LITMIR.BIZ

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know that. Do you remember?”

      “I do, of course, but—”

      “Do you?” She turned to Alvar. She was angry now. Mutely, he shook his head.

      “She said the Kindath were animals, to be hunted down and burned from the face of the earth.”

      Alvar could think of nothing to say.

      “Jehane,” the Captain said, “I can only repeat, that was three hundred years ago. She is long dead and gone.”

      “Not gone! You dare say that? Where is she?” She glared at Alvar, as if he were to blame for this, somehow. “Where is Queen Vasca’s resting place?”

      Alvar swallowed. “On the Isle,” he whispered. “Vasca’s Isle.”

      “Which is a shrine! A place of pilgrimage, where Jaddites from all three of your kingdoms and countries beyond the mountains come, on their knees, to beg miracles from the spirit of the woman who said that thing. I will make a wager that half this so-clever company have family members who have made that journey to plead for blessed Vasca’s intercession.”

      Alvar kept his mouth firmly shut. So, too, this time, did the Captain.

      “And you would tell me,” Jehane of the Kindath went on bitterly, “that so long as I do my tasks well enough it will not matter what faith I profess in Esperañan lands?”

      For a long time Ser Rodrigo did not answer. Alvar became aware that the merchant, ibn Musa, had come up to join them. He was standing on the other side of the fire listening. All through the camp Alvar could now hear the sounds and see the movements of men preparing themselves for sleep. It was very late.

      At length, the Captain murmured, “We live in a fallen and imperfect world, Jehane bet Ishak. I am a man who kills much of the time, for his livelihood. I will not presume to give you answers. I have a question, though. What, think you, will happen to the Kindath in Al-Rassan if the Muwardis come?”

      “The Muwardis are here. They were in Fezana today. In this camp tonight.”

      “Mercenaries, Jehane. Perhaps five thousand of them in the whole peninsula.”

      Her turn to be silent. The silk merchant came nearer. Alvar saw her glance up at him and then back at the Captain.

      “What are you saying?” she asked.

      Rodrigo crouched down now beside Alvar and plucked some blades of grass before answering.

      “You spoke very bluntly a little while ago about our coming south to take Fezana one day. What do you think Almalik of Cartada and the other kings would do if they saw us coming down through the tagra lands and besieging Asharite cities?”

      Again, the doctor said nothing. Her brow was knitted in thought.

      “It would be the wadjis, first,” said Husari ibn Musa softly. “They would begin it. Not the kings.”

      Rodrigo nodded agreement. “I imagine that is so.”

      “What would they begin?” Alvar asked.

      “The process of summoning the tribes from the Majriti,” said the Captain. He looked gravely at Jehane. “What happens to the Kindath if the city-kings of Al-Rassan are mastered? If Yazir and Ghalib come north across the straits with twenty thousand men? Will the desert warriors fight us and then go quietly home?”

      For a long time she didn’t answer, sitting motionless in thought, and the men around the fire kept silent, waiting for her. Behind her, to the west, Alvar saw the white moon low in the sky, as if resting above the long sweep of the plain. It was a strange moment for him; looking back, after, he would say that he grew older during the course of that long night by Fezana, that the doors and windows of an uncomplicated life were opened and the shadowed complexity of things was first made known to him. Not the answers, of course, just the difficulty of the questions.

      “These are the options, then?” Jehane the physician asked, breaking the stillness. “The Veiled Ones or the Horsemen of Jad? This is what the world holds in store?”

      “We will not see the glory of the Khalifate again,” Husari ibn Musa said softly, a shadow against the sky. “The days of Rahman the Golden and his sons or even ibn Zair amid the fountains of the Al-Fontina are gone.”

      Alvar de Pellino could not have said why this saddened him so much. He had spent his childhood playing games of imagined conquest among the evil Asharites, dreaming of the sack of Silvenes, dreading the swords and short bows of Al-Rassan. Rashid ibn Zair, last of the great khalifs, had put the Esperañan provinces of Valledo and Ruenda to fire and sword in campaign after campaign when Alvar’s father was a boy and then a soldier. But here under the moons and the late night stars the sad, sweet voice of the silk merchant seemed to conjure forth resonances of unimaginable loss.

      “Could Almalik in Cartada be strong enough?” The doctor was looking at the merchant, and even Alvar, who knew nothing of the background to this, could see how hard this particular question was for her.

      Ibn Musa shook his head. “He will not be allowed to be.” He gestured to the chests of gold and the mules that had brought them into the camp. “Even with his mercenaries, which he can scarcely afford, he cannot avoid the payment of the parias. He is no lion, in truth. Only the strongest of the petty-kings. And he already needs the Muwardis to keep him that way.”

      “So what you intend to do, what I hope to do … are simply things that will hasten the end of Al-Rassan?”

      Husari ibn Musa crouched down beside them. He smiled gently. “Ashar taught that the deeds of men are as footprints in the desert. You know that.”

      She tried, but failed, to return the smile. “And the Kindath say that nothing under the circling moons is fated to last. That we who call ourselves the Wanderers are the symbol of the life of all mankind.” She turned then, after a moment, to the Captain. “And you?” she asked.

      And softly Rodrigo Belmonte said, “Even the sun goes down, my lady.” And then, “Will you not come with us?”

      With a queer, unexpected sadness, Alvar watched her slowly shake her head. He saw that some strands of her brown hair had come free of the covering stole. He wanted to push them back, as gently as he could.

      “I cannot truly tell you why,” she said, “but it feels important that I go east. I would see King Badir’s court, and speak with Mazur ben Avren, and walk under the arches of the palace of Ragosa. Before those arches fall like those of Silvenes.”

      “And that is why you left Fezana?” Ser Rodrigo asked.

      She shook her head again. “If so, I didn’t know it. I am here because of an oath I swore to myself, and to no one else, when I learned what Almalik had done today.” Her expression changed. “And I will make a wager with my old friend Husari—that I will deal with Almalik of Cartada before he does.”

      “If someone doesn’t do it before either of us,” ibn Musa said soberly.

      “Who?” Ser Rodrigo asked. A soldier’s question, pulling them back from a mood shaped of sorrow and starlight. But the merchant only shook his head and made no reply.

      “I must sleep,” the doctor said then, “if only to let Velaz do so.” She gestured and Alvar saw her old servant standing wearily a discreet distance away, where the firelight died in darkness.

      All around them the camp had grown quiet as soldiers settled in for the night. The doctor looked at Rodrigo. “You said you are sending men to attend to the dead of Orvilla in the morning. I will ride with them, to do what I can for the living, then Velaz and I will be on our way.”

      Alvar saw Velaz gesture to Jehane, and then noticed where the servant had made up a pallet for her. She walked over towards it. Alvar, after a moment, sketched an awkward bow she did not see, and went the other way, to where he usually slept near Martín and Ludus, the outriders. They were wrapped in their blankets, asleep.

      He

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