The Lions of Al-Rassan (13 page)

So Jehane fought against her tears on Rodrigo Belmonte’s black horse, riding east under moons that spelled a journey for her, against the backdrop of the summer stars, and the man with whom she rode kept blessedly silent until they reached the camp and saw that the Muwardis had been there.

For Alvar, a good part of the considerable strain of that night came from feeling so hopelessly behind what was happening. He had always thought of himself as clever. In fact, he
knew
he was intelligent. The problem was, the events unfolding tonight in Al-Rassan were so far outside the scope of his experience that cleverness was not nearly enough to show him how to deal with what was taking place.

He understood enough to know that with his share of the ransom to be negotiated for Garcia de Rada and his surviving men he was already wealthier than he had ever imagined becoming in his first year as a soldier of the king in Esteren. Even now, before any further negotiations took place, Alvar had been assigned a new horse and armor by Laín Nunez—and both of them were better than his own.

This was how soldiers rose in the world, if they did, through the plunder and ransom of war. Only he had really not expected to take that wealth from fellow Valledans.

“Happens all the time,” Laín Nunez had said gruffly as they divided the spoils in the village. “Remind me to tell you of the time Rodrigo and I served as privately hired mercenaries of the Asharites of Salos downriver. We raided into Ruenda for them more than once.”

“But not into Valledo,” Alvar had protested, still troubled.

“All one back then, remember? King Sancho was still on the throne of united Esperaña. Three provinces of one country, lad. Not the division we’ve got now.”

Alvar had thought about that on the way back to the camp. He was struggling with so many difficult things—including his own first killing—that he didn’t even have a chance to enjoy his spoils of battle. He did notice that Laín Nunez was careful to allocate a substantial share of the ransomed weapons and mounts to the survivors of the village, though. He hadn’t expected that.

Then, back at the camp, where the Captain and the Kindath doctor were waiting for them, Alvar saw the chests and sacks and barrels, and came to understand that this was the summer
parias
from Fezana, delivered by the Muwardis—the Veiled Ones—out here at night on the plain.

“The merchant?” Laín Nunez asked urgently, swinging down from his horse. “They came for him?” And Alvar abruptly remembered that the plump Asharite had been marked to die in Fezana’s castle that day.

The Captain was shaking his head slowly. “The merchant,” he said, “is no more.”

“Rot their souls!” Laín Nunez swore violently. “By Jad’s fingers and toes, I hate the Muwardis!”

“Instead of the merchant,” the Captain went on placidly, “we appear to have a new outrider to join Martín and Ludus. We’ll have to work some weight off him before he’s much use, mind you.”

Laín Nunez gave his sharp bark of laughter as a ponderous figure rose from the far side of the fire, clad—barely—in the garb of a Jaddite Horseman. Husari ibn Musa seemed, improbably, quite at ease.

“I’ve been a wadji already today,” he said calmly, speaking passable Esperañan. “This is no more of a stretch, I suppose.”

“Untrue,” the Captain murmured. “Looking at Ramon’s clothing on you, I’d call it a big stretch.” There was laughter. The merchant smiled, and patted his stomach cheerfully.

Alvar, joining uncertainly in the amusement, saw the Kindath doctor, Jehane, sitting on a saddle blanket by the fire, hands about her drawn-up knees. She was looking into the flames.

“How many of the desert dogs were here?” Laín Nunez asked.

“Only ten, Martín says. Which is why they didn’t come to Orvilla.”

“He told them we were dealing with it?”

“Yes. They are obviously under orders to give us our gold and hope we leave quickly.”

Laín Nunez removed his hat and ran a hand through his thinning grey hair. “And are we? Leaving?”

“I think so,” the Captain said. “I can’t think of a point to make down here. There’s nothing but trouble in Fezana right now.”

“And trouble heading home.”

“Well, walking home.”

“They’ll get there eventually.”

Rodrigo grimaced. “What would you have had me do?”

His lieutenant shrugged, and then spat carefully into the grass. “We leave at first light, then?” he asked, without answering the question.

The Captain looked at him closely for a moment longer, opened his mouth as if to say something more, but in the end he merely shook his head. “The Muwardis will be watching us. We leave, but not in any hurry. We can take our time about breaking camp. You can pick a dozen men to ride back to Orvilla in the morning. Spend the day working there and catch us up later. There are men and women to be buried, among other things.”

Alvar dismounted and walked over to the fire where the doctor was sitting. “Is there . . . can I help you with anything?”

She looked very tired, but she did favor him with a quick smile. “Not really, thank you.” She hesitated. “This is your first time in Al-Rassan?”

Alvar nodded. He sank down on his haunches beside her. “I was hoping to see Fezana tomorrow,” he said. He wished he spoke better Asharic, but he tried. “I am told it is a city of marvels.”

“Not really,” she repeated carelessly. “Ragosa, Cartada . . . Silvenes, of course. What’s left of it. Those are the great cities. Seria is beautiful. There is nothing marvelous about Fezana. It has always been too close to the
tagra
lands to afford the luxury of display. You won’t be seeing it tomorrow?”

“We’re leaving in the morning.” Again, Alvar had the unpleasant sense that he was struggling to stay afloat in waters closing over his head. “The Captain just told us. I’m not sure why. I think because the Muwardis came.”

“Well, of course. Look around you. The
parias
gold is here. They don’t want to open the gates tomorrow, and they particularly won’t want Jaddite soldiers in the city. Not with what happened today.”

“So we’re just going to turn around and—”

“I’m afraid so, lad.” It was the Captain. “No taste of decadent Al-Rassan for you this time.” Alvar felt himself flushing.

“Well, the women
are
mostly outside the walls this year,” the doctor said, with a demure expression. She was looking at Ser Rodrigo, not at Alvar.

The Captain swore. “Don’t tell my men that! Alvar, you are bound to secrecy. I don’t want anyone crossing the river. Any man who leaves camp walks home.”

“Yes, sir,” Alvar said hastily.

“Which reminds me,” the Captain said to him, with a sidelong glance at the doctor, “you might as well lower your stirrups now. For the ride back.”

And with those words, for the first time in a long while, Alvar felt a little more like his usual self. He’d been waiting for this moment since they’d left Valledo behind.

“Must I, Captain?” he asked, keeping his expression innocent. “I’m just getting used to them this way. I thought I’d even try bringing them up a bit higher, with your approval.”

The Captain looked at the doctor again. He cleared his throat. “Well, no, Alvar. It isn’t really . . . I don’t think . . .”

“I thought, if I had my knees up high enough, really high, I might be able to rest my chin on them when I rode, and that would keep me fresher on a long ride. If that makes sense to you, Captain?”

Alvar de Pellino had his reward, then, for uncharacteristic silence and biding his time. He saw the doctor smile slowly at him, and then look with arched eyebrows of inquiry at the Captain.

Rodrigo Belmonte was, however, a man unlikely to be long discomfited by this sort of thing. He looked at Alvar for a moment, then he, too, broke into a smile.

“Your father?” he asked.

Alvar nodded his head. “He did warn me of some things I might encounter as a soldier.”

“And you chose to accept the stirrup business nonetheless? To say nothing at all?”

“It was you who did it, Captain. And I want to remain in your company.”

The Kindath doctors amusement was obvious. Ser Rodrigo’s brow darkened. “In Jad’s name, boy, were you humoring me?”

“Yes, sir,” said Alvar happily.

The woman he had decided he would love forever threw back her head and laughed aloud. A moment later, the Captain he wanted to serve all his days did exactly the same thing.

Alvar decided it hadn’t been such a terrible night, after all.

“Do you see how clever my men are?” Rodrigo said to the doctor as their laughter subsided. “You are quite certain you won’t reconsider and join us?”

“You tempt me,” the doctor said, still smiling. “I do like clever men.” Her expression changed. “But Esperaña is no place for a Kindath, Ser Rodrigo. You know that as well as I.”

“It will make no difference with us,” the Captain said. “If you can sew a sword wound and ease a bowel gripe you will be welcome among my company.”

“I can do both those things, but your company, clever as its men may be, is not the wider world.” There was no amusement in her eyes any more. “Do you remember what your Queen Vasca said of us, when Esperaña was the whole peninsula, before the Asharites came and penned you in the north?”

“That was more than three hundred years ago, doctor.”

“I know that. Do you remember?”

“I do, of course, but—”

“Do
you
?” She turned to Alvar. She was angry now. Mutely, he shook his head.

“She said the Kindath were animals, to be hunted down and burned from the face of the earth.”

Alvar could think of nothing to say.

“Jehane,” the Captain said, “I can only repeat, that was three hundred years ago. She is long dead and gone.”

“Not gone! You dare say that? Where is she?” She glared at Alvar, as if he were to blame for this, somehow. “Where is Queen Vasca’s resting place?”

Alvar swallowed. “On the Isle,” he whispered. “Vasca’s Isle.”

“Which is a shrine! A place of pilgrimage, where Jaddites from all three of your kingdoms and countries beyond the mountains come, on their
knees,
to beg miracles from the spirit of the woman who said that thing. I will make a wager that half this so-clever company have family members who have made that journey to plead for blessed Vasca’s intercession.”

Alvar kept his mouth firmly shut. So, too, this time, did the Captain.

“And you would tell me,” Jehane of the Kindath went on bitterly, “that so long as I do my tasks well enough it will not matter what faith I profess in Esperañan lands?”

For a long time Ser Rodrigo did not answer. Alvar became aware that the merchant, ibn Musa, had come up to join them. He was standing on the other side of the fire listening. All through the camp Alvar could now hear the sounds and see the movements of men preparing themselves for sleep. It was very late.

At length, the Captain murmured, “We live in a fallen and imperfect world, Jehane bet Ishak. I am a man who kills much of the time, for his livelihood. I will not presume to give you answers. I have a question, though. What, think you, will happen to the Kindath in Al-Rassan if the Muwardis come?”

“The Muwardis are here. They were in Fezana today. In this camp tonight.”

“Mercenaries, Jehane. Perhaps five thousand of them in the whole peninsula.”

Her turn to be silent. The silk merchant came nearer. Alvar saw her glance up at him and then back at the Captain.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

Rodrigo crouched down now beside Alvar and plucked some blades of grass before answering.

“You spoke very bluntly a little while ago about our coming south to take Fezana one day. What do you think Almalik of Cartada and the other kings would do if they saw us coming down through the
tagra
lands and besieging Asharite cities?”

Again, the doctor said nothing. Her brow was knitted in thought.

“It would be the wadjis, first,” said Husari ibn Musa softly. “They would begin it. Not the kings.”

Rodrigo nodded agreement. “I imagine that is so.”

“
What
would they begin?” Alvar asked.

“The process of summoning the tribes from the Majriti,” said the Captain. He looked gravely at Jehane. “What happens to the Kindath if the city-kings of Al-Rassan are mastered? If Yazir and Ghalib come north across the straits with twenty thousand men? Will the desert warriors fight us and then go quietly home?”

For a long time she didn’t answer, sitting motionless in thought, and the men around the fire kept silent, waiting for her. Behind her, to the west, Alvar saw the white moon low in the sky, as if resting above the long sweep of the plain. It was a strange moment for him; looking back, after, he would say that he grew older during the course of that long night by Fezana, that the doors and windows of an uncomplicated life were opened and the shadowed complexity of things was first made known to him. Not the answers, of course, just the difficulty of the questions.