“Wait,” Hayat said, and unwound a veil to reveal a row of gold bangles that spanned her arm from wrist to elbow.
For the first time since they had fled Talikan, when all her attention was focused on flight, Johanna noticed that beneath the veils they had wound about their persons that Alma and Hayat both were nearly dripping with gold and gems, around their arms, their necks, in their hair, tied to their waists in more veils. Alma produced a pair of opal earrings in an elaborate gold setting and handed them to Firas along with Hayat’s bangles.
She looked up and smiled at Johanna’s expression. “A woman’s jewels are her own, Nazirah, even in the harem.”
“So you needn’t have hidden yours in your hems,” Hayat said with a trace of her old mischievousness. At Johanna’s expression, she said, “Oh yes, we knew. We all knew, Nazirah, the moment you would not allow the servants to wash your clothes. There are no secrets in the harem.”
None in a caravan, either, Johanna thought.
All three women began to laugh, a little tremulously, and Firas collected the jewelry and vacated the area at once, before the laughter became hysteria. He was a perspicacious man. The moment he was gone, Alma’s laughter changed to sobs. At Alma’s first sob Hayat burst into tears herself. Johanna, more out of fear that she might join in than because the display of grief and relief made her uncomfortable, left them to hike up the rise that hid the little creek they had stopped beside.
Balkh sat near the open, west-facing end of a river valley between two arms of the Hindu Kush. They’d ridden hard and long over the northern arm, stopping to rest only infrequently, and Johanna thought that it was a good thing that Hayat and Alma had been tied to their mounts because the rough mountain trails were so narrow and so steep there would have been nothing to recover but the body if one of them had fallen off. Fear had carried them from Talikan to here, but both women were now paying for the hard ride, neither of them able to do much more than hobble once out of the saddle. Physical pain was probably one of the reasons they were both crying now.
She lowered her eyes from the mountains to the valley beneath, where a long, blue line indicated a river paralleling the course of the valley. On their side of the river, against the green of the valley she could see a small village or town. Opposite it, in the hollows of the hills behind, lay the ruined city of Balkh, whose proud history could be intuited from the amount of rubble left behind. Here and there small, habitable buildings that had obviously been built from materials harvested from the ruins showed signs of life in hanging clothing and wisps of smoke. She could just make out the tiny figure of Firas’ mount picking his way between a tumble of white stone blocks that had once been part of a wall, and fragments of what might have been a gatehouse. He passed within, unchallenged.
She raised her eyes again and looked at the mountains they had crossed. It had been a nightmarish journey, as they had not dared to stop for anything but a snatched meal or a quick watering of the horses. They had slept by day and traveled by night, at considerable risk to both themselves and the horses. Ogodei and Gokudo could not have missed their escape, and they would have both have known North Wind on sight, even at a distance, and known that only she could be riding him. Would they follow? She could not guess, but neither could she take chances with her life and the lives of Firas, Hayat, and Alma.
A scream from the hollow below spun her around. She leapt down the loose scree of the knoll and slid into camp in a scatter of loose gravel, barely managing to stay upright. There she found Hayat and Alma clinging to each other as they watched two young men, ragged and dirty, close in on their three mounts, which were cropping peacefully at a patch of grass next to the little stream.
The two men whirled at Joanna’s dramatic entrance, and then relaxed. “Only another woman,” one said, grinning. He affected a bow toward her and said, “Pretty lady, we mean you no harm. We only have need of your horses.” The expression on the second man’s face said otherwise as he appraised first her, and then Hayat, and then Alma.
“This great white stallion,” the first man said. “Surely he would prefer to be ridden by a man?”
“I’m sure he would,” Johanna said, her amiable reply hiding the fact that her heart was pounding in her ears. She waved a negligent hand. “Go ahead. Take him.”
The first man laughed, excited, and tugged at the sleeve of his friend, turning his attention from the negligible women to the much more important horses. He caught at North Wind’s bridle.
What followed wasn’t pretty but it was certainly efficient. When it was over Alma helped Johanna bury the bodies and Hayat helped her to clean a still indignant North Wind’s legs and hooves. Alma would always be more comfortable with dead men than live horses.
When Firas returned at sunset they didn’t mention the incident, mostly because they were too tired to move camp. Firas had done well in the city, having acquired a complete outfit of clothes for both women, including sturdy leather boots that could be made to fit if they wrapped their feet in veils, and more importantly a bundle of naan, half a lamb, a sack of pomegranates, and dried meat, dried fruit and shelled nuts in enough quantity to sustain them on the Road for several days, or until they reached the next community with food for sale, no questions asked. He rigged a spit and they ate every scrap of the lamb without thinking twice about the bodies beneath the rocks not so very far away.
Johanna was secretly amazed at Alma and Hayat’s acceptance of the presence of dead bodies so near their persons. By neither word nor deed did either woman betray any regret at their chosen path. They retired into a clump of trees to change into their new clothes, and proved adept at cobbling them to fit when the pants proved too long and the tunics too baggy. They needed help with their cheches, and the sight of Firas by firelight soberly winding material and tying intricate knots around both women’s heads, and then instructing them in how he had done so, would stay with Johanna for many a day.
Firas had bought saddle bags and bedrolls as well, along with two small, belted daggers and one small sword, also belted, which he handed to Johanna. “Am I right to believe that you can be trusted not to cut yourself open with this?”
She smiled and accepted it. “You are. Although I am better with a bow. And better still at soft boxing.”
He nodded. He had observed her and Jaufre practicing every morning. “Still, taking on two men alone is one thing.”
She looked up from the blade, surprised.
“I can read sign, young miss,” he said, casting an expressive look around the campsite. “The bodies are buried around that corner of rock, yes?”
“Uh, yes,” Johanna said. They had moved away from the fire and were speaking in low tones. Hayat and Alma had taken two of the bedrolls and retired to a rocky alcove out of the light of the fire.
“Good,” he said. “It will keep the carrion birds away, which will keep them in turn from drawing attention to anyone who might come looking for them.”
She shook her head. “They didn’t look as if they were members of a tribe or village. Outcasts, perhaps, or—” she sighed “—perhaps more of the dispossessed from Ogodei’s incursion into the west.”
“There will be more,” Firas said.
“Yes,” she said grimly. “Hundreds more. If not thousands.” She braced herself. “Tell me about Jaufre.”
He answered immediately, as if he’d known the question was coming. “His wound was not as bad as it looked, but despite Shu Shao’s best efforts it became infected. We took shelter in a village which came down with typhus while he was still recovering.”
“He got typhus?” she said faintly.
“Yes, but he got over it,” he said, “although he then contracted a case of what Shu Shao believed was ague.” He told her the rest.
She could feel the fine trembling of her limbs and stilled it with an effort. “Why Kabul?”
He sighed. “I had traveled there before, I speak the dialect and I have friends among the tribes, so I was fairly certa
in of safe passage. Kabul is a large city where we would be able to find a doctor who didn’t rely on astrology and camel urine to heal his patients. And…” He paused. “And Ogodei did not appear to me like a man who would stop at Terak. If he didn’t, if he really is bent on conquest, he will come to Kabul regardless, but the mountains and the Afghans will slow him down, perhaps long enough for Jaufre to recover enough to stay on a camel. It was not the easiest route for someone in your foster-brother’s condition, true, but I deemed it to be the safest.”
“And did Shasha find a doctor?”
“Yes,” he said. “I believe a good one. Your Jaufre was still alive when I left them, young miss.” He let her absorb his news for a few moments, until he judged it time to direct her attention back to their present circumstances. “In the town today—”
Her head came up like North Wind on the scent of an enemy. “Yes?”
“There is another town across the river, where many of the residents of Balkh resettled when their city was destroyed, and where their descendants live today.”
Johanna nodded. “I saw it from the top of the rise.”
“There is some visiting and trading back and forth between the two communities, naturally—”
Johanna wondered what the old Balkh had that could possibly interest the new.
“—and I heard talk in the marketplace of a troop of men, arriving today across the river.”
She stared at him, and spoke through dry lips. “It can’t be. Not so soon. Not at the pace we have been maintaining. And we would have seen them coming!”
He raised his hand in a calming gesture, glancing in the direction of the other two women to see if they had heard. “Quietly, I beg you, young miss. We would not, in fact, have seen them coming. We traveled by night, if you recall, North Wind by day being a beacon bright enough to set the entire world aflame and have all of it running after us.”
She thought he almost smiled. It steadied her, and she lowered her voice. “Did they say in the market who they were, this troop?”
“No,” he said. He hesitated, and her heart sank. “But they said that one of them wears black armor and carries a spear curved at the head.”
“Gokudo,” she said, her voice the barest whisper. At first she could feel nothing but shock, but when she looked for it, she could see the tiny flickers of building anger gathering around the edges of that shock.
“There was no cover for us when we escaped, and we know at least six of the guards saw us the instant we escaped Talikan.” He hesitated again, and said gently, “It is in my mind that Ogodei would have been very pleased with the quick destruction of Talikan, and that afterward he would have been willing to grant his captain any wish he desired.”
“Including coming after me,” she said.
“Even that,” he said, nodding.
She stood where she was, staring into the darkness. “We should separate, Firas,” she said.
“No,” he said.
“Firas—
“No,” he said more firmly. “I gave Shu Shao my word I would bring you back safely. I will not return to her without you.”
“You can’t do that if you are killed,” she said tartly, “which you very may well be if you stay in my company.”
“Even so,” he said.
She took in a deep breath and let it out, thinking. “If that dog-fucking, frog-humping, son of a whore and a monkey is so determined to pursue us…”
He didn’t so much as blink at her language. “Yes?”
She smiled, little more than a baring of teeth. “Then perhaps we should lead him where we want him to go.”
“Yes?” he said again.
“It may be that I have a notion of how to rid ourselves of Gokudo once and for all. It would require going back into the mountains.” She looked at the dark shadow where Hayat and Alma had hidden themselves. “Should we ride on tonight?”
He followed her gaze. “I don’t think they can.”
She agreed with him, and a rest for herself and North Wind and the other horses was necessary, too. Still, “They would if we told them they had to.”
“They would. They have heart.”
She was aware that this was high praise from Firas. “Tomorrow, then?”
He shook his head. “We still don’t dare travel by day.”
“Tomorrow night, then?”
“Tomorrow night,” he said, and waited.
“I know how tired you must be,” she said.
“How tired must I be to refuse to do what you are about to ask me?”
She looked up, startled, and his white teeth flashed in his black beard in the first full grin she had seen on his face. “Can you?” she said. “Cross the river and find out if it really is Gokudo, and exactly how many men he has with him?”
“I can,” he said, “and I will. You will stand watch against my return?”
She nodded. “If we are not to travel until tomorrow night, we can sleep through the day.” She looked again in the direction of the two women. “They need it.”
He regarded her for a moment. “I ask again. What are you going to do with them?”
Her mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “And I answer again, that is up to them.”
“Will you bring them all the way to Gaza?”
She shrugged. “If that’s where they want to go.”
“What kind of life will they have, two women on their own?”
“Well,” she said, “they are more resourceful and have more stamina than I thought they would. And they certainly aren’t penniless.”
He didn’t point out what Johanna already knew, that the two of them could travel much faster on their own. He didn’t believe in wasting his breath. Instead, he melted into the night, and Johanna went to sit beside the small fire, pulling the blade Firas had given her from its sheath. It was rusty with disuse, and she found a whetstone and oil and a rag in Firas’ pack and went work.
“Nazirah?”
She looked up to find Alma standing before her. “My true name is Johanna,” she said. “It would please me to be called that.”
“Jo-han-na,” Alma said. “Johanna. A difficult name to pronounce.”
“Then it suits its owner,” Hayat said, coming into the reach of the firelight. “My true name is Miriam, which my family gave me before they sold me into slavery. I will remain Hayat.”
“Mine,” Alma said, “was always Alma.”
The two women ranged themselves on the other side of the fire from Johanna. Both had taken the opportunity of running water to wash and tidy themselves, and neither one of them appeared weighted down by the scene at the campsite that afternoon. If anything, the cautious and hesitant manner that was the norm in the harem, where for one’s continued safety and good health every word was presumed to have been overheard by those who did not wish you well, had disappeared. They spoke now in voices not loud but not hushed, either, and with the certainty that only the person they were talking to was listening. In spite of herself, in spite of her fears for Jaufre and her longing to see him and Shasha again, Johanna felt a corresponding lift in her own spirits. Those stifling months locked away from the world had worn on her more than she had known. Here, she was free, to speak, to ride, to travel to destinations of her own choice.
To fight.
“We heard you and Firas talking,” Hayat said.
Of course they had. “Do not concern yourselves,” Johanna said, returning to her blade. “This is something personal, to do only with me, and Firas.”
“Of course we will concern ourselves,” Alma said sharply. “This man—Gokudo?—he wishes to kill you?”
“Afterward,” Johanna said. She hesitated, and then told them of Gokudo and the girl at the gate.
A pregnant silence.
“I see,” Alma said at last, and exchanged a look with Hayat.
“We would be dead now if not for you, Jo-han-na,” Hayat said. “After what I imagine would have been a very long and painful time. We owe you
our lives.”
Alma looked up at a sky covered with stars. They lit her face with reflected glory. “And our freedom.” She looked back at Johanna. “How can we help?”
8
East of Balkh, north of Kabul, somewhere in the Hindu Kush, summer, 1323
A FULL MONTH SINCE TALIKAN, most of it spent traversing rough, precarious mountain trails, made all the more dangerous by traversing them at night, and Alma and Hayat were sitting much more securely in their saddles. Their skin was chapped and their hands were calloused and they were both much thinner and they’d probably never smelled quite so badly in either of their lives, but Johanna was more impressed every day by their strength and resilience. Neither of them had wavered in their determination to win their mutual savior free of her pursuer, and Firas and Johanna had yet to hear a complaint from either of them over hard beds or short rations.
They had camped the previous morning beneath a rocky outcropping that sheltered them somewhat from the day’s rain. Firas had taken advantage of the storm to scout out their pursuers, and had returned at daybreak with the news that they were a day behind them. “A day, no more,” he said, looking at Johanna.
She frowned. “I thought they would be nearer.”
Firas removed his cheche, wrung it out and rewound it about his head, tucking in the wet ends neatly. “I’m sure they would be desolated to hear that you were disappointed in them, young miss.”
Hayat laughed, her unquenchable dimples still in evidence, grime notwithstanding.
“Still Gokudo and his twenty?”
“Yes, young miss.” Firas sounded regretfully respectful. “None have dropped out.”
Johanna nodded. “Do they know we are watching them?”
“No,” Firas said, very firmly.
“You’re sure?”
“I am sure, young miss. I have been very careful.”
“Very well, then.” Johanna reviewed their plans.
They had had considerable difficulty in finding exactly the right village to help them. Many were too small, without enough men. Others weren’t poor enough, having staked out the only arable land in a day’s walk and therefore capable of feeding themselves and their families without resorting to too much robbery. Some were simply apathetic from hunger suffered for too long, disinterested by malnutrition to any exertion.
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