A Tear for the Dead

by David Penny

  “Is Usaden the short man with dark skin? The African?”

  “Don’t let him hear you call him African,” Thomas said. “He is Gomeres.”

  “Is that a land?”

  “It is a following, a religion I sometimes think, but not a kind one. Usaden comes from the Maghreb, so he is African even if he would kill you for calling him that.”

  “Usaden is the best fighter in the world,” said Will. “If he wants to kill someone they are already dead, but I will tell him you are my brother so there is no need to worry. Usaden likes me. He likes Pa and Ami and Jorge and Belia, too, so I expect he will learn to like you eventually. It’s not necessary to be a good fighter for him to like you, but it helps.”

  “As would letting him train you,” Thomas said. “If you stay here tomorrow, you can get to know your brother and sister better.”

  “I want to come with you,” said Yves.

  “Even if it is your mother we seek? You would be better to stay here. Make friends with Will and Amal.”

  Yves said nothing, his face taking on a stubborn stillness.

  “Go find somewhere to sleep. There is probably a room or two unoccupied. I need to go with these two if they are to get any sleep tonight.” He held his hand out and waited until Yves gripped it. Thomas offered a nod of recognition at some fresh bond between them, then took his children inside and lay down between them, comforted as always by their presence. Amal sat up and kissed his face. Will gave a nod of his own, believing himself too old for kisses now.

  Thomas hoped Helena would forgive his absence.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What are you going to do when we capture Eleanor?” asked Jorge as he came to ride beside Thomas. They had passed beneath the Jaen gate out of Gharnatah barely a quarter hour before. Ahead lay rising ground with higher peaks beyond. Usaden rode a hundred paces ahead. Kin roamed even wider, dashing away, returning only to dash away again.

  Thomas felt a weight lift from his shoulders. They were on a pursuit again, the three of them, and little else mattered for the moment.

  “I expect I’ll go back to Isabel.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Thomas glanced at Jorge. The man he saw differed in so many ways from the one he had met all those years ago as a boy and turned him into what had defined the rest of his life. Differed from the man of nine years before when they first worked together on the killings in the palace. Jorge had matured and gained a strength and surety to add to the grace he had always possessed.

  “What I want is a peaceful life. I’m feeling old. I want to sit and watch my children grow into men and women. I want to see them marry and have children of their own.”

  “Gods, you’re maudlin today, aren’t you? Anyone would think you had eighty years, not … how old are you?”

  Thomas laughed. “I have fifty-one years.”

  “That isn’t old.”

  “Some days it feels old.” A cry from behind made Thomas turn in his saddle to see a grey stallion coming fast towards them. As it came closer, he saw Yves at ease on the beast.

  Yves reined in and fell into place on the other side of Thomas, who stared at him.

  “I couldn’t find you before we left. I thought you had changed your mind.”

  “If my mother is guilty of what you accuse her of, I have to be there when she confesses her sins.”

  “We might be there a while, then. She is with other men. What will you do if it comes to a fight?”

  “I can fight.”

  “If it comes to that, try to stay out of the way and safe. Leave the fighting to Usaden and me.”

  “And Jorge?”

  “If he has to, but usually the two of us are enough.” Thomas sat straighter in the saddle. Talk of fighting, and the fear of showing exhaustion in front of his son, made him feel better.

  “Your dog is fast,” said Yves. “I can scarce believe it is the same beast I saw Amal pulling the ears of last night.” He glanced at Thomas. “I like your children … Father.”

  Thomas scowled.

  “Will looks like you, except in a year he will be taller. Do I look like you?”

  “Don’t ask me.” Thomas looked at Jorge. “Does Yves look like me?”

  Jorge leaned forwards so he could see him, though there was no need for it other than show.

  “I’m afraid he does a little. I’m sorry, Yves, but Thomas has lured attractive women into his bed despite how he looks. Let’s hope you can fight as well as him.”

  Thomas urged his horse ahead, leaving them to talk about him, and rode to fall in beside Usaden.

  “Have you seen anything yet?”

  “We are still on the busy roadway. Any spoor she left will have been long spoiled. What I can tell you is she and her party have not moved away from the road yet. It would be good if I had something of this woman’s that Kin might be able to scent.”

  Thomas turned his horse and rode back.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything of your mother’s on you, do you?”

  “Only her money-bag. I brought it from the house knowing I might need coin for the journey.”

  Thomas laughed. “You need no coin. We won’t be staying at inns or buying food. Kin and Usaden will feed us. I hope you like rabbit.” He held his hand out, waiting. Eventually, Yves reached inside his jacket and drew out a dark blue velvet bag. When Yves placed it in Thomas’s hand, he felt the weight of coin within. He tugged at the drawstring and held the bag out. When Yves offered his hand, Thomas tipped the mix of coins into it before turning and riding back to Usaden.

  He handed the empty bag across. “I don’t know if it will be of any use. Yves has been carrying it close to his body since he left the city.”

  “Kin will tell the difference between their scents.” Usaden sniffed the velvet and shrugged, making clear he could not. He lifted in his saddle and gave a piercing whistle. Kin, who was a black dot on a low ridge ahead, stopped, turned and ran back to them at full speed. He covered the ground between in mere moments. His long fur rippled in the wind, jaws wide so he looked as if he was laughing. Perhaps he was.

  Usaden dismounted and held the velvet bag in his fist. He was not gentle when he rubbed it against Kin’s snout, but the dog made no protest. When he stopped, he held the cloth directly over Kin’s nose for a long time, then rose.

  “Seek.”

  One word, but Kin knew what it meant. Thomas had acquired the dog from a dead farmer and his wife, acquired him a second time from their dead son when he pursued and killed Abbot Mandana, the man who had murdered Thomas’s wife. Over the years since, Kin had become Thomas’s, but now he belonged to Usaden as much as anyone. Or possibly Amal. Kin was nine parts vicious and ten parts loving, depending who he was with. Thomas made no pretence at understanding, only pleased Kin reserved the love for his family.

  Kin ranged across the ground, nose lowered. Thomas felt a tension in his shoulders as he watched, expecting something, but Kin only ranged further afield. Thomas and Usaden urged their mounts on.

  “If they stick to the roadway, he’ll have trouble picking her scent out,” said Thomas. “We should ride harder. They are bound to turn aside at some point. Unless they intend to ride to Jaen itself, but I doubt that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the obvious destination for people coming this way.” He turned to look behind. “There has been little traffic, and I would expect it to be busy. Everyone is afraid of the Castilian army.”

  “We are here, are we not?” said Usaden.

  “You are afraid of nothing, and I am a servant to the Queen of Castile.” As he looked back, the sight of Yves reminded Thomas of another reason he had ridden to Usaden. “If it comes to a fight, ignore Yves. I suspect he is a poor swordsman and will be more trouble than he is worth. I’ll try to protect him, but I’ll tell Jorge to keep him back from any action.”

  “Will there be action? How many men did this woman meet?”

  “Half a dozen,
I was told.”

  “The action will be over fast, then. Do we keep her alive?”

  “If possible.”

  “She was your woman once, was she not?” There was no hint of either curiosity or judgement in Usaden’s voice, but Thomas wondered if he did not feel at least a little of both. It would be natural for the man to wonder. Except there was little natural about Usaden.

  “Many years ago, and briefly again two years ago. You were there, you know that.”

  “She is also the one who came to the house when you were not there.”

  “She is.”

  Usaden gave a nod. “I cannot blame you for lying with her. She is handsome.”

  Thomas started to speak, stopped. He shook his head. He was curious, even if Usaden was not.

  “Do you never want a woman?” he asked.

  “I had two wives at home, but they died. When I feel the need, I visit Aamir and he finds me a companion for the night. He tells me I do not need to pay because I am a friend of yours, so I pay the woman and tell her to say nothing. Why is he so generous to your friends?”

  “I saved the lives of two of his wives, but it was many years ago. If it was ever a debt he owed me, it is a debt long since paid. I have given up trying to make him take coin from me.”

  “He has the best women in Gharnatah.”

  “So I am told.”

  Usaden showed nothing, but Thomas believed he glimpsed some shadow of amusement beneath the surface. He thought he might be learning to read the man. Or more likely, Usaden was allowing himself to be read.

  Ahead, Kin came to a halt off to the side of the main roadway.

  “He has found her,” said Usaden, as he urged his horse into a canter.

  When Thomas reached them, Usaden was kneeling on one knee beside Kin, his fingers twisted in the dog’s fur, just as Amal’s had been the night before.

  “They left the roadway here.” Usaden pointed to a few vague marks in the dry earth that meant nothing to Thomas. If he looked at them long enough, they would mean even less than nothing, but he knew Usaden was right, as was Kin.

  Thomas looked around. Jorge and Yves were approaching at a walk, neither riding hard. In the far distance, a cart climbed the slow rise from Gharnatah. In the other direction, a small party of soldiers was coming their way, but they were not who he was looking for. The hostler had told him Eleanor met with men in dark jackets, and these sported bright yellow coats. No doubt more recruits to Isabel’s army, come from distant lands to witness her ultimate victory. Every noble, knight and squire for a thousand leagues wanted to say they had been here for the fall of Gharnatah.

  “If they keep going in the same direction, they will end up nowhere.”

  “Everywhere is somewhere, Thomas.”

  “Not up there. It belongs to neither Gharnatah nor Castile, in part because neither of them wants it. It is high pasture land and rock. Dry and inhospitable, punctured here and there by villages, each of which speaks its own dialect. Some bastard mix of Arabic and what they have spoken for a thousand years.”

  “It sounds like a good place to hide.”

  “It is, if you are from there. If not, you stand out. Every man and woman for twenty leagues will recognise you as a stranger.”

  “Unless they have friends there.”

  Thomas looked at the marks in the dirt. “Can you tell how long since they passed?”

  “A day, more or less. Did you say she left before noon yesterday?”

  “I did.”

  “Then they are not riding hard or they would be moving away from us.” Usaden looked around. “We can ride faster now Kin has their spoor. That son of yours might not fight, but he is a fine horseman. Even Jorge has improved. We can gain half a day on them if we push hard.”

  “Then let us push hard.” Thomas swung into his saddle and pressed his knees into the flanks of his horse until it responded. It felt good to be flying across the ground with men he trusted. Some of them, in any case.

  As the day passed, the ground grew steeper and the track they followed twisted backwards and forwards in dizzying switchbacks. They were forced to slow, their horses skittering and slipping on the stony ground, but they pushed on. Kin ran ahead out of sight, then returned. The dog made no sound because he had been trained not to until his quarry was too close to escape.

  Light was leaching from the sky as they crested a sharp ridge and stopped. Ahead lay a wide valley, the bottom flat and fertile where irrigation channels had been dug, dry and inhospitable where no water ran. Olives disappeared into the distance as far as the eye could see, interspersed with fields of wheat, stands of sugar-cane and mulberry. Sheep and goats grazed where crops would not grow. Across this flat valley, a small party of people moved.

  “Is it them?” asked Usaden.

  Thomas narrowed his eyes, but the figures were too distant to tell if one of them was a woman. What he could tell was the colour of their clothing, which was dark.

  “More than likely.”

  “Then we follow and see where they go. They will either reach a destination or make camp for the night, and that will be our chance. Kin, to me.”

  The dog trotted over and lay down almost beneath the hoofs of Usaden’s horse.

  Tonight, Thomas thought.

  He wondered what Yves would do when they captured his mother.

  Chapter Twenty

  Thomas called a halt when they came to a clearing in the woods they had been riding through for the last half-hour. It had grown too dark to continue safely, and he was afraid they might stumble across the group they pursued. Usaden dismounted and walked away into the night, Kin at his side.

  “Can we light a fire?” asked Yves.

  “No fire.” Thomas nodded at the dark sky. “A single candle can be seen over several leagues, and there is no moon tonight so a fire will show even more. Try to get some sleep. We start again as soon as there is enough light to see by.”

  Thomas unrolled the blanket he had brought and lay down beside Jorge, who already gave the impression he was lounging on the most comfortable bed in the world.

  “Has Usaden gone off to kill someone?”

  “I hope not. I expect he wants to see how close they are. Kin will smell them from a safe distance. They’ll be back soon after we fall asleep.”

  “As long as that?” said Jorge. He glanced to where Yves was pacing around the small clearing. “I didn’t think he would stay with us as long as this.”

  “Neither did I. I’m still trying to work out why he wanted to come. To capture his mother, or save her?”

  “Which would you do?”

  “If it was my mother, I would save her, but my mother wasn’t a murderer.”

  “Do you think she still lives?”

  “Eleanor?” Thomas wanted Jorge to stop asking questions so he could sleep. Yves had finally found a spot he considered suitable and sat with his back to the trunk of a tree. It seemed he had brought no blanket.

  “Your mother.”

  “She died before I left Lemster. A pestilence came to the town and killed a quarter of those living there. My brother died, too.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be, it was a long time ago.” Thomas rolled on his side away from Jorge, and after a while, he heard him begin to snore. He was still awake when Usaden returned. There was no sign of Kin. Thomas rose and walked across the clearing to Usaden, who was nothing more than a vague shape against the shadows all around.

  “How far off are they?” There was no need to ask whether Usaden had found the group they pursued.

  “Closer than I thought. If they rise late tomorrow, we could be on them before they are awake and end this thing fast.”

  “I want Eleanor alive.”

  Usaden nodded in the dark. “Agreed. But can I kill the others?”

  “We don’t even know who they are. They may be innocent.”

  “I will ask each before I run them through if you prefer. I will stand guard in case they g
et the same idea and come looking for us.”

  “Get some sleep. They don’t even know we are here. Did you see any guards posted at their camp?”

  “None, so you are probably right. They had a small fire, and I saw it from a distance. They are on the edge of these woods. I saw the woman you seek. She was talking with two of the others. Everyone else was curled on the ground.”

  “Where’s Kin?”

  “He caught a scent of something and went off to catch it. He’ll return soon enough.”

  “When he does, send him over to Yves. He didn’t bring a blanket and Kin can keep him warm.”

  “He can have my blanket, I might sit up for a while.” Usaden touched Thomas’s shoulder. “Go to sleep, I will call you as soon as I see the first hint of dawn.”

  Thomas didn’t think sleep would come, but it did. Usaden was as good as his word and shook Thomas awake to discover his hair and beard wet with dew. He rose and went to relieve himself. When he came back, the others were all awake. Yves looked as if he had not slept at all, while Usaden, who had not, appeared the most rested of them.

  By the time they reached the camp of those they pursued, the fire was cold and they were long gone.

  “Are you sure they didn’t see you?” Thomas asked Usaden. The man’s expression was answer enough. “Then we follow.”

  It was almost noon before Thomas admitted to himself they had lost Eleanor and her companions. The land rose towards high hills with rocky peaks. The party they sought had been tracking along the base of those hills in the direction of a small town. A very small town. The soil below their horses’ hoofs had changed to an almost white limestone, but the olives and sheep and goats remained, an unchanging constant here.

  “Do you think that is where they have gone?” Thomas asked Usaden. “Or have they circled back and lost us?”

  “I take it you missed their tracks?”

  Thomas looked down. He was sure not even Usaden could read a track on the rough ground they were crossing.

  “Kin can smell them, and there have been one or two indications they are travelling this way. We have not lost them. If they intend to go west or north, there are easier passages than this. I suspect they know we are following them by now. We can hardly hide our presence in country as open as this.”