Orion 04 - Orion and the Conqueror by Ben Bova

Author:Ben Bova [Bova, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-11-30T02:05:45+00:00

Chapter 18

Olympias dismissed her son, but kept me with her. Like the slave that I was I followed her to her bed chamber where we made love until dawn amid her slithering, hissing snakes.

She did not need the special drugs that her vipers had injected into me other times. I was a cooperative slave that night, a willing lover. My body was unmarked by their fangs, although Olympias had sunk her own fingernails into my flesh more than once.

"You plan to assassinate Philip," I said to her as we lay together.

"Is that a question?" she asked lazily.

"No. An observation."

"And you will warn him of it, won't you?"

"I am loyal to Philip," I said.

"Not to me?"

"You can force me to do whatever you wish. That does not engender loyalty."

She laughed in the predawn darkness. "Come now, Orion, can you truthfully say that you don't enjoy what we do together?"

"My body certainly enjoys it."

"But your mind...?"

I hesitated, not wanting to stir her anger. But I heard my voice tell her, "I know what a trained bear must feel when he's made to dance."

She laughed again, genuinely amused. "A trained bear! Yes! That's what I want you to be: my trained bear."

I cursed myself for giving her a new source of amusement.

"Time for another performance, my great big bear," she said. "Must I find a whip to encourage you?"

I did not need a whip.

By the time the first pink flush of dawn was lighting the sky beyond her window, she returned to our earlier conversation.

"You will tell Philip that I plan to assassinate him, won't you?"

"If you don't prevent me, yes, I will."

"It's nothing that he doesn't know already."

I got out of the bed and went to the wash basin on the table across the room.

"Go ahead and tell him, Orion. Let him know what awaits him. There's nothing he can do to avoid it. Assassination is his fate. The gods have decreed it."

"The gods!" I spun around and faced her, still lying languidly in her bed. "There are no gods and you know it."

She laughed at me. "Careful, Orion. Men have been executed most painfully for blaspheming."

"For telling the truth," I muttered.

"Go," she said, her voice suddenly imperious. "Go to Philip and tell him the fate that awaits him. Tell him that it is ordained by the gods. There is nothing he can do to avoid it."

I left her chamber, Olympias' words and haughty laughter echoing in my mind. She said that Philip's assassination was ordained by the gods. As I strode along the empty corridors of Philip's palace in the dawn's gentle light, I clenched my fists and vowed to do everything I could to stop her.

"Nothing is preordained," I muttered to myself. "Time itself can be bent and changed, not only by the so-called gods but by their creatures, as well. We create the future by our own actions."

And I swore that I would protect Philip with every ounce of strength in me.

I went back to my usual palace duties.

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