I stared at the pommel of my saddle. I absently thought that it was a strange saddle—high in the front and back, so that I could almost lean back against it like a chair. It squeaked with the gait of my horse. The thousands of hooves behind me kept up a dull, subdued rumble. The Badi said nothing. And I stared at nothing.
In a few hours, the moon came out from behind a cloud and the sky opened. Silver light spilled through the broad valley. My head came up and my breath caught. I began to tremble.
Ahead of me, down in the lower lands, stood the hulking forms of the Badi siege-engines: great catapults and cannons built to crush mountains into rubble. They looked like hunched, shadowed giants.
Off to my right, I could see the southern watchtower of the Twin Hills. It was smashed, as if a giant had put his fist through it. Pieces of it had tumbled down the torn hillside.
The hillside littered with bodies.
My breathing staggered as my stomach twisted. The dead men were filled with long, black arrows, and lay strewn over rocks and bramble. All was silent. The dead looked like marble. They had been alive this morning.
Breathing was getting hard. I tried to draw air in, but it would not come. My gaze flitted back and forth over the strewn corpses, half in terror, half in desperation.
And then I saw it. A gleam of moonlight against a beautifully-polished helmet on the ground; a helmet that bore a carven dragon.
I screamed. The cry wrenched out of me, blinding me for the instant it took to throw myself off my horse. My horse neighed and skittered sideways. The Badi yelped and barked orders, but I heard it through a fog. My feet thudded to the ground, I stumbled, caught myself with my hands on a rough rock, then scrambled forward, my heart pounding in my ears, my breaths tearing my throat.
I leaped over two dead soldiers, hardly seeing them, then crashed to my knees in the dirt next to a magnificent, utterly noble and utterly still body of a golden-haired king.
“No!” I wailed, my hands fluttering over his broad chest filled with five Badi arrows. My eyes lifted to his motionless, bearded face, and I knew it as I had known it since I was a baby. “Papa!” I cried. “Oh, my Papa!” I took fistfuls of his jerkin, my sobs shaking my whole body. I smoothed his hair away from his cold brow, tears streaking my face.
“Get up! What do you think you are doing?” Commander Hashim’s voice cracked like a whip over my head. And then a hand snatched hold of my hair.
“Hashim!”
The hand jerked loose of me at the sound of the other tones.
“Leave off,” that second voice ordered. “It is her father.”
My mind could barely register a thought. But the only one that penetrated was that the second voice was Prince Rajak.
My whole body went weak, and I could not stand if I wished. I fell forward, leaning my forehead on my father’s shoulder, gripping his sleeve. I shook so hard, I felt I would be sick.
Quiet footsteps sounded to my right. They stopped ten paces away. My eyes closed, and I fought to keep breathing, to even swallow.
“We must keep moving.”
That was Rajak’s voice again. Soft, but firm.
“No,” I choked. “No, I won’t leave him here.”
Rajak did not answer. But he stepped closer.
“I will not linger here in this valley,” he said. My chest tight with pain, I only held onto my father’s bloodied jerkin harder.
“Come,” he said, and I heard his footsteps again. “Your people will find him in the morning.”
“He cannot lie here all night like an animal, without a pyre!” I shouted, my voice hitching in my throat. “You savages…monsters…don’t know anything about…” My vision began to flicker. Now I truly could not breathe. I clenched my hands down on my father with all my force.
“Woman…” Hashim’s voice was thick with irritation.
“No,” I squeezed my eyes shut. “No, I won’t—”
“Come.” Rajak’s voice was right over my head this time. He touched my shoulder.
I threw him off, but the motion spun my head. My stomach lurched, and I scrabbled at my father’s shirt. Rajak gripped my arms and pulled me back.
“NO!” I howled like a wounded hawk, trying to thrash free. But I still could not pull in a breath. My vision lapsed again, and I could not feel my legs.
Rajak was too strong—he hauled me up, bent down, and before I knew it, he was cradling me in his arms in an ungentle hold.
I lashed out and hit his face with my palm. Rajak’s arms twitched, but he did not let me go. The Badi muttered, somewhere far away.
“Let me go!” I gasped, starting to shudder.
“Bring the ropes,” Commander Hashim ordered someone. “We’ll tie her to her horse.”
Rajak’s arms tightened around me, and he said something…
But my eyes rolled back, my body went limp, and everything turned black.
LLL
I noticed light against my eyelids. Flickering light. And a strange rocking motion—up and down, interrupted by occasional jolts.
And warmth. Not heat yet—but it was warmer than I remembered it being before…
I opened my eyes. I was lying down. My head was supported by a flat, red pillow, and a red-and-gold blanket covered me. I moved my eyes without moving my head. Just three feet above me, a rustling scarlet canopy shaded my whole body from the sun, the light of which barely penetrated the fabric, as it looked to be straight overhead. I was on a litter.
My eyes fluttered closed again, and tears ran down my nose. A poisonous ache filled my whole body. I did not try to move.
I do not know how long I traveled this way. I lay there on my side or on my back, eyes closed, or staring out in front of me without seeing. I noticed when it got dark—for then the motion would stop, my litter would be set down, and everything would turn quiet and cool. I knew when it got light, because the army around me would stir, and I would be lifted up and carried again through the heat. I noticed when whatever creatures bore me began to descend or ascend. Mostly, we descended, though only once or twice at a sharp incline.
I refused food. Or whatever it was that they called food, because I did not recognize its scent or the appearance. Mostly, I ignored it when a soldier came and set a tray by my hand. Once, when the terrain had leveled out and a hot, dry wind had blown over me all day, I flipped the tray so it spilled all over the soldier’s front. He swore at me in that pig language of his. I said nothing, only sank back onto my pillow.
My lips and tongue dried, because I would not drink, and during one day of extreme heat, when I turned over and grimaced from the pain in my legs, my lip split, and blood ran down my chin. But I did not wipe it away, and when the wary food-bearing soldier came again, I just closed my eyes.
That night, they set me down, as always, and I turned onto my back to stare at the blurry light of the moon through my canopy.
Awareness came to me as I sensed someone approach. Footsteps crunched on hard earth. My brow furrowed, and I turned my eyes toward the glimmer of the firelight.
A dark form carrying something strode toward me. My hand twitched on my blanket, but I let out a rasping sigh. I had no strength to flip a tray over this time.
However, this man did not leave the tray by my head and depart. He turned, and sat down on the ground right next to my litter. He put the tray on his lap, pushed a goblet down into the earth so it would not spill, and picked up a piece of food.
It looked like an apple, or a plum. And when he bit it, it sounded crunchy and juicy. I swallowed. He set the fruit down and took a drink. I listened to him take a gulp. A drop of it spilled out as he set it down, and landed on my hand. It was cool. Water.
When he took up his fruit again, he turned his head, and I recognized his angular features in silhouette. It was Rajak. My eyes drifted toward his goblet, which sat not a foot from my hand.
“You do understand,” he spoke, his voice deep and quiet. “That if you kill yourself on the way to Nazre, our truce wit
h your people will be forfeit.”
He looked at me. I could not see his eyes because of the camp fire behind him, but I felt the weight of his gaze. I swallowed again, and took a sharp breath. His head lowered for a moment, then he picked up the goblet in his left hand. He reached out and took up my right hand with his, and closed my fingers around the cool metal of the drink. Then he picked up the tray and set it down next to me, though removing the fruit that he had bitten.
“Eat,” he said, got up and left me there.
I stared at the tray of fruit, and the goblet. My parched throat screamed at me. My hand shook so badly when I tried to lift the cup that I had to sit up halfway and take hold of it in both hands.
The moment the water touched my lips, I sucked it in so quickly that I almost drowned myself. I spilled some of it down my neck and onto my dress, but even that felt good. When I had drained the goblet, I snatched up the fruit and devoured it, chewing the last bits of fruit off the hard pits.
Letting out a gasp and then a long sigh, I fell back onto the pillow, exhausted. But my mouth and throat felt so much better, and my aching stomach was relieved. In a few moments, I felt myself drifting off to sleep.
It was only then that I recalled, in a haze that grew deeper with every second, that when Hashim had suggested I be tied to my horse, Rajak had answered:
“I would carry her first.”
LLL
I slept all night. That was new. And when I awoke, we were already moving.
And I was almost blinded before I even opened my eyes.
I squinted, blinking rapidly against the blaze of hot light. When I focused at last, my lips parted, and I sat up.
Dust flew from the hooves of the horses all around me. But through them, I caught glimpses of rolling hills of white sand, and pale blue sky above. My hands closed around my blanket. We had passed into the Desert of Arim-Akhel.
“Above all, keep your wits about you,” My mother’s words flashed through my mind. “Don’t be muddled by the strangeness of the heat, their barbarism or their crudeness. Badi are ruthless, but they are not smart. Keep your eyes and ears open, bide your time, and do what you must.”
I turned to look ahead of me. Four horses bore my litter—two in front, two in back—and just to my right rode Rajak, his head bound in a turban, his nose and mouth covered by a veil. The wind tossed it, and the mane of his horse.
I clenched my teeth, and pressed my fingers to my belt. I could feel the small knife beneath the fabric. Good. I had not lost it.
“Remember what you are about, Linnet,” I whispered, threw off my blanket, and began to prepare my mind for what lay ahead.
LLL
It was late afternoon when I heard it—a strange flute playing odd, piercing, mournful music. And then I thought I heard voices joining it. But no sooner had I grabbed the post of my canopy and tried to lean around to see the source, than we stopped with a lurch. I almost fell out onto the scalding sand.
“Ya bampot,” I gasped at the horsemen after catching myself. Mumma would never have permitted me to utter that old insult, but I was too nervy to regret it.
A hot wind blasted over me, and I put up a hand to shield my face. Hooves clopped up beside me, and I squinted up at Rajak, the sun shining right over his covered head. He glanced down at me. All I could see of his features were his black eyes, for the turban and veil that covered his head and face.
“A quiz for you,” Rajak said, over the jingle of his bridle. “Why do you think Badi women wear veils in the sun?”
I scowled, glancing ahead again. I could not see anything besides hundreds of horses and Badi in front of me.
“I always supposed that your men don’t want anyone else to look at their beautiful women.” I shrugged. “Either that, or your women are ugly.”
Rajak lifted his eyes to the horizon.
“Right on both counts,” he said. My eyes narrowed. He glanced down at me and lifted an eyebrow.
“Young women wear veils to keep the sun from stealing their beauty. And old women wear veils to keep the sun from revealing their ugliness.”
“I do not think old women are ugly,” I said, looking away. “But I wouldn’t imagine that my idea of beauty is the same as the Badi’s.”
Rajak did not answer. Instead, he got off his horse, hit the sand with a thud, and came up to me.
“Close your canopy.”
My eyes flashed.
“What?”
“Do it,” he said, glancing ahead. “You are not to be seen until the wedding.”
My blood went cold, in spite of the pounding heat.
“My people bring the betrothed princess to the mead hall on a horse beside the prince,” I told him, my heartbeat accelerating. I could not be trapped in here—I had to know the way in and out of the caves…
Rajak looked at me for an instant.
“These are not your people.” And he reached up, untied something, and a curtain dropped down between him and me. I ground my teeth. I would have to discover another way of learning where the entrance was.
I leaned back and out of the litter, untied the string, and dropped the curtain down. I did the same thing on the two other sides, and at last, I was enclosed by fluttering red fabric, through which I could only catch unintelligible glimpses.
I lay on my stomach, propped up on my elbows. My best view was through the forward gap in the curtains. My horses began to move again.
The rumble of the horse hooves and carts resumed. We ascended a gradual hill, and then that mournful flute music transformed. The notes became wild and darting, and shouts and cheers arose from a massive crowd, as, in the midst of a celebration I could not see, the Badi prince came home.
Chapter Four
My heart began to hammer against my breastbone as my litter plunged into the crowd. I could see sandals against white brick streets, and feel the press of thousands of bodies. Their voices joined from the chaos of happy calls to a loud, bizarre song—the words had to be native Badi—a fast, delicate and alien tongue I had only heard in smatters so far. Nasal-toned flutes joined in the music, and drums and metal clanging, in a heavy, driving beat. And at the end of what may have been a chorus, they broke out in sharp, alarming cries that sounded to me like “lalalalalalala!” I clenched my hands around my pillow. I hated it.
We turned and turned again, winding through what had to be streets, for tall shadows fell across me that probably belonged to buildings. The sandaled feet followed us in almost a stampede, and the strange singing grew louder.
A gust of cool air hit me, and blew the curtains of my canopy. For just a moment, I caught a glimpse of the massive crowd around me. Their heads whipped around, and several pairs of black eyes met mine. Some men wore turbans, all the women wore veils, and all were clad in loose, flowing clothing of white, orange, red or yellow. Then, the curtains fell back down. I gulped hard.
We kept moving, and the horse hooves clattered, as if on a different, harder surface. Commander Hashim’s voice rang out, banging against stone walls. Heavy gears began to work somewhere ahead of me. I wished I could push the curtain aside and look, but I did not dare—not with so many Badi on all sides.
The cool wind gained strength, and I gathered my blanket around me. And then we passed into shadow.
I started up, and my head hit the cloth of my canopy ceiling. I froze there. We had to be inside—but how? I could hear the thud of the horse hooves of the entire army. What room could possibly be big enough for that?
It was almost completely dark inside my little cloth room. Small lights passed by on either side of me—they must have been torches hung on the walls.
It was musty and nearly cold in here. I wrapped my blanket tight around my shoulders and tucked my feet under me. Everything echoed. The voices of the soldiers and the footsteps of the horses resounded tenfold against what sounded like a vast ceiling.
We marched this way for what seemed like several minutes. Then, I heard Rajak’s voice again.
“Hashim, give the princess to the steward, and send for Ayah,” he said, his dark tones sounding ominous in this chamber. “I must speak to the Marryer.”
“Where is the girl to be put, sir?”
Rajak hesitated.
“In my mother’s sister’s chamber for tonight. She has been dead for three years—that is long enough to leave it empty.”
I bit my lip. But I could say nothing about it. My litter turned to the left, and the rest of the army kept going straight.
This hallway sounded narrower, with a short ceiling. I heard Hashim talking with the men who rode the horses that carried my litter. They spoke Badi, so I could not understand them, but their words muddled with echoes.
We stopped. Someone got off his horse—probably Hashim. He knocked on a door. And then, to my surprise, he spoke in the common tongue. I sat up. Did he want me to pay attention?
“Steward Jahin,” Commander Hashim said. “I have a charge for you.”
The door Hashim had knocked on squeaked open, and someone stepped out.
“Commander! So happy to see you and the prince safely returned!” came the higher voice of an old man.
“Thank you. Here she is.”
“She?”
“Yes. The prince has brought back a captive Hilrigard princess for his harem.”
I frowned hard and clenched my blanket in my fists.
“Indeed!” the old man, apparently Steward Jahin, exclaimed. “That is…Well, that is excellent! Shall I put her in those rooms?”
“No, not yet,” Hashim sighed, sounding irritated at something else. “The prince wishes her put up in Rani Lilavati’s chambers.”
“Oh,” Steward Jahin breathed. “Already?”
“She has been dead three years, Jahin, as my prince reminded me. That is more than long enough.”
“Yes, of course, he is right,” Jahin said.
“Ayah is to attend her,” Hashim instructed.
“Oh, yes, certainly.” Jahin hesitated. “Where is the girl?”
Linnet and the Prince Page 4