The Blood Star Read Online Free PDF

beneath his
massive black brows, his eyes burning like hot coals. Yet I do not
think he recognized me—if he did, he did not show it.
    At last he turned to the horse dealer, who
wore the elaborately curled beard of an Harrian, men notorious as
sharp traders. The horse dealer’s nostrils were flaring slightly as
if at the scent of unexpected profit.
    “I think you have hit upon a stratagem,” the rab abru said to him, seeming, for the moment, to have
dismissed me from existence, “I think you have hired this villain,
that he might bid against me and drive up the price. If I find this
to be true, I will order your right hand to be cut off as an
example.”
    “My master is not this man. My master is the
caravan merchant Hugieia of Sardes. Having lost his own to bandits,
and trusting my judgment in these matters, he instructed me to
purchase him a mount suitable to his wealth and dignity.”
    I stepped forward and placed my hand upon the
horse’s nose. I have a way with horses, and at once the great
stallion quieted down.
    “It would appear I have found something
worthy.” I smiled at the rab abru , as if to annoy him. I was
a crafty foreign servant, out to wrest my little victory from one
of the mighty of the earth. “It only remains to be seen which of us
has the heavier purse.”
    “Let me see the color of your money,
slave.”
    He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and,
although I was carrying one myself, I thought it more prudent
simply to take the bag of coins from my belt and open it for him.
Dinanu’s mouth tightened when he saw the glint of so much
silver.
    “These foreigners are all rich,” one of his
officers said, in Akkadian. “They are all—what is this?”
    The man reached out and grasped my wrist,
yanking it toward him so that the bag slipped from between my
fingers and fell with a soft clink to the earth. He held me so that
my palm was up, and they could all see the birthmark there, red as
blood and shaped like a star.
    “It is not possible! It can’t. . .”
    “No, it is not possible.”
    Dinanu stooped down and picked up the bag of
coins, returning it to me.
    “The king’s traitor brother is in a dungeon
in Nineveh,” he went on in Akkadian, speaking only to his officers.
“Either that, or he is dead by now. Look at this one—he is no
prince. Any man may have a mark upon his hand.
    “It seems you have bought a horse.” The rab abru looked at me with cold, appraising eyes. “May you
ride far on it, and never return to Birtu.”
    He turned on his heel and walked away.
    “Twenty silver shekels for the stallion and
the brown gelding both—quick, man, yes or no?”
    I grabbed the Harrian by the neck of his
tunic and shook him, for he seemed to be in a dream.
    “Yes or no!”
    “What?—yes, Excellence. Twenty silver
shekels, yes!”
    I counted out the money for him, took the
horses by their lead ropes, and went on my way. I wanted to find
Kephalos. I did not trust to luck.
    I had not gone a hundred paces from the main
bazaar before I knew I was being followed.
    It was perhaps two hours to midday. People
flowed past me on their way to the shops. I had two horses in tow
and thus trod cautiously along the center of the street.
    Three times I had glanced back and seen him,
always the same distance behind me—his back to me as he paid a
vendor for a cup of beer, turning abruptly into an alley, now
idling in the doorway of a brothel. His face was in shadow, but he
wore the tunic of an officer and I was sure he had been one of
those with Dinanu.
    There was a public stable near the main gate.
I took the horses there rather than back to the wineshop, where
Kephalos would be waiting. The garrison at Birtu had no business
with Kephalos, whose existence they did not even suspect. There was
nothing to be gained by leading them to him.
    The stable keeper showed me his stock of
bridles and saddle blankets—I took my time choosing. I had yet to
make up my mind what to do about this second shadow I