“Appointment with the lower bench?” he said in accented trade tongue.
“No. But my friend has an appointment with the kyros and—”
He snorted. “Move on, girl.”
It was all I could do not to ram my heels into my mare and trample the idiot. I breathed out my nose and nudged my horse forward, just a step.
“You misunderstand, good man. My friend is Calev ben Y’hoshua, son of the chairman of Old Farm in Jakobden and sent here by Amir Ekrem to approve an agreement.”
The guard across the way tugged his helmet off and his sweat-slicked black hair held the shape of the metal. He took hold of my reins. “Like he said, move on. Before you get into trouble with your stories.”
“It’s not a story. It is the truth. And you will be punished if the kyros learns you were the reason his new amir in Jakobden failed to uphold a truce lasting centuries!”
I wasn’t totally sure all of that was true, but it sounded good.
Suddenly, my horse jerked, twisted, and shied away. The red-bearded guard had done something to her.
As I faced him, the other guard slapped the mare’s hind and she shot toward a walled pool. I moved her to the right to miss running headlong into the water, fury igniting my insides.
“You will be sorry!” I shouted over a shoulder as I trotted into the market.
I’d have to find Calev another way. I fisted my hands around the reins. Being nearly an adult was the worst. No one gave you leeway like they did with children. No one gave you respect like they would if I was a year or two older.
Nearby, a merchant called out, selling painted shoes. She had a nice smile so I slid off my horse and approached her. “May I ask you a question?”
She nodded and picked up another pair of shoes to show me. Yellow phoenixes flew over the toes.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have coin for new shoes, but I wondered if you could tell me where most of the inns are here?” Maybe Calev had stopped to rest on his way to the kyros.
She shrugged and held out a palm. “Maybe. For two smalls.”
Two smalls wasn’t much, but it would cost me a meal. “Never mind.”
I turned to mount, but a hand on my arm stopped me.
A boy about my age looked down at me. He had nice, dark eyes and his lips lifted at one corner. “The inns are on that side of the city.”
As the woman—maybe his mother?—left us to talk, the boy’s gaze wandered over my face and clothing. Not many here wore a simple, short shirt and long skirt like I did. I guessed I wore a Pass sort of style, suited to ranging around a boat and dealing with sails.
“But be careful.” His tongue danced inside his mouth and made his words sound really beautiful. “Some are not good places for a pretty girl.”
Warmth rose along my neck. “Thank you for telling me.” I tried to pronounce everything slowly so he’d understand.
A wide smile flashed over his mouth. It was a nice smile. “You don’t have to talk like that. I’m fluent in the trade tongue. Despite the accent of my birth language.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“You didn’t. We see many, many visitors here in Akhayma.”
Part of me wanted to stay to hear stories about these visitors and his run-ins with them. But most of me pushed to leave, to get to Calev, to help my sister. There really wasn’t any sun to spare.
“Thank you,” I said. He gave me a quick bow and his jet-black hair shifted over his forehead. “I wish I could stay and talk to you.” My cheeks were probably going the color of my poppy-red sash. “But there’s an emergency, and I must go.”
“Of course.” He looked back at his table and tent where stacks of tattered books, small leather pouches, and lengths of rough wool vied for space. “I could come with you?” His eyes widened, hopeful.
My heart beat twice in a breath. “Oh. Yes. That would be…good.” It wasn’t only because I wanted to hear his voice some more or watch his half smile appear again. It was because he knew the way. This would be faster. Smarter.
We walked Calev’s mare through the tangled roads.
“Are we really getting anywhere? It doesn’t feel like it. Don’t take me through the scenery.” I gave him a pointed look. “I don’t have the sun for that.”
“I wouldn’t dream of wasting your day…what is your name?”
“Avigail Raza. Avi. Avi, for short. You can call me Avi.” I rolled my eyes at myself.
“I am Radi.” He placed a hand on his chest. His fingers were a bit knobby and a strong vein lined his skin, showing he worked hard like I did. “Please call me Radi.”
“I’m looking for a friend. My sister’s Intended. Do you use that term here?” It was an Old Farm word and I had no idea how to translate it.
“No, but I think I know what you mean.” He eased around two men arguing next to a goat freed from its pen. “The one she will marry? Yes?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. The air smelled like animals, tangy spices, and clean water. “His father is the chairman of Old Farm, the native community next to Jakobden, and he has a renewed agreement between Old Farm and Amir Ekrem. He has to get the kyros's sigil applied to it for the agreement to be official. To keep peace in Jakobden.”
Radi’s eyebrows lifted. “That is important. But you said emergency. What turns this job into something dire? And how are you involved? And please, if you don’t care for my questions, feel free not to reply.”
The mare tripped on the edge of a stationary cart of rolled rugs, and I urged her left, her feet thudding on the sandy ground.
“I’m only a very curious person,” Radi said. “My father says I got it from him.”
The thought of family pierced my determination like the tip of a knife to thin skin. “My sister is like that. And our mother was too.”
I gripped the reins between thumb and forefinger and set my palm against the mare’s neck to feel her familiar coat. I hated being so far from my family, from Kinneret when she was so sick.
“I can tell you. It’s nothing that needs to be secret. My sister…” The words didn’t want to crawl up my throat. I grabbed each one and threw it out of my mouth. Sweat gathered on my upper lip. “She has a deadly fever.”
Radi’s black eyes fluttered close for a moment and he briefly touched my hand. His skin was very smooth. “May the Holy Fire help her.”
With my thumb, I made the Holy Fire circle on my forehead. “If I can urge her Intended to hurry up with his duty and get home, I think he can save her.”
“How?” he asked, hurrying more now.
I liked that my story had prompted him to pick up speed. Around carts of date palms and green vegetables, people with reed baskets on their heads, and well-dressed men and women, we zigzagged through the crowded streets like fish with the current at our backs.
“It’s hard to explain,” I said. “They need one another. It’s like my mother and father were. If Calev comes home, if he is there for her,” I tried to swallow around my tight throat, “I really think she’ll heal. She’s so sick, I…”
Tears rolled out before I could stop them. I sucked my trembling, lower lip into my mouth, knowing I looked like an out-of-control child but unable to stop.
Radi paused and faced me. My pulse ticked more quickly. Fear for Kinneret dwarfed the fact that this fine-faced stranger was being so kind. The crowd streamed around us, bumping gently. A dubious thought wriggled into my head. Why was he helping me so much?
“I’ll do what I can,” he said. “We’ll find the inn and all will be well.”
I wanted so much to believe him. I pushed him and nodded to move on. “Talk while we walk. Why are you doing this?”
Radi bit his lip, and his throat moved in a swallow as we rounded a group of women holding one large jug each. “Two reasons.” His chest moved with a rough breath. “One. I wanted to leave my family’s stall before my cousin came.”
“Why?”
“He likes to fight.”
“I thought you said your sister was the curious one.”
“This isn’t curiosity. This is being aware.”
He grinned. “Ah. I’m very good at fighting. I’m quick.”
He flashed a look that was both fierce and dangerous. An odd feeling stirred around my heart. When he turned his head, I wished he’d look at me like that again.
“But I’m not very good at fighting with someone I don’t really want to hurt,” he said. “I tend to respond with the most vicious attack. My father taught us both. To be safe in the city at night. But my cousin is good at pulling punches and holding back. I get excited and end up hurting him every time.”
“It must not be too bad if he comes back for more.”
“I still don’t like hurting him.” Radi frowned.
“And your second reason for helping me?”
“You’re rather pretty.”
I held my breath, suddenly afraid of doing something to ruin those wonderful words.
“And smart,” he said. Well, those words were even better.
Forcing myself to breathe and quit acting like what he said mattered, I tugged the horse to move faster and said, “Fine.” I had no idea what else to say.
“Yes. Fine.” There was a little laugh in his tone and I wasn’t sure I liked that. No, I couldn’t lie to myself. I did. I liked it too much.
The water in the canals rushed by the side of the road, protected by small walls marked with painted calligraphy. “Do those words say what section of the city we’re in?”
“No. That’s the name of the kyros. Kyros Meric, the Eternally Victorious. And there and there spell out the name of his wife. Seren, Pearl of the Desert.”
“Are we getting any closer?” This was taking too long. Calev would have had to get to the kyros today, finish his duty, and get home. Or just go home and come back later to see the kyros.
“We’re here.”
Around a bend, a row of tents showed similar wooden signs painted in white pictures and letters, hanging from high posts above the doors.
“Here are the inns. Most of them anyway. See that one?” His first two fingers sent my gaze to a sign with a flower. Wide, open petals hovered above a bunch of words I couldn’t read. “That is the Lotus Inn. A nice establishment.”
The next one showed a ship and a cupped hand. “And…the Harbor Inn, maybe?”
“Yes. That’s it exactly,” Radi said. “We can speak to the innkeepers together if you like.”
Gratitude loosened my choking grip on the reins. “Please.” Who knew if they’d speak the trade tongue? As I didn’t know a lick of the desert language.
I described Calev to Radi and he did the same, in the desert tongue, to four different innkeepers. None had seen him.
Radi jerked his chin at the fifth inn’s sign. “The Egret’s Regret.”
Ignoring the name and Radi’s wince at the worn-down look of the place, I rushed to the woman at the front door. “Please. I’m looking for a man. In a headtie.” I tried to repeat the phrases Radi had used.
The woman’s brow wrinkled.
“We are looking for an Old Farm man with a blue headtie and a handsome face,” Radi said. He said some more that I couldn’t untangle.
The woman’s mouth popped open, and she let out a stream of sounds that overwhelmed me.
Radi nodded then spoke again.
I gripped his sleeve. “Well?”
“She saw him. He was here. Paid to stay last night,” he said. “Played cards. Had too much gray plant. Left and never returned.”
The air went cold. “No.”
“I’m afraid so.”
I hefted myself onto the mare’s back and held out a hand so Radi could mount up behind me. He was basically a stranger, but I thought I might need him later. Plus, he said nice things. And in a time like this, I needed some nice things.
“He wouldn’t have gone far,” I said.
The tents butted up to one another for the most part, but a few left alleys between. Flies buzzed over a pile of something smelly in the nearest one. The next held two men slumped against a lotus tower’s base. Neither had Calev’s hair or silhouette.
“This isn’t a lovely part of the city,” Radi mumbled beside my ear.
“I noticed.”
“If he fell asleep out here, at night…”
“There are bad places in Jakobden. I used to live in one. You don’t have to tell me the risks. I know them. I lived them.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen and a little more.”
“You act older.”
“Being poor makes you grow up sometimes.” I didn’t want to talk about what I’d been through. I had enough on my mind.
Radi squeezed my shoulder gently. “You’re well-dressed now. How did that happen?”
“That’s a long story. Keep looking for Calev. Please.”
“Of course.”
If I didn’t find him, Kinneret would die like the others in town had. Her fever had come on so fast. Just like Mother and Father’s had. I could feel the truth of it like burning metal inside me, like an arrowhead lodged and searing under my ribs.
3
Calev
An aching pain groaned from more parts than I cared to count. Putting hands on the sandy dirt, I sat up and my head boomed like a tiny cannon had fired between my ears.
“Ugh.” I wiped my hand down my face. Dry flakes of blood came off my mouth. My tongue found the split in my lip.
“Old Farm,” a voice over me said.
The sun shot over the tents and made it impossible to see who was talking. I held up a hand to shield my eyes. Dark kaftan. Delicate nose.
“What are you doing?” It was the woman who owned the inn. She helped me up and touched my cheek gently, though it still hurt. “Got yourself robbed, eh?”
“I suppose so.” Then a shiver rushed through my throbbing head. The agreement.
“What is it? You’re alive. It could’ve been worse.”
“No. Not that.” I palmed my waist, where my sash used to be. “They stole the parchment. The agreement. It’s gone.”
She ran a hand down my chest and her mouth tucked up at one side. “You probably lost your money too. I can help you. You can work for me for a few days. Make back what you owe. Get more to travel home?”
I shook my head and untangled her fingers from my tunic. “I have an appointment with the kyros today. He has to apply his sigil to the agreement…the peace might not hold and my father and Amir Ekrem will have to calm the advisors and…”
The cannon in my head blasted more pain that echoed through my scalp. I rubbed at my head, then saw that my smallest finger was bare. They’d taken my sigil ring. My throat went drier than it’d already been.
“They’ll never know I’m who I say I am. They’ll never know.”
“You’re Old Farm. Someone in a place of power? You talk of an amir and the kyros.”
“My father is Old Farm’s chairman. I was sent here to show the kyros the agreement of peace and trade between the Empire and my people. To gain his approval. And his signature. His sigil.”
“I know very well what a sigil is,” she said quietly, more to herself. One hand hitched onto her hip. She clicked her tongue. “What to do. What to do.”
I rammed my fingers through my hair. My headtie was gone too. Those men had stolen everything of value after knocking me out. Without a headtie or an Old Farm sigil ring, the kyros would never believe I was who I was.
“I need to wash. I have to at least try to meet with the kyros.”
“Let Samira handle it.” She set a finger against her chest. “I know what to do.” She hooked her arm through mine.
“Wait. Did you put gray plant on my food? Those men were laughing about it. My head…”
“I did no such thing.” She was clearly insulted.
“Fine. But you
did tell me stealing didn’t happen around here. The whole thing about losing a hand and all that?”
“That’s what I tell nervous customers.”
“Nice.”
Her shrug said it all. “You wandered into the night with an entire stalk of gray plant in your belly.”
“They put it on my food. When you weren’t looking or something. I didn’t—”
“If you’d listened to me last night, Old Farm, you’d be happy and on your way now.”
“You didn’t tell me anything, Samira.”
“I did. You just don’t remember.”
I took a heavy breath. She was probably right.
What was I going to do? I had no coin, no sigil ring to prove my blood, no parchment to show the kyros. My clothes were ripped in places and a string of blackened blood ran down the front from where my lip had opened up. I was in no condition to present myself to the ruler of most of the known world. A man who, if the stories were true, had a touch of madness that gave his immature nature a jagged edge. I couldn’t enter his court looking like a desperate, lying beggar with rocks at the bottom of his grain sack.
Samira led me into the dark glow of the tented inn where she closeted me into a back room with a bowl of clean water and a cloth. She wiped my fingers clean, and because of the world being blurry still and the pain pulsing over my body, I let her finish every knuckle and nail. After a large cup of water soothed my parched throat, the world cleared a little.
“I can clean myself up.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You look ready to vomit. Let me help you.” The cloth was soft on my cheek and she dragged it down my neck, a new attentive gleam rising in her eyes.
Taking her hand gently—thinking of Kinneret’s fierce laugh, the one that squeezed my heart and lifted it—I moved Samira’s fingers away. “I can do it. Thank you for all your help.”
Pursing her lips, she cocked her head. “All right then. But if you change your mind, handsome and desperate lord, you call out. I’ll be at the front.” Her hips swayed as she moved toward the door’s flap. “Oh wait. I should maybe call you servant, eh? You’ll need to pay me eventually.”
Fever: An Uncommon World Novella Page 2
