by Kate Elliott
“It won’t be enough,” he whispered, not meaning to be heard.
“Do not underestimate our power,” said Marcus. “You are not a man of faith, Zacharias. You doubt too much.”
The still waters, all that separated them from the oncoming galley, roiled and churned. The drum faltered once, but the steady beat resumed faster than before as the oars dipped and lifted in unison. The waters boiled up in clouds of steam. An angel rose from the sea as glorious as the dawn and towering as tall as their mast. Her hair streamed like sunlight around her uncovered head; her expression was grim and implacable. With each slow beat, her wings of flame shed sparks which spat and snapped as they plummeted into the salt water. She held a bow composed of shimmering blue fire, an arrow nocked and ready to fly.
The drum stuttered and stopped. From across the water, in counterpoint to Elene’s song, shrieks and shouts of fear cut through the air as oars skipped across the waves. The galley slowed.
A snake slid roughly across Zacharias’ hand. He shrieked in his turn, fell backward from knees to rump, but it was only rope uncoiling like a basket of snakes unleashed. A touch of wind brushed his cheek, a coy kiss, and the murmur of its passing whispered in his ear.
Wind filled the sail.
They left the Jinna pirates behind as the wings of the vast angel disintegrated into a shower of hot sparks that fell onto the deck of the coasting galley. Zacharias pulled himself up and crossed to the rail, watching as the Jinna oarsmen shifted their stroke and struggled to row backward out of that burning rain. A white scrap, like a butterfly, fluttered out of Meriam’s hands and zigzagged across the water, growing so small that he should not have been able to see it as the gap between them opened—yet a hard shine kept it visible as it wove its erratic course.
The galley fell farther behind. The steamy mist risen with the angel spread to conceal it, but Zacharias saw a last wink as Meriam’s butterfly vanished into a fog. Elene laughed out loud to end her song, and for an instant Zacharias thought she meant to leap into the sea to swim after that bright vision, now lost.
Marcus still knelt by the rope, a look of intense concentration on his face as wind boomed in the canvas. Wolfhere paced restlessly forward as the sailors adjusted ropes and sail, and laughed and joked, relieved at their escape but not relaxed. The sea lay calm behind them while an unnatural wind sped them forward.
“Well done, Brother Marcus,” said Meriam. “The arts of the tempestari are difficult to master.”
“We must control the weather if we hope to succeed in the weaving.”
“Wolfhere, I pray you,” whispered Zacharias.
The old Eagle came to stand beside him. Spray off the water misted their faces and caught in his gray beard. “It looked like Liath,” the old man muttered, his tone and expression distraught as his fingers opened and closed on the wood railing.
“Was it a real angel, or an illusion?” Zacharias asked, but Wolfhere would not answer.
The wind brought them across the wide waters of the Middle Sea and for five days they sailed along the southern coast with desert to larboard and the pale green waters to their right. Marcus slept most of that time, made weary by his labors, and Sister Meriam also kept to her bed, tended by her servants and her granddaughter. The only time Zacharias saw either of them awake they consulted with each other under the shade offered by the awning rigged up in the stern. What caused them such anxiety Zacharias could not know, but he watched from a distance as Marcus scrawled marks and signs on well-worn parchment, often scraping his notations off with a knife and marking again until the skin became translucent. If Zacharias tried to approach, Meriam’s burly manservant chased him away.
“I have no time for lessons.” That was Marcus’ only comment, delivered with a curtness that stung.
Nor would Wolfhere keep him company. His life was as barren as the land they sailed alongside. The desert shore rose and fell in curves, sand and pale hills with no sign of life, not even grass or scrub. Not even a man. During the day the sun’s light made the sand and rock glint so brightly it was painful to look. Only the sea breeze made the heat tolerable. There was nothing to do but wait. Zacharias had grown accustomed to biding his time.
The wind at their back held until they came to the port of Qahirah. They sailed past a promontory where ruined columns rose along the backs of low hills and came into a bay ringed with flowering trees and gardens. The city of domed temples and whitewashed buildings shone under the autumn sun. “It’s a paradise,” he said.
Marcus, standing beside him, frowned. “A lure, that’s all. A temptation of the Enemy. It stinks with infidels.”
“You don’t think it’s beautiful? After the desert?”
“The desert is pure. It pretends to be nothing but what it is: a desolation. This fine garb conceals the rot beneath all.”
Yet the rot smelled so sweet, a potpourri of lavender, hyssop, jessamine, mint, and rosemary. Any Wendish city of such remarkable size would have stunk like an open sewer, but as the sailors slipped their oars and threw ropes to the waiting dockside laborers, who hauled them in against the pilings, Zacharias saw nothing but clean-swept streets beneath walls covered with the white flowers of the jessamine vine or gleaming as if they had been scrubbed and rinsed that morning.
Qahirah was a lovely city, well kept and hospitable.
A trio of customs officers boarded, and several hours went by as each barrel, bag, and box must be opened for their inspection. Zacharias followed them as a scribe made a comprehensive list in the curling script used by the Jinna. At length they tallied up the impost, the tax levied by the ruler of Qahirah on all goods brought into the port. Coin and a few of those good iron knives traded hands, and the passengers were allowed to disembark under the escort of a youth who promised to guide them to the only hospice in town where foreigners were allowed.
It took the length of the walk from the ship to the hospice, placed at the outskirts of the city, for the ground to stop rolling under his feet. It also took that long for him to stop gawking. Because he had grown up in the countryside and spent years as a slave among the Quman, he had seen few cities and certainly no settlement that resembled Qahirah. Smaller than the city of Arethousa but grander in scale than Sordaia, Qahirah had an unearthly feel. No refuse stained the streets; old men patrolled with brooms and shovels. Women with scarves draped over their heads and falling down over their shoulders and men in modest robes that concealed the shape of their bodies went about their business in a tidy, efficient manner. The market they passed seemed crowded and lively, but there weren’t any stray dogs scouting for garbage and, indeed, there was no garbage, not even peelings beneath the fruit stalls.
These unexpected sights hit like the slap of cold water, steadying his legs, and he could walk with a sure step by the time the guide indicated a closed double-doorway—trimmed with bronze—set into a wall that bordered the outer city wall. Both were constructed of whitewashed bricks. The Jinna youth waited for Marcus to gift him with a coin before making an elaborate bow and hurrying off.
Wolfhere rapped on the door. After a wait, it creaked open, they were examined by an old man of indeterminate years, and at length allowed to enter.
“But it’s lovely,” said Zacharias as they came into a courtyard washed white with a profusion of flowering jessamine and tangles of pale purple-white dog roses. A fountain—all playful spouts and finger’s-length waterfalls—rested in the center of the courtyard, ringed by benches. A few robed travelers sat on those benches, all staring as the party entered the hospice grounds.
The guest rooms surrounded this courtyard on three sides; along the fourth side stood an open-walled kitchen beside a built-up floor with carpets, pillows, and low tables. By the noise of squawking chickens and irritated geese, the complaints of goats and the whicker of a horse, Zacharias guessed that the stable lay next door, past an elegant archway. Even a prince would deign to bide in such a luxurious abode.
Marcus examined the courtyard with
disdain as he waited for Meriam’s servants to carry their baggage in from the street. “I don’t like the smell.”
It smelled of jessamine blossoms—and a fainter scent that Zacharias did not recognize.
“Is this a hospice for the wealthy?” asked Zacharias of Wolfhere.
The Eagle shook his head. “This is a simple traveler’s rest like many others I slept in when I traveled in these lands years ago.”
“You traveled through Jinna lands? Why was that?”
Wolfhere glanced at him, then away. “I was looking for something.”
“Did you find it?”
“In the end I did.” His success, remembered now, held no apparent triumph. He strayed to the fountain and let water trickle over his fingers before wiping sweat from his forehead and the back of his neck. Zacharias followed him, made nervous by the stares of the other travelers, whose faces were concealed behind hoods and veils that left them free to scrutinize others without being examined in turn. He felt exposed. They might guess everything about him, staring so, and yet he could never recognize them even were they to meet him unveiled in a public market.
Better, really, not to allow men to conceal themselves so.
He splashed water on his face, glad of the cool touch on his hot face.
Wolfhere sniffed, casting back his head. “It’s said that you can smell thyme in any place where a murder has been committed. Can you smell it?”
“I don’t know what it smells like. That strong scent—that’s the jessamine, isn’t it?”
“And the other—can you smell it? That is thyme.”
Zacharias glanced around. Meriam haggled with the hospice master while Marcus looked on contemptuously and her servants waited patiently with the baggage. Elene had pulled a scarf on over her dark hair, clutching the ends of the scarf in each hand just under her sharp chin. She stood in shadow with a fierce frown on her handsome face and anger in the stiffness of her shoulders.
The frater dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you think a murder was committed here?”
“I know one was. Long ago. I saw the body.”
“You’ve been in this place before?”
“I have.”
The hospice master was a middle-aged man with a lean face and skin twice as dark as Meriam’s. He glanced their way, did a double take, and bowed hastily to Meriam before hurrying over to confront Wolfhere. He genuflected before grasping the Eagle’s hand and patting it with evident joy.
“Friend! Friend!” he said in accented Wendish. “Friend!”
Perhaps it was the only word in that language he knew. He returned to Meriam.
“What is he saying?” Zacharias asked as he watched the innkeeper gesticulate enthusiastically.
“I don’t know. I know only a few words in the local speech.” But his narrowed eyes and intent expression, as he scrutinized the exchange between the innkeeper and Sister Meriam, suggested otherwise.
“Allowed to stay one night for nothing, no payment at all, and he will lend us a guide to escort us to Kartiako. All as recompense for a service you did him ten years ago. What might that have been?”
“Nothing that matters to you, Marcus, or to our purpose in coming here.”
The servingmen had settled their baggage in the spacious room to which the men of the party were escorted—the women resided in a separate wing—and now, as the sun set and lamps were lit, Marcus, Wolfhere, and Zacharias seated themselves on pillows while youths from the hospice brought around a basin of water in which they washed their hands before eating.
“Are there no chairs or benches?” Zacharias whispered. “Do we not eat at a table like civilized people?”
“This is the custom of the country,” said Wolfhere.
“Where are Sister Meriam and Lady Elene?”
“They will dine separately.”
“Is it also the custom of the country to separate men and women as though men, like beasts, must be kept apart?” Marcus’ lips curled in a sneer.
“No doubt the Jinna find Wendish customs as strange as we find theirs.”
Marcus snorted, but since trays laden with food arrived, he let the conversation lapse. He proved to be a fussy eater, scorning most of the dishes because of their spicy flavor, but Zacharias had suffered hunger too many times to let food go to waste. That one dish contained chicken he recognized, although the heat of the sauce burned his tongue, but he had a name for none of the other foods arranged before him. Still, he ate as much as he could stuff into his stomach and suffered for it later when he bedded down with the servants on hard pallets on the floor.
He tossed and turned, throat burning, and stifled his burps. His belly churned. In time he had to get up to relieve himself. He felt his way to the curtained door and slipped outside. The moon’s light gilded the courtyard in silver, and he padded as silently as he could along the pathway that led under the archway into the stable yard, where the hospice’s necessarium stood. Some kindly soul had left an oil lamp burning inside.
After he finished his business, he found he was not particularly tired. He crept back to the shadowed archway and paused there to look up at the stars. The air had a clarity here that caused the stars to look brighter than in the north, and the spherical curve of the rising quarter moon showed in stark contrast to the night sky.
Someone—nay, two people—stood by the fountain, speaking in low voices. He slipped from shadow to shadow until he crept close enough to hear.
“How can this be? You no longer trust him?”
“Sister Anne no longer trusts him. I found him in the company of Prince Sanglant. I tell you, he did not seem overeager to leave the prince and his retinue, yet he claims to have no knowledge of the prince’s plans. He says he was kept an outsider to the prince’s council.”
“It might be so. Prince Sanglant would have no reason to trust him. King Henry certainly did not.”
“Yet he did not aid me as he might have in securing the prince’s daughter as a hostage. I wonder, too, about these old journeys he took many years ago, and his service to the Wendish king Arnulf. There is too much of Brother Lupus that remains hidden. He conceals himself just as these Jinna do. Concealment is the sign of a guilty conscience.”
“Perhaps. He was always the most loyal to Anne. Is he no longer?”
“Difficult to know. I believe he is still loyal to Anne. They were raised together, he to be her faithful servingman. How can he cast aside what he was raised for?”
“Then what troubles you?”
“I wonder now if he remains loyal to the Seven Sleepers. Does he still follow our cause? I do not know what is in his mind and heart any longer. We cannot trust him. That is why I cannot let him travel with you and Elene into the south. What if he betrays you?”
“I don’t think he will. We need another experienced traveler, a strong hand, a keen eye. The desert is a hard place. We might come to grief in a hundred ways. I am an old woman, Marcus. My granddaughter is strong, but she is young and inexperienced. My servants are loyal and have great stamina, and we can hire a goodly retinue here in Qahirah. Still, I wish Brother Lupus to accompany us as well.”
“No. My plan is best. You will travel by means of the crown, if we can use it, and thus you will not have to endure a long journey across this desolate land. If a gateway opens to the southeast, then you will pass through. If not, it means the southeastern crown is lost. Let us pray that is not so.”
“Let me take Brother Lupus. We need him. My granddaughter likes him. It will make my task easier.”
“No.”
“You give me no good reason, only your own doubts.”
“Very well, then. Sister Anne commanded me explicitly to send him back to her. If it is her will, and after she has interrogated him, then she will send him after you. If not—so be it.”
“She no longer trusts him?”
“Her will is my will. I do not contest her in this, or in anything. Nor should you.”
“Well.” Sister Meria
m’s pause was as eloquent as her words. “We must rely on such servants as we can hire here in Qahirah. I hope they are trustworthy. I hope the desert is not rife with bandits and monsters and storms.”
Marcus chuckled. “You are not helpless, Meriam. Neither is Elene. You have taught her well.”
Meriam’s tone was as dry as Zacharias had ever heard it. “So we must hope.”
Beyond the fountain, along the opposite wall, Zacharias saw a slight movement, as much as a hunting beast might make when it eases behind bushes while stalking a bird. Marcus and Meriam, themselves scarcely more than shadows, took their leave and slipped away to their own rooms, but Zacharias remained, knowing it wise to linger until he was sure it was safe to move. Among the Quman, he had learned to remain still and silent for hours at a time, hoping to escape Bulkezu’s wrath.
Yet in all that time he waited there, he saw no sign of that slip of a shadow. Who else had been listening? A breeze stirred the vines and he caught a hint of their perfume under-laid with that other, dustier scent. It was ungodly silent. He did not even hear dogs barking.
At length his legs grew tired because he was no longer accustomed to standing so still. Keeping to the shadows, he slunk back to the room. The curtain brushed his face as he slipped past, but his bare feet made no sound and no voice rose to challenge him as he lay down to sleep.
In the morning Wolfhere was missing, his pallet empty and his pack removed from the pile of baggage.
“Gone!” Marcus slammed a fist against the wall, then cursed at the pain. But his temper calmed as quickly as it had flared.
“So be it,” he said to Meriam as they made ready to leave for the ruins of Kartiako. “He has revealed himself through his actions.”
She said nothing.
Elene wept.
2
HE smelled the choking scent of smoldering fires long before his feet told him that they had left the loamy forest path for a grimier track through ash and dust. Charred and splintered debris crackled underfoot. Its acrid chaff coated his lips. In the distance he heard the sound of men cutting wood, echoes upon echoes of the throbbing in his head.
