The Lions of Al-Rassan

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  “You know the man,” Rodrigo said.

  “I do,” ibn Khairan agreed. “Not as well as I once thought, but well enough.”

  “What will he do next?” Jehane asked suddenly.

  Ammar ibn Khairan looked at her. His expression was very sober now. He had laid down the cup of chocolate. “I believe,” he said, “he will attempt to win me back.”

  There was a brief stillness.

  “Will he succeed?” Rodrigo was as blunt as ever.

  Ammar shrugged. “I’m a mercenary now, remember? Just as you are. What would your answer be? If King Ramiro summoned you tomorrow, would you abandon your contract here and go home?”

  Another silence. “I don’t know,” said Rodrigo Belmonte at length. “Though my wife would stab me if she heard me say that.”

  “Then I suppose I am in a better circumstance than you, because if I give the same answer, no woman is likely to kill me.” Ibn Khairan smiled.

  “Don’t,” said Jehane, “be quite so sure.”

  They all looked at her uncertainly, until she smiled.

  “Thank you, by the way,” she said, to all of them.

  Twelve

  Towards the end of winter, when the first wildflowers were appearing in the meadows, but while snow still lay thick in the higher plateaus and the mountain passes, the three kings of Esperaña gathered near Carcasia in Valledo to hunt elk and boar in the oak woods where the smells were of rebirth and the burgeoning of spring could be felt along the blood.

  Though even the best of the ancient straight roads were little more than muddy impediments to travel, their queens were with them and substantial retinues from their courts, for hunting—pleasurable as it might be—was merely a pretext for this meeting.

  It had been Geraud de Chervalles, the formidable cleric from Ferrieres who, together with colleagues wintering at Eschalou and Orvedo, had prevailed upon three men who hated and feared each other to come together early in the year to hold afternoon converse after chases in field and wood.

  A greater hunt was near to hand, the clerics had declared in the court of each king; one that redounded both to the glory of Jad and the vastly increased wealth and fame and power of each of the three lands that had been carved from what was left of Esperaña.

  The glory of Jad was, of course, an entirely good thing. Everyone agreed on that. Wealth and power, and certainly fame, were prospects worth a journey. Whether these things were also worth the associated company remained, as yet, to be seen.

  Two days had passed since the Ruendans, last to arrive, had joined the others within Carcasia’s walls. No untoward incidents had yet transpired—little of note either, though King Bermudo of Jaloña had proven himself still the equal of his nephews on horseback and with a boar spear. Of the queens, the accolades had gone to red-haired Ines of Valledo, daughter of the hunting-mad king of Ferrieres, clearly the best rider of the women there—and better than most of the courtiers.

  For a man known to be clever and ambitious, her husband appeared preoccupied and inattentive much of the time, even during the afternoon and evening discussions of policy and war. He left it to his constable to raise questions and objections.

  For his part, Bermudo of Jaloña hunted with fury in the mornings and spoke during the meetings of vengeance against the cities of Ragosa and Fibaz, which had defaulted on his first-ever parias claim. He accepted condolences on the death of a favored courtier, the young Count Nino di Carrera, ambushed by outlaws in a valley in Al-Rassan. No one was quite clear how a party of one hundred trained and well-mounted Horsemen could have been slaughtered by a mere outlaw band, but no one was unkind or impolitic enough to raise that question directly. Queen Fruela, still a handsome woman, was seen to grow misty-eyed at the mention of the slain young gallant.

  King Sanchez of Ruenda drank steadily from a flask at his saddle horn, or a brimming cup at the afternoon meetings or the banquet hall. The wine had little evident effect on him, but neither did he hunt with notable success. His arrows of a morning were surprisingly erratic, though his horsemanship remained impeccable. Say what you liked about the hot-headed king of Ruenda, but he could ride.

  The three High Clerics from Ferrieres, schooled in dealing with royalty, and beginning to comprehend—if belatedly—the depths of distrust they had to contend with here, carried the discussion for the kings.

  The two brothers never even looked at each other, and they regarded their uncle with evident contempt. All, however, appeared to have taken due note of the implications of the army now assembled in Batiara, ready to sail with the first fair winds. They wouldn’t be here had they not given thought to that.

  There was a movement abroad in the world, and the men in this room were privileged to be reigning at such a time, Geraud of Ferrieres declaimed ringingly on the first afternoon. The carrion dogs of Ashar in Al-Rassan, he said, were ready to be swept back across the straits. The whole peninsula was there to be retaken. If only they would act together the great kings of Valledo and Ruenda and Jaloña might ride their stallions into the southern sea by summer’s end, in the glorious name of Jad.

  “How would you divide it?” King Bermudo asked bluntly. Ramiro of Valledo laughed aloud at that, his first sign of animation all day. Sanchez drank and scowled.

  Geraud of Ferrieres, who had been ready for this question, and had spent time with maps over the winter, made a suggestion. None of the kings bothered to reply. They all rose instead, without apology—moving in unison for the first time—and walked quickly from the room. Sanchez carried his flask with him. The clerics, left behind, looked at each other.

  On the third day they flew falcons and hawks at small birds and rabbits in the wet grass for the delight of the ladies of each court. Queen Ines carried a small eagle, caught and trained in the mountains near Jaloña, and loosed it to triumphant effect.

  Younger than Fruela, undeniably more accomplished than Bearte of Ruenda, the queen of Valledo, her red hair bound up in a golden net, her eyes flashing and her color high in the cool air, rode between her husband and the High Cleric from her homeland and was very much the focus of all men’s eyes that day.

  Which made it the more disturbing, afterwards, that no one was able to identify with certainty the source of the arrow that struck her shortly after the dogs had flushed a boar at the edge of the forest. It seemed obvious, however, that the arrow was either a terrible accident, having been intended for the boar beyond her—or that it had been aimed at one of the two men beside her. There was, it was generally agreed, no evident reason for anyone to desire the death of the queen of Valledo.

  It did not appear at first to be a deadly wound, for she was struck only on the arm, but—despite the standard treatment of a thick mud-coating, followed by bleedings, both congruent and transverse—Ines of Valledo, clutching a sun disk, took a marked turn for the worse, feverish and in great pain, before the sun went down that day.

  It was at this point that the chancellor of Valledo was seen entering the royal quarters of the castle, striding past the grim-faced guards, escorting a lean man of loutish appearance.

  She had never been injured in such a fashion in her life. She had no idea how it was supposed to feel.

  It felt as if she were dying. Her arm had swollen to twice its normal size—she could see that, even through the coating of mud. When they bled her—working through a screen for decency—that, too, had hurt, almost unbearably. There had been a quarrel between the two physicians from Esteren and her own longtime doctor from Ferrieres. Her own had won: they had given her nothing for pain. Peire d’Alorre was of the view that soporifics dulled the body’s ability to fight injury caused by sharp edges. He had lectured on the subject in all the universities.

  Her head was on fire. Even the slightest movement of her arm was intolerable. She was dimly conscious that Ramiro had hardly left her side; that he was holding her good hand, gripping it steadily, and had been doing so since she had been brought here, withdrawing only when the doctors compe
lled him to, for the bleeding. The odd thing was, she could see him holding her hand, but she couldn’t really feel his touch.

  She was dying. That seemed clear to her, if not yet to them. She had caused a sun disk to be brought for her. She was trying to pray, but it was difficult.

  In a haze of pain she understood that someone new had entered the room. Count Gonzalez, and another man. Another doctor. His features—a long, ugly face—swam into view, very close. He apologized to her and the king, and then laid a hand directly upon her forehead. He took her good hand from Ramiro and pinched the back of it. He asked her if she felt that. Ines shook her head. The new doctor scowled.

  Peire d’Alorre, behind him, said something cutting. He was prone to sardonic remarks, especially about the Esperañans. A habit he had never shaken in all his years here.

  The new man, whose hands were gentle, if his face was not, said, “Do we have the arrow that was removed? Has anyone thought to examine it?” His voice rasped like a saw.

  Ines was aware of a silence. Her vision was not good, just then, but she saw the three court physicians exchange glances.

  “It is over here,” said Gonzalez de Rada. He approached the bed, swimming into view, holding the arrow gingerly near the feathers. The doctor took it. He brought the head up to his face and sniffed. He grimaced. He had an awful face, actually, and a large boil on his neck. He came back to the queen and, again apologizing, he shifted the covers at the bottom of the bed and took one of her feet.

  “Do you feel my touch?” he asked. Again, she shook her head.

  He looked angry. “Forgive me, my lord king, if I am blunt. It may be I have spent too long in the tagra lands for courtly company. But these three men have come near to killing the queen. It may be too late, and I will have to lay hands and, I fear, more than hands upon her, but I will try if you allow me.”

  “There is poison?” she heard Ramiro ask.

  “Yes, my lord king.”

  “What can you do?”

  “With your permission, my lord, I must clean this . . . disgusting coating from her arm to prevent more of the substance from entering the wound. Then I will have to administer a compound I will prepare. It will be . . . difficult for the queen, my lord. Extremely unpleasant. It is a substance that may make her very ill as it combats the poison in her. We must hope it does so. I know of no other course. Do you wish me to proceed? Do you wish to remain here?”

  Ramiro did, both things. Peire d’Alorre ventured an acerbic, unwise objection. He was unceremoniously ushered by Gonzalez de Rada to a far corner of the room, along with the other two doctors. Ramiro, following part of the way, said something to them that Ines could not hear. They were extremely quiet after that.

  The king came back and sat once more beside the bed holding her good hand in both of his. She still couldn’t feel his touch. The new doctor’s coarse features appeared close to hers again. He explained what he was about to do, and apologized beforehand. When he spoke softly, his voice was not actually unpleasant. His breath was sweetly scented with some herb.

  What followed was worse than childbirth had been. She did scream, as he carefully but thoroughly cleaned the mud from her wounded arm. At some point the god mercifully granted her oblivion.

  They revived her, though. They had to. She was made to drink something. What ensued was even worse. The queen, racked with spasms in the belly and sweating with fever, found that she could not even bear the muted light of the candles in the room. All sounds hurt her head amazingly. She lost track of time, where she was, who was there. She heard her own voice at one point, speaking wildly, begging for release. She couldn’t even pray, or hold properly to her disk.

  When she swam back towards awareness, the doctor insisted that she drink more of the same substance, and she sank back into fever and the pain.

  It went on for an unimaginably long time.

  Eventually it ended. She had no idea when. She seemed to be still alive, however. She lay on the sweat-soaked pillows of the bed. The doctor gently cooled her face and forehead with damp towels, murmuring encouragement. He asked for clean linens; these were brought and, while the men turned away, Ines’s ladies-in-waiting changed her garments and the bedding. When they had finished the doctor came back and very gently anointed and then bandaged Ines’s arm. His movements were steady and precise. The king watched intently.

  When the doctor from the forts was done, he ordered the room cleared of all but one of the queen’s ladies. He spoke now with the authority of a man who had assumed command of a situation. More diffidently, he then asked permission to speak in private with the king. Ines watched them withdraw to an adjacent room. She closed her eyes and slept.

  “Will she live?” King Ramiro was blunt. He spoke as soon as the door was closed behind them.

  The doctor was equally direct. “I will not know until later tonight, my lord king.” He pushed a hand through his untidy, straw-colored hair. “The poison ought to have been countered immediately.”

  “Why did you suspect it?”

  “The degree of swelling, my lord, and the absence of any feeling in her feet and hands. A simple arrow wound ought not to have caused such responses. I have seen enough of those, Jad knows. And then I smelled it on the arrow.”

  “How did you know to do what you did?”

  There was a hesitation, for the first time. “My lord, since being assigned the great honor of serving in the tagra forts, I have used the . . . proximity to Al-Rassan to obtain the writings from some of their physicians. I have made a course of study, my lord.”

  “The Asharite doctors know more than we?”

  “About most things, my lord. And . . . the Kindath know even more, in many matters. In this instance, I was schooled by certain writings of a Kindath physician, a man of Fezana, my lord.”

  “You can read the Kindath script?”

  “I have taught myself, my lord.”

  “And this text told you how to identify and deal with this poison? What to administer?”

  “And how to make it. Yes, my lord.” Another hesitation. “There is one thing more, my lord king. The reason I wished to speak with you alone. About the . . . source of this evil thing.”

  “Tell me.”

  The doctor from the tagra forts did so. He was asked an extremely precise question and answered it. He then received his king’s permission to return to the queen. Ramiro of Valledo remained alone in that adjoining room for some time, however, dealing with a rising fury and coming, quite swiftly after long indecision, to a clear resolution.

  In such a fashion, very often, had the course and destiny of nations both lesser and greater than Valledo been shaped and devised.

  The doctor gave Ines his compound one more time. He explained that the body expelled it more swiftly than the poison it fought. Painful as it was, the substance was the only thing that might save her. The queen nodded her understanding, and drank.

  Again she swam towards oblivion, but it wasn’t quite so bad this time. She always knew where she was.

  In the middle of the night her fever broke. The king was dozing in an armchair by the bed, the lady-in-waiting on a pallet by the fire. The doctor, unsleeping, was attending upon her. When she opened her eyes his harsh features seemed beautiful to her. He reached for her good hand and pinched it.

  “Yes,” the queen said. The doctor smiled.

  When King Ramiro woke it was to see his wife gazing at him by the light of several candles. Her eyes were clear. They looked at each other for a long time.

  “I had a sun disk, at one point,” she said finally, a pale whisper, “but what I also remember, when I remember anything, is you beside me.”

  Ramiro moved to kneel beside the bed. He looked a question across it at the physician, whose fatigue was now evident.

  “I believe we have passed through this,” the man said. The long, unfortunate face was creased by a smile.

  Ramiro said, huskily, “Your career is made, doctor. I do not even know yo
ur name, but your life is made by this. I was not ready to let her go.” He looked back at his queen, his wife, and repeated softly, “I was not ready.”

  Then the king of Valledo wept. His queen lifted her good hand, hesitated a moment, and then lowered it to stroke his hair.

  Earlier that same night, as King Ramiro lingered by the bedside of his queen, harsh words had been exchanged at dinner by the men of the Valledan court with those who served King Sanchez of Ruenda. Accusations, savage and explicit, were leveled. Swords were drawn in the castle hall.

  Seventeen men died in the fighting there. Only the courageous intervention of the three clerics from Ferrieres, striding unarmed and bare-headed into the midst of a bloody melee, their sun disks held high, prevented worse.

  It was remembered, afterwards, that the party from Jaloña had dined by themselves that evening, conspicuously absent from the scene of the affray, as if anticipating something. Wholesale slaughter among the courtiers of the other two kings could only be of benefit to King Bermudo, it was agreed sourly. Some of the Valledans offered darker thoughts, but there was nothing to substantiate these.

  In the morning Bermudo of Jaloña and his queen sent a herald to King Ramiro with a formal leavetaking and their prayers for the survival of the queen—word was, she had not yet passed to the god. Then they rode towards the rising sun with all their company.

  The king and queen and surviving courtiers of Ruenda had already left—in the middle of the night, after the fighting in the hall. Stealing guiltily away like horse thieves, some of Ramiro’s courtiers said, though the more pragmatic noted that they had been on Valledan ground here and in real peril of their lives. It was also pointed out, by some of the most level-headed, that hunting accidents were a fact of life, and that Queen Ines was far from the first to be wounded in this fashion.