The bed was raised on a low platform, with tables of inlaid on either side. One of those held a kerosene lantern, its flame turned down to a slight red glow. He let that be, and took instead a steel fighting knife of the kind his Nantukhtar allies called a bowie in his left hand. The pistol in his right felt absurdly light after the bronze swords he had borne since toddlerhood, but intensive practice had made him adept with the Islander weapon. His bare feet touched silently on the tile and soft rugs of the floor-an advantage of royal rank, for mats of reed or straw would have made a sound, rutching under his weight. Kashtiliash son of Shagarakti-Shuriash was tall for a man of Kar-Duniash, broad-shouldered and thick-armed, his hairy muscular body compact and strong, tanned to bronze on face and limbs, fading to his natural dark olive on his torso. Waving blue-black hair fell to his shoulders, loosed for the night from its usual bun at the nape of his neck, and his curled beard was thick and dense, growing up to the edges of his high cheekbones, framing a beak-nosed, full-lipped face and eyes of a catlike hazel.
They quickly found the source of the disturbance that had troubled his sleep, and grew wide at the sight. A sliver of light was showing beneath the doors that led to the private rooms of the Lady of the Land, Queen of Babylon, Lieutenant Colonel Kathryn Hollard. Who was hundreds of miles away this night-
His feet moved with a hunter's silence, despite the solid weight of muscle and bone they upbore. Slowly, carefully he moved his left arm until the knuckles of the hand that held the knife touched the slick inlaid cedarwood of the door. He slitted his eyes-it would not do to be blinded by the sudden wash of light-and pushed sharply, wheeling to bring the Python up.
He froze, as astonished as the figure in his sights-more so. It was his concubine Ku-Aya, naked as he, her plumply pretty face going slack in astonishment, then pasty-white with terror. She cowered back against the spindly dressing table, nearly overturning the lamp. Then she dropped to her face on the carpet; her hand moved, until he put his foot on it.
"Do not stir," he said harshly.
This was forbidden ground to all save him and a few servants. Something dark had fallen from the woman's hand. He bent and picked it up. His hand jerked as if to throw it away again when he realized what it was; a little folded tablet of lead, with a figure scratched on it, and some lines of writing.
A cursing tablet! Kashtiliash thought, stomach crawling with the sickness of horror.
He recognized the scorpion-tailed, four-winged, lion-pawed drawing. In his studies in the House of Succession he had read the mighty collection of incantations known as Utukku Lemnutu, The Evil Demons. The lines pressed into the lead were crude, but there was no doubt that they showed Pazuzu, the Lord of the Demons of the Waste-master of sandstorms and bringer of all ill fortune for travelers. But the words inscribed below were not a prayer or spell to foil the demon's wickedness. They were an invocation, a summoning.
"The punishment for sorcery directed at the King's person is flaying alive," he grated.
"Not you! My Lord King, your handmaiden lies at your feet-it is not against you! Look inside the lead, and my lord will see!"
She did lie at his feet. He carefully bent the soft metal back, and a fine dusting of hairs fell into his palm. They were the color of desert sand, light and fine-hair such as was almost never seen in the land of Kar-Duniash. Cropped short, in the manner of the Nantukhtar warriors; Ku-Aya must have plucked it from a hairbrush of the queen's. He raised the pistol then, rage washing red across his vision. A curse against someone traveling… as the queen did this night, in the Nantukhtar ship of the air, over the deserts where Pazuzu had most power. Memory made him lower the pistol; Kathryn would not thank him for such a deed. She did not believe any curse of this land held power over her, either.
"You conspire against the queen, the Lady of the Land," he said. "For that also the punishment is death."
Ku-Aya surprised him, wrenching her wrist free and hunching backward, hissing like an Egyptian cat. "The queen! The sorceress who has bespelled our lord!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "The unnatural bitch, not even a woman, a man with breasts-the doer of evil, they plot against my lord and he will not see-
"Silence!"
Kashtiliash controlled himself with an effort, his breath slowing. He dropped the knife and pistol on the table, grabbed the woman by her neck, and pitched her into the royal bedchamber. Then he belted on a light kilt-it was unlawful, unlucky, for ordinary men to see the King's nakedness, at least here in the palace-and shouted for the guards. They came, along with a sa resi, an eunuch chamberlain.
The armed men bristled at the sight of the anger on his face, facing outward and bringing their rifles to port-arms as they glared about for intruders.
"Stand easy," Kashtiliash said, gesturing impatiently. "There is no enemy here." He nudged the woman with his toe. "Captain Mar-biti-apla-usur."
"Command me, King of the Universe!"
"This woman has gravely displeased me," he said. "She is to be expelled from the palace. As she is, taking nothing."
The guard captain bowed. "What shall be done with her then?" he asked.
"I do not care. She is become a weariness to my spirit."
The guardsman bowed again, grabbed the blubbering woman by her hair, and pulled her out of the chamber as she scrambled to rise. The officer would probably add her to his household, or sell her-Kashtiliash had spoken truth when he said he was indifferent.
"Oh King, live forever," the eunuch said, rising from his prostration. "Do you wish another woman?"
"At this hour? Leave me, go, go," Kashtiliash said.
His sigh was half groan in the silence as the chamber emptied. There is only one woman that I wish were here, and I am angered with her. Or at least with her brother, the general of the allied Nantukhtar forces here in Kar-Duniash.
Raupasha had claimed Kenneth Hollard for her consort. Did that mean a plot to seize Mitanni from his control, or could it be only the foolishness of a besotted girl?
"Officer on deck!"
Private Kyle Hook swung his legs down from the bunk and came to attention. Sick call beat lying on the hospital bunk looking out the window-though it was pleasant enough to watch everyone else working for once. The colonel had arrived, red-haired little I-am-at-God's-Right-Hand O'Rourke himself, and everyone was running back and forth like ants in a hill someone had poked with a stick.
Prancing around on that fancy horse of his like he's something special, Hook thought. Dumb mick was working as a fucking waiter when the Event happened. I should be out there, not him.
The doctor made her rounds, small and neat in a blue Coast Guard uniform and white coat; most of the ones in this room were ambulatory cases, but there were a few pale and drawn with fever that she stooped over as they lay. Her face hardened when she came to Kyle Hook.