At last I found Pausanias’ room. He was tossing unhappily in his sleep, moaning slightly. The thin chiton he wore was soaked with perspiration.
I clamped my left hand over his mouth and pointed my dagger at his suddenly wide-open eyes.
“Dreaming of the queen?” I asked. “Waiting for her to invite you into her bed once again?”
His right hand moved slightly, but I touched the point of my dagger to the artery pulsing in his throat. He froze into immobility.
“Has she promised to make you regent here in Pella while her son goes off to conquer the Persians?”
I could see by his eyes that this idea was a surprise to him.
“Not even that?” I asked. “All she’s offered you is her body? She certainly has you entranced, then.”
He tried to say something but my hand muffled his words.
“Your cell wasn’t strong enough to hold me, Pausanias. Now I’m going to the king and tell him what you told me. The next time you see me, you’ll have a noose around your neck.”
I sheathed my dagger. He shoved my hand away from his mouth and reached for the sword hanging beside the bed. I punched him solidly on his temple and he went limp, unconscious.
Then I ducked through his window and back up onto the roof, heading for the stables and a fast horse and the hills before Aigai.
Pausanias reacted almost exactly as I had expected. By the time I had swung off the road to Aigai and nosed my horse up into the brown hills, couriers on lathered horses raced to the old city’s gates. Before the sun went down that day a troop of royal guards came up the road, riding almost as hard as the couriers, with Pausanias at their head. They made camp in front of the city wall, obviously to block my entry into Aigai.
Pausanias went inside. To the queen, I imagined, breathless to tell her of the danger to their plans that I represented. I smiled to myself as I made my own camp for the night. No fire for me. I was not ready to be caught just yet. I let my horse crop the scrawny grass pushing up through the rocky ground while I armed myself with a handful of small stones and went hunting. I killed a hare, skinned it and ate its meat raw. It was tough, but nourishing enough. Then both the horse and I drank at a shallow stream bubbling down the hillside.
She came to me in my dreams, of course.
Hera was furious. No sooner had I closed my eyes in sleep than I found myself standing before her in a chamber so vast that I could see neither its walls nor its ceiling. Enormous columns of gray-green marble rose like a forest, dwarfing even the many-columned hall of the Great King. Hera sat on a throne that glowed faintly, completely alone, magnificently beautiful in a flowing white robe that left her slim arms bare except for her jeweled bracelets and armlets, all in the shape of coiling snakes.
Staring down at me with fiery eyes, she snapped, “You are more trouble than you’re worth, Orion.”
I smiled at her. “I accept that as a compliment.”
Her eyes blazed. She leaned forward slightly, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists, body rigid with tension.
I felt the beginnings of the pain she had inflicted on me before, but I fought against it, strove to banish it from my consciousness. It faded away before it became anything more than an annoying tingling.
Hera’s face contorted into an even angrier frown.
“It’s not working,” I said. “You can’t punish me the way you once did.”
“You’re being protected!” The thought seemed to surprise her.
“Or perhaps I’ve learned to protect myself,” I said, not daring to hope that Anya was near. She was the only one who would protect me, I knew.
“Impossible. We wiped that capability from your mind before we sent you here.”
“We?” I asked. “You and the Golden One?”
She did not need to answer; I knew.
“You failed, then. My memories are returning. My abilities are growing.”