But two people could not keep a round the clock watch, and both knew it was too good to last.
“SLUT!!!” Tanitha was rudely awakened from a blissful post-coital slumber by a savage kick in the ribs. She screamed and curled herself up for protection. Two more blows came in, then somehow she caught the leg and hung onto it, pulling her assailant off balance. He fell heavily onto the sand.
She threw herself at him, clawing at his face, but firm hands grasped her, and pulled her to her feet.
Panting, she stood looking down at the supine form of Mithras, her brother.
“BITCH!” Mithras struggled to his feet. Tanitha looked about, struggling to make sense of this new situation. A Phoenician bireme in the bay, a boat on the shore, arrived as they’d slept. And her brother! Of all the people in the world, why him?
“How?” she asked.
“Smoke from your fire can be seen for miles. I knew it’d be you, or someone with news of you. Where are the rest of the crew?”
“All dead.”
“Who killed them? You or him?”
“They died in the shipwreck. I tried to save as many as possible, but only Donis and I survived.”
“’Donis’, is it? And what, Donis, gives you the right to fuck a princess?”
Donis looked terrified. “Sire, I never…”
Tanitha screamed as Mithras shoved his middle finger into her. When he withdrew it, it was covered in semen. “Who put that there, then? The birds and the bees?” He wiped his finger on Donis’ face.
“Sire, I….”
“She was promised to the Crown Prince of Lepcis!” screamed Mithras. “Do you think he’ll now accept a common whore?”
Tanitha kept quiet. There was no point in even trying to reason with Mithras. She suspected that he was insane. He was almost certainly a psychopath. She could see no way out of this. He father had always protected her in the past, now she was naked and at the mercy of her brother, and her father was an ocean away.
“Take me to my father.” She ordered. “I’ll explain everything to him. You’re too stupid to understand.”
Mithras ignored her, and turned to one of the soldiers. “What a pity. We seem to have found no survivors.”
“But Sire…..”
“Listen to me very carefully, Captain. Very carefully indeed. If you or anyone else on that ship ever breathes a word of this, you will come to the same fate as them. “
“Mithras, you can’t! For the love of Baal! I’m your sister!”
“You are NOT my sister, I’ve told you, you are a common whore! And he’s a rapist! You know the penalty for that?”
She knew perfectly well. Crucifixion. “Mithras! NO! You wouldn’t dare!”
“There’s plenty of wood about.” He ordered. “Crucify them! Him down here on the beach, and her, if she thinks she’s so high and mighty, take her up there and crucify her!” He indicated a rocky outcrop just above the beach.
“OK, but look, it wasn’t his fault! I led him on! Do what you like with me, but let him go!”
Mithras ignored her, and also Donis, who was pleading in a similar vein on Tanitha’s behalf.
They could only watch, as the soldiers fashioned two crosses out of the timber they had put aside for their winter shelter. Her eyes met Donis’. He looked sad, not scared. He mouthed the words ‘I love you!” as they dragged him to his cross.
She didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t help herself. That body, that she’d so painstakingly nursed back to health, crippled again as nails were driven through wrists and heels. That man, who had declared that he loved her more than life, now losing his life, drip by slow drip, as they raised his cross into position. That voice, that had sung to her and told her of his love, now moaning with the total pain of crucifixion. She watched him as he hung, naked and bleeding, so much that was so good destroyed by one man who was so evil.
“Please! Let me die near him!”
“You’ll be able to see him, but you’re too good to die with scum like him!”
“Why do you hate me so much, Mithras?”
“I don’t hate you. I despise you. Daddy’s little darling. Where’s Daddy now, eh?”
They forced her to drag the cross up the hill, to where two of the soldiers had dug a hole for it.
As they forced her down onto the cross, pulling her arms up and out, she looked up at Mithras.
“This day will haunt you for the rest of your miserable days, Mithras. My face and my cross will be in your nightmares!”
Further talk was impossible as they began the process of nailing through her wrists into the cross. She did not want to give Mithras the pleasure of hearing her cry out, but under that much torture it was impossible not to. As they raised her cross, she looked down at Mithras’ leering, evil face.
And something clicked inside her. Suddenly, she did not hate him, she pitied him. How awful it must be to live your life suspicious of everyone, hating everyone. Mithras could never know the love she’d shared with Donis. She had never seen him laugh. Yes, he was evil, but he was also wretched.
Soon enough, she’d die here on her cross, and Donis would die on his, and they would live forever in a paradise that they could never have known on this island. They would be in paradise, while Mithras, while he lived, would be in a hell of his own making, until someone sent him to hell proper.
She watched them leave, watched them row back to the ship, and prepare to leave.
A song. She and Donis had sung so many. Had she strength for one last song?
She struggled up the cross, took a deep breath, and then her voice was carried by the breeze down to the ship. Everyone, even Mithras, paused to listen.
You can take away my future
You cannot have my past.
You can hurt me with your torture
My love will always last
You might live for ever after –
I cannot know your fate -
But my life’s been filled with laughter
And yours is filled with hate.
Though my life has been a flower
That blooms and then is gone
I have loved my sun-filled hour –
Your rainy day goes on.
Though it’s pain that fills my being
The pain you’ve put me through!
Yet I truly hope you’re seeing
That I’d never swap with you!
For my life of grace and beauty
I thank the gods above
For the pleasures of my duty
And the gentle cords of love.
And my life has not been blighted
By war, revenge or death;
With my Love I’ll be united
As I breathe my final breath.
Down in the ship a Chronicler sat and listened, then wrote the words of her song beneath an account of the deeds of Mithras. He rolled up the paper and hid it, ready to take back to his own master, King Ahinadab, once they reached Byblos.
