‘She?’ Thomas stared at the brown man, the inscrutable. ‘She?’ he said again. He shifted his gaze back to the girl struggling to hold the boy, the horse, the desperate man.
‘My God,’ he heard Giles say. ‘We must have been blind.’
Even as they watched, Asperto fell away over the edge of the gorge. Down and down. They watched his body fall, arms and legs flung out. Soundless. That spurt of white water and his body swept from view in the tumbling water.
She almost had him safe but he weighed heavy. Too heavy.
‘Take care of the boy. Tell Hatice I’m sorry.’
His gaze on hers, his eyes sombre, beseeching under the thick black brows, and then the letting go. His falling. For as long as she lived she would remember his look and his falling. There must have been noise but she remembered no sound. No scream. No rush of rock. No breath of air. No roar of falling water. Only the endless falling…falling…a doll, no more than a rag doll, the doll a mother would give her child, arms and legs splayed, falling falling into the abyss, into the canyon, down into the river, white shock of hair in the white water swirling and splashing far far below.
Nothing after that. A scrabble of hooves and Blue beside her, pulling on the bridle, leading the mare to safety while around them the rocks fell silently, slowly, for ever and ever. Hatice taking Niko from her. Nothing. No sound. The brown man lifting her from the mare, from Yıldız the Star, on to his own brown horse and his arms wrapped around her. There was red splashed across his tunic sleeve. ‘Like cherry juice,’ she murmured. Hatice’s shocked face. Asperto falling falling and herself falling after him falling falling…
Rousing to the roughness of coarse blankets and night quiet and the low muttering of a voice. Is he safe? Is he safe? Hearth flames. The dark goats’ hair walls of a tent, familiar and safe. For a moment she wondered if she had dreamt all of the last weeks, if she was home and Nene was alive still. Then she remembered and, with remembering, realised it was her own voice that was muttering and mumbling, on and on. She made an effort to still it. She waited a moment until her memory came clearer.
‘Asperto. Niko.’ Her voice was hoarse, her throat painful. Her head ached and ached.
‘Lie still, Kazan. Be at peace.’
‘Niko?’
‘He is at rest, there, beside you, fast asleep, as I’ve told you many times now. And so should you be. You must lie still.’
The hearth fire crackled and spat. By its light she saw Hatice sitting quietly by her. She tried to raise herself on one arm and felt the shocking stab of pain. She lay back. Beyond the tent there was a roaring, dull and persistent and never-ending. Vaguely she wondered if the earth was still falling.
‘Where are we?’
‘On the road to Attaleia. We have made camp here by the river with the yürük. It is safe here. Try to sleep, little one.’
The river. It was the river she could hear pounding down the gorge on its way to the sea.
‘Asperto?’
A pause. ‘He is at rest. And you must rest also.’
‘I know he is not,’ she whispered. ‘I saw him fall. He was too heavy. He let go.’ Her own voice, wavering, as if it did not belong to her. ‘I could not hold him. He let go.’
Beside her, the little bundle that was Niko stirred restlessly.
‘Hatice, tell me…’
‘You must rest now. No questions.’
‘But you must tell me…’
A hand on her head and a soft exclamation. Hatice moved away quietly towards the entrance of the tent. A travelling tent, she realised now, quick to erect and quick to take down but sound enough for all that. Kazan could see her there, a dark shape, and through the opening she caught a glimpse of fire leaping toward the starry sky, the bellying curve of the bright moon, another shape of a cloaked figure. A man. Whispering.
‘Awake at last, Kazan?’
Dai. The Welshman. He would answer her questions. But before she could frame any, his quiet, flattened voice was telling her she shared the tent with others, with Niko sleeping next to her, with women who must rise early in the morning and who must sleep undisturbed. Now was not the time for questions. Yes, Asperto was dead, swept away by the river. She knew that already. Why ask what she already knew? Matter-of-fact, calm, final. She felt fingers touching her cheek, resting on her forehead, her shoulder, felt the tucking-in of blankets. ‘Sleep now. Remembering is for later.’
She caught hold of the hand that touched her cheek, held on to it as if it would stop her falling after Asperto into the depths of the gorge.
Sleep. Forgetting. Falling. Forgetting.
Awake again in the dark night. The moment of dreaming herself at home with Nene then the remembering: shaken earth, tumbling rocks. The terrified boy and the falling man. Screaming at him to grab the bridle, her hand, anything, so she could pull them all clear of the falling mountain. The moment of knowing that three were too heavy for Yıldız the Star. They were full in the path of the falling rock, the sliding tree. Asperto’s face, that ugly-kind face, calm, resigned, letting go of her hand, his fingers slipping away from hers though she tried to hold tight, hold tight…his falling falling falling into the water far below. Remembering Nene’s face, that time she slipped and was slithering away over the edge of the gorge. Grabbing at her arm and her fingers closing round bone as frail as a lark’s wing. It was easy to haul the old woman back to safety. Not Asperto. She made herself remember the women who must sleep and the need for quiet and pressed her lips tight close.
Hatice’s voice. ‘Come, drink this.’ A wooden bowl held to her lips. ‘Careful – it is a little hot and perhaps a little bitter but it is good for you.’ Hatice whose man was dead.
She must have slept again. When she woke the dark night had shifted. Not long till dawn. A fire still burned in the hearth. A small shape curled next to her and a larger one by her side.
‘Hatice?’ she murmured.
‘She is asleep.’
‘Dai?’
‘Yes.’
‘Am I ill?’
‘Injured.’ Silence. A cool hand on her head. ‘We were worried a while about fever but that is gone now. Falling rock it was. On the side of your head, your shoulder.’
‘I remember Blue coming. He took Yıldız. And Niko. Hatice was there.’
‘Yes.’
‘But Asperto…’
‘He fell into the gorge.’
‘He wanted to save us.’
‘And so he did, Kazan.’ Silence. The river rushing and a night bird’s mournful cry. ‘He knew he had not long to live.’
Silence.
‘What of Niko?’
‘Sleeping. See. He refused to leave you so we kept him by you. He was very frightened but he is not harmed. His broken arm is well enough, thanks be to God. And thanks be to Hatice.’
‘Where are we?’
‘The yürük came back to help us. Some stayed to make camp with us, lower down the mountain. Safer like that. We are on the road to Attaleia.’
Silence. He remembered how he held her in his arms, felt the slightness of her, how fragile she was beneath that show of whistling courage, his fear that she would die before he got her to safety, before he could see how hurt she was. A Duw caniatáu, mai hi’n dal i fyw. A Duw caniatáu. God willing, she is still alive. God willing. And there had been nothing else he could do but subdue his rising panic and pray under his breath in the Welsh words that came most readily to his tongue, and trek steadily down the mountain path to a level stretch by the tumbling river where it was safe to make camp. He blessed the nomad tribe who had come to their help without fuss, without caring who these travellers might be. All that mattered was their need.
She was unconscious, and had a dark bruise where the rock had hit her head. A wound in her arm poured blood. Like cherry juice, as she had said before she fell unconscious. She needed to breathe. Nothing but truth would help her now, and he’d already blabbed out her secret to Twm and Giles in those desperate moments when h
e had feared she would tumble with Asperto into the gorge. ‘Take these bandings off her,’ he told Hatice. ‘She needs your help.’
Hatice had taken one look. ‘Of course, master. I shall see to this.’
And she had. She was a remarkable woman, he thought, plain-faced and abrupt but true and honest. She said nothing when she knew Kazan was a girl but tended her as if all was the same to her. Her man was dead, and with his death the plans they had made together, but she laid that aside. She helped Dai clean the wound to the girl’s shoulder, put cool bandages round the girl’s head, sat by the unconscious girl for long hours while the yürük women gave up the warmest part of their tent and kept to the shadows.
‘Sleep again and all shall be well…’
‘…and all shall be well.’ In her head Kazan tried to repeat the mantra but was asleep before she had finished.
Grey dawn seeping into the tent. Stealthy movement. The women working carefully around her, packing ready for travelling. Niko sprawled on his back now, his breath whistling quietly, his long lashes fluttering. He was on the verge of waking, the noises penetrating his sleep. Her head ached but her mind was clear. She cautiously pushed herself upright, rolled off the sleeping mat and up on to her feet. The tent swirled round her but steadied. She was dressed only in her under-tunic and şalvar. The constricting cotton binding cloth was gone. She breathed in and out. This was much easier. She had forgotten how easy it was to breathe when there was nothing binding her. Then she remembered: the women around her, Hatice tending to her. They knew, then. Dimly, she remembered Hatice sitting there; every time she roused from her sleep, Hatice was there. And the Welshman.
Shame it is for a warrior to hide his name from another.
She put a hand up to her head, felt bandages and pulled them aside and fingered the swollen lump they had concealed. Blood stained bandages around her arm. She considered them then decided to leave all as it was. She was struggling into her outer tunic when there was a quiet movement at the entrance to the tent and Hatice was there.
‘You are dressed,’ she said, unnecessarily.
‘Yes. Time to move on, isn’t it?’
Hatice sucked in her breath. ‘Master Dai must have the saying of that.’
She stood upright, swaying. Hatice clicked her teeth. ‘You are not well enough, child.’
Kazan steadied herself, said, ‘Tell him I am well and ready to travel.’
‘Master Dai must have the saying of that,’ the woman said again. Her face was haggard with grief and fatigue but she touched the blood stained bandages with gentle fingers and her voice was gentle. ‘He will say as I say: you must rest.’
It was the gentleness that stripped away the false calm. Kazan caught her hand and held it pressed to her cheek and then to her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Hatice. So sorry,’ she mumbled into it. ‘So sorry. I couldn’t save him.’ She buried her head in the woman’s shoulder. The gentle stroking went on.
‘He did not want you to. It was his time to die. Do not distress yourself, my daughter; you did all that you could. Lie quietly now.’ Hatice pressed the girl back down on to the blankets. ‘I must tell Master Dai you are awake and restless.’ She left the tent as quietly as she had entered it.
Kazan lay still for a moment, covering her eyes with her good arm. Then she struggled up again and concentrated on pulling the tunic over her head, easing the bandaged arm into the sleeve. Niko stirred, yawned, remembered. His lower lip quivered. ‘Kazan? I thought you were dead too!’ He clung to her, weeping. She hugged him to her with her good arm. He was wan-faced this morning, heavy-eyed with shock and loss.
‘You can see I am not.’ She hugged him again. ‘Come, we are both of us alive and well enough to travel. Help me with this sleeve.’
She was casting round in search of her soft-skinned boots when Dai came in, frowning, demanding to know what she was about. She didn’t answer until she had pulled the tunic straight and fastened her cloak – the new cloak given by Dai – about her shoulders, awkwardly because she had only the use of one hand. A one-handed band of travellers, she thought suddenly; herself, Niko, Thomas only just recovered.
‘I am making myself ready to travel,’ she told him. She looked at his face, dark-closed, stern. ‘Do not be difficult, Welshman,’ she said. ‘Amir’s son travelled and he was badly wounded. I shall do well enough. My head aches, it is true, and this arm is stiff but I have no fever. Besides, these people are making ready to leave.’
‘We do not have to. They will leave us the tent. We can return it when we reach Attaleia. They have said so.’
Stubborn, she thought, so stubborn. But so was she. She tilted her head. ‘I think they must all know I am not Kazan the boy.’ He nodded. ‘I do not care to hide in here. I would like to see the men.’ Shame it is for a warrior to hide his name from another.
‘Yes wel.’ He rubbed the side of his nose in a way that was becoming familiar. Always it boded something unexpected. ‘Seems how they want to see you now, isn’t it? Had to stop them coming in, didn’t I? Wanted to know if you were dead yet.’
She stared at him. ‘They are not angry with me?’ she asked. ‘Kazan the Great Pretender?’
‘That they are not. Think you’re no end the hero, they do. Kazan the Great…’ His eyes held hers, level, impassive. ‘I’m the one who’s angry. I’m wondering how many more times you’re going to risk your life.’
The colour drained from her face. ‘Why do you not say what you really mean? Why do you not say I risk the lives of those around me?’
‘I say your life and I mean your life.’ He spread his hands in an empty, futile gesture that was unlike Dafydd the Welshman. ‘You’ve pulled away the bandaging around your head,’ he scolded. ‘And what of the bandages round your arm? The sleeve of this tunic is too tight around them. I need to see the bruising on your head and the wound to your arm and then it is I who shall decide if we travel today.’
She caught it then, that note in his voice so like Nene’s when the girl had worried her with some foolishness: tumbles when she was a little child unsteady on her feet but rushing from place to place; when she had out-dared the young boys and was thrown from a horse; when she had fallen from a crag on a steep climb searching for birds’ eggs; once when weed had trapped her in a river and she had been hauled out half-drowned…Nene scolded. She did not cosset or fuss. She scolded. And wiped away the blood and repaired the damage so that the girl could risk her life another time.
‘I am sorry I worried you,’ she said quietly, ‘but you know I could not leave him. You would not have left him, Welshman.’
He sighed. ‘No,’ he agreed.
‘See – I think this bump is not so serious. My head,’ she told him, ‘is no softer for being a girl’s.’ Beside her, she heard Niko’s shaky laugh.
He bent over her, inspecting the bruise. He prodded with careful fingers, felt her flinch. ‘I’m sorry.’ Sorry for more than the pain of his touch.
He helped her remove the tunic, as matter-of-fact as ever; it was she who was suddenly consumed by confusion at his closeness, conscious of the small swellings her breasts made under the cloth. He had insisted that he would tend her, with Hatice’s help. He unwound the bandaging around her arm.
No man had ever been so close to her but this was Dafydd and his hands were gentle and careful. It was Dafydd and yet she was conscious of him as she had not been before, not even when she lay next to him at night in the han. It made her awkward. She turned her head away so that he could not see her face.
Again the careful scrutiny. ‘No infection,’ he said. ‘It needs to be bathed and fresh salve applied. The skin is torn but there are no deep cuts. As you say, you are well enough to travel and I would be the happier if you saw the physician at the next han. There’s one condition.’ He regarded her gravely.
‘And what is that?’
‘You travel with Blue today, as Rashid did.’
‘If the blue man agrees. I am no longer Kazan.’
�
�I doubt he’ll hold that against you,’ Dai said with a wry smile. ‘Da fy merch i, cariad.’ She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Good girl,’ he said. He didn’t translate cariad. He helped her back into the tunic. ‘But not your injured arm,’ he said. He looked over his shoulder and called out. ‘You can come in now, Blue, see for yourself she’s alive and already it’s making trouble she is.’
Hazy daylight was blocked as the big man bent to enter and then straighten up. His head almost reached the top of the small travelling yurt. He stood there, crumpling his hood in his huge hands, saying nothing. Nothing. She was unforgiven.
‘I am sorry I lied to you all, Blue,’ Kazan said sadly. ‘It seemed the best thing to do at first but then I did not know how to stop. Forgive me.’
He didn’t answer. And then she heard his gaspy breath and a tearing sob deep in his throat.
‘Is he crying, Kazan?’ Niko whispered.
‘Eh boy, A’m blubbing like a bairn. A’m an aimless owd gowk.’ He wiped his nose along his brawny forearm. ‘A couldn’t bear to see yer scathed, lass. Such a great ding i’ the eäd as you took an’ yer arm all bloodied an’ me abless to ’elp yer.’ He snorted back tears and snot. ‘Yer hair all lunkered wi’ blood and yer were that limmuck when Dai took you away A thowt as yer would dwine away.’
His language was broader than ever so that she could scarcely understand a word; but words were not needed. She went straight into his arms and they closed round her in a bear hug.
‘Not so tight, Blue!’ Dai warned.
‘Yer nowt but a little lass,’ Blue crooned but he heeded the warning and his hold slackened. ‘Eh but yer a rare ’un.’
‘You forgive me then?’
‘Fergive yer? What’s to fergive? We’re be’int yer back an’ edge, all on us. Eh, sichna shock it were. Sichna shock. The lad an’ all. If yer hadn’t had wit enough to cling on, she’d nivver ’ave kept yer safe.’ He reached out to Niko, kept the two of them safe-close in his arms.
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