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woman made obeisance, of sorts, to the king, to the women at his side, and, in a deep, bell-toned voice that set the bars of Hypatia’s chest thrumming, said, ‘Iksahra sur Anmer thanks your majesties for their indulgence. Your royal nephew is a versatile hunter, if not yet quite suited to the sea. We caught a few gulls, but nothing else of worth. I beg leave to continue his training in the deserts, that he might, in time, reach the excellence of his ancestors.’
    Hypatia bit her lip and made sure not to smile. She had given orders to emperors in her time, she knew the pitch of voice that acted as a command, whatever the nature of the words, and theBerber woman had just ordered King Agrippa II of Judaea to leave his nephew – his sole heir – in her care.
    Agrippa showed no sign of having noticed. His gaze glanced unseeing over the assemblage before him – the men on the skiff, the boy, the falcon, even the cheetah – and came to rest, thoughtfully, on the Berber woman who, contrary to all propriety, wore a loose white robe that barely stretched to her knees and covered her arms not at all.
    It was a man’s dress, and she was assuredly not a man. She was, in fact, as close as Hypatia had ever seen to one of the legendary Amazons, but for the fact that she bore no bow, and had plainly not amputated her own right breast, the better to fire her arrows.
    The king thought the same. Hypatia watched him say as much behind his hand to a man dressed in silk the colour of sand who stood at his left shoulder, in the place of a counsellor.
    The Oracles of Isis were well versed in reading words by the form of the speaker’s lips alone. From her place high up on the deck of the Krateis , Hypatia watched Agrippa say, ‘The Amazon will make a man of my nephew yet.’
    The reply came swiftly, with amusement. ‘If you give her time to do so.’ The man at the king’s shoulder also let his eyes rest on the Berber woman, but it seemed to Hypatia that the shock of her touched him less than it had the king, and that he gazed instead into her soul, to the passions that burned in the glacial interior, and that he was pleased with what he saw.
    And then he turned his head and smiled, and so she saw at last that the messages had been true: Saulos was in Caesarea.
    Two month at sea, six months before in preparation, a year before in hunting, had wound her tighter than she knew. She felt the heat of his gaze pass over her and move on, and opened her fists and wiped away the sudden greasy sweat on the weather-fine wood of the mast.
    In the temple, she had been cloaked and cowled. Her voice had not been her own; her body had been the hollow reed through which Truth spoke. She had said so to Pantera, to Mergus, tothe ailing Empress Poppaea in her private apartments as they had planned all that might happen.
    Saulos saw the Oracle, he did not see Hypatia. I will know him and will not be known. As the empress suggests, I will take ship to Caesarea and deliver her gifts while you travel overland. Whichever of us finds him first will alert the others .
    Hypatia turned her gaze to the city, to the bright houses and brighter gardens, to the merchants and traders and slaves and housekeepers and ladies and courtiers and counsellors and men of the Watch who flooded the dock and the nearby streets.
    It did not look like a city on the verge of riot and revolution, but Hypatia had spent half her life visiting cities and states on the verge of war; she knew the taste of the air and the sounds of men and women trying to pretend that life had not changed and would not change. A smear of black smoke somewhere in mid-city was darker and thicker than it should have been and somewhere distant, women wailed a death.
    With a nod to Andros to let him know she was all right, she gathered her dignity and stepped down the plank on to the dockside and into the maelstrom that was Caesarea.

C HAPTER T HREE
    MERGUS COUNTED THIRTEEN crosses marking the eastern entry to