers urged their mounts around one side of the workshop, into the protection of the wine and olive press shed. The area was relatively safe, out of sight of the stone workshop's entrance.

  Another arrow splintered on the outside of the refectory stones, close to the open doorway. After Darios ran out to help al-Shira into the building, Hernac slammed the portal shut. The Hun told Ardashir how difficult it would be for his men and the rescuers to dislodge the Bedouin warriors from their stone sanctuary.

  Inside the room, Arcadia pulled away from her husband to wipe her eyes. "Getorius, who…who are the men who came with you?"

  "Hebrews I met at Jerusalem. They call themselves Nekhomim. Temple Avengers."

  "I…I don't understand."

  He brushed at tears on her cheeks with the back of a hand. "Cara, you've been gone four days. There's much to tell you, but just now it's only important that you're safe." As he embraced her again, Getorius nodded his head toward the king and his Hunnic guards. "Who are those people?"

  Darios, after a warning headshake at Arcadia, stepped forward. "Regretfully, His Magnificence, King Ardashir IV, was invited here under false posturing by a bandit warlord."

  Having understood Darios's signal, Arcadia kept silent. The king will try to avoid responsibility for any part in my abduction and his Huns could hold a winning throw of dice in ending this siege.

  "This woman is your wife?" At Getorius's nod, Darios continued, "His Magnificence congratulates you on her rescue."

  Getorius said, "You speak Latin very well. I've not met many here who do."

  He shrugged off the compliment. "I was a treaty hostage, raised in a Syrian legion. A centurion who knew the language was"—he half-smiled—"my keeper." After Ardashir spoke to Darios, he translated, "His Magnificence asks who are the men with you? Did you mention Hebrews?"

  "Yes. After I found out that my wife was here, Gideon agreed to a rescue attempt. He saw it as an act of…of loving kindness."

  Darios translated for Ardashir, then warned, "Kind or not, Surgeon, armed Hebrews would not be seen with sympathy by the authorities at Jerusalem."

  Arcadia redirected the risky conversation. "Then it was Abd al-Shira I saw out there last evening."

  "Yes." Getorius looked over at the guide, sitting on a cot nursing his sprained knee. "He rode back to Jerusalem that night and told me. It was a dangerous journey, with only a new moon and very little light."

  "Thank Cosmas he was able to go back. Getorius, how did he even know I was here?"

  "It was a remarkable feat. Al-Shira tracked the lame camel that brought you. He knew that the man with you wasn't an Arab because of his boots and longer foot stride. Only one person was in a tent generally used for weddings. If it had been a nuptial, two people would have weighed more, making the camel's hoof prints deeper." He fingered the silk cloth of her tunic. "Why are you wearing this…this expensive gown? What was happening? Who exactly is this 'warlord'?"

  "Amir al-Shams." Arcadia suddenly recalled, "The sheikh ran into the main house. The harim women are there, and so is Aphrodisia! I completely forgot about her."

  "The Cypriot scorta?" Confused, Getorius demanded, "How in Hades's name did she get here?"

  Instead of replying, Arcadia ran to the door that led into the infirmary. Getorius followed behind. She reached the curtains and found them pushed aside. Aphrodisia was not there. "The woman is deathly ill. Where could she have gone?"

  Getorius glanced out a window. "More important, it soon will be dark. Gideon depended on a surprise attack to rescue you, but doesn't know this place and won't stay at night. Al-Shams' men can hold out in that building until comrades who might hear that bell arrive. Arcadia, we'd be trapped between them."

  "I understand. I'll find Aphrodisia, then we can leave."

  "Fine. Gideon wouldn't risk the camels along that road in the dark. And those Huns, that king's bodyguards, are watching. They may wait only long enough to see what will happen"

  "Arcadia kept her thought to herself. I'm not yet out of danger and now Getorius is involved.

  Darios came into the infirmary. "Domina, a young man is standing at a door to the left of that bathhouse. Do you know him?"

  "Young? It could be Lysias…" She ducked low to look out a corner of the window. "It is Lysias. The youth can't speak, but he's waving what looks like a parchment. It must be a message for us."

  Getorius asked, "Who is he?"

  "The slave of Apelles."

  "Apelles?"

  "I'll tell you later. Look!" she cried. "More gray smoke is pouring from the furnace room chimney! Is the bathhouse on fire?"

  Getorius was unsure. "Open that front portal slightly to better see what's happening. Darios, inform your Hun guard commander."

  When they returned to the entrance, Darios spoke to Hernac. The man ordered the door pulled open halfway and a heavy dining table set upright in the opening as a shield.

  Standing just inside Apelles's workshop, Lysias evidently had seen the refectory door open. He ran out, clutching the parchment, but stepped on the stone that activated Acheron. Almost immediately the mechanical raven's harsh cawing was joined by a low whistling sound. It came from inside the adjacent furnace room and steadily rose in pitch. Combined with the tolling of the tower bell, the insistent sounds became a nerve-wracking din.

  Lysias had run half way across the courtyard, toward the infirmary's open door, when he was felled by an arrow in his back. He stumbled forward a few steps and sprawled headlong to the ground. The youth struggled up on one elbow, holding up the parchment and uttering frantic grunts that were a mimic of Arcadia's name. Then his body slumped to the mud and lay still.

  "How terrible!" Arcadia exclaimed. "He wanted to get that message to me."

  "What would it say?"

  She clenched her teeth in frustration. "Husband, I don't know!"

  The tolling of the bell gradually lessened and stopped. One of Gideon's Nehkomim had crept onto the highest point of the stable tower's ruins and loosed a crossbow bolt at a hand he spotted pulling on the rope. The guard cursed in pain as the bell fell silent.

  Even without the clanging, the intensity of Acheron's harsh cries and the piercing whistle became almost unbearable sounds. Even the Hun guards crouched down and covered their ears.

  "What is that damnable whistle?" Getorius complained.

  Arcadia recalled that Apelles had said that he installed a signal on the boiler that sounded like a high-pitched flute. The sound warned whenever the water overheated. "I…I think it's one of Apelles's inventions. He—"

  Her words were lost in a deafening eruption of white steam and scalding water. Burning firewood flew through an open door that led to the workshop. The sheikh's men—hideously scalded, some blinded, with shreds of steaming skin hanging from their bodies—stumbled into the courtyard, screaming in agony.

  At the horrifying sight, Ardashir IV turned pale and faced away. Along with Darios, Getorius and Arcadia stood transfixed. The superstitious Huns were mystified and shaken by what they had seen.

  "It's Apelles!" Arcadia cried, and turned to her husband. "Don't you see what happened? He sent Lysias away to safety and over-stoked the boiler's fire until the tank burst. He risked his life to save ours. He's probably injured! We must help the man."

  Getorius grasped an arm around Arcadia's waist to hold her back. "Cara, if that's what happened, Apelles was standing near the tank. He can't possibly have survived that…that volcanic cataclysm."

  She shrugged off his hold. "No, Apelles did survive. I'm going to find him."

  "You'll stay out of danger here!" Getorius ordered.

  Darios glanced at Arcadia, then spoke to the king. Ardashir nodded permission. "His Magnificence agrees that Henrac should take his guards and go to the bathhouse. Any man still alive is incapable of resisting."

  "You're probably correct." Getorius noticed Gideon and his men come out from the shed, curious about what had happened. "The Hebrews should go with them."

  "I'm coming, too," Arcadia insisted.

  This time Getorius did not object. In crossing the courtyard, he stopped at Lysias's body. A pool of dark arterial blood had spread over the back of his short tunic. Although he knelt to feel for a throat pulse, he knew there would be no throbbing. When he looked up at Arcadia, his eyes told her that the youth was dead. Getorius freed the note from his grasp and read his wife's name on the front. He hand her the muddied parchment. "This is addressed to you."

  She folded the message. "I…I'll read this later. First, I want to find Apelles."

  Except for the dying moans of men still inside, the bathhouse now was as quiet as the mausoleum it had become. Pools of steaming water sloshed down the door sill into the yard. Flames from the burning firebrands had started a fire in Apelles's workshop. Without its driving steam pressure, Acheron's motion fell still and the mechanical raven's frantic caws diminished into a feeble squawk.

  The furnace room smelled of boiled water, steam, and smoke from smoldering pinewood. Nauseating vapors rose from inside the jagged copper top of the water tank, which resembled a gigantic metal plant with its upper leaves peeled open.

  Getorius said quietly, "Gideon, have your men carry the injured outside. There is nothing I can do about their burns. Olive oil. Opion…" His words faded as he realized his inability to treat victims of the horrifying carnage.

  Arcadia found Apelles's body slumped against the south wall of the room, opposite the pit that held his wine amphora. Obviously dead, the engineer's head sagged onto his chest, his arms and legs scalded a bright red. When Arcadia sobbed again, Getorius held his wife's shoulders.

  "I'm all right." She sniffled while loosening a wax seal on the small parchment. "I…I'd like to know what…what Apelles wrote."

  "Cara, will you read aloud?"

  She nodded. "He starts, 'Domina, forgive a drunken imbecile whose inventions lost sight of the people they might have served. The horoscopes flattered a patron who was cruel and ruthless, yet I humored him so that I might continue to enjoy Bacchus and amuse myself with mechanical playthings.'

  "'We are now in the House of Scorpio. For that sign the zodiac you saw at Paphos read, 'A time to kill and a time to heal.' The killing is over. May you and your husband begin to heal'." Arcadia stifled a sob, then continued in a voice that quavered, "'May both of you practice the healing art of…of Asklepios for the benefit of the ill. For this fool, who once hoped that he could be of some use, all is too late.' Apelles of Gerasa'."

  Arcadia brushed off another tear, refolded the note, then opened it again. "Apelles planned this all along."

  "But how could he know you would be rescued?"

  "He knew."

  Getorius noticed threads of smoke seeping in from the workshop door and touched her shoulder. "Arcadia, we can't stay here. The building will burn to the ground. I'll ask Gideon to bring Apelles's body into the courtyard."

  Numb from the shock of the engineer's gruesome death, Arcadia consented to be led outside.

  The late October twilight was eerily brightened by the blazing workshop's flames reflecting off the wet ground and the fort's main building. Near the stables, Ardashir's golden coach glowed brightly in the orange light. Inside the animal pens, horses of the Huns, and Gideon's camels, milled restlessly on the edge of panic, terrorized by the noise and flames.

  As the Huns and Nehkomim went to calm the beasts, Getorius took Darios aside. "Is there a town near here where those burned men might be treated?"

  "Gerasa. Several hours' wagon travel to the north."

  "It has a hospital?"

  Darios hedged, "His Magnificence will return there tonight. His guards will carry torches."

  "Getorius," Arcadia interrupted, "I need to find my patient. Aphrodisia is missing and the sheikh could still be in the main house."

  "Fine. Darios, we'll have to bury the dead tomorrow."

  "Use the Hebrews," he snapped and turned away toward his master's coach.

  "Getorius…."

  "Right, cara. I'll come with you."

  Arcadia led the way past uneaten dishes of the king's feast—and what was to have been her final meal here—into the darkening hallway. Fading light from the harim garden silhouetted women who were clustered behind the wooden screen that separated them from Al-Shams' quarters, and the world outside. The younger concubines cried. No eunuchs, including those with a key to the door, were in evidence.

  When Taym al-Lat saw Arcadia, she called to her in Latin, "Woman! Where is my husband?"

  "So you do understand my language," Arcadia said. "We're looking for him."

  "He ran from the courtyard, yet is not in his quarters."

  "The atrium, then?" She recalled that she had waited there before her first meeting with the Bedouin warlord.

  The entrance court was lighted by a single torch set in a wall holder. A glimpse of evening sky over the pool showed a cobalt blue that would darken to indigo, and then to an orange-brown hue, by flames at the burning building. Dying trickles of rainwater, reflecting the torchlight, barely disturbed the water's smooth surface as they dripped from roof tiles into the basin. No one seemed to be in the atrium, but after their eyes adjusted to the dim light, Arcadia and Getorius both saw the latest horror.

  Amir al-Shams' body lay slumped over the far edge of the pool. His head lay submerged face-down in the murky water. The mariner's leather cuirass had soaked to a darker blue. A ribbon of translucent red, mimicking the color of his hair, drifted from the base of his skull—where it had been impaled by the slender blade of Aphrodisia's protective dagger. They had no time to react before Arcadia's eye caught movement by a white-clad shape, slouched against the wall that held a torch. A woman's voice groaned, then muttered an incoherent phrase that sounded like Greek.

  "Aphrodisia?" she called out.

  The woman whimpered, "Mitera? Ine essi, mitera?"

  "Aphrodisia, this isn't your mother. I'm Arcadia. Your…your medica"

  She walked around the pool and knelt by the feverish woman, who shivered in a night tunic. "Getorius," Arcadia called to him. "Bring your cloak."

  When he helped his wife half-turn Aphrodisia, to wrap the covering around her, the woman screamed in pain. "What is it? Where do you hurt?"

  "That freckled prick, Shams, wrenched my arm when he pulled me out of bed."

  Arcadia motioned her husband away. "I'll do it." While gently covering the actress, she saw a purplish bruise discoloring the left side of the woman's cheek. Blood had dried at the corner of her nose and mouth. "Al-Shams did this to you?"

  "When he's vexed, the prick talks with his hands."

  Arcadia looked toward the pool. "What happened here?"

  Aphrodesia ignored her question. "What's going on out there? All that ungodly noise I heard?"

  "My husband was able to rescue me."

  "So, medica, you won't be a queen?" Aphrodisia's feeble smile at her jest ended in a shudder of pain.

  Getorius asked, "What happened with that sheikh?"

  She breathed in gasps, explaining, "Shams came…into my cot and dragged me…back here. He was mad as any man who…who paid for what he thought was a…a bad screw."

  "Aphrodisia!"

  "Medica, the prick ranted like…like a half-baked actor playing Euclio. Blaming you for…for everything that went wrong."

  Getorius asked, "Blaming my wife? What do you mean?"

  "She came in a lame camel. That…bungled the sacrifice to his stone-ass goddess. The storm made his camp a disaster—" A bout of coughing racked Aphrodisia.

  Arcadia stroked her hair. "Rest a moment, you're burning with fever."

  After a wait, Getorius said, "You were telling us how the sheikh died."

  The actress spit phlegm on the floor. "Shams wanted me to call your wife in here. Say that I was really sick."

 

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