The Seven-Petaled Shield

by Deborah J. Ross

  He had come too late.

  Chapter Ten

  ZEVARON stared open-mouthed as the prisoners were led away. His breath racked his body in heaving gulps. All his efforts had been bent on reaching the governor’s palace and taking his mother to a place of safety. It had never occurred to him that the Gelon might already have captured the palace.

  He did not recognize any of the prisoners, but the women among them seemed to be serving maids. Their hands were tied and joined by a long rope. He had no way of knowing if Tsorreh had already been taken away or, if so, where that might be.

  What should he do? Follow? Find out where the captives were taken? How? Who would know?

  He felt slow and stupid as he tried to decide. What if Tsorreh were not among them? What if she were still in the palace and while he was following the other captives, the Gelon took her in another direction? On the other hand, to stay and watch might lose him precious time.

  If he found her, then what? The convoy of prisoners was guarded, although not as heavily as the palace itself. Could he race up, cut her bonds, and snatch her away?

  Get himself killed, more like.

  “You there!” A Gelonian soldier called out and pointed in his direction. “Come here!”

  Clutching the wrapped sword, Zevaron whirled and sprinted away. As he turned, fire shot up one thigh. He remembered taking a cut there earlier. For a terrifying instant, the leg threatened to give way beneath him. Limping, he headed for the darkest avenue of escape.

  He turned a corner and plunged into shadow. Pursuit sounded behind him, the pounding of feet, the thump and clatter of shield and scabbard against stone walls. He had nowhere to hide, no familiar district in which to lose himself. But if he did not know his way around the city, he reasoned, neither did the Gelon. They would expect him to run in a straight line, so he turned here and then there, to make his path more difficult to follow.

  Right, left, left, straight and then right again.

  The pain in his leg slowed him to a hopping shuffle. Grimacing to keep from crying out, he held on to the sides of houses, to baked mud-brick and stone, to wooden railings, and once to a fence from behind which came the squawk of chickens. In his flight, the sword had lost its wrappings, but he dared not leave it behind.

  He searched the horizon for light and caught a faint tinge in one direction but could not decide if it were the remnants of the marketplace fire, north toward the burning harbor, or east to the rising of the sun. How much time had passed? Where had his headlong flight taken him? From time to time, he heard the sounds of battle, but they were diminished and distant.

  His heart labored, a hailstorm against the inside of his chest. Sweat crusted his face and sides. His wounds throbbed. The cut in his thigh bled, but sluggishly. His muscles were already stiffening in the coolness of the night.

  The street, little more than an alley, seemed quiet enough. No one else was about. He came to a halt in the alcove of an entryway. The door itself seemed to be barred shut. When he lowered himself to the threshold, the stone felt satiny and cool. He would hide here, he thought, and wait for the worst of the fighting to die down.

  Gradually, Zevaron’s heartbeat slowed. His muscles felt like lead. He must rest, but for only a little while. The Gelon would secure the areas they had seized, the marketplace and surrounding streets, the governor’s palace, and who knew what else.

  The sound of running feet jerked him to full alertness. Sword in hand, he scrambled to his feet. Through the shadows that choked the alley, he caught a flicker of movement—two children, he thought—and a small animal. One child saw him and gave a startled yelp.

  “It’s right,” he called out in his broken Isarran. “I am friend!”

  The shorter of the children picked up the animal, wariness in every line of the thin body. Zevaron stepped from the alcove. If he could gain their trust, they might guide him to a place where he could hide. Almost anywhere would be better than stumbling around until he ran into a Gelonian patrol.

  “I stranger,” he said, “and friend to Isarre.”

  The two children had come to a halt. They bent their heads together, conferring in whispers. The animal yipped and wriggled free. As it ran toward Zevaron, he realized it was a dog. He drew back, for he had little experience with such animals. The Sand Lands people used them for hunting, thin long-legged hounds able to run down a gazelle. This one was small and loose-jointed, with a rounded belly and velvety hide. It bounded up to him, making excited noises, and licked his sweaty knees.

  “Don’t hurt her, she’s only a puppy!” The child, a girl, darted forward and scooped up the animal in her arms.

  “You’re no Gelon,” the boy said, stepping protectively in front of the girl.

  “No, but I fight—fought—against them at the marketplace.”

  “Come with us,” the boy said. “Hurry! They are sweeping this neighborhood. You’ll be safe with my father.”

  Zevaron stumbled after the youngsters. Every joint and muscle in his body throbbed. He hoped he didn’t have to run or fight any time soon.

  Men’s voices sounded behind them. Zevaron caught a phrase of Gelone. Gritting his teeth, he hurried after the children. They slipped down the street and through an alley that was barely wide enough for a grown man to pass, dodging here and there until he lost all sense of where they were going. Crossing a garden, they ducked between rows of herbs and bean plants climbing over a freestanding wooden latticework.

  At last, they emerged into a courtyard bounded by two-story stone buildings. Lights burned in the windows. A woman appeared in a doorway, hands on her hips. When she saw the children, she rushed toward them. She caught the girl in her arms, peppering both children with questions and exclamations. Her speech was so rapid and her tone so agitated, Zevaron could follow only a little of it. It was clear, however, that she had been frantic with worry and was now furious as a result.

  A man came out of the house, and then another. One carried an axe, the other a long staff. The one with the axe stepped forward, motioning the woman and children behind him.

  Zevaron realized how he must appear to these people—a stranger, armed and covered in blood. He thought of running back into the night, but he doubted his legs would carry him. Now that he was no longer moving, he began to shake uncontrollably.

  The boy spoke to the man with the axe, gesturing toward Zevaron. The man looked up, his features unreadable with the light behind him. “You fought for Gatacinne?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you are not one of us.”

  “Gelon is my enemy.” Zevaron thought he’d said it correctly, for the man nodded. The whole truth was too complicated, and he did not know these people. He reversed the sword and handed it, hilt first, to the man.

  After a moment’s muttered deliberation, the man gestured for Zevaron to come inside. The door led to an entrance hall of sorts, lined with benches, hooks for cloaks, and wooden racks for shoes. The children disappeared down a corridor, along with the puppy. Another man stood in the opposite doorway, and now Zevaron got a clearer look at them, the cut of their clothing, the length and color of their hair, their grim faces. They all bore marks of having been in the battle, wounds and grime, and streaks of soot.

  “Bandages first, then talk,” the woman said. She pushed Zevaron through an outdoor courtyard and into a smaller room, a kitchen by the wide hearth and work table. A small cauldron steamed over the remains of a fire. Strings of onions, garlic, and dried peppers hung in one corner, and the broad wooden shelves were filled with jars of oil and vinegar, lidded baskets, folded cloths, and other things he did not recognize.

  As Zevaron sank down on one of the stools, the woman darted about the kitchen. Very shortly, she had assembled everything needed to bathe and dress his wounds. She clucked over the cut on his thigh, left him for a moment, and returned with silk thread and a metal needle, so thin and fine that it must be of Denariyan make. The man with the axe came in while she pierced Zevaron’s sk
in and knotted the thread to close the cut. That done, she washed the wound again and wrapped it in strips of cloth. Cotton, he thought, but of a softness unknown in Meklavar. Then she insisted he drink a beaker of hot, thick, foul-tasting, greenish brew.

  “It will keep your wound from molynsi,” she urged. Zevaron did not understand the word, but it took it to mean the putrefaction that all too often followed deep cuts. “Drink, drink.”

  When she had finished, she conducted Zevaron to one of the inner rooms, where the rest of the men and a couple of women, dressed in the same tunics and leggings, were talking in low, urgent voices. One of the women had apparently been part of the crew that put out the marketplace fire. Zevaron understood from their discussion that most of the able-bodied adults of the city had helped to throw back previous Gelonian invasions.

  “Never before have they fought so hard or come in such numbers,” one of the men lamented.

  “They may take Gatacinne, but they cannot hold it,” said the woman who had fought the fire. She wore the same clothing as the men, which astonished Zevaron, and her manner was so commanding that he dared not stare. “We’ll push them into the sea.”

  Everyone nodded, but beneath their brave words Zevaron sensed an undercurrent of fear. Or perhaps he imagined it, remembering the fall of Meklavar. No one had battled harder than Maharrad and Shorrenon and their men, and yet, in the end, it had not been enough.

  “Now, stranger,” said Aharros, the man who had carried the axe, “you have taken shelter in my home and my wife has bandaged your hurt. In return, we would hear your story.”

  The woman fighter, whose name was Sivran, smiled grimly. “If you have fought the Gelon as you say, you know their ways. Their weaknesses.”

  “I not Gelon, not Isarran,” Zevaron began haltingly. “My name Zevaron. I come—came from Meklavar with my mother.” How much more should he say?

  He told them as best he could that his own city had fallen to Gelon. Aharros and his friends had not heard of the attack, but they readily accepted Zevaron’s statement that he had come to Gatacinne seeking refuge with his mother’s Isarran kin. Perhaps there were others of her countrymen here, people Zevaron could contact for help.

  “Last night, she stay with the women of the governor,” Zevaron said. “Gelon defeat palace, people taken away. Prisoners,” he said, guessing at the word, though from the nods and grim expressions, he got it close enough.

  “You fear your mother is among them?” Aharros asked, not unkindly.

  “Where taken?” Zevaron asked.

  “Sivran, do you know?” Aharros turned to the woman fighter.

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “No news, so far. The Gelon are said to hold those from wealthy families as hostage and send the others back to Gelon as slaves.”

  Zevaron’s heart faltered. He had forgotten the Gelon took slaves as booty.

  “There, lad,” Aharros said, reaching out a hand to steady Zevaron. “We do not know. For now, regain your strength.”

  Already swaying with shock and fatigue, Zevaron went willingly as Aharros’s wife led him to a narrow guest chamber. He fell asleep almost before he stretched out on the wood and leather-lattice bed.

  Zevaron felt as if he had barely closed his eyes when the puppy, a velvet-skinned, loose-jointed creature with a perpetually wet nose, licked him awake. The boy stood grinning in the entrance, holding the door drape aside with one hand. He gestured with his other hand. “Come, come. Eat.”

  Zevaron tried to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed. Unlike the minor stiffness of the night before, near-rigidity had set in. Every muscle protested. At least, the wound in his thigh no longer throbbed.

  In the kitchen, Renneh, the mistress of the house, had set out enough food to feed ten men: seed-topped loaves of bread, little round cheeses, bowls of beans stewed with tomatoes and peppers, and a grayish paste that reeked of olives and garlic. Sivran and another woman, dressed like her in tunic and short breeches, sat talking and eating. Renneh looked up from stirring a pot of something green and grinned at Zevaron.

  “News?” Zevaron asked.

  Frowning, Renneh took a wooden platter, filled it with the bean stew and bread slathered with the gray paste, and handed it to Zevaron. “Eat first.”

  Tentatively, he took a bite. The bean stew burned his mouth, bringing tears to his eyes, but the bread and gray paste tasted delicious. He accepted a beaker of watered wine, trying not to stare at Sivran and her friend, whose name was Hadela or Harela. The two did not speak or act like Meklavaran women.

  “There has been fighting all over the city,” Sivran said, speaking slowly and clearly. “The Gelon hold the harbor, the governor’s palace and stronghold, and some of the northern district. Beyond the Boulevard of Flowers, however, they dare not venture. We will push them into the sea.”

  “And the prisoners?” Renneh asked, with a concerned glance at Zevaron.

  Sivran’s friend shook her head. “The governor’s household is kept in the stronghold. My cousin’s husband’s sister brings them bread, and says there is no foreign woman among them. All are known to her.”

  Not there? Could she have been wounded in the fighting? Could she—Oh, Most Holy One grant that it not be so!—be dead?

  Zevaron thrust the thought from his mind. In another instant, fear would turn his strength to water. “Other prisoners—where?”

  “I have heard they will be sent back to Gelon as slaves, along with treasure looted from the city.”

  “Stop them! Must!”

  She regarded him somberly. “Can you fight?”

  “Give me sword, and I show.”

  Sivran’s companion scowled at him. “You’re barely more than a child, and you speak Isarran like a donkey.”

  “I not speak Isarran well,” Zevaron said, biting off each word. Then he switched to Gelone. “But neither do the Gelon. Can you understand what they say in their own language?”

  Sivran looked confused. Renneh laughed. “He makes a good point!”

  The boy burst into the kitchen, flushed and panting. “Theya Sivran, theya Harela, papa says you must come to the Great Plaza. Please, come quick!”

  “What? What happen?” Zevaron stammered.

  “Soldiers! Gelon! They are going to kill the prisoners!”

  Zevaron scrambled to his feet. “Where sword?”

  “Mama, I want to go, too!” the boy pleaded. “I am old enough to fight, truly I am!”

  “No, sweetling,” said Renneh, “you must stay here and protect your sister. I cannot do without you.”

  The boy glared at Zevaron. Zevaron, unexpectedly moved, said, “Boy use sling?” He gestured as if to swing and release a stone.

  Renneh scowled at Zevaron, the first time he had seen a harsh expression on her kind face. “There will be time enough for children fighting.” She wrapped her arms around her son’s thin shoulders. “Go now!”

  * * *

  A short time later, Zevaron followed Sivran and her friend through a mazework of streets, angling toward the plaza that fronted the governor’s palace. His wounded leg still felt stiff, but it was sound enough. Renneh had returned his sword, wrapped in strips of leather and plaited straw. Sivran and her friend each carried a bundle of staves across their shoulders. With their faces smeared with dust, they looked very much like common laborers.

  It was difficult to believe this was the same city through which he had fled in the darkness, these graceful buildings of white and gray with their bright red tile roofs. Pots of flowers stood in windowsills, and streamers of indigo cloth trailed from woven lattices strung between buildings, shading outdoor food shops. People went about buying and selling on the streets, workers carrying tools, donkeys pulling carts laden with barrels or piles of mud-gray bricks, women with baskets tucked under their arms or bundles balanced on their heads, and a page in livery leading a brace of nervous, long-legged dogs on bejeweled leashes.

  “Boulevard of the Flowers,” Sivran said in a low
voice. “We must go carefully here.”

  They passed through the merchant district without challenge. The streets here were broader and yet less populated, and many of the buildings—shops, Zevaron supposed, or apartments—had been shut up.

  As they neared the plaza, the foot traffic thickened. Zevaron noticed the tense expressions of the people. Ahead, he heard raised voices, bursts of shouting against a rolling mutter.

  A crowd had gathered in the plaza. From the periphery, it was difficult to see what was going on. Zevaron glanced up at the governor’s palace. Several men stood on the open balcony, most likely the commanding Gelonian general and his aides. And there was someone else, cloaked in shadow. Zevaron shivered, as if ice had brushed his skin, and quickly turned away.

  A man in Isarran dress stood on the topmost step, addressing the people. When the speaker finished, there was a flurry of activity. Muttering swept the assembly.

  Zevaron touched Sivran’s arm. “What is happening?”

  “It’s an execution,” Sivran muttered. “Someone dared to stand against them.”

  “We must find Aharros—look, there he is!” Sivran’s friend, Harela, shoved her way through the crowd with Sivran hard on her heels.

  Zevaron followed them for a short way, then a path opened up and for an instant, he could see the space right before the palace steps. The scene looked like a theatrical presentation, with the players frozen in dramatic postures. The blue and purple plumes of the Gelonian helmets glowed in the sun. Their armor and bared swords caught the light. Zevaron halted, horrified and fascinated, as he recognized the man who had thrown the stone at the soldiers. He was one of a handful, ten at least, all of them bound, some bloodied, one or two struggling weakly.

  That could be me.

  Around them, people shifted uneasily, cutting off his view. Cries of protest arose here and there, as quickly choked off. The crowd wavered between action and horrified paralysis. A spark would set them off. All they needed, Zevaron thought, was a leader to bring them together.