Harvest of Rubies (36 page)

The queen frowned. “I refused his requisition. And the king won’t give him permission to move out of the palace.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to let him go, Your Majesty? He’s only liable to grow more riled if you force him to stay with me.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I shall give him time to calm himself, and if he does not change his mind, then I will move you to the women’s quarters.”

We rode through the seven gates of Ecbatana at a sedate pace, the queen’s guards following us from a respectful distance. Damaspia’s revelation weighed on my mind. With depressed certainty I came to the conclusion that Darius would abandon me in one of his residences and lead his life apart from me. Then I remembered how far I had come from the girl at court whose world fell apart because she had lost her post. I had many resources now, to see me through this heartbreak. I had the Lord. I had my friends. I had the truth. I would survive.

When we crossed the last gate, Damaspia picked up the
pace of the ride, and with good-natured laughter, her ladies began a haphazard race. I followed at a more sedate pace, not in the humor for their laughter or for chasing after the wind. At the edge of the road I caught sight of a boy. I turned to study him and was surprised when he waved at me to stop.

He was nine or ten, a dark-eyed boy with tousled hair and dirty hands. He was clearly a peasant child, out on some errand. I brought Kidaris to a gentle stop near him.

“My lady, there’s a man what wishes to see you. He’s back there.” He pointed with his thumb into the woods.

“Who is it?”

“He didn’t say, lady. He just pointed at you and told me to fetch you to him.”

I narrowed my eyes against the sun as I looked toward the trees. It occurred to me that perhaps it was Darius. What other man did I know in Ecbatana? Although I could not fathom why my aggrieved husband would want to meet with me in the woods when he had easy access to me in our rooms, I figured he would explain himself when he saw me.

The boy, having delivered his message, moved on down the road, back toward the palace. I realized that by lingering behind, I had put a substantial distance between my companions and me. Loathe to keep Darius waiting, I ignored the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, and led Kidaris into the woods.

“My lord?” I called out, as I entered a shaded glade.

With disconcerting speed a man jumped before me. I recognized the dark hair, now wild and dirty, the narrowed eyes, the long jaw. “Teispes!”

He grabbed Kidaris’s reins before I could react. I tried to jerk them out of his hold and kicked the horse’s side, signaling her to gallop away. Just as Kidaris bolted, a strong hand
grasped the back of my tunic and pulled me down. I fell on the ground with a heavy thud. My head hit a stone jutting out of the moss-covered forest bed. Its hard impact made me dizzy and nauseated so that I could not move for some moments. Before I had full command of my senses, Teispes pulled me roughly to my feet.

I lifted a trembling hand to the side of my head. My fingers came away wet with blood. I tried to clear my mind. “What are you doing here?” I croaked, disbelief and pain making my voice tremble. I thought of screaming, but the queen and her guard would be far from hearing distance by now.

His grip tightened viciously on my arm. “Why, I came for you. You ruined my life, so I thought I would return the favor.” I gasped and began to fight him. He slammed me against a tree. The rough bark must have scraped off half the skin from my back. I went limp in his arms.

I realized that I was too weak to stand a chance against his rage by means of physical struggle. Dizzy from my fall and loss of blood, I could hardly think straight, let alone overcome a wily criminal. Yet my one chance of surviving this nightmare was to best Teispes with my wits.

Before I could think of anything resembling a plan, Teispes pressed me into the tree so hard, the breath was knocked out of me. My knees began to buckle.

“Please,” I croaked. “Stop!”

“What? Does that hurt? How thoughtless of me.” He stepped away enough to allow me a moment of recovery. I realized that he had enjoyed my pleading and wondered if I could use that against him.

Gulping, I asked, “How did you get away?”

His smile was self-satisfied. “Not every man in Persia is
above a good bribe. When I escaped, I went to Aspasia first. But she had left, thanks to you. You drove her away from me. Then I came to Ecbatana to find my brother, only to discover your dear husband had him confined in chains. All my riches are gone. Everything I had worked so hard for disappeared because of you. So I decided to pay you a visit before I moved on to a more pleasant part of the empire.”

“It was clever of you to find me.”

“I knew you were in Ecbatana. But I didn’t think it wise to enter the city. Your husband will have heard of my escape by now, and will be on his guard. So I decided to camp in the woods, knowing sooner or later you would rouse yourself out of the palace. I am a patient man. And justice was on my side, for no sooner had I spied you in the queen’s train, than the peasant boy happened to walk by, and for a piece of bread, agreed to fetch you to me. You were so obliging to loll behind the others, out of earshot and the help of the palace guards.”

“You always were a step ahead of me.”

“How kind of you to notice. If it weren’t for Darius coming home so precipitously, I would have rid myself of you and your meddling.”

I thought of Caspian and ground my teeth. Trying to keep all emotion out of my voice, I asked, “Where do you plan to go now?”

He laughed. His teeth were dirty, like the rest of him. “Do you think to win me over with friendly conversation? You should have tried that in Persepolis. It’s too late now.” He pulled out a knife from its leather sheath at his side and pointed the blade at my face. “My only regret is that in killing you, I will be doing Darius a favor.”

“Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.”

Darius! Both Teispes and I turned toward him in shock. He
was on foot, which explained why neither of us had heard his approach, and stood facing us from the other side of the glade. In one hand he held a bow, a black-tipped arrow already notched, pointed at the ground. “Let my wife go, Teispes.”

With a vicious move, Teispes pulled me in front of him like a shield. He pointed his knife dead against my heart. “Move if you want her dead.”

“If you put one scratch on her, I will tear you apart,” Darius said. The hair on my arms stood at the menace that dripped from his voice. “Let her go. This is between us.”

Teispes pushed the knife harder into my chest. I grit my teeth as its point pierced my flesh. “So you really do care for her.” His smile was twisted. “That’s good.” He looked about him wildly. “I’m going to get on my horse now and I’m taking her with me. If you want her alive, you will give your word not to follow. She’ll come with me to ensure you keep your promise. At the first sight of pursuit, I will kill her, and with pleasure.”

Darius seemed as immobile as a statue to me. I could see his hand clenched on the notched arrow, held steady at his side. “My wife isn’t going anywhere with you, Teispes. Let her go.”

“So you can kill me? I don’t think so.”

The knife at my breast kept pressing harder. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, worried that I might distract Darius. Without warning, Teispes began walking backward, dragging me with him, still held before him like a shield. From the corner of my eye, I saw his horse, tied to a tree.

For a moment, he loosened the knife away from my chest in order to pull us up on the horse, but as soon as he was settled in the saddle with me pressed against him, he shoved the point of his knife into my skin again until the fabric of my riding tunic was stained red with blood. It was a superficial
wound, but it stung like a hundred bee stings. I tried to gulp down the panic that bubbled just beneath the surface of my mind. I knew if he managed to ride out of there with me, I would be dead within the hour. He was too filled with hatred to let me live.

“Sarah, hold still,” Darius said. His voice was calm. I remembered the day he had killed the lion, how true his aim was, and how by remaining immobile, my life had been spared. I held my body rigid. With a motion so fast I almost missed it, he raised his bow, took aim, and released the arrow.

Teispes screamed, his voice loud in my ear. I tried not to flinch as Darius’s arrow flew straight toward me. For once, being short was an advantage, for Teispes towered over me in the saddle. Desperately, he threw himself to the side, with me still clenched hard in his arms, but the arrow was too swift, and it caught him in the neck. His body continued in its sideway motion, pulling me with him. I flailed as I saw the ground coming toward me, trying to grasp hold of the horse’s mane. But Teispes’s weight pulled me down and for the second time that day I was toppled off a horse.

Time grew unnaturally slow; I became aware of Darius yelling my name and running toward us. I saw the thin blades of grass rushing up toward me. I noticed the black tip of Darius’s arrow protruding out of the side of Teispes’s neck, his face a frozen mask of horror. And then I hit the ground. I remember Teispes landing on top of me—remember the pressure of his body as he pressed upon me, his weight overwhelming in death. I became aware that his hand had become trapped under me, his knife still grasped in frozen fingers. My face was in the dirt. I could not move, but I could feel the knife, now buried in my flesh.

“Sarah!” I saw Darius’s leather-clad legs as he knelt by my
side. The weight lifted off my back as he pushed Teispes’s corpse away from me. With gentle fingers he turned me over. I moaned with pain.

“Oh, Sarah.” I must have been a frightful sight, my head and face caked with blood and dirt, a knife protruding from my chest, blood covering the front of my tunic. He tore part of my tunic with a quick slash of his knife and began to examine my wounds with care. Even in my shock I could sense the trembling in his fingers as he touched me. I was too shocked to be embarrassed.

Have mercy on me, dear Lord, have mercy!
I took a deep breath and forced my lips to move. “Am I going to die?”

“n
o No, sweetheart. You won’t die.” For a moment I forgot that my head pounded and my chest felt like it was on fire. My mind fastened on the word
sweetheart
. Had he really called
me
that or was I beginning to hallucinate?

“It’s not as deep a wound as it appears, in spite of all the blood. The knife went sideways and was deflected by bone.”

I swallowed. Relief flooded me at the knowledge that I wasn’t dying, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt like it. “It may not seem as deep as a well to you, but I assure you, it is impressive from this angle.”

A deep breath leaked out of his lips, half sigh, half laugh. With exquisite gentleness, he pulled my tangled hair out of my face. I thought I might be losing my wits as the ground began to shake beneath me and a pounding noise filled my ears. Then I saw the queen and her retinue cantering toward us on their horses.

“Sarah!” Damaspia cried as she jumped from her horse
and threw herself beside us on the ground. “Is it fatal?” she addressed Darius.

“No,” he said, forgoing her title or even a polite nod. “She’ll recover with good care.”

“We ought to get her to the palace. Artaxerxes’ personal physicians shall tend to her.”

“I must first deal with this knife and bind the wound. She has bled too much. I have to staunch the flow before I haul her atop a horse.”

He turned back to me. “Sarah, I have to pull the knife out. It won’t be pleasant.”

“Can’t you do it later? When I’ve passed out would be a good time.”

He lifted my hand to his mouth for a soft kiss. My heart skipped a beat. “No, I can’t. I don’t want infection to set in, or allow you to lose more blood. Delay is dangerous.”

I closed my eyes. “Do as you think best.”

He was slow and meticulous in removing the knife, not wanting to tear the flesh further. The pain was so intense that I feared I might lose the contents of my stomach. In the end, I couldn’t help screaming. I kept repeating the name of the Lord in my head, clinging to Him for strength. For a moment, the agony subsided when the knife was finally pulled out of me, and I was able to catch my breath. Then Darius pressed hard against the wound with bandages he had produced from somewhere, and even though I clenched my teeth to keep from groaning, I couldn’t stop the tears that flowed.

“Shhh.” He wiped the moisture from my cheeks. “It’s almost over.”

I didn’t know why he was being so tender, nor did I care, so long as he did not stop. I supposed he felt sorry for me.

I must have finally lost consciousness, for when I next came to myself, I was in his arms as he walked toward his horse, Samson.

“Where were you hiding Samson? I thought you were on foot,” I said, groggy, but wanting to keep my mind on something besides the misery of my body.

“He was on the other side of the glade, hidden behind the trees.”