by David Hair
‘Let’s go back to that last wadi and await the others,’ he said. ‘We’ll go no further today – or tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken. There’s a sandstorm coming.’
They retraced their journey to the dried-up watercourse set between high banks of rock. Moving hastily, they unburdened the horses and tethered them, then Jamil set Kazim to hammering staves diagonally into the ground so they buttressed the bank before lashing the leather tent to them. By the time the others arrived the wind was beginning to keen. Jamil was everywhere, urging the horses down on their knees and covering them, creating lean-tos of blankets and packs against the riverbanks.
‘But it might rain and fill the riverbed,’ shouted Haroun, worriedly.
Jamil laughed bitterly. ‘It won’t rain here for another seven months, Scriptualist. Save your breath and work!’ He lashed together another tent and shoved the girl inside. He thrust some food into Jai’s hands and pushed him inside after her, crying, ‘Seal it off!’
The wind began to scream, frightening the horses as much as them.
‘Won’t the horses run off?’ shouted Kazim.
‘Where to?’ the warrior shouted back. ‘They’ll stay put, don’t worry. Distribute the packs and water. You’re with the scriptualist. Pray hard!’
The sand began to lash them, stinging blasts that made them stagger, but they were almost done now. Haroun was sealing the last few gaps with rags. Kazim crawled in beside him. Jai waved from the mouth of his tent, then pulled it shut and fastened the ties. Jamil stalked towards them. He put something into Kazim’s hands: a shovel. ‘Stay inside and you’ll be fine, Ahm willing,’ he shouted, then he was gone. Kazim tied the flap shut.
The tent quivered in the wind, which let loose a menacing wail. Kazim was pressed up against Haroun. The young scriptualist looked at him and brandished a flask. He took a sip, then held it under Kazim’s nose and the sweet smell of arak filled his nostrils. ‘It won’t be all bad in here, brother,’ Haroun shouted as he leaned back against the wadi wall. ‘One day Ahm will have perfected me so that I do not need such earthly pleasures. But thankfully, that day is not yet at hand.’
Kazim settled in beside him and accepted a sip. The bitter liquid burned its way down his throat. Jamil had said it could last for days. It was almost too loud to talk, so as long as the tents held, there was nothing to do but pray or sleep. Or drink.
‘Haroun, did I do right, back at the ambush?’ he asked much later, when the noise outside dipped momentarily.
Haroun blinked. ‘You saved our lives, Kazim. You were magnificent.’
‘It doesn’t feel that way. I killed a raider – I pulled him under the wagon wheels – but I also rode down one of ours, and I threw another fellow off the wagon so he wouldn’t slow us down. So I killed one enemy and two friends – in fact, I have killed three Amteh so far on this shihad, and if you count the men whose food I stole, I may have killed more. Will Ahm forgive me?’
‘You know better than that, brother,’ Haroun said. ‘A dead man cannot redeem your woman. Ahm loves you, Kazim Makani; that I know. But let us pray, and it will ease your spirit.’
So they prayed, and he gained a kind of peace from it, but as usual, his mind couldn’t dwell on higher things for long. He was alive and others weren’t. You have to go on, he told himself. Don’t dwell on it. He settled down to wait out the storm, wishing he could trade places with Jai and have a soft female to press against. Lucky bastard! Though Keita probably wasn’t interested, so perhaps it was worse for Jai, locked up with a girl who wouldn’t screw, knowing Jamil would gut him if he forced himself on her – not that Jai would ever force a girl. So he was probably just lying there with a rock-hard cock and nothing to do with it. Kazim grinned at the thought.
Outside the noise rose to deafening. The sand slashed at their tents, making them shudder, but so far they were holding. When they had to pee or shit, they used the lee-ward corner, and buried it; Jamil had left a small hole unlaced there, so the smell never became unbearable. Though it was midday, the dirty brown darkness was more like twilight. There was nothing else they could do, so they shared the arak until it was gone, and finally, feeling lightheaded and bored, they were tired enough to sleep.
Some indeterminable time later, Kazim woke to a narrow shaft of sunlight pouring in through the little air-hole. Outside he heard the keening call of a kite, and a horse nickered softly. The air inside was sour, and Haroun was muttering in his sleep. He looked at the spiritualist: his beard was fuller than when they’d first met, and curly, falling to his collarbone. His white robes were frayed and stained under the armpits. It was strange to think they had met just a couple of months ago. It felt like for ever.
Kazim rubbed his own burgeoning beard. He wondered if Ramita would like the look, or if she’d nag him to shave. He tried to picture her face, wondered where she was. Did she still think of him as he did of her, or was she with child already, and caught up in her own cares?
He shook away these depressing thoughts and examined the tent flap. He could feel sand banked halfway up it, so he unlaced the top and crawled out over the mound. His legs were aching from being bent for so long; straightening them was agonising. Outside, he light was dazzling, but the air was still. Sand had piled everywhere; the wadi was full almost to the lip on the other side, but Jamil had sited them in the lee, which had got off far more lightly. Jamil himself was saddling one of the horses. He smiled with genuine warmth and called, ‘Sal’Ahm.’
Kazim looked about. The sun was low to his left, which must be east if this was morning. ‘Is all well?’
‘All is well. Rouse the others; we should eat.’ He indicated a small camp-fire, where a tin pot was steaming, and Kazim’s stomach growled in hunger.
Buoyed by the thought of food, Kazim woke Haroun, and then tramped up to Jai’s still- closed tent. He peered through the air-hole. Jai’s eyes were closed. The girl’s head lay on his chest, her hair loose over her bare shoulder. She was also asleep. He sniffed, and at the smell of sweat and bodily fluids thought, My friend’s a lucky bastard, then shouted, ‘Jai, wake up!’
His friend opened his eyes and peered up at the air-hole. ‘I am awake,’ he whispered, with a smile of puzzled contentment.
‘Then get your arse out here and do some work,’ Kazim told him. ‘Unless you are so weakened from screwing you can’t walk?’
‘I’ll be five minutes,’ Jai said, running his fingers through Keita’s hair. She stirred and murmured something throaty. Jai grinned up at Kazim. ‘Or maybe ten.’
They wound their way north as the moon waned and vacated the night sky. Weeks flew by, each day like the other. Though supplies ran low, Jamil kept strict rationing and they did not go short. The captain was no longer scouting ahead; he said there was no need. The ground was rocky now, and the sand coarser, and small spiny bushes grew in the lee of the rocks. Fat blue-black flies hummed about them ceaselessly, but avoided Jamil. That wasn’t the only unusual thing Kazim had observed: sometimes he saw a faint blue light within his tent, and sometimes he appeared to be talking to himself in one-sided conversations. But he’d been true to his promise to guide them safely, and he treated them all with more respect now; When he called Kazim ‘Chicken Boy’ now, he was teasing.
Kazim felt a kinship with them all unlike any he’d felt before. They had survived the massacre and the sandstorm and crossed the desert. They prayed together and ate together, and if Jai was the only one allowed to screw Keita, no one complained. The girl cooked for them now, and she was losing some of her baby fat, turning into a woman. Of course, her belly would be swelling soon enough if Jai wasn’t careful. Kazim mentioned this as they walked the horses to a tiny muddy pool Jamil had found.
‘She’s a dark moon bleeder,’ Jai replied, ‘so we were careful last week. She’ll need the blood-tent again any day. Jamil says we’re only a couple of days from Gujati, the most southern settlement in Kesh.’ He glanced back the way they had come. ‘I’m going to miss the desert, sort of.�
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‘Me too. There’s something about it … but I’ll be glad of a bath.’ He cast his mind forward to Hebusalim, to Ramita, imprisoned somewhere: the caged bird he would free. We’re coming, my love.
Two days later as the setting sun cast long shadows into the darkening east, they topped a rise to find a cluster of thirty-odd mud-brick huts before them, gathered about a well. They were too tired to enjoy this moment of triumph – they had been on the march for three months and the new year was already two months old. But they were finally in Kesh.
18
Lady Meiros
The Ordo Costruo
Some of those given immortality by Corineus lacked the zeal and fire to join the overthrow of the Rimoni Empire. These ingrates fell under the leadership of Antonin Meiros and wandered for many centuries before washing up in Pontus around 700. They took the name Ordo Costruo (from the Rimoni word for ‘builder’) and among many engineering feats constructed the Leviathan Bridge, in the early 800s. Chapters of the Ordo Costruo dwell in both Pontus and Hebusalim. They claim to prize knowledge above faith, and place themselves above God in many heresies large and small. For this reason they are widely abhorred, except by the greedy and grasping merchant-princes.
ANNALS OF PALLAS
Some enemies come bearing weapons and uttering blasphemies and so you know them. But worse are enemies who come with gifts and gracious deeds. You know them not as foes, until too late.
SALIM KABARAKHI II, SULTAN OF KESH, 922
Hebusalim, on the continent of Antiopia
Moharram (Janune) to Awwal (Martrois) 928
6–4 months until the Moontide
Ramita and Huriya paced the gardens of Meiros’ palace in Hebusalim, wishing they had wings and could fly over the walls. It felt like a prison, when there was so much to see outside. The central courtyard was sixty paces square. The crushed marble underfoot glowed in the sunlight, and the carved reliefs of the marble buildings shone so brightly that the girls covered their faces with gauze headscarves. The sky was clear, the air was scented with the fragrance of the flowerbeds. Somehow the smells of the city never reached this place. Water tinkled musically in the fountain of carved fish exploding from stone shaped as spume – more water wasted in a minute than Ramita’s family used in a day. She had thought it was drinking water, until a condescending servant had told her, ‘If madam wanted a drink, she had only to ask.’ The fountain water was not drinkable, the servant said, though it looked fine to Ramita, a lot cleaner than the water she used to lug home from the Imuna. People here were clearly over-delicate. There were plants blooming here that she did not recognise; she couldn’t work out how they would be used, but Huriya giggled and told her they were decorative.
Decorative?
They had arrived four days since, and something like a routine was being formed. The girls wanted to go out and explore the city, but her husband forbade it. There was constant shouting outside, but the soldiers would not let her walk on the battlements of the red walls that surrounded the house, so she had no idea what it was about. The palace covered four acres in the heart of the city, she had been told, but she was allowed only in her own rooms, her husband’s study and the central garden, and it was suffocating. Only the tower rooms had a view of the city, but she was forbidden entry. The tower stood like a pale fang, rising three storeys above the walls. It was accessible only from her husband’s rooms.
By the time she presented herself in her husband’s study for Rondian lessons the deep furrows on his brow had returned. He was surrounded by letters and missives and looked beaten down again. His thin hair was tangled by worried fingers. She glimpsed a hall where supplicants waited, a mixture of Rondian merchants and Hebb traders in their check-patterned headdresses, including some women in the black bekira-shrouds that even Rondian women wore in public. Meiros acknowledged her distractedly, then told her his daughter Justina would see to her language tutelage from now on. That had been three nights ago. In the evenings she could see light limning the shutters of his tower-rooms. He did not come to her chamber, and she suspected that he had not slept since returning.
Justina Meiros ignored her requests for language lessons. Olaf was apologetic, but no help. ‘Once the trouble on the street dies down we will summon cloth and jewellery traders for you, Lady Ramita,’ he offered, as if this would satisfy her. What trouble? she wondered.
‘But Rondian speak I desire me!’ she burst out in mangled Rondian. ‘Book need I nigh! Nigh! Nekat chottiya!’ It was very frustrating. Olaf didn’t seem to understand.
When Huriya asked Olaf about the troubles in the street he said, ‘Because of Madam.’ Huriya passed this on, and Ramita laughed nervously: trouble because of her, in the streets of this foreign city? Huriya must have got the words wrong.
On holy day her husband spoke to her briefly before he left under heavy guard to attend a Kore service at the Governor’s Palace. This governor, Tomas Betillon, was rumoured to eat children, the servants told Huriya. ‘Betillon is a pig,’ Meiros remarked with distaste, ‘yet I must dine with him.’ He looked like he wished to spit.
‘Olaf said that there was trouble in the streets because of me,’ Ramita remarked curiously, staring at the intricate mosaic on the floor.
Meiros had grimaced. ‘Someone has put it about that I have kidnapped a Lakh princess, and have her imprisoned in my tower. Some of the Hebb are burning my effigy and calling for my stoning.’ He chuckled dryly. ‘This is normal here, Wife. Don’t let it concern you. It flares up, it dies down.’
‘Justina will not teach me,’ Ramita complained, feeling curiously neglected.
Meiros grunted and dashed off a note. ‘Take this to Olaf. Justina has obligations to this family, whether she likes it or not. It will give her something constructive to do instead of painting her face and nails.’ He stood. ‘I am sorry I have been busy, Wife, but next week you must attend a banquet with my colleagues, and you must be ready.’
After breakfast Olaf took Ramita to Justina’s quarters. Ramita waited impatiently while Olaf haggled with Justina’s housemaid. She wished Huriya was with her, but her friend had been allowed to go with the servants to Amteh worship in the city. Huriya had been full of excitement about seeing Hebusalim. Ramita had asked Olaf to give Huriya some money for the markets, and he had casually handed over enough coins to make even Huriya’s eyes bulge.
Finally a servant came out and led her through to Justina’s private courtyard. Two women were sitting cross-legged on Keshi-style low leather seats with no backs, beside a tiny fountain. Incense perfumed the cool air. Both women wore blue mantles. They looked at her distantly as she entered. Justina waved Ramita to one of the seats, then continued conversing with the other woman.
At least it gave Ramita the chance to study Meiros’ daughter for the first time. She had a long narrow head, and her complexion was pale as porcelain. Her full lips were stained red. Her face was mature, but her complexion was clear and smooth. Meiros had claimed his daughter was more than one hundred years old, but she could not tell if this was true. She was a mage; who knew what was possible? Her lustrous black hair had no trace of grey. She wore simple jewellery, but it was all gold. A ruby as red as her lips hung from a gold chain and pulsed at her neck like a heartbeat: a periapt, one of the magical gems of the magi. Justina had a forbidding beauty, as if she had been sculpted, not born.
The other woman was far less fearsome. Her soft, round freckled face was framed by a tumble of golden curls. She too wore a pulsing jewel at her throat, a large sapphire. She smiled reassuringly. ‘Hello,’ she said slowly in Rondian, ‘you must be Ramita.’ Her voice was warm and sultry. ‘I am Alyssa Dulayne. Welcome to Hebusalim.’ She spoke as if trying to coax a cat to be petted.
Ramita ducked her head, licked her lips. ‘Hello.’
‘So she does have a tongue,’ observed Justina tartly.
Ramita caught the gist of Justina’s remark. ‘Some little Rondian, I have. More Keshi. You Lakh have?’ she added, st
icking her chin up a little.
Alyssa chuckled. ‘A good point, Justina. Do you speak her tongue?’
Justina Meiros wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t, and neither do you, Alyssa. Apparently Father expects me to have this girl ready to face the vultures at the next Ordo Costruo banquet. How ridiculous.’
‘What is “rikuless”?’ Ramita asked, trying to quell her dislike.
Justina faced her, looking down her nose. ‘Ri-dic-u-lous. It means “silly”. Do you know silly?’
‘I am not silly,’ Ramita said levelly.
Justina sighed. ‘I never said you were. Kore’s sake, Alyssa, what am I going to do?’
The fair woman laughed gently. ‘Well, why don’t you leave it to me for a while? I’m better at this sort of thing than you are.’ She smiled at Ramita, who felt a sudden fear of what this nice-seeming woman might mean.
Justina drained her tiny cup and rose. ‘Yes, why don’t you, Alyssa? I have no patience at all.’ She bent over, kissed Alyssa’s cheeks and vanished into her suite. Ramita rose, thinking herself dismissed.
‘No, no, sit.’ Alyssa patted the chair Justina had vacated. ‘Come, sit with me.’ She poured green tea, serving Ramita before herself, then she leaned forward and cupped Ramita’s face in soft hands that smelled of rose-water. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll be very gentle, I promise.’
Ramita looked at her, puzzled, then the mage-woman’s gold-flecked brown eyes caught hers, like a hook catches a fish. Her words meant little, but they trilled like a lullaby. Ramita felt strange, caught somewhere between sleep and alertness. Tiny details seemed huge, but she couldn’t have said whether there was anyone else in the little courtyard. Alyssa’s voice brought echoes of Meiros’ lessons to the surface of her thoughts, like bubbles rising in a fountain, and other words were added, a stream of them, as if Alyssa were chanting them into her mind. She felt them sink slowly inside her and slide into orderly formations, schools of words swimming in an ocean of thought. Associations formed, with colours, with numbers, with actions … She felt her eyes fall closed with an almost audible click …