by L-J Baker
“Reclaim my property.”
“Need I remind you we have a purpose that transcends petty matters? Perhaps you could transact whatever your business is with these unsavory sorts after you get me safely to Emeza.”
“It’s mine. I’m not going any further without it.” Adijan shrugged off Zobeide’s grip.
Zobeide hurried to stop in front of her. “You can’t seriously be intending to walk into that place?”
“I will, just as soon as you get out of my way.”
“This is insane. Even I know people like that kill without compunction. You don’t enjoy a particularly strong record of success in physical situations. Nothing in there could conceivably be worth more than the gold I shall reward you with.”
“You’re wrong.”
Adijan stepped around Zobeide and strode across the street. She passed between the gate posts without being stopped, then headed across the dusty courtyard to the stables door. A sleepy-looking menial squatted over a pile of vegetables on a mat near the far wall. Adijan ignored him and walked as though she had every right to be there.
She stepped into the manure stink of the stables. Half a dozen horses stood in wooden stalls. A couple of men moved amongst the animals. She spied her blanket on the side of one of the stalls.
“Hey!” one of the men called. “Who are you?”
“Tariq sent me to fetch this.” Adijan snatched up her blanket.
“Who?”
“Tariq,” Adijan called over her shoulder. “Big man with the beard. You know.”
The second man stepped between Adijan and the door. “Not so fast. I’ve never heard of no Tariq. And I don’t know you from dung. Wha –?”
Adijan lowered her head and ran at him. The impact jolted her neck, and she staggered back. He collapsed with his hands gripping his stomach.
“Hey!” the one behind her shouted.
Adijan leaped over the writhing man. Just a pace short of the door, her foot slid from under her in fresh dung. She landed heavily on her front. The impact raked fresh claws down her healing back.
“Are you lost, lovely?”
Adijan looked up to see an armed man leaning over the railing and looking down at Zobeide who stood in plain view.
“Get the little scab!” a choked voice shouted from behind.
Adijan scrambled to her feet. Something punched into her back and sent her sprawling. A body dropped on her. Pain erupted from her back and the roots of her hair where he pulled.
By the time her assailant hauled her up onto her knees, the other man from the stables had dragged himself out to puke. Zobeide had vanished.
The armed man trotted down the stairs to check out the commotion. “What’s all the noise?”
“This dog-bint took your blanket and knocked Amur on his end,” Adijan’s captor said.
“A blanket?” The armed one spat and looked between Adijan and the dirty blanket she still gripped. “Why would you be so foolish as to risk losing your hand by stealing my horse blanket, worm?”
“It’s mine,” Adijan said.
“Yours? And how do you reckon that?”
“My wife made it for me. Some dung-eater stole it.”
The armed one looked amused. “Stole it? How terrible. Thieves should have their hands cut off, shouldn’t they? But that’s a touching story. Is your wife that pretty little flower who was just here? Perhaps you and I could come to an arrangement whereby you could keep your hand and I could keep your wife. How about that? I’d probably give her back after I wore her out.”
Adijan frantically tried to think.
The armed one punched her in the face, and her head snapped back. The two stable hands wrestled her back to the doorway. They pried her right hand loose. One of them held her pinned against the doorframe while the other held her arm out. The armed one drew his sword.
Adijan threw herself against the imprisoning hands. “No!”
“Yes, mistress?” Zobeide said. “What is your wish?”
The hands holding Adijan slackened.
The armed man stared, showing the whites of his eyes, the sword forgotten in his hand. “How –?”
Zobeide vanished, to immediately reappear a few paces away. The men holding Adijan gasped. One called on the Eye. The other muttered “magic.” The swordsman gaped.
“I have answered your summons, my mistress,” Zobeide said. “What do you wish of your genie? I ache to wreak my wrath on puny humans. Should I turn them into donkeys?” She raised a hand with a theatrical flourish, then vanished and reappeared directly behind the swordsman. “This one would make a fine gelding.”
The swordsman yelped and spun around. He dropped his sword with a clang. “Magic! Demon!” He bolted.
Zobeide leveled a finger at each of the stable hands. They squealed, released Adijan, and dove into the safety of the stables.
“Help!” the swordsman shouted as he ran.
Zobeide grabbed Adijan’s arm and helped her scramble to her feet. Adijan clutched her blanket as she stumbled toward the gates. Shouting erupted from the house.
Adijan’s back burned. Blood trickled down her face. She kept her legs pumping. Zobeide’s firm grip on her wrist pulled her onwards. Together, they ran along the winding streets until Adijan, winded, slumped against a wall. She slid down to the dirt in a gasping, sweaty heap. Zobeide dropped onto the closest doorstep.
For a long time, Adijan just sucked in air and listened to the blood roaring in her ears. Her face really started to ache as the fire in the rest of her body receded. Blood added fresh red stains to the grubby blanket. Miraculously, she smelled oranges.
“Just when I imagine we’ve plumbed the depths of your behavior,” Zobeide said, “you do something so startlingly idiotic I can only marvel you survived childhood.”
If Adijan had more breath, she might’ve informed Zobeide that she was beginning to sound like her Aunt Takush.
“And you risked both our lives for what?” Zobeide said. “A stinking horse blanket? Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable. Eye, why did you inflict this on me?”
Adijan’s fingertips found a wickedly sensitive place around her left eyebrow.
“You’re bleeding profusely,” Zobeide said. “We passed a well just back around that corner.”
Adijan shoved herself to aching legs and tottered after Zobeide. She hugged Shalimar’s blanket to her chest, despite the stink of horse sweat. She had it. Now she had her tangible link with her wife.
Near dusk, only a few children hung around the well. They watched Adijan splashing water on her face. The coolness hurt. It also encouraged a fierce headache and an encroaching numbness.
“It’s not ceasing,” Zobeide said. “You must return to the wagons soon. If only I had access to my skills. If only camels had wings. Failing that… an apothecary. Do you have any coins?”
“Uh?”
“Eye. Don’t you dare faint. I can’t carry you back to the caravan. Get up.”
Adijan responded woodenly to Zobeide’s tugging. Blood dripped on her sleeve diluted with drips of water.
“Money,” Zobeide said. “Do you have any?”
“Um. Yeah.”
Zobeide gave her an unhappy look, then reached into Adijan’s pocket. She curled her lip and pulled out a mashed orange. She dropped that, wiped her hand on Adijan’s sleeve, then tried the other pocket. This time she hefted a few copper coins and closed her fingers around Adijan’s wrist.
Inside a cramped and gloomy room, Zobeide pushed Adijan into a creaking chair. A wizened little man, who reeked of aniseed and sweat, leaned over her and muttered. He jabbed a needle in her. Adijan yelled. By the time she had a dozen stitches in her face, she felt sick and faint. After a short exchange behind her chair, which Zobeide dominated, the apothecary shuffled around to force Adijan to drink something that tasted like curdled milk.
The light was fast failing by the time Adijan staggered out of the stuffy shop. If not for Zobeide’s tugging, she would have lain down in the stree
t, curled up in her blanket, and slept.
“I can only pray those thugs aren’t still looking for you,” Zobeide said. “Eye, how could you torment me so by allowing my existence to rest upon the whims of an impetuous, ignorant, drunken peasant?”
Adijan grunted.
Zobeide stopped and lifted Adijan’s chin with her hand.
“Curse it,” Zobeide muttered. “You’re barely conscious. Can you understand me?”
Adijan tried hard to concentrate.
“The wagons are a hundred paces or so over there.” Zobeide pointed. “Do you see the fires? I can’t go any further. You said they’ll whip you again if they see me with you. You have to walk yourself.”
“Shali made it for me.” Adijan hugged her blanket. “Just married. She loves me. Wrap myself in it every night. Never let –”
“Adijan! You have to walk over there. Eye. That senile fool didn’t give you nearly enough aturna. Give me your arm.”
Adijan leaned against Zobeide with her arm around her neck. The cook stood with his fists on his hips. Fire light flickered over his beefy body and sneering expression.
“Drunk, eh?” the cook said. “Wenching and fighting. That’s the last time I let you loose in a town. Drop the piece of dung there, darling.”
“Is that where she sleeps?” Zobeide asked.
“Don’t you worry about her,” he said. “Or being uncomfortable. You can join me in the back of the wagon.”
Adijan wanted to say something. She had to keep the bearded dung lump from pawing Zobeide, but her head was too heavy. She slid away into blackness.
Chapter Fourteen
Adijan endured the jokes about her black eye as she handed around the midday ration. She ate quickly so she could wash her blanket in the stream. The muddy clouds of filth sloughing off into the water left behind enough color for the blanket to be unmistakably one of Shalimar’s creations. She kissed it before slinging it over the back of the cook wagon to dry.
That night the blanket still smelled of horse sweat, but it made all the difference in the world to curl up in it. Getting up for watch wasn’t so bad now she could drape her blanket around her shoulders.
“Zobeide?” she whispered.
Zobeide appeared a couple of paces away. “You’ve looked better.”
“Yeah.” Adijan raised a hand but stopped short of touching her stitches. “Look, I have to thank you for yesterday. I’m not clear about everything that happened, but I know you saved me losing my hand.”
“My motives were pure self-interest. I have to keep you alive to keep my hopes alive.”
Adijan nodded. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t owe you.”
Zobeide joined Adijan in sitting on the ground. “I fail completely to understand how you could be so wantonly reckless for the sake of creation’s most hideous horse rug. It looks like a child made it. And yet you claimed it was worth more than gold. Truly, you –”
“My wife wove it for me.”
Zobeide leveled a frown at Adijan. “That makes it worth risking both our lives for?”
“I don’t expect you to understand. It’s called love.” Adijan pulled the blanket tighter about her shoulders. “And, yes, my kind love every bit as much as anyone else. There’s nothing under the Eye I won’t do for Shalimar. Even if that means not drinking another drop of wine, getting the life beaten out of me, or traveling across the known world.”
“Back? But she divorced you. How can –?”
“No, her brother did. He gloated about how he won the hearing. Just as if Shali wasn’t there. Which, in a way, she wasn’t. The puddle of camel piss drugged her.” Adijan stroked the blanket. “My life isn’t right without her. And I’ve realized I’m pretty worthless on my own.”
Zobeide gazed up at the stars. “What makes you think I don’t comprehend love?”
“You loved one of your masters?”
“Of course not. How could anyone harbor anything but contempt and loathing for a creature who would compel another to enact his desires?”
Adijan nodded. “So, did you break up before you were enchanted or because of it?”
“Why must our feelings for each other have withered with time? Is not constancy a mark of true, fine companionship?”
“I like to think so. So, you think that he’s waiting for you to get free of the magic? Didn’t he try to free you himself?”
“Though there are few better, more honorable, or talented men, that task was not within his capability at the time. Your understanding of the working of enchantments is considerably worse than imperfect, so you have no basis for judging his actions.”
“But he did at least kill the dog poker who did it to you, didn’t he? I wouldn’t let anyone touch the necklace if someone had done that to Shali.”
“Don’t presume to condemn your betters!” Zobeide shot to her feet and strode to the limit of the enchantment. She stood, rigid, with her back to Adijan.
“You still love him,” Adijan said.
“Time does not tarnish gold.”
Adijan let the subject drop, but she couldn’t help wondering.
The day before they saw Pikrut, gulls showed themselves in the skies, screaming like the souls of demons. The next day, the intermittent westerly wind blew the stench of rotting seaweed and dead fish in their faces. Adijan had not inhaled a more welcome stink. Her sandals were as worn as she felt.
The great white walls of the city dazzled the eyes of merchants and pilgrims alike. Overawing it all from the large hill sat a shining temple with many minarets bristling up from it, a gilded mirror of the forest of masts filling the harbor below. The afternoon sun bounced off restless big banners displaying the Eye symbol.
Adijan gawked as she walked the broad road in the wake of the cook’s wagon. She was just as filthy, tired, and choked with dust as every other day, but there was something uplifting about walking through the gate’s shadow. Countless feet had trod this way, looking for a miracle, salvation, or enlightenment. Perhaps there were many who, like herself, came for more mundane purposes.
She tugged the scarf from her nose and mouth to inhale. Overriding the stink of the sea, refuse, unwashed bodies, and smoky cooking fires, the air seemed alive with more than the cries of beggars, priests, hawkers, children, and clouds of buzzing black flies. She smiled. She smelled hope.
“Al-Asmai.”
Adijan stepped forward to the mat where the overseer sat with a warehouse manager and a couple of men from the counting house.
“Sixteen days at eight curls per day,” one of the counters said. His tally stick clicked as he moved beads. “Less three curls per day for food.”
“Any fines or bonuses?” the manager asked the overseer.
“Four days missed watch,” the overseer said. “Plus two days wages docked for wenching when she should’ve been on watch. And three curls for medicines.”
Adijan wasn’t surprised they’d scrape off as much of her wages as they could. Without Fakir’s generosity, she’d have been in trouble with only forty-one curls to her name.
She wandered past stalls and hawkers peddling a bewildering array of Eye-marked wares. Everything from wooden bowls to copper earrings bore the religious symbol. From the way crowds of oddly dressed people bought them up, it was a thriving business. She elbowed her way to a shoe stall and selected a pair of sandals. Perhaps seeing she was not one of the rich pilgrims to be fleeced, the merchant let her knock him down to a reasonable price.
Adijan carried away from the shoemaker not only her new sandals, but information about good places where the locals ate and where she could rent a bed that didn’t crawl with fleas or cost a hand and foot. She bought a small rush basket full of savory bread dumplings.
In the short walk to the street that bent around the harbor front, Adijan heard a hundred different languages. She settled on a low wall. Beyond the curving arms of the harbor entrance, the sea stretched away to drop off the edge of the world. She wondered where Emeza was.
&nbs
p; Three weeks and six days. At this rate she was running out of time. But if she could hire or buy a horse with her reward money from Zobeide, she could retrace her path to Qahtan in less than a third of the time the caravan had taken. No need to panic yet. The big question was how long the sea voyage would last. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting a passage, if Zobeide’s father had ships that regularly sailed between Emeza and Pikrut.
She looked both ways down the street. A couple of men worked hard gutting fish. A crowd of seagulls waited near them. A tourist sweating in a strange, billowing robe paused to watch. No one paid Adijan much heed.
“Zobeide?” she said.
Zobeide appeared in the middle of the street. A yellow-haired man with peeling red skin stopped to stare. Zobeide ignored him and strode to stand near Adijan. “Pikrut? How disappointing. I never imagined the holy city would reek of common refuse and rotting fish.”
“I bet it doesn’t in the parts you’d normally visit.” Adijan stuffed a dumpling into her mouth and pointed behind them to the temple on the hill.
“That is probably an accurate observation.” Zobeide perched on the wall. “Have you talked with my father’s factotum? When do we sail?”
“Give me a chance. I haven’t started looking for the warehouses yet. I’ve just come from being paid off. I called you out the moment it was clear. Or else I’d never hear the end of it.”
“I make no apology for urging haste. You cannot possibly conceive the depths of my desire to be free.”
Adijan held back a remark about doubting Zobeide would apologize for anything. Instead, she looked out to sea and remarked mildly, “I now have a lot of sympathy for men whose wives nag them.”
Zobeide glared at her. Adijan calmly bit into another dumpling.
Zobeide’s nose wrinkled constantly as she and Adijan threaded their way along the docks. Sweating men swarmed like ants as they loaded and unloaded boats. Every conceivable cargo, from salt and rice, to hides, coal, timber, and people, passed through the busy port. It was like a beating heart at the centre of a huge body. Adijan’s dream business empire would have a base here.
