To the High Redoubt

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “But,” as Arkady told Surata that evening as they ate a salad of cold cooked grain, shelled nuts and shelled peas with sliced lemons, “it could have been much worse. It’s because I’m only passing through and have no one with me but a blind female slave. I gave the Guard my word that we would be gone by day after tomorrow at the latest, and that we would not return for at least six months.”

  “They have strange ways, these Guards,” she said thoughtfully. “As if six months would make a difference if you were determined to do the city harm.”

  Arkady shrugged. “Well, they required it, and I gave them my word as a soldier.”

  “Did they respect it?” She turned her head, raising an admitory finger toward him. “Did they?”

  Puzzled, Arkady watched her as she listened, and after a brief pause, he answered her question with all the appearance of calmness. “They seemed to. A soldier’s word should be binding—faithful unto death are often the terms, after all.”

  “But if you…” She stopped, concentrating on something that Arkady could not sense. “If you had already given your word elsewhere to be faithful unto death?”

  “But that is not the way it’s done,” Arkady said reasonably, leaning toward her as he spoke. “What is it?” he whispered to her.

  She shook her head, but continued to give her attention to whatever it was. “Have more of the food, Master. You must not neglect your body in this way, for on the road ahead, there may not be much to eat.”

  Arkady helped himself to more of the salad. “Speaking of food, I have been to the marketplace, and tomorrow morning before we leave, I will take you there so we may gather up everything we need for the next leg of the journey to Samarkand.” He said this a bit more loudly, in case they were being overheard.

  “Good.” She signaled him to continue.

  “That will get us and the animals through a month of travel at the least, and that is all we need to the next market town, no matter how slowly we travel. They say it should take sixteen to eighteen days to reach the northern shore of the Caspian Sea.”

  “Then supplies for a month would be more than enough.” She turned her hand so that her fingers pointed toward the door leading to the kitchen. “You are very wise, Master.”

  “I’m glad you realize that,” Arkady told her, staring at the doorway. “Oh.” He feigned surprise. “Lauris. I didn’t know you were there.”

  The Lithuanian came slowly into the public room where Arkady and Surata were having their meal. “I’ve just come back from visiting with…my uncle.”

  “The one you told me about while we were buying arrows?” Arkady asked with an expression of mild curiosity. “He’s a merchant, you said, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. He has no sons and has been teaching me his trade.” Lauris coughed diplomatically. “When I told him about you, he said he was eager to meet you. He misses our homeland.”

  “It’s a pity that I’m leaving tomorrow. I would have liked to meet him myself.” Arkady indicated the remains of their meal. “We were going to retire shortly. The ride ahead is a rigorous one, from what I’ve been told.”

  Lauris looked distressed. “But Arkady, night has just fallen. You needn’t go to bed quite yet. There is still time for you to come with me to my uncle’s house. It would give him great pleasure to entertain you for an hour or so.”

  “That’s kind,” Arkady said. “Another time I would be delighted, but…no, it wouldn’t be prudent. The Guard was not suspicious of me today, but if I were to visit another foreigner, then it might be another matter. I don’t want to repay your hospitality and the offer of your uncle by bringing you such misfortune.”

  “But…” Lauris glared at him. “He won’t like this.”

  “I am shocked to know that I have caused him displeasure,” Arkady responded.

  “He was anxious to tell you,” Lauris said with renewed intensity, “of the troubles his men have had crossing the lands of the Khan of Astrakhan.”

  “But we have already come through the Crimea without mishap,” Arkady said, thinking that the problems they had encountered had little to do with the Khan. “The Cossacks here have left us alone. Why would it not be the same in Astrakhan?”

  “There is fighting,” Lauris insisted. “And you have a woman with you.”

  “What Islamite cares for that?” Arkady chuckled. “From what I have been told they prefer the backside of a boy any day. More fool they.”

  Lauris took a step closer. “Soldiers’ words,” he spat.

  “I’m a soldier,” Arkady agreed, unruffled. “Tell your uncle that I’m grateful for his invitation but that it would not be sensible to join him this night. A successful merchant like your uncle will certainly understand that I mean him no offense, but that I have tasks I must accomplish. The Guard expects me to leave, and leave I will.” He tossed two more coins to Lauris, one silver, one brass. “Take these with my…appreciation, Trakiv. You have been very generous with a stranger.” Rising, he tapped Surata on the shoulder. “Come, slave. It is almost time to sleep.”

  “Yes, Master,” she murmured obediently.

  “What will I tell my uncle?” Lauris called out as they left the public room for their chambers.

  “Be sure you brace the door,” Surata said softly as they ascended the stairs.

  “I’ll do more than that. I wish I had a crossbow.” He guided her into the room, and while she gathered their things together, he rigged a deadfall over the door.

  “Did you get the clothes you wanted?” she asked as Arkady began to undress.

  “Yes. Lauris thought I was buying a tent—which I did—but I found desert robes for both of us, and a good shirt of chain mail. Even if Lauris wants to find us, he will be looking for the wrong thing.”

  “There are the mules and the horses,” Surata reminded him.

  “He hasn’t seen them. He knows my bay and that’s all.” He set out the clothes he intended to wear the next day. “It’s odd,” he said as he pulled off his boots. “When I was a captain, I owned two horses, a mule, my weapons, tack and two kinds of armor. Now that I am disgraced and fleeing for my life, I have mules and horses and new armor and six sets of clothes, more tack than ever before, my weapons, gold and a slave.”

  “The Wheel turns for all of us,” she said as she slipped under the sheet. “We won’t need the blankets. It’s too hot for them, anyway.”

  “Will the heat be worse, do you think?” he asked as he sat down beside her.

  “Yes. It can’t be helped. After we cross the Volga, it will be worse.”

  “I’ve bought two bags of salt and a box of salt fish. Will that be enough?” He had fought in heat before, but nothing like the relentless, enervating swelter that had begun at Tana.

  “I hope so. Salt and water, for us and the horses and mules.” She sighed. “In my homeland, the days are often very hot, but we lived in the mountains, and at night it would grow cool. Here the whole world is an oven.”

  He laid his hand on her arm. “I stink like a goat, Surata.”

  “I do not mind the smell. What troubles me is the landlord and Lauris.” She stared at the ceiling. “Would you mind leaving at midnight? There will still be moonlight.”

  “Why?” he asked, knowing that she was worried.

  “I think that Lauris may go to the Guard and denounce you. And if he does, they will be here before dawn to take you away. They…at the best, they would make a slave of you.” Her breath caught in her throat.

  “And the worst? Kill me?” He did not need to hear her answer. “And you?”

  “A brothel if I’m lucky,” she said, revulsion in her voice.

  “But…Surata, you would be a treasure to a brothel owner.” He was puzzled by her; after all she had done to his body, why would a brothel offend her.

  She turned on her side, speaking softly and fiercely. “Do you think that after we have had all this together, that I would ever want less? When you and I have ridden the crest of the wave, and waken
ed the Subtle Body, do you truly believe I could endure having that gift made tawdry and trivial by men wanting only to spend themselves in female flesh? Do you?”

  Arkady caught her hands in his and held them, silent. Finally he said, “Surata, you shame me.”

  “Still?” she whispered, a wail in her voice.

  He shook his head. “Not that way. You shame me because…I thought…never mind what I thought. I do not deserve your fealty.”

  “But you do,” she said. “You would not have it otherwise.”

  He nodded, humbled and strangely shaken. “We’ll leave at midnight. I’ll wake you.”

  She kissed his cheek just above his beard. “It won’t be necessary. Sleep, Arkady-champion.”

  He started to protest, then accepted her order, sinking back on the pillows and sighing, certain he would never be able to rest. And then he felt her hand on his shoulder and her voice saying that it was nearing midnight.

  “Lauris left the inn a little while ago. I heard him talking to Eudoxius.”

  “Is the landlord still up?” Arkady asked, trying to pull himself out of the last hold of his dreams.

  “No. He went to his chamber as soon as Lauris left. I heard the bolt put in place.” She threw back the sheet. “Where are our clothes, the ones that Lauris did not see?”

  “I have them set out,” Arkady said, getting up and rubbing his chest and arms to bring himself completely awake.

  “You will have to dress me,” she reminded him. “I know nothing of these garments.”

  “I don’t know them too well, either,” Arkady said as he lifted the fine-spun wool and studied the thing in the dim, dim light. “I think that is what you put on first. Over the head.” It took him longer than he had anticipated, but he was able to dress her and himself without too much fuss. After a brief inner debate, he pulled on his mail shirt over his robes and buckled on his wide leather belt with the scabbard hanging from it. He tucked the cinquedea into the back of it and slid his long sword into the scabbard. “The helmet’s with our tack.”

  “The stable, then.” She found her way to his side. “We seem to leave inns at peculiar hours.”

  “And in strange company,” Arkady said. “At least this time there are no mice.”

  “There may be Guards if we don’t hurry.”

  Arkady nodded. “Quickly, Surata. You carry two of the bags and I’ll take the other two. The saddles are all packed. All we have to do is put them on the mules and horses. If you can do their bridles, I’ll handle the saddles.”

  “I’ll do them,” she said, holding on to his arm as they descended the stairs.

  They were mounted and about to leave when there was a sound in the innyard. Arkady swore.

  “What is it? Guards?” Surata asked. She was astride a small Russian mare, and she turned awkwardly in the saddle, trying to hear over the sound of saddle squeaks and the hooves of the horses and mules.

  “Probably,” came Arkady’s grim answer. He had put on his helmet, more from habit than any real sense of danger, and now he was glad he had taken the precaution. He gathered all the lead-reins in one hand and drew his sword with the other. The gelding could be guided by the pressure of his knees and would not falter in the face of armed men. Since he knew nothing of the other animals, he had a moment of apprehension, then he clapped his heels to the gelding’s flanks and rushed out of the stable into the innyard, Surata and the mules clattering after him.

  Five Guards were at the door of the inn, all on foot. Two of them had the elaborate helmets that identified them as officers, the other three were heavily armed.

  “Fiends!” Arkady yelled at them as he rode down on them, his sword swinging up.

  The Guards turned as one man. At first they were too amazed to do more than stare; by the time they had recovered enough to draw their weapons, Arkady had already struck one of the officers a glancing blow on his helmet and was pulling his bay onto his hind legs over two of the other men.

  Arkady rammed his bay into one of the men, knocking him over as the gelding thudded his forehooves onto the packed earth. The nearest Guard had drawn his sword and was swinging it back to cut the horse’s legs out from under him. Arkady hit the man across the side of the head with the flat of his sword.

  “Arkady-immai! Hurry! More will be here soon!” Surata shouted to him.

  “Right!” Arkady swung the sword again, this time cutting the nearest officer in the shoulder before forcing the bay to move on. The other animals lurched after him, following the pull on their lead-reins.

  “Go east!” Surata yelled, hanging on to her saddle with both hands. “Otherwise you will find more Guards.”

  “Damn that Lithuanian slaver!” Arkady bellowed as he did what she told him. Arkady set their pace at a trot, knowing that they would go farther at that pace than at a gallop.

  When they had finally slowed to a plodding walk, Arkady shortened the lead-rein of the Russian mare so that he and Surata would be close enough to talk comfortably.

  “They were acting on the suggestion of Lauris. You realize that, Arkady-immai.”

  “He’s a slaver. That’s obvious. But why did they want me?” He could understand Trakiv’s desire to get Surata, but he was perplexed about what the slaver would want with him.

  “You’re a good fighter. That’s of value. You’re foreign, and that means there would be few questions asked. Perhaps it’s because you’re Christian, and Lauris needs to keep in the favor of the city leaders by giving them an occasional Christian slave. Who knows, Arkady-immai.”

  “When we reach Itil, we may be able to learn something,” he said, though he had little hope of it.

  “I don’t know the language there, and neither do you,” she pointed out, smiling a little. The moon was almost down, casting long, faint shadows over the arid land, giving her face a sheen as if she had been dusted with silver. “Arkady-immai, what color is my horse? And my clothes?”

  Arkady hesitated a moment. “Your horse is a brown-gray color, with a dark mane and tail. The French would say it was mouse-colored. It’s darker than dun and the coat never has much shine to it. Your clothes are almost white, except for the veil, which is light blue.”

  “And your clothes, what color are they?” She seemed content to let him talk.

  “My clothes are the same color. My armor is mail and the links are polished. Some of them are steel and some are brass. The brass ones run down the center of the front and back, around the armholes and the lower border, and along the shoulders. My helmet needs polishing. My belt is about the same color as my horse—a brown that is almost black.” In the moonlight, few of these colors could be seen at all: the whole world was white, black and blue-gray.

  “Do you think there really is fighting ahead?” She sounded unconcerned.

  “I don’t know. It’s always possible. If these Islamites are anything like the Turks, they fight for the pleasure and glory of it and care nothing for their own lives.” He paused. “And the Bundhi? What of him?”

  “He has not forgot us,” she said with quiet determination.

  “Do you think…Surata, would he try to lead us into danger?”

  “If he could. He would find it amusing.” She shook her head twice. “His agents are good at deception, and without my eyes to aid me, I cannot always tell…I dread that one of them will find you, and I will not know of it. You would be in danger and helpless. I’ve dreamed of that, Arkady-immai, and in my dreams, I hate myself because of—”

  “Stop it,” Arkady ordered her. “When I’ve led men into battle, Surata, I have never allowed them to say that we might not win. You say that the Bundhi is a formidable foe, and I believe you. But you are a formidable foe as well, or the Bundhi would not be bothered by you, or attempt to stop your return. Remember that when you are tempted to tell me that our chances are slim.”

  For an answer, Surata smiled.

  They continued on through the night, stopping shortly after sunrise for food and water and to re
st their animals. They resumed their trek as soon as Arkady was certain the horses and mules could take it, and kept on through most of the day, halting only at the hours of greatest heat. They made camp shortly before sundown, and Arkady pitched their tent with great ceremony, saddened because Surata could not see it. They retired shortly after their evening meal and slept deeply until dawn.

  The next day went more slowly, for the steady heat taxed the animals more than it drained the strength of their riders. Arkady warned Surata that they would have to rest earlier in order to give the mules a chance to regain their strength. “One of them is breathing too hard. I don’t like it.”

  “Should he have more salt?” Surata asked.

  “If we find a well tonight, yes, but otherwise we might not have enough water to go around.” He was more concerned about their water than he liked for her to know, but she was not deceived.

  “Arkady-immai, there will be wells. And there are still the two casks you loaded on the third mule.” She made a curious gesture. “You may not want to open them so early, but you take no risks by doing it.”

  Arkady did not answer her.

  That night there was a well, and the night after that. Surata helped him refill all the skins they carried and said, “Tomorrow will be dry, and most of the day after. Is the salt holding, or must we purchase more in Itil?”

  “We’ll get more whether we need it or not.” He checked the mules to be sure their feet were all right, and he took great care with the pick around the shoes. He did not want another animal going lame on him.

  In the tent, Arkady and Surata lay back together, lightly embracing, their eyes half-closed. Arkady felt the beginning of desire stir deep within him, and he smiled lazily.