I had heard enough, and dared not wait lest my sire discover Bran Cof was awake in the mortal world and talking to me. I escaped when the servants brought the tea service. With a rumble of boys milling outside the children’s classrooms and young men trampling around the lecture halls, I sneaked out through the side entry, past the latrines. The door leading up to the balcony of the main lecture hall, where we young women had been allowed to sit, was chained and locked.
Just inside the gates of Tanit’s temple, Rory met me with a nervous dip of his head, patting my arm and walking all the way around me. “I smelled the soldiers and the horses. Lord Marius is with them. I liked him, but we can’t trust him now, can we?”
“No, we can’t. I don’t think he’s a bad man, I just think he’s not on our side. Where is Bee?”
He led me to the withy gate that separated the women’s precincts from the rest of the temple compound. “She went in there, but they made me wait outside.”
I went in, leaving behind the open ground of the main sanctuary with its monumental stone pillars. The women’s precinct had its own garden. Bee’s voice floated over the evergreen foliage. A path wound through a maze of cypress and myrtle until I came to an altar set among fig trees, screened by a fence woven of sticks. Under a sheltering roof stood a statue of the goddess in her aspect as Queen of the Heavens. She was dressed in a simple robe in the Hellenic style, and her elaborate ringed coiffure was crowned by a crescent moon. Her arms extended to offer blessing, and serpent bracelets twined up her forearms. The altar was surrounded by urns that held the cremated remains of infants who had died in an untimely fashion, because grieving mothers would dedicate the urns to the temple as an offering after which they would pray for the goddess’s blessing and for healthy children to come.
I knelt before the image of the goddess and examined her serene stone face. As Queen of the Heavens she protected sailors and travelers, for so many of the Kena’ani people traveled long distances. As Mother of the Earth she offered comfort to women, and promised fertility to those who desperately desired a child. In Qart Hadast, Tanit was also the lion of war who fought for the city. It was strange to think that General Camjiata’s chosen name also meant “lion of war” even though it came from a union of the names of Sunjiata, the first Malian emperor, and fierce Camulos, a god of war among the Celtic people.
“Give me strength, Blessed One,” I murmured, “for you have already given me my heart, and for that I am grateful. Protect us, your travelers. Let us rescue those who need help. Let us find a place we can call home.”