It was interesting, even disturbing, Pero thought, how a great war might be underway, laying waste to farmlands, villages, cities, killing large numbers—and some men and women could go about their almost-normal lives around the edges of it.
Given that, his belief that Danica Gradek was praying for a fight, that she was hoping they’d be set upon by some band, was unsettling.
Whenever he glanced at her she seemed to be listening for something, or watching for it. She was intent, straining forward, even more than her dog was, he thought. The big dog—Tico, she called it—was amusingly happy, chasing rabbits through muddy fields, returning to the party undisturbed by failure.
She wouldn’t be, Pero thought. She wouldn’t be undisturbed.
They could expect to be six or seven weeks on the road, Marin Djivo had told him—barring incident. The Dubravae was leading, despite the presence of three Seressini merchants and their goods. Most of the party walked, a few rode donkeys, four of the eight guards were horsed—two of these went ahead each afternoon to alert the next inn that a large party was approaching, with animals and goods. They didn’t all get beds each night, though the road was quiet. They tended to have to sleep four or five to a room, at inns of varying cleanliness. Pero Villani, denizen of Seressa’s tannery district, was accustomed to rough quarters. Djivo, fastidious, paid extra for a room of his own sometimes.
Travel was not for those accustomed to or desirous of a soft life. The guards slept in the stables with the animals, defending their goods there. An even less-soft life, Pero had said wryly when one of his fellow Seressinis complained at the third inn about rain dripping into the room.
Danica Gradek was the only woman, of course. She had refused to cut her hair, though she kept it pinned under her hat. She was tall, wore men’s clothing, carried weapons; those encountering them casually might not even know she was a woman.
She and Pero were both on foot. The days were long, often wet. He tried at times to engage her in talk. She was courteous without being attentive.
They had Leonora in common. He wondered if this woman knew about the feelings he’d expressed to the other one in Dubrava, on the harbour. Probably not, he decided. Leonora Valeri (he wouldn’t think of her as Miucci any more) was going to have to become extremely discreet in her new role. Another complex woman, and one, he realized, with every step he took away from her, he would probably love all his life.
Not a good realization, in the circumstances.
It began to rain more the second week. A good thing for the emperor and his fortress, if it was also coming down farther north. It made their own travel more difficult, however. You could enjoy wildflowers blooming, the beauty of the countryside in sunshine. These grey days—heavy clouds, wind, cold rain—made even the worst-equipped inns look appealing at day’s end if a fire was lit in the front room.
Pero knew this system of roads and inns went back a thousand years, to Sarantium in its glory. Imperial couriers had raced along, all the way to and from Batiara, changing horses at posting inns, hurrying on. Travellers had been frequent, the inns busy and—allegedly—kept honest and clean by inspections. He wondered if that was more legend than truth. The past seen through a tinted glass that made it seem beautiful. The fallen state of the present world. Well, it was fallen, wasn’t it? Sarantium was lost.
The Osmanlis had some commitment to keeping this route accessible. They wanted goods coming to Asharias, and Jaddite silver in exchange for silks and spices and other eastern goods. They didn’t have the resources of the past, though, and much of what they did have went to their army. The soldiers likely heading northwest by now, towards Woberg.
You had to pray for rain if you were pious or simply hoping that men in Jaddite castles might not die under Osmanli guns and blades. And if the forts fell, everyone knew the way would lie open to Obravic itself and the possibility of another terrifying, unthinkable change in the world.
And there it was again, Pero thought: unthinkable changes, a vast war, and here they were, a trade party carrying goods to Asharias, with an artist in their midst.
They were still on the more southerly of the two main roads. It had begun slanting northeast, to meet the bigger road that went from Megarium to Asharias.
They passed small Jaddite sanctuaries now and then in a wild countryside. Some were ruined, burned and roofless, but not all of them. They went inside when they came to a holy place still standing. They lit candles (if there were any), made donations in exchange for clerics’ prayers. The clerics looked cautious, quiet. Pinched, Pero Villani thought.
One of the sanctuaries belonged to a sect called the Silent Ones. Those went back a long way here in the east. They kept night vigils to honour the god in his cold journey under the world before the sun returned at dawn. It made Pero realize, standing with the cleric who remained awake each day while the others slept, how far from his own world he was. He had crossed a border when they came through the pass near Dubrava.
The Osmanlis allowed Jaddites among them. The god’s followers in the subjugated lands paid a tax for their faith. Many converted because of that. It varied, how much someone would sacrifice for Jad when the invitation was there to change faiths and pray in a temple to Ashar’s stars—and not pay that tax at all.
Pero wondered, walking in rain, what he would have done had he been born in this wilderness instead of along the canals. It was best not to judge, he thought.
He said as much to Danica Gradek the next morning. It wasn’t raining yet that day, though the clouds were dark and there was a wind in their faces. She looked at him, then resumed scanning the road and the fields on either side. There was a forest north of them. Pero could see it had once come closer to the road, but logging was taking place even here, pushing the woods back. Everyone needed trees. For ships, for shelter, for winter, for a blacksmith’s fire.
He thought Danica wasn’t going to reply, but then she said, “We always have a choice. Can we not judge when a bad choice is made?”
“Perhaps only if we feel sure we’d not have made the same choice.”
She shrugged. “But I do feel sure. Senjan does, certainly. There are things worth fighting for.”
“And some things aren’t, maybe?”
She was looking at the field where her dog was running. “Some things.”
“And what if you can’t really fight?” Pero added. “What if your children are dying because there is no food, it went to the extra tax?”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t feel he’d won anything, though, because he didn’t know what he thought himself. She stayed in step beside him, however, didn’t move away. There was that.
At some point he’d become aware that Marin Djivo, up at the front of their party every day, was constantly checking where Danica was. He wondered if there was something more to this. No judgment from him, if so. She was a handsome woman, they were grown people living under the god’s sky. He kept thinking about that isle in the bay of Dubrava and the woman who was now Eldest Daughter there, and not his. He was walking beside the wrong woman, he thought. The one he needed was farther behind every day, every step taken in mist, in rain, in pale sunlight on grass and trees.
Their road joined the main one after three weeks, halfway to Asharias, if Djivo was correct. This one was wider, the inns larger, though there was still not much in the way of traffic in either direction.
It was wild, hilly, windswept country. Pero found it unsettling. Not a world he understood. He did some sketching when the weather allowed.
They saw villages and farms south of the road, smoke rising from hearth fires. Oxen in the fields slowly pulled ploughs. The soil looked hard, not rich. On their left, north, there was still the forest, evidence of logging here, too. He saw a woodcutters’ cabin, no sign of people. Wildflowers were everywhere now, deeper into spring: white and red, deep blue and pale blue, brilliant yellow, bending under r
ain. They could see them brightly when the mist or drizzle lifted. When it rained hard they crouched under hoods and hats and kept their eyes on the muddy, rutted road.
One night at an inn rumours became tidings: the khalif’s army was indeed moving. They exchanged glances. It was not a surprise, but still . . .
The Osmanli forces were out there, joining into one large force. But to the north of them, Pero reminded himself, headed for the fortresses. A reason, of course, that the road was quiet. Prudent men were not travelling.
They had their papers, had duly offered gifts to the local governors and officers along the way. Asharias wanted them, he kept reminding himself.
Pero didn’t feel any acute fear, but it would be a lie to say he wasn’t uneasy knowing that at least some of the khalif’s cavalry and infantry—the southern parts of his army, headed for the main force—might be ahead of them in the rain. When he looked at Danica, what he read in her face made him more unsettled.
And then, three mornings after the roads merged, after a night in one of the largest inns yet, Danica lifted a hand shortly after the sun appeared, and said, “Something’s ahead. Guards, around the party, weapons out!”
It was surely an overreaction, Pero thought. Then he, too, heard the drumming of horses approaching along the road.
He was now a person who had killed someone, in a fight forced upon them by their officers. Damaz had never clearly imagined his first killing, but in his dreams it hadn’t been someone from the compound, one of their own.
He and Koçi had been an amusement for others, he kept thinking. He tried to stop that thought, but could not. That night had raised Damaz from a trainee into the ranks of the djannis. It had earned him praise from his serdar and even their regimental commander, who was only one rank below a full ka’id. That such a man knew his name . . .
Damaz now wore the tall hat and green tunic or coat of their most famed infantry. He carried his sword and a bow. He was going to war.
But the memories of the fight in Mulkar had him awake almost every night, sometimes going outside to look at the moons or Ashar’s stars, or listening to the rain from inside the tent.
Was it wrong to be disturbed, still, all these weeks after? Wasn’t warfare going to be much worse? Some screaming infidel would be trying to end your life, you had to do that to him first, or die? You’d be doing so for the honour of the khalif, of your faith, of Ashar the Blessed who had found truths on a desert night and shared them with mankind.
He just wasn’t sure what honour had lain in killing for the diversion of the garrison at Mulkar. And it was hard to push back the awareness that it could as easily have been his dead body carried away while wagers were happily collected from those who’d thought he would prevail instead of disappointing them by dying.
He hadn’t liked Koçi. Plus, Koçi had been going out to murder someone for the pleasure of it. That was why—it was the only reason—Damaz had been waiting for him by the gates. This didn’t help as much as he wished it did when he closed his eyes at night.
He’d thought, before they’d left, about talking to Teacher Kasim, and about the strange feeling he’d had before throwing his knife—of receiving guidance as to what to do. The idea of throwing the blade as smoke blew past from behind him seemed to have come to Damaz as an instruction, not a thought. It was disturbing. Kasim might have helped.
That chance was gone. His teacher was still in Mulkar. Damaz was going to war, as he’d always dreamed.
He discovered that you didn’t necessarily dream the same way once something began. Well, maybe others did. He was awake too much. He’d quietly leave the tent to watch the stars—when they shone. They weren’t in the sky enough. A bad thing. Rain always was on a campaign, the veterans kept saying.
He wished it were easier to sleep. The daily marches, even in mud, were not hard for him. They hadn’t been in training and they weren’t now. He was bigger than many of the others, young as he was. He had long legs and strong shoulders. Their commander had him with the group that helped the animals get the cannon carts out of ruts and mud.
They needed the cannons—they couldn’t take a fortress without them—but they slowed the army terribly. It would get worse, he’d been told, at the rivers. They had rivers ahead of them. They’d reach them after joining up with the rest of the army. They’d all be together then. He remember Kasim showing them maps, where the Jaddite fortresses were.
Damaz wondered if his father had been a big man, or the brother he was also remembering now. Did he look as they had? Would he, later? He couldn’t find an image in his mind of either of them. Just that they’d been there, when he was small. And his mother, and a sister with yellow hair. There had been another man, older. His grandfather? Probably. He’d been so young when he was taken. Someone lifting him into the air, carrying him away.
He wished he could feel happier about what had happened this spring. He ought to, he kept telling himself. What else was there to hope for but promotion into the ranks, marching to war, victory in the field? The djannis had first claim when there was booty, even ahead of the red-saddle cavalry. An immensely valuable privilege. You could do well in the khalif’s favoured infantry. End up in the palace complex in Asharias, or retire to the countryside with good land granted to you. You’d have servants, tenant farmers, sheep, slaves. A wife. You might be granted the taxation collection rights in your district, and grow truly wealthy from that.
What better life was there to imagine?
He might have been gelded as a child when first taken.
Koçi might have killed him back at the compound.
It was raining again tonight. Damaz listened to it on the canvas of the tent. There were three others in here with him. They were veterans, and asleep. He should be sleeping too. The rain meant they’d be helping the oxen with the cannons in the morning. Third day in a row. The farther they went, the worse the roads were becoming.
Night thoughts weren’t good for you. You chased memories into dark places, or tried to, or tried not to. He knew he was headed, generally, towards where he’d been born, though he had no clear idea where his village had been or memory of what it had been called. It had been west of the fortresses. A long way west. And south, he thought. Wasn’t certain. On the other hand, he now knew what his own name had been. He’d remembered that.
He didn’t want to remember. There was nothing good in reaching back to when he’d been small, before those hands pulling him up onto a horse in the dark. Neven gave him nothing. It was only a name.
He felt confused. He wondered if a battle would help, if he just needed time to settle into these changes. If this mood would simply pass.
In the morning the rain had stopped but the track northwest (it was hardly a road here) had become sucking, grasping muck under a chill grey sky. Damaz was freed from cannon duty, however. There were new orders.
Fifty of them, half cavalry, half djannis, were to leave their progress towards the rest of the army and go kill some people.
Jaddite brigands had been nipping at their supply train for days, firing flaming arrows at the wagons of food, shooting pack horses and mules, shooting men, then disappearing into the shrouded hills and the valleys. This was good country for such tactics, apparently.
The guards for the supply carts and wagons were adequate to defend them, but there was something insulting, mocking, in these raids, and their serdar had had enough.
They were to find this band and destroy it. Damaz wanted to feel happy, excited. This was another stage in his life as a man, a warrior of Ashar. They headed back south, fifty of them.
Late the second morning their trackers found a trail. The sun came out and there was a breeze. Damaz realized he did feel better, moving quickly behind a capable leader, not trudging alongside cannons, or pulling and pushing them. They came back to the wide road running east and west. Their contingent from Mulkar had cr
ossed it when they’d gone north. This time they followed it west.
There was another new memory in him, now, from the night before. It seemed that if you couldn’t reclaim what refused to come to mind, you also couldn’t stop knowing what you did remember.
His sister had been named Danica.
He hadn’t remembered the name, and then, last night, there it was, in his head. He also now thought his father had had reddish hair—like his own. He could almost see him if he closed his eyes.
But why would you close your eyes while hunting enemies? And what good were memories like this? What good could they do you at all?
He heard a horse approaching. One of their scouts came into sight, galloping back along the road. He reined up as he reached the head of their column.
“Thirty of them!” he shouted. “Not more. And not far ahead. We have them!”
Dani, no weapons out! You are a merchant party!
Zadek, I know.
They have no reason to attack. They may not even be—
I know. I’m just being prepared.
You can’t be! If this is the army you can only—
I know!
He fell silent. She could feel his fear—though he would hate and deny the word. It was fear for her, of course, shaped of love. She didn’t think he’d deny that word.
She looked east. The clouds had broken up today. It was mid-morning, the sun high enough that she didn’t have to squint. She saw horsemen, coming fast, about fifteen of them, maybe more. Small horses, tired-looking on a muddy road. The speed meant they were fleeing someone, most likely.
They are fleeing, her grandfather said.
She almost said I know again, but didn’t.
They were not Asharite. You could see it. Didn’t make them a safe encounter, these men might be worse. The Osmanlis had granted their party safe passage; didn’t mean brigands from the south—or anywhere else—had to do the same.
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