Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Shifrah shivered. “So we’re going north then?”

  “Don’t you want to catch him?” He studied her for a moment. “Or are you afraid Quesada will lock you away in a nunnery after all?”

  “The fencer doesn’t scare me. He was good, but he didn’t beat me. If I hadn’t been outnumbered both times, I would have stuck him like I stuck his ugly friend.” Her voice was low and husky, and a bit congested. “It’s the Mazighs I’m worried about. They fight dirty. Guns. Bombs. They’re crazy.”

  “This is about the eye, isn’t it?” he asked. “You lost it in Marrakesh, but never said how, exactly.”

  She nudged her horse gently over to his, and when they were sitting side by side, she slapped him. “It’s not about my eye. And I am not afraid of anyone. But there are plenty of tracks going south, so I am going south. You can go north and kill whoever you like. I hope you enjoy your cold, empty bed.”

  He shrugged. “As you wish. Track them down, whoever they are. If you find any Mazighs, do be so kind as to bring back their heads for me.”

  She rolled her eye. “Really? Heads? You’re serious about that? I’m an assassin, not a butcher. How am I supposed to cut off a man’s head with one of these?” She whipped out one of her slender stilettos, twirled the blade across her fingers, and slipped it back into her coat.

  “Don’t over-think it and I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Good hunting, my dear.” Without so much as a smile, he turned his mare to the north road and trotted away through the thick snow, quickly plunging into the shadowed lanes between the other large country houses and the rows of small pines that lined the road.

  Shifrah glared at his back for a moment, then turned her own horse to the south and hunched down under her coats, praying that there would be a warm inn with a warm fire and warm food and a warm bed just over the next hill. She knew there wouldn’t be, so she prayed a bit harder.

  Chapter 10

  They got back on the road heading south first thing in the morning. One of the students named Diego led the way, followed by seven other boys and the hidalgo’s cook, maid, and footman. Kenan and the major brought up the rear. It was freezing cold, a light sleet was falling, and the sky was three shades of iron partly veiled by threatening clouds. Over night the snow had piled up to knee height and a thin glaze of ice glistened on it in the early sunlight. Every footstep was painful work, plunging through the ice and dragging through the snow. The freezing wind stung every patch of exposed skin and the day promised to be very long and twice as miserable.

  Syfax grinned. A perfect day.

  Last night’s quick march from the hidalgo’s house to the inn in Parla had been bracing for everyone, and they slept soundly enough. Shortly after leaving Parla the maid left them, veering off to the east toward her mother’s house. The cook and the footman left at midmorning, off to stay with their own families in some town around to the west of Madrid. Soon it was just Syfax, the lieutenant, and the eight pale-faced boys trudging down the highway to Toledo.

  The countryside marched by slowly, one white hill after another, each landscape as bleak and colorless as the last. A stand of pine trees weighed down with fresh snow. A circle of identical stone houses around a well. Wooden fences and stone walls. And the frozen mud ruts of the road itself.

  There were plenty of other people on the road and none seemed at all concerned with the cold or the threatening clouds. Children leading cows. Women leading mules laden with sacks. Men driving wagons behind horses and oxen. They were never completely alone on the road, always within sight of the next traveler or the last one, and every few moments a voice would rise across the snow. Children playing. Mothers shouting at the children. Men shouting at each other. Voices cracked and echoed across the great white plains and hills and iron skies.

  They found Toledo just after noon, but long after the first boy had begun grumbling about his empty belly. Syfax slapped the boy on the back, remembering what it was to be sixteen and forever hungry, forever looking ahead to the next meal, and then greedily eyeing the table for seconds and thirds.

  The best years of my life. Nothing but eating, sleeping, and working myself to death every day.

  The town in front of them looked very much like the one they had left the evening before. The Espani seemed quite expert at dragging gray stones together to create what they called towns, but looked more like small, lumpy hills on the plains. Thatched rooflines formed ridges beneath their blankets of snow, and icicles hung from every eave like an armory of glistening spears. Nothing was clean, nothing was smooth or straight. Toledo was a city of soft curves and broken edges, of rough stone and frozen water. As the men entered the first gully between two tall houses, with muddy slush crunching underfoot and vicious winds whipping down the lanes, Syfax felt the first pang of unease.

  Back home in Marrakesh, in any city, he could stand in the middle of the road and look for a hundred yards in every direction, seeing all the people, seeing the doorways and alleys, the vehicles and animals, the solid walls and fragile windows. In a Mazigh city he knew the terrain, its assets and liabilities, where to hide in a firefight, who to protect first, and which way to run. But here he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards before the street curved aside, or uphill or downhill, and the snow hid everything. Every step and gutter, if these people even have gutters. Every movement sounded exactly the same, like crunching snow. There was no distinguishing a child from a woman from a man, or even from a dog or a horse. And sometimes a block of snow or a wall of ice would simply break free of a roof and tumble into the road of its own accord.

  He couldn’t trust his ears and his eyes were nearly useless, hemmed in by the crooked walls and snow drifts. Syfax began looking back over his shoulder and checking to either side more and more as he trusted his peripheral vision less and less.

  There was no way to know if the Espani were really looking for them yet, but this was their fourth day in the country. If they weren’t hunting the Mazighs yet, they would be soon, or not at all. And he was betting on soon.

  He grabbed Kenan’s arm. “Hey kid, we might want to think about splitting up or spreading out. I don’t like how bunched up we are in these streets. It’s too crowded. No exits. If things go sideways while we’re in town, we’d be screwed before we even saw the first soldier.”

  Kenan gently tugged his arm free and nodded with a slight grimace tightening his face. “Yeah, I guess so, sir. What do you want to do?”

  “Right now, nothing. We’re just getting lunch and moving on. But we might need to shed some of our little convoy sooner rather than later. Ask around. Find out if any of these kids are going all the way to the coast. If they are, we can just take them and try to make better time. If they aren’t, we might want to leave them all behind and go it alone. It’ll be a lot faster.”

  “Faster? How much faster do you want to go?” An unmistakable whine twisted Kenan’s words.

  Syfax glared at the lieutenant. Not this again, not now. There is no way in hell I’m letting you get my ass killed. He grabbed the sulking youth’s coat and shoved him back against an icy wall, ignoring the surprised looks from the people around them. He leaned in close to whisper, “You know, Ziri keeps going on about how smart you are. She seems to think you’re officer material for some reason. So why don’t you shelve the attitude and try using some of those brains. Get this through your head. We are behind enemy lines. Eventually, the guys who shot us out of the sky are going to come looking for us. And we’re not armed. And we’ve got no backup. We’re alone out here Kenan. It’s just you and me and a very long road. And you know what’s at stake if we don’t get home and tell the brass about that warship. You may not have any family in Tingis, but that ship will work its way down to Port Chellah eventually and set your precious momma on fire, I promise. So get your head in the game and do your damned job.” He let go of Kenan’s coat and stomped away after the eight young fencers, leaving the lieutenant to make whatever faces and mutter whatever curses he needed
to get out of his system.

  By the time Diego brought them to an inn where they could eat, Syfax was completely lost. Toledo was all curving roads and cramped market squares, and everything looked the same. The gray clouds continued to obscure the sun, making it impossible to even guess which way was south. Still, Diego’s inn was a bright warm place filled with quiet, middle-aged men who seemed more interested in napping in their chairs than paying any attention to the small crowd filing in through the door. And that gave the major a little hope that they would be safe here, for a while.

  There was little enough fare to choose from. Salted pork or salted beef, cabbage, and bread all clumsily arranged into a pile that the innkeeper called a sandwich. It wasn’t good, in fact just chewing the thing was as laborious as walking through the knee-deep snow, but it was filling and the crackling fires in the two hearths at each end of the room were all the comfort Syfax needed. Sitting on a wooden chair that had probably been serving the inn for several decades, he scanned the doors and windows, and then the people quietly eating or snoring at the other tables. No drinking, no laughing, no yelling. His first instinct was to call it a dead place for old people, but as he sat massaging the cramp in his leg and the knot in his shoulder, he began to rethink what he meant by “old.” Quite a few of the hairs on his knuckles weren’t dark anymore.

  The soft stillness of the room and the heat of the fires were as comforting as his own bed, and Syfax leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again when he heard the door squeak, and he saw two men in matching blue coats stamping their feet on the mat. The long barrels of their rifles swayed against the backs of their shoulders.

  Aw, crap.

  In the stillness of the inn, there was no way to move without drawing attention to himself. Still, Syfax tried to shift and casually slump over his empty plate as though about to join the other patrons in a siesta, trying to hide his face. Kenan followed suit. They were both three shades darker than any other men in the room, and for the first time in his life Syfax wished that wasn’t the case.

  The two soldiers shuffled inside and sat at a table just a few feet away. They hung their rifles by the straps over the backs of their chairs and waved to the serving girl. Syfax decided to wait until the pair in blue started eating before he tried to walk out. They weren’t paying any attention to the Mazighs now and he doubted they would bother looking up from their food.

  The girl had just given them their sandwiches when Syfax signaled to his companions that it was time to quietly stampede out the door. They were about to stand up when one of the soldiers turned around and said, “Diego? Diego Gonzalez? From Gadir?”

  The young diestro named Diego blinked wide at Syfax and then turned to talk to the soldier. “Uh, yes, and you are?”

  The soldier introduced himself as a Jorge something or other, apparently from the same town and possibly a distant cousin. The faster they talked, the less the major understood as his public school Espani quickly proved inadequate to the animated and informal conversation. Still, Diego seemed to be keeping Jorge’s attention and the food was keeping his companion’s attention, so Syfax decided to risk standing up and walking out. He made a small show of tapping the arms of the students on either side of himself, and then they stood up together and started for the door, leaving the other half of the young men at the table. Syfax half-hoped they would figure it out and come along and half-hoped he could just ditch them here and now.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  Syfax froze except for his right hand, which began slowly sliding up toward the knife on his belt. He looked at the soldier who had spoken, the quiet one who had been focused on his lunch. Not-Jorge. Syfax shrugged. “Who, me?”

  “Yeah.” Not-Jorge wiped his mouth and stood up. “Have you come from Marrakesh recently? You and your friend?” He nodded at Kenan.

  “Nah, we’ve been down in Cordoba for about two years now. That’s my brother’s kid,” Syfax said, jerking his thumb at Kenan. “He’s been helping me out at work lately.”

  “I see. And what is it that you do?” The soldier took a few steps closer to them, a few steps farther from his rifle.

  “Cabinetry.” Syfax turned slightly to tower directly over the man in uniform. “I make cabinets. And other cabinet-type things. Like shelves.”

  “Shelves.” Not-Jorge nodded and turned back to his table, but then paused. “Who is the governor of Cordoba now? Is it still Don Marco? I heard he was in poor health.”

  Syfax clenched his jaw, pausing ever so slightly in the hope that Kenan might actually know the right answer and pipe up, but the kid was silent and he couldn’t risk pausing more than a second. “Yeah, it’s still Don Marco.”

  Jorge looked over with a frown. Not-Jorge sniffed and said, “No, it’s not. The only Marco around here is me.”

  Syfax grinned. “Well, I had a fifty-fifty chance.”

  For a moment, nothing happened. The young diestros, both seated and standing, remained frozen with only their eyes darting about, each of them no doubt wondering whether their obligation was to their military or to their companions. In the absence of Don Lorenzo, Syfax knew better than to rely on them.

  Everyone moved at once.

  Both of the soldiers snatched up their rifles and swung them to bear on the two Mazigh men. The diestros at the table leapt to their feet, hands flying to sword hilts, but not a single blade was drawn as the young men stumbled back from the drawn firearms. Out of the corner of his eye, Syfax saw Kenan grab the nearby diestros and shove them back toward the bar. Score one for the kid, the major thought as he drew his knife and lurched toward the soldiers.

  He caught the barrel of Marco’s rifle, yanked the smaller man forward off balance, and knocked his gun to the floor. Syfax spun Marco around, pinned the man’s arms in a crushing bear hug, and brought his knife up under the soldier’s chin where Jorge would be sure to see it.

  Marco stiffened as the blade pressed harder and harder against his neck and Syfax hunched his larger frame behind his hostage. He locked eyes with Jorge. “Drop it. Drop the gun.”

  Jorge did not flinch. He held his rifle tight into his shoulder, sighting along the barrel at Syfax’s head, which was mostly obscured by his hostage’s sweating face. The major made a small show of resetting his feet and retightening his grip on the knife. He bore down on Marco’s arms to make the young man gasp and shudder a bit, and then pulled back on the knife. Marco’s jaw shook and he rasped out, “For God’s sake, drop the rifle.”

  Jorge didn’t move. “Diego, who is this man?”

  Diego, huddled back with his friends against the far wall, stammered out, “I don’t really know them. We don’t know them. They’re friends of Don Lorenzo. Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir. The diestro. You’ve heard of him. You know him, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” Jorge said. “But what are these two doing here? Why’d he lie about Cordoba? What’s going on here, Diego?”

  “Look, look, I swear, they just showed up at the Don’s house yesterday. I don’t know what it was all about. We were all getting ready to leave for our winter holiday, we were packing and getting ready. Then we all ate lunch together, and everyone left, and these two men came south with us.” Diego’s hand went up to his hair. The boy was shaking. “Please, that’s all I know. Please don’t shoot. They’re just friends of the Don. I swear. Please don’t shoot them.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Diego!” Jorge shouted without sending even a slight shudder though the weapon held tight against his body. “He has a knife to Marco’s throat. He lied about who he is. And not an hour ago we got orders to be on the lookout for Mazigh spies. So you tell me who he is or I kill him right now. Right now!”

  Holy hell, why couldn’t Kenan be more like this guy? The major locked eyes with the young soldier, not daring to blink. He’s steady as a rock and cold as ice. I sure could have used him back when I was running down serial killers in Arafez.

  “Leave the kid alone,” Syfax said.
“He doesn’t know anything. And we’re not spies. We just came to visit the Don. We’re old buddies, me and him. But it turned out to be a bad time, so now we’re heading home. Maybe we’ll get together later this summer.”

  “Then why lie about it?” Jorge asked.

  “The Don told me to. He said you people were getting antsy about foreigners,” Syfax said. “And it looks like he was right.”

  “Jorge, for God’s sake, let them go,” Marco whispered. “Put your rifle down. Please.”

  The major frowned. “Don’t worry, soldier. If he was going to shoot me he would have, and if I was going to slit your throat, you’d have drowned in your own blood a minute or two ago.” Syfax eased the knife away from the young man’s neck. “Now, Jorge, you’re going to put that gun down, and I’m going to walk out that door, and no one is going to get shot or stabbed. Deal?”

  For the first time that the major had seen, Jorge blinked. The soldier nodded, ever so slightly. And then he began lowering his rifle. Syfax took his blade away from Marco’s neck but kept it high and visible. When the rifle was low enough for his taste, Syfax said, “Kenan, out the door now. Make sure these fellas don’t have any buddies out there.”

  The lieutenant slipped to the door and poked his head out into the street. “Looks clear.”

  Syfax kept one hand firmly on Marco’s collar to hold him in place. He sheathed his knife and for a moment considered grabbing the other rifle on the floor behind him.

  No. That would probably be a bad idea, eventually.

  He shuffled sideways toward the door, still holding Marco between himself and Jorge. And when he reached the door, he shoved the soldier toward his friend and bolted backward into the street. He stumbled into Kenan, who was still hovering by the doorway, but he grabbed the young pilot and steered him into the bustle of porters, horses, and carts threading up and down the narrow streets of Toledo.