Before bad went to worse we heard someone approach at a trot.
The rider was wrapped in a cloak of white linen. He rode no horse at all, but a white mule, very tall and fine-boned. He let the hood of the cloak slip back from his shining hair and gestured to the beasts he led behind him.
“I suspect you value these creatures,” said Dowln. “And I suspect strongly that they would meet with no respect in the emperor’s stables: especially on the eve of war.”
I looked into the unimpressive face of my yellow horse, which stood six inches shorter at the withers than the one I now rode. Arlin’s dull-black mare put her ears back to all of us in general, and a few of the cavalrymen giggled.
“I am late because they did not want to come with me,” said Dowln. The white mule put its ears back at the Naiish horse, and the effect of that was more spectacular.”
As though the laughter of the cavalrymen had broken a spell, our companions no longer felt obliged to keep silent. They began to joke with one another, and if we were the butt of the jokes, at least we were not at swords’ end. We broke into a good trot and then a canter as we progressed along the main avenue to the west, and it seemed it was the responsibility of the pedestrians to get out of the way of our hooves. When we passed under the gallows sign for the inn King of the Dead, it was not I but Dowln of Velonya who stared and whitened and lost all impulse of motion. The horses behind slammed into the croup of his mule, which squealed and kicked.
The little horses were no longer rough; they had been clipped closely of their new winter coat, with only their leggings and the part of the back that is covered by a saddle to remind me how bearlike they had been. Still they sweated and blew to keep up with the long-legged racing beasts of Rezhmia.
“Those would travel better inside your saddlebags,” said the lieutenant to me in great good humor. I did not understand the idiom.
“He is saying,” said Dowln, whose mule had no difficulty with the speed of our travel, “that your ponies are only worth slaughtering and salting away.” The tall eunuch shot a worried, protective glance at me. “It would be a common opinion, here. That’s why I stole them.”
Arlin is the horse lover, but my own anger at this suggestion surprised me. I held tightly to Daffodil’s lead rope and it occurred to me that half the old brute’s problem was that he had to run with his head tilted unnaturally high into the air. On impulse I drew my dowhee and sliced through the rope. My short, inelegant yellow horse—built so much like me—tucked his head and ran much better.
“You don’t know this horse,” I said to the lieutenant, “… what he has done and where he has been with me.”
The lieutenant laughed. “No, I only know where he should go.”
I had expected some outburst from Arlin, but maybe she agreed with the Rezhmian. Maybe she had never liked these rough creatures with their short legs, their beards, and their strong opinions.
I felt a certain despondency as we careered through town, scattering local merchants and local dogs. First there was Arlin’s affection for the angelic Dowln, whereas before she had liked no one on earth besides you and me, Powl. I am not even sure about you. Now there was this lack of concern for the honor of the ponies that had carried us through earthquake and war.
Though Arlin had said nothing, she had watched me cut the horse’s rope, and smiled to see the beast heeling free like a dog. She did the same, and when I next glanced to my left, Arlin was standing in the saddle and her fancy horse was rolling its eyes and emitting stiff little bucks.
“Observe, fellow,” she called out—to the lieutenant, I presume. Her mount began to shoulder in as the tension on the reins was removed, and it shook its fine head and bucked again. I pressed my own horse against it, so that it was locked between the black pony and me. I saw Arlin start to count, bouncing on her toes, but we were approaching a turn in the road, and after that we were scrambling around a dung cart, so Arlin sank down and grabbed the pommel until the way was clear again.
“One, two, three, sweetly girl, sweetly,” she called, and with the word “sweetly” she was in the air and then balancing on her toes upon the black mare’s broad hips. She patted her in front of the withers and slipped forward. Next she untied the mare’s headstall and handed it over the back of the empty saddle to me. While all this happened, the Naiish mare kept her ill-tempered ears pinned and her lower lip pouted, but it was strictly a statement of opinion on the horse’s part: no excitement, no panic at all.
Arlin got a cheer from the cavalrymen, but her tall horse, so suddenly left without a rider, reared and balked and struck my own horse with one shod forehoof. The free horse backed through the lot of us, with the booms of huge horse lungs being slammed and the curses of riders feeling their legs pinched. It escaped backward and plunged into the market, where it scattered dried fish and oranges. One of the riders swung back to retrieve the horse.
Arlin was ahead of us, slipping the saddleless black mare between the frightened passersby.
“It is a good Naiish horse,” I said to the lieutenant. “It follows the rider’s weight and small signals from the legs.” I tried to sound mild and uninvolved while I was surging with an unholy fire of victory. Petty, petty victory.
Arlin had her arms crossed. She spun the horse around and brought her toward us, dancing flying lead-changes over the cobblestones.
“I think,” said Arlin to the lieutenant, “that they are of slightly more use carrying the saddlebags than being carried in them.” As the trooper returned leading the other horse, which pranced and pulled and rolled foolish eyes, Arlin added demurely, “Oh, have you brought me back the extra one? That was kind of you; I was wrong to let it get away.”
I could not see the officer’s face, but I had no fears he would order us slain for Arlin’s stunt, and I did not care what the man himself thought of us. However, I turned in the saddle and saw Dowln, his face half-shrouded in the linen hood, and in his beautiful eyes was awe and adoration.
This fellow was in love with my lady, I realized, and she… she was at least attached to him. I felt my face go cold and white.
No woman had ever loved me but Arlin. I had performed the act with a few others, and they had seemed to enjoy my company, but not one had ever claimed to love me.
And Arlin had never loved anyone else.
She took a place in the first row of the company, between the humiliated lieutenant and Dowln. I let my horse’s natural desire to follow push me back among the troopers, who were laughing and making gibes among themselves, happy as any stupid men at the start of a war.
The yellow horse beside me lifted his head and rested his heavy jowl upon my knee as we trotted out of the City. A few times he sighed.
Now that war was declared, it seemed the orderly militarization of Rezhmia fell apart. The soldiers in the streets were not going anywhere and the civilians shouted louder than ever. The city air was full of the smells of roasting meat and hot metal; I could hear the smiths hammering from all sides like the pulse in my abused head. I lagged, and only occasionally did I see Arlin at the head of the troops, her gray eyes shining as she shared her barbed wit with Dowln or the lieutenant.
Things seemed so very bad: war, natural devastation, poison, abandonment… I gave up on my own abilities and let my Rezhmian horse carry me on; it at least had spirit. When our escort stopped and turned before me, I was mildly surprised to find we had run out of city and were once again in the paradise of mountains, sea, and grapevines. There were as many men toiling in the harvest as had been before war was declared, and they sweated and strained in exactly the same fashion. The same people were selling the same new wine out of the same great jugs we had bought from on the way to the City, and the same flies buzzed in the fruity smell.
“Go whichever way you please,” said the lieutenant to me. “Cross-country or along the road. The road is much shorter, but I’d recommend the less traveled roads. Wearing the royal color does not make you an aristocrat or even a Rezhmia
n. Not in the people’s eyes.”
Hearing this rudeness from the fellow who had been assigned to guard our safety only deepened my despondency. If there was such contempt in an educated man of the emperor’s guard, then war had been inevitable. I wondered if he knew that my lady and I had each saved the ’naur’s life. I wondered if that knowledge would have improved matters.
Evidently he had not bothered to speak to Arlin at all, for she had pushed her horse (she was on the tall one, again) through the crowd and between the man and myself. “Dressing in a uniform and sitting a saddle,” she said in a parody of the lieutenant’s tone, “does not make one a patriot. Or a fighter. Or even a human being.”
He had his sword half out of its scabbard, and even his inferiors knew that act was unwise. After a few seconds with his gaze locked into Arlin’s, he chose again and kicked his horse back toward the City. His company, without command, scrabbled after him, but two or three of the cavalrymen sneaked a salute, passing us. Others grinned in a friendly manner. I decided then that they knew about the ’naur.
“The lieutenant was Reingish’s man,” said Dowln as his mule trotted energetically to keep up.
“Then what did the ’naur mean sending him to guard us?” I asked. “Does one give the fox the job of feeding the chickens?”
He gave me a tight smile. “He was Reingish’s man because he is ambitious and practical. He could be trusted not to murder us now for the same reason. And because his men are ambitious and practical, too.”
Arlin circled back around the road, unsatisfied with my progress. “Is the yellow horse slowing you down, Nazhuret? I’d like to get to more broken country before we camp.”
Dowln said, “I think you expect too much, my friend. It is surprising the man can ride at all, after what was done to him. Generally a man drugged with access root dies within the day.”
Arlin laughed at him. “Not Zhurrie. Besides, sick or well, Nazhuret can be traveling when I fall down with exhaustion, and all others gave up the day before.” Having said as much, she frisked her horse forward along the good road, and my own elegant animal whinnied and followed. The yellow horse sighed a few more times.
Dowln stayed back with me, evidently worried about my health. His fine face, so like Arlin’s, looked out from the linen hood and he waited for me to say something.
I did not. That was my small act of spite. I ignored the eunuch jeweler who was so worried I might be sick. Also, I said to myself, “I have two things you don’t, fellow. Rich, tall, and handsome as you are, I have two things…”
I almost said it aloud, I am ashamed to admit, but I knew my Arlin too well to be confident of my superiority, for although she has all the warmth of a woman, she has also a very original taste, and appreciates what the rest of the world scorns. She appreciated me, after all. Perhaps Dowln had something of more value. Or two things of more value. I didn’t know.
After a few minutes, Dowln let his mule catch up to her horse, and I was left alone to brood. It occurred to me that it had not yet been twenty-four hours since the priest had slipped me the drug. Perhaps I would still die.
That thought cheered me a little bit.
As it happened, I felt better by evening, though my eyes had developed a difficulty in focusing, which made the suburbs of Rezhmia City into a soft green blur. I had to wonder whether this effect had been with me all the hours since my poisoning, and I had been too miserable to notice. If so, that meant I had fought the assault on the emperor at a great disadvantage. Now I did not care that I could not see Arlin and Dowln trotting before me on her black beast and his white. They were much of a height, those two, but she sat taller because her horse outreached his mule. Their backs, also, looked much alike. Velonyan. Not like me.
My own horse stumbled over something, and that something stumbled out from among his hooves, shining white in the fading daylight. I stretched up my eyelids and wished for a good lens, but then my vision—although not my head-cleared enough for me to see that pale gray face, round as the stained gray moon and grinning at me. It was a dog I saw—a long, furry dog, or else a wolf, for I had never known which the beast was—and I had met it originally the night I killed a man for the first time. It did not belong here, on the sweet sea coast of Rezhmia, amid a buzzing of bees where the peoples’ hands were stained only with fresh wine. It had too much hair for the climate, if nothing else.
I straightened, not wanting to look anymore, but the question of the dog would not leave me, so I thought I would ask the soldiers riding behind if they had seen it. Then it occurred to me that the soldiers had spun around and frolicked off a number of hours ago. I had to wonder who was making all that noise of hooves behind me, so I turned.
There were three of them, dressed in coats that I thought were like the undyed linen of Dowln’s cloak. Their horses were dim. I opened my mouth and engaged my voice box to speak, but there was something too odd about the middle man. It needed all my will to make my eyes center on the widening red stripe down his middle and at last I saw it was a huge rift in his middle, out of which his inner organs spilled out: the white, sausagy intestines, only slightly broken, the somber, slick surface of the liver, and the improbable green gallbladder. His skin was dry and gray, exactly the color of my dog’s pelt. He looked like an old pomegranate that someone had opened on the chance it was still good. In my horror I turned from him to ask his neighbor what the man meant by riding out in this condition, but that fellow had no attention to spare for me; his hands could not handle the reins properly because he had no hand and no blood in him either. Still, he offered me no insult. He didn’t look at me at all, nor did the one broken open, and so, instead of looking at the third rider, I simply fell off my horse.
I was in a camp off the road, with a nice little fire and a tent over me that I had not known we possessed. Arlin had my head in her hands and was forcing a cup between my lips. It contained the miserable substance Dowln had given me in the morning, but since it was Arlin giving it, I drank the stuff without objection. “Did you see any of them?” I asked her. “Or the dog—the wolf. You saw the wolf in Grobebh?”
Her large gray eyes did a subtle dance, following her thoughts. “Yes, Zhurrie. I know about the wo—your dog. I didn’t see him. I didn’t see any of them. I never do.”
The taste of the draught was terrible. I turned my head away, in case my stomach might reject it with her so close. I heard Dowln kneel beside us, and he asked, “What did he see, out there?”
Arlin’s voice was reserved. “Nazhuret is… followed by ghosts, sometimes.”
Dowln gave an intent sort of sigh. Like that of a scientist in the midst of observation. “Yes, of course. He is the king of ghosts, isn’t he?”
When he said that, they were all before my eyes again, and I thought I would certainly vomit against the wall of the tent. My body was so stiff it felt like wood, but Arlin put her cheek against mine and her arm over me.
“Oh, go fuck yourself. If you can,” said my beautiful lady to Dowln with such vibrating anger in my behalf that all my unhappiness was carried away. I squirmed around, and she wiped dirt and tears from my face with her dirty velvet sleeve. “I don’t know myself, Arlin,” I said to her, “why these things come to me. Dead men and wolves. Death itself. And my parents, whom I did not remember, with a baby that pissed on my shirt. Remember that stain? It was real, wasn’t it? Or was it?
“I don’t know anymore what I am. These damned signs and portents. Or am I just crazy? It would be a relief to know I was crazy, my love. You could tell me what to do and I would follow behind and do it. I look so much like a born servant. It would be a relief.”
She pushed the hair from my face and whispered, “I’m sorry, Zhurrie, but you can’t have that. Freedom took you first.” She was crying. “You are the servant of your own freedom, and I can’t save you. But I can tell you,” and she turned my face around to meet her gaze, “… that you are Nazhuret, who ran away from Sordaling military school and missed his gradua
tion, who has kin on both sides of the border, and who grinds lenses for his living. A very poor living, too.” She kissed me and added, “And you are my great, high passion and unlawful lover.”
The draught must have been working now, for I felt myself sinking into honey: bright, glowing honey. “Then I can endure anything,” I said. I think I said, “If you still love me.”
Her pale face hung over me softly as an owl’s flight. “Love you, Zhurrie? But it is you who are angry at me, as I remember.”
I could not deny this; I was too confused. “Why am I angry?” I asked, for information’s sake.
Her face withdrew slightly. I could see she was thinking. “Because I raised my sword against you—or Reingish impersonating you—in defense of the Rezhmian emperor.”
This was very difficult, for a man in my condition. The honey made it easier, though. “But you knew all the time it was Reingish. The eyes…”
“I couldn’t see the color of the eyes at that distance,” she said. “And he had gotten everything else fairly well. He moved differently, but I had… reason to believe you were not yourself. I didn’t know, Zhurrie. I didn’t know if it was you.”
Now I understood, or understood at least as much as the honey allowed. “So, you would have killed me to defend the Sanaur of Rezhmia?”
I heard Arlin laugh, and felt the warm air in my ear. “I went to kill, all right, Zhurrie. But I knew that, if it were you, I would not succeed.”
The Lens of the World Trilogy Page 49