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not be hard for you to track them down. I want them punished! I will accept nothing less than their deaths, Imperial Governor! Nothing less!”
    Prince Odenathus looked distressed at his elder cousin’s words. “Your lovely Iris, dead? Zabaai, what can I say to you? How can I comfort you for such a loss?” Then in a sympathetic gesture he tore his robe. “What of the child, your daughter Zenobia? She was untouched?”
    “Yes, the gods be praised! The soldiers did not suspect that my innocent little daughter was also within the room. Had they found my precious child I have no doubt whatsoever that she too would have been viciously attacked! What kind of men are you allowing into the legions these days, Antonius Porcius? Palmyra is not a newly captured city where Romans may rape and loot at will. We are a client kingdom whose citizens are proud to possess Roman citizenship!”
    Antonius Porcius, a man in his early middle years, was shocked by what Zabaai ben Selim had told him. He was a fair man who loved Palmyra—indeed, had lived in it most of his adult life. Still he was Rome’s governor, and he had to be sure that the Bedawi spoke the truth. “How do I know what you say is true, Zabaaiben Selim? Where are these women you say were attacked? Can they identify their attackers?”
    “Come with me!” Zabaai led the way into his bedchamber, where Iris’s battered body still lay amid the tangle of her shredded clothing. Tamar, in shock, still sat on the floor, her back against the bed, her eyes staring vacantly. The smell of blood in the hot, closed-up room was now quite apparent, and the flies buzzed noisily about the dead body.
    The Roman governor, a small, plump man, looked upon Iris with open horror. He had met her on several occasions and remembered her as beautiful and gracious. The bile rose in his throat, and he gagged it back uncomfortably, ashamed of his entire sex in the face of this tragedy. “Your evidence is irrefutable,” he said sadly. “Rome is not at war with Palmyra and her loyal citizens. We are the keepers of the peace. The men involved in this terrible incident will be found immediately, tried, and punished as quickly as possible.”
    “Today,” came the harsh reply. “The sun must not go down upon those criminals unpunished. The soul of my sweet Iris cries out for justice, Antonius Porcius!”
    “Be reasonable, Zabaai ben Selim,” pleaded Antonius Porcius.
    “I am being reasonable!”
thundered the Bedawi chieftain. “I have not sent my men into the city to cut the throats of every Roman soldier they happen upon.
That
is being reasonable, my lord Governor!”
    Suddenly Tamar’s eyes refocused, and she spoke. “I can identify the centurion involved, and his men, my lord Governor. I shall never forget his hellish eyes, for they were like blue glass. There was no feeling in them at all. None. They were blank. He had eight men with him, and their faces will haunt my dreams forever. I shall never forget!”
    Antonius Porcius turned away, embarrassed. He was often a pompous man, but he was also a good man. The evidence before his shocked eyes was sickening. “My lady Tamar,” he said gently, turning back to the woman on the floor. “You say that the men were auxiliaries, and of the Alae. How do you know this?”
    “They were quite tall,” Tamar said, “and very fair with yellow hair, eyes as blue as the skies above, and skin, where it was not brown from the sun, as white as marble. They spoke in guttural accents, as if Latin were not familiar, or easy for them, and they went upon horses, my lord Governor. Their clothing was the clothingof the legions. I am not mistaken, nor am I confused by my ordeal. I remember! I will always remember!”
    He nodded, and then asked once more in a gentle tone, “You are quite sure that they understood fully who you were?”
    “Both Iris and I explained carefully, slowly, several times. They were bent on mischief, my lord Governor. The centurion said