‘And I have seen you before, sir. An hour ago.’ Lifting her hands she drew the outline of a tree in the air. Then she smiled again and swung away. He watched her walk from the marketplace.
Swiftly he returned to the temple, and sent a servant to fetch the file on the man Rage. In the fading light he read through it, then pushed the papers across the desk. Rising he walked to the window, and watched the dying sun fall behind the hills.
He had been nineteen when he left Stone, to join the eastern campaign with Panther Nineteen. Palia had wept and begged him to stay, but thoughts of warfare and glory had filled him. Once on campaign he found himself thinking of her often, and the times they had shared. Not just the carnal times, but the moments holding hands beneath the trees, or sitting arm in arm on the bench beneath the rose bower. He still held the memory of the scent of her hair.
Voltan had been away a year, and on his return had rushed to the house of Rage, praying that Palia had taken no other lover. He had been greeted by strangers, who told him that Rage no longer dwelt in Stone, but had moved to a distant part of the empire following the suicide of his daughter. Voltan had stumbled away, bereft and lost.
He stood now in the darkness, remembering the girl by the stall, her bright smile, her blue eyes. Voltan’s throat felt tight, and there was a weight in his chest.
‘I have a daughter,’ he whispered.
He remembered the sign she had made, and, for the first time in his life, fear touched his heart.
Tomorrow would see the greatest cull in the city’s history. Close to a thousand names had been gathered from agents, spies and informers. The lists had already been despatched to the hunt teams, and Voltan had no way of knowing whether Cara had been named. He heard a tap at the door, and a figure slipped into the darkness.
‘All is ready, lord,’ said the man. ‘So do we kill the emperor tonight?’
‘Aye, tonight,’ said Voltan.
Chapter Nine
The acquisition of power, Jasaray had always said, was not without risk. This thought came to him as he opened his eyes and felt pain at his temple. Lifting his hand he found a lump there, the skin split. He was lying beside the marble bench at the centre of his maze. He struggled to sit, remembering the man who had stepped from the shadows and struck him. I should be dead, he thought. Dragging himself up he groaned as fresh pain throbbed from his skull. Perhaps he believed he had killed me, he thought, sitting down on the bench. It made no sense.
As he sat down he saw that his pale toga was drenched with blood. I have been stabbed! Wrenching the garment open he examined his chest and belly. In the moonlight he could see no wound, and there was certainly no pain, save from the pounding in his head.
Think, man!
Jasaray calmed himself. He had known for some months of the peril he faced, as Nalademus and his Knights grew in power. Yet with his armies in the east he had been unable to confront his old friend and force the issue. So he had waited patiently, allowing Nalademus more and more power, while at the same time organizing subtle troop movements, bringing several loyal Panthers closer to the city. The first of them was camped only five miles from Stone, ready to march upon his order. At this moment Jasaray wished he had given that order, but he had decided to risk another few days. Then he could march nine thousand soldiers into Stone, arrest Nalademus and Voltan, and disband the Stone Knights.
‘It could prove a costly delay,’ he said, aloud.
Why am I alive? And where is the assassin? Why had he been struck, but not killed? And from whence had come this blood?
Jasaray had been walking alone in the maze. His attacker had been waiting there, armed with a cudgel. Not a knife or a sword. Was the man merely a fool? Or would he return and bludgeon Jasaray to death?