She wove her fingers with his and squeezed. He squeezed back. He pulled her gently towards him and she scooted next to him until she could feel the cloth of his sleeve pressing against her arm. Her heart was beating.
‘What about you, Atia?’ he whispered at last. ‘What is your greatest fear?’
Her greatest fear? That these are our last moments together, she thought. That after tomorrow I will never see you again.
But how could she tell him that, after what he had just said? He feared the demise of his very culture and she only feared the loss of him. His thoughts were nobler than hers. His troubles greater.
Still, he had spoken from his heart, and she was obliged to speak from hers. ‘I am afraid that I will die without ever having lived.’
And there it was. A selfish thing to say—especially after his virtuous admission. But it was the truth. ‘Rab, I have wasted so many of my days...’
Rab squeezed her hand again and gazed up at the moon. ‘I wonder if I have not wasted many of mine as well,’ he said.
What did he mean? Was he simply reassuring her, or was it possible that he regretted their estrangement? Or could he have been referring to something larger still?
‘You are neither a camel trainer nor a trader, are you, Rab?’ she asked. She hardly knew what had compelled her to speak. Rab sucked the air, saying nothing. ‘You are the rebel leader.’
Now he ceased to breathe at all, or so it seemed. The air was deathly still. He turned to her, the moonlight illuminating the confession in his eyes. Yes, I am. And you have just placed yourself in danger.
She tried to stop herself, but it was as if the Fates themselves were speaking through her. ‘And your father...was no pomegranate farmer.’
His brows made a sharp angle, but his eyes waited.
‘Your father was King Rabbel the Second.’
He released her hand and appeared to reach for his blade. Suddenly, it all made sense. It was now—now was to be the moment of her death. She had exposed his secret and put the rebel army at risk. She would need to be eliminated.
She considered attempting to run. She could leap up suddenly and dash off into the desert. Ha! As if she could outrun Rab. As if she could escape Morta’s shears.
Besides, running would make her a coward and she was not a coward. She was her mother’s daughter, by the gods, and she would face her death without fear.
She pulled her hair aside and bared her neck. She held her breath. A soft wind rustled through the leaves of the palms, then quieted. A frog began to croak. I do not fear you, she thought. I love you. Go ahead, deliver me my death.
When Rab finally spoke, his voice was full of curiosity. ‘So when did you know?’
She gulped the air. ‘When did I know?’
She glanced at the object in his hand. It was her fallen scarf.
‘I presume this is yours,’ he said. He smiled sweetly as he handed her the ripped garment. It was the same scarf she had been wearing the day they met.
She gazed at the scarf in puzzlement, running her finger along the ripped seam.
‘When did you know I was the rebel leader?’ he asked again. ‘Or when did you begin to guess it?’
She spoke carefully. ‘I guessed it when I learned that it was you who saved me from Plotius. No mere trader could possibly defeat a giant like Plotius.’
‘Very observant,’ said Rab.
‘But it was not just that. It was also the way you led us on the trail. You were too comfortable in the role. You commanded our group better than Plotius ever could.’
‘You flatter me,’ he said.
‘I merely observe. Also that day at the baths—’ She felt the heat of a blush.
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Go on.’
‘Your exposed flesh bespoke a good deal of physical training.’
He grinned, then closed his eyes, as if imagining the moment.
If he was going to kill her, he certainly would not be smiling like that. Her cautious optimism was slowly transforming into a deep, bodily relief. ‘But I knew for certain only just now after you told your story.’
Wonder flooded his expression. ‘Indeed? And how did I give myself away?’
‘When you spoke the King’s last words you faltered and your voice changed. I sensed you were on the edge of tears.’
‘They were my father’s last words—the elephants.’
He released her hand. Why was he releasing her hand? ‘What do you think he meant by them?’ she asked, hoping to keep him talking.
‘I have asked myself that question for thirteen years now,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I have yet to discover a satisfactory answer.’
He was smoothing his robe when she realised that he was not going to kill her at all. He was going to leave her.
No, no, no, she thought. Her heart squeezed. But of course he was going to leave. She had exposed his true identity. She would be obliged to tell her father and he knew it. He would likely be gone before the dawn.
‘Please do not go,’ she blurted. ‘I do not plan to tell my father about you—or anyone else. Just stay here a bit longer. We can speak together more, or just be still. I am not your enemy and I promise to keep your secrets.’ She realised that she was babbling, but she hardly cared. He was leaving her. ‘Please just stay. I do not wish to expose you, or bore you, or vex you, or engage in some ridiculous debate. I only—’
‘Atia?’ he interrupted. He was standing inside the shadow of the palms, his expression unreadable.
‘What, Rab? What is it?’
‘I would not leave you if the Emperor himself appeared before us with a hundred legions at his back.’
He was smiling at her—she could tell by the tone of his voice. One of those sweet, genuine smiles that was rarer than rain.
And he had not been lying. His figure remained fixed in place beneath the shade of the palm. He seemed to be busying himself with some quiet task. A sandal was tossed aside, then another. She began to hear the soft sounds of moving cloth. There was only one thing he could be doing.
Or undoing, rather. She saw the shadow of his robe fall to the ground, followed by the thin strip of his loincloth, then watched his dark silhouette slip quietly into the pool.
She was overcome by the vision of him. The moonlight poured down on to his naked torso in a play of light and shadow. The contours of his body—his sculpted arms, the twin bulges of his chest, the rippling plane of his stomach—seemed both more magnificent and less real, as if she were not viewing a male body, but some idealised version of a male body that she had fashioned inside her own mind. A mirage. The water reached his hips, concealing the rest of him beneath its shimmering surface.
Thank the gods.
She did not know what she would have done if he had been as exposed as he had been that afternoon in the stream or that morning at the baths. Probably she would have simply run away in terror—not of the man himself, but of her own desire for him.
In one fluid motion, he lowered himself beneath the surface of the water and re-emerged in a splashy burst. He shook out his long hair and water splattered across Atia’s skin. She cried out, then laughed.
He caressed the water’s surface with his arms, beckoning. By the gods, it was as if he were caressing her own skin.
‘I will disappoint you,’ she told him.
‘You will only disappoint me if you do not come in.’
What was that expression on his face? Surely it was a trick of the moonlight making him appear so very sincere. His hair hung in ropes around his cheeks and his bare skin dripped with water. It was as if he wished for her to see him exactly as he was. A warrior without his armour. A statue of Achilles stripped of his paint.
Curse the moonlight. She did not trust it.
And why should she? It seemed to be in league with the desert itself. Together they conspired to trick her—to conjure this man from the very dust. Of course he was not real, for he appeared to be offering her everything her heart desired.
Not just offering it to her: begging her to take it.
He stretched out his hand.
Yes, curse the moonlight, for he was so very handsome in it. So very difficult to resist.
And there were so many good reasons to resist him, though she could not think of a single one just now. He had hurt her once, yes? In some distant time and place he had wounded her pride. He had also frustrated her. She vaguely remembered something about that. She cast about her mind for the details, but her thoughts had become so very crowded with him.
She stood and stepped into the shadow that he had only recently occupied. She removed her tunic and let it fall to the ground. Curses, why had she tied her breast band so tightly? She battled with its large knot and willed it free. Her loincloth was mercifully easier to remove. It fell from her limbs like the skin of a snake.
‘Take my hand,’ he said.
She paused. This is simply a mirage, she told herself. A beautiful dream. Besides, if she lived beyond this night, she would likely never see Rab again.
‘It sounds as if we must both find our courage to live,’ he said.
He might have said something more, but Atia did not hear it. She could only hear those words—so loud and weighty, like a dare handed down from a god.
Go ahead, then, Atia, she told herself. What are you afraid of? Live.
She placed her hand in his and stepped into the pool. The water was not cool, nor was it warm. It seemed to be precisely the temperature of her own skin.
She plunged into its depths, submerging herself, then burst to the surface. He was smiling down at her, but the expression in his eyes had changed. Their guileless sweetness was gone—replaced by something urgent and serious and...hungry.
‘I want to make love to you, Atia,’ he said.
He was several paces away from her in the pool, yet she felt as if he had whispered in her ear. She feared him and desired him all at once. The last time they had met like this, he had changed all the rules—at least all the rules that she had ever been taught. What would he demand of her this time?
She did not even dare to imagine. She felt paralysed with longing for him. She held his gaze, but knew not how to proceed. She had imagined their moments together in the stream a thousand times, not daring to dream beyond them. Now she had no idea of what to do or how to be. In this small desert spring, she was very much at sea.
‘I want to make love to you, too,’ she said.
He smiled, then scooped up a large helping of water. ‘Come, you must be very thirsty,’ he said. His voice was husky and low.
‘I am,’ she said, though she had quite forgotten her thirst.
‘Will you not drink from my hands?’
Suddenly her thirst came roaring back. She stepped towards him, bent to his hands and began to drink. The water tasted sweet and she felt an almost holy relief as she sipped it.
She let her hands sink slowly into the water.
His column of taut flesh was not difficult to find and when she wrapped her hand around it, she felt a strange thrill. His pleasure was hers to give, she realised. And he trusted her with it.
She was humble in her power. Tentative and careful. She began to stroke him beneath the surface of the water. He was watching her closely, as if it pleased him to see her face.
But of course that could not be. Impossible.
In an effort to move her nose out of his view, she stepped closer to him, not knowing that in so doing she would trap the air between them until it became almost unbearably hot. To alleviate the burning heat, she pressed her cool, wet breasts against his chest.
But that seemed only to transfer the heat—from the surrounding air to a place deep inside herself, a place that she hardly knew how to keep cool. She could feel his heart pounding against hers—like a soft fist knocking at a door.
And between them, something larger than a fist. It was growing within her grasp. Larger. Harder.
‘By the gods, Atia, what are you doing to me?’
She hardly knew. She only continued to stroke, as if her small, rhythmic movements might somehow bring him the kind of pleasure he had given her that day in the stream. If she concentrated hard enough, could she make him begin to moan? If she kissed him just here, at the bottom of his neck, and then let that gentle kiss deepen into a suck like...this, could she make him begin to shake and quiver like he had done to her?
‘Yes,’ he murmured.
Yes. She was doing well. Yes. He was feeling pleasure. Yes. He was beginning to moan. Yes...
‘No,’ he spouted suddenly. His chest appeared to empty itself of air. He cringed as if in pain, then slowly, gently removed her hand from its important work. He hugged her tightly against him. ‘You are going to send me to the moon, my dear,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘But I will not travel there without you.’