the Walking Drum (1984) (23 page)

For a moment Valaba and I were alone. "It was gracious of you to invite me here. I have done nothing"-I waved a hand-"to compare with these, although I have ambitions."

One eyebrow lifted slightly. "I suspect your ambitions, Kerbouchard, and if stories of the Castle of Othman are a criterion, I suspect you would find plenty of cooperation out there."

She studied the crowd. "Sixty or seventy of the people here might be ranked among the most brilliant in Cordoba, and perhaps twenty more who will be their equal in a year's time, but few of them will be better informed than you."

She looked directly into my eyes, and hers were very beautiful. "Be sure of this, Kerbouchard. You would not be here unless you belonged here.

"John of Seville has kept pace with your studies, and only last week Averroes was reading a book on alchemy translated by you from the Persian."

"Introduce me to your guest, Valaba." The tone was cool. "I do not believe we have met socially." It was Prince Ahmed. His eyes were utterly cold.

"Prince Ahmed," Valaba said, "my very good friend, Mathurin Kerbouchard!"

"Andmy very good friend!" Ya'kub appeared from under the trees where he had been talking with Averroes.

"Of course, Your Eminence." Prince Ahmed's eyes were bitter. "These are your domains." His pause was brief. "But I understand that Kerbouchard likes to travel."

"Believe me, Prince Ahmed," I said, smiling, "you must forgive me if I avoid your city. You make a guest almost too welcome!"

"Without assistance you would still be my guest. Sometime I expect to learn who assisted you."

"Assisted me? I assure you, sir, I was alone on the face of that rock, very much alone. No one could have helped me in that situation. If you doubt me, try scaling that cliff yourself."

"I am not a performer."

"Each of us plays many roles. Some are heroes, some villains, and some merely"-I paused slightly-"mountebanks."

His face went white under the olive skin, and for an instant I thought he would strike me, but he turned abruptly away. His back was stiff as he walked away, and Ya'kub turned to me. "You make enemies, Kerbouchard."

"I did not choose him for my enemy, Your Eminence; he chose me. He owes me some months in a dungeon."

"He has been paid in laughter," Valaba said.

Then at a signal from Valaba, ibn-Quzman sang, a low, haunting melody, the love song of a desert rider, following it with a wild, fierce song of war and vengeance. Yet I could not lose myself to the music as I wished. There were enemies who might even dare the displeasure of Ya'kub for the pleasure of spilling my blood. Powerful friends could make armor of a word, and from their lips a phrase could be a shield. This had I witnessed tonight.

Yet I placed less faith in the words of men than in my own hands and the steel behind my sash. That man who is no longer on guard is one who invites death.

Ibn-Quzman crossed to Valaba as she stood beside me, and I said, "I envy you. You sing more beautifully than any other."

"You are Kerbouchard? We must talk one day of the Celtic bards and their songs."

"And you could explain the writings of al-Mausili. I know too little of music to understand all he has written."

"You know of him? His uncle, Zalzal, they say, played the lute better than anyone."

We talked idly for a time, and when he had gone on, Valaba put her hand upon my arm. "Ya'kub wishes to make a place for you."

Ya'kub overheard the remark and came over to us. "Loyal men are not easily found, Kerbouchard, and there are dangerous days before me. I could make a place for you that would allow leisure for study."

"I am sorry."

He was not pleased, and I hastened to explain. "There is no prince I had rather serve, but I have a mission and but lately have received a clue."

Briefly, I explained. "If my father lives," I added, "I must find him; if he is indeed dead, I must know. Nothing else would keep me from serving you."

"I had thought of you as commander of my personal bodyguard." He smiled slightly. "Rumor has said you are skilled with a sword."

"May I suggest a man?"

"I trust few men, Kerbouchard."

"This one can be trusted. I would stake my life upon it, and he is here tonight, in command of the guards around these walls. He proved loyal to me in time of trouble."

"His name?"

"Haroun el-Zegri."

"I know the man." He listened to the music, then said, "Come! Let us dine."

On the table where food awaited us I saw sugar for the first time, white, gleaming crystals. It was something of which we in Christian lands had heard but never seen. We had for sweetening only honey or sweet grasses.

There were heaps of food in infinite variety. Plates ofcarra bige, a pastry sausage of chopped almonds and walnuts mixed with sugar and over which melted butter had been poured. This mixture was rolled into a thin pastry and baked for fifteen minutes or so. It was served with a spoonful ofnatif, a fluffy mix of sugar, egg white, and orange flower water.

There was rice with sour lemon sauce, pilaf Egyptian,shebach, an Egyptian fritter, green and black olives, brains fried in batter, artichoke hearts also fried in batter and served very hot, andkebaeba, a mixture of red meat, pine nuts, and crushed wheat. There waslouzine saparzel, a Syrian dessert of quince, ground almonds, and cardamom seeds served in small squares. There was rose jam, made of rose petals, sugar, and lemon.

There were skewers of beef, lamb, and veal, smoking hot and ready to be served in a number of sauces and styles. There was wine from Portugal, Italy, and Greece as well as coffee, sweetened with sugar.

The moon arose, holding its light beyond the minaret of the great mosque, and Valaba said, "Then you will be leaving soon?"

"At any moment."

"We have hoped you would remain. Ya'kub is a good man, and the time is near when he will need good men about him."

"It is well to think of Ya'kub. He is a rarely fine man."

She turned toward me. "I think of you, too, Kerbouchard. The way you take is filled with risk."

"Are there other ways?"

"For some, even for you, perhaps. You are a strange man, Kerbouchard. You are an adventurer yet a scholar."

"There have been many such, even Alexander, and Julius Caesar. I but dabble in scholarship. Learning to me is a way of life. I do not learn to obtain position or reputation. I want only to know."

"Is not yours the best way? To learn because one loves learning?"

"There are places I have not seen, Valaba. I would feel their suns upon my face, the brine of their seas upon my lips. There are too many horizons, and too many dreams of what may lie beyond those horizons."

"What are you seeking, Kerbouchard?"

"Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day's horizon."

"What of love, Kerbouchard? Did you love Aziza?"

"Who is to say? What is love? Perhaps for a time I loved her; perhaps in a way I love her still. Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?

"A ruined castle, an ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain ... love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.

"Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending down the years.

"I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depths there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time?

"Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me that time is not now.

"You see?" I spread wide my hands. "I have nothing. I have no home, no land, no position. I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.

"I would owe no debts to destiny, Valaba, nor could I exist on the bounty of another. I am not a lapdog to be kept by a woman. I do not know what awaits me out there beyond the rim of things, but destiny calls, and I must go. For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality."

"You speak well, Kerbouchard. Did you learn that on those bleak northern moors?"

We were walking slowly through the shadows, away from the crowd, away from the music. There was a dim, unlighted court ahead of us, and through the open gate to that court I could see the lights of the house.

Two chinar trees leaned their great trunks close above the path, and there were rose bushes beside them. Valaba started to go ahead of me when I heard a sound,a faint chink of metal as a blade brushes against twigs!

Catching Valaba's arm, I whirled her to one side, and my dagger came from its sheath as men closed around me.

My life was saved because I did not hesitate or step back as expected. It was ever my way to go toward an enemy, and I went now.

He stepped from behind a bush and held a sword in his hand.

Chapter
23

He held his point low. When he saw me moving toward him, his blade came up, but he moved too slowly, and I was already past the point. Before he could step back, I had put my dagger into his belly. '

Turning sharply around, I faced three men with drawn swords.

Valaba screamed, and one of them turned toward her, another swore at him. Outside the garden there were running feet, and the three men moved to kill me.

These were hired assassins, and neither honor nor glory lay in a victory over them, nor could I defeat them in any way except by surviving.

Valaba was at the gate, but they would not dare harm such as she. She was safe enough. Feinting a lunge that brought them up short, blades up, I spun around quickly, put my blade between my teeth, jumped, and grasped the top of the wall. With a quick motion I swung my legs over the wall and dropped on the far side. Behind me I heard Haroun and his guards surrounding the garden, but there was nothing further to be gained here. I left the garden and, by a roundabout route, hastened to my quarters.

On the bed lay a message with but a single word in Persian.Come.

Safia was waiting, but if she noticed my handsome clothing, she gave no indication. Gesturing to some clothing on a bench, she said, "Change into that. You must disappear."

"Disappear?"

"You must not return to your quarters. Whatever you have there will be packaged and sent to the library." She indicated a small pile of gold coins. "Take that. You must go to a place I will designate, and remain there until I call you."

"The time is near?"

"You were attacked tonight, were you not?"

"You knew?"

"They were not enemies of yours, but of mine."

When I dressed I resembled one of the many footloose mercenary soldiers ready to sell their services to any cause. Beside the armor was a sword. As I picked it up, my blood surged with excitement. What ablade! The balance was beautiful, the feel of it-I ached for combat.

The room was small with one door and a window that opened upon a wall that ran for some distance between a double row of trees, shaded and crossed by their branches, creating a leafy tunnel, concealed from both sides. The wall ended at an aqueduct near a street.

Safia's planning astonished me. The section where I now waited was shabby, inhabited by mercenary soldiers, camp followers. The street near the aqueduct was where our horses were stabled and waiting. Not far from it was a small postern gate.

Days passed, but there was an ample supply of food; an olla suspended from a ceiling beam contained water. There were books, also.

I made but one friend. Khatib was a sly man with quick hands and a quicker brain. No longer young, there was little he did not know of the ways of the beggar or the trickster. Squatting on his heels by the doorstep, he regaled me with news from the streets, as well as about our neighbors.

He had a face of old leather, and an odd way of peering from the corners of his eyes as if to gauge the effect of his comments. He seemed to like me, and I liked him, but I dared trust no one.

My identity was that of a Frankish soldier and former pirate, something I was qualified to carry off, for aside from my brief experience, I had countless tales from my father and his crew.

From Khatib I learned tricks of the hand and juggling, for he had once traveled with a company of tumblers and jugglers, some of whom were thieves. My reading was done only at night and behind closed doors. To be able to read marked a man, and there is always gossip.

It was at this time that I readThe Ring of the Dove, by a young Spaniard of Moorish extraction who devoted his time to an exploration of amorous play and its accompanying phenomena. It struck me as an intriguing area for study.