Qhora walked along the back of the platform away from the train tracks with Atoq padding silently beside her. At the center of the platform, she stopped to study the blasted remains of the long black machine lying across the tracks. The rails themselves had been bent and snapped and the wooden ties lay tumbled on the side of the line. She knelt down to knead the back of Atoq’s neck. “Do you smell something, boy?”
“He probably smells the blood, my lady.”
Qhora looked up and saw Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir striding across the platform toward her. In the deep night shadows, the young hidalgo almost vanished in his long black coat and boots, and his wide-brimmed hat shadowed his pale face. It was moments like this that he was at his most dashing, his most mysterious, and his most exotic. Sometimes Qhora asked herself whether she was only attracted to the man because he was so foreign, so pale, so thin and sharp and cold. Have I merely fetishized him? Would I love the man within if he did not look so alien? Does it even matter anymore? She turned away. After all, he only loves his three-faced god now.
The Espani swordsman circled the huge cat and stood beside Qhora with his hands clasped behind his back. “The police say the explosion killed over twenty people and injured forty others. The station will be closed for several days while they clean this up and repair the rails and other machines.”
“Days?” Qhora stood up as a cold breeze played through her feathered cloak. If we had been early to the station, as I had wanted, we would be lying dead on this platform too. Perhaps there is a time and place for being late. But no. That is no way for a lady to behave. “If we wait that long, then we will arrive late, Enzo. I don’t like to be late. It’s rude.”
“Of course,” Lorenzo said. “But it can’t be helped. The trains can’t leave until the tracks are repaired and the police allow the station to open. The men at the gate say that this was not an accident.”
“This was an attack?” Qhora frowned. These easterners rely too much on their machines. They’re forever breaking down. Even when they work, they need to be pampered like babies with oil and water and coal and fire. Are they so afraid to ride a living creature? “Why would someone want to destroy a train? Or did they mean to kill someone? To kill us?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so.” Lorenzo removed his hat and his limp black hair fluttered in the wind against his shoulders. “The people here are all angry at one company or another because there isn’t enough work. There are many poor and starving people in Marrakesh.”
“Not enough work?” The phrase made no sense to her. There is always work. If you need a home, you work to build it. If you are hungry, you work to feed yourself. Life is work. These easterners are fools. Qhora shook her head. “In Espana, everyone says Marrakesh is wealthy. So far, I am not impressed.”
“No, it’s nothing like Jisquntin Suyu, I agree. And Tingis is an overgrown fishing village compared to Cusco. But the Incan Empire is very different from the nations of the Middle Sea.” Lorenzo gestured back toward the gate. “We should return to the hotel, my love.”
He still calls me that, but there is no light in his eyes, no fire in his blood. His soul belongs to his churches and ghosts now, not me. She allowed him to lead her out of the train station. “Enzo, I want to leave immediately. How else can we reach the capital?”
The young hidalgo frowned. “The airships were all damaged in the explosion, I believe, not that we could take Atoq and Wayra in an airship. We might be able to charter a steamer to take us down the coast to Port Chellah where the trains will be running.”
Qhora touched his arm and he fell instantly silent. For all the strangeness of the Espani, for all their primitive ghost-worship and rituals and elaborate clothing, they were extraordinarily disciplined. He was waiting for her to speak, and she wondered how long he might stand there in perfect respectful silence. Lorenzo seemed even more selfless and controlled than his countrymen, though that may have only been due to his youth. Will his zeal and dedication tarnish with age? Qhora shook her head. “No more machines. No more ships or trains. We will ride to the capital and we will arrive on time.”
Lorenzo nodded slowly. “I think we can manage that if we take the old highway due south instead of the coastal route. I’ll see to the horses tonight. We’ll need a small cart for the cages and trunks. Will you need a horse, my lady?”
“No. Wayra is the only mount I need.”
He nodded again. “Xiuhcoatl should be happy, at least. I doubt he would appreciate spending any more time at sea.”
Qhora smiled. The aging Aztec was fearsome on the battlefield, but at sea he was as helpless as a child. She had watched him cling to the railing of the steamer that brought them from Tartessos to Tingis. The memory might have amused her more if it was not accompanied by the foul stench of his vomit on the wind. “I agree.”
They turned left from the train station gates and returned back down the hill to their hotel overlooking the harbor. Dozens of huge steamships lay at anchor like manmade islands in the darkness, but the small fishing boats bobbed and splashed, their rigging clattering in the wind. Angry clouds gathered overhead to swallow up the stars and a light rain began to patter on the cobbled streets. Lorenzo offered her his hat, which she refused. He covered his head, once again hiding his face and becoming a figure of living shadow at her side. She pulled her feathered cloak tighter around her shoulders, but let the drops fall on her hair and face. The water was cold and clean. As the air filled with rain, the smell of the city faded and she inhaled her first breath of fresh air since arriving in this filthy place earlier in the day.
“Did you notice the ambassador’s face this afternoon?” she asked.
“You mean when you showed her the cubs?”
“Yes. She turned white as a sheet. I’ve never seen a person so terrified. She was stammering and shaking. Honestly, they’re only a pair of babies, and caged at that,” Qhora said. “I can’t believe Prince Valero wanted to send a giant armadillo. What sort of gift is that for a queen? No imagination, no respect. He probably wanted to send it just because it’s big, but what use is that? Can you imagine a queen with a giant armadillo lumbering around her palace? I suppose the children could ride it. But the cubs are proper gifts. Once they grow up, they will serve the royal family as bodyguards, hunters, and even gentle pets if that is what the queen wants. Thank goodness I was there to change the arrangements in time.”
Suddenly she sensed an absence. The huge cat was no longer by her side. Qhora slapped her thigh. “Atoq! Here!”
A low growl answered from behind her and she turned to see Atoq standing at the mouth of a narrow alleyway, his head low, his hackles bristling, his massive fangs bared at the darkness. The great cat shifted and hissed, his broad paws silently kneading up and down as he settled into a crouch, ready to strike. The patter of the rain rose to drum louder on the tin and slate roofs overhead.
Qhora drew her dagger from her belt, but Lorenzo swept past her to block the alleyway. He called out, “Who’s there?”
The rain applauded on the street behind them, drowning out all other sounds.
Qhora circled the saber-toothed cat to look into the dark hollow between the two buildings, but she saw nothing, only a black veil shimmering with silvery rain.
Lorenzo stepped back, his breath steaming faintly in the darkness. “Get back!” His slender espada flashed in his hand and he lunged into the alley, vanishing into the deeper shadows. Atoq roared and leapt after him.
Qhora stood in the street clutching her dagger and listening to the hidalgo shout and the giant cat roar. Something wooden cracked and the splinters clattered on the ground. And then all was silence.
Lorenzo emerged from the gloom, his sword sheathed and hidden within the folds of his long black coat. “It was nothing, my lady. Atoq must have smelled an animal or the garbage. Although, I…” He looked back.
“You what?”
“I’m sorry. I could have sworn there was someone in that alley,” Lorenz
o said.
She saw the strange glint in his eyes as he stared down the street and over the harbor. “You mean your guardian angel said so?”
He exhaled slowly, his breath no longer visible in the darkness. “I thought I might have heard her whisper something, but with the rain and Atoq growling, I suppose I just heard what I wanted to hear. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen Ariel.” He straightened up and folded his hands behind his back, and suddenly he was her hidalgo again. “I’m sorry, my love. Let’s get you out of the rain.”
Atoq trotted out into the street where he stood and stretched, licking his teeth.
Ariel. What use are ghosts if they cannot even warn you of an enemy? Qhora shrugged and resumed walking. She’d only taken a few steps when three men stepped out from the next alleyway down the street. Through the rain and shadows, the three figures appeared only in shades of gray, charcoal men in colorless clothes. Lorenzo’s espada whisked through the air as he drew it and the young hidalgo stepped in front of her for the second time. Qhora yanked her dagger from her belt and glanced behind them. Two more men stepped out with long jagged clubs in their hands.
“Five of them, Enzo,” she said. “We’re surrounded.”
Atoq growled.
“Yes, we are.” Lorenzo called out to the men in Mazigh, “What do you want?”
One of them yelled back over the hiss of the rain, “Everything you have. On the ground. Now. Or we kill you.”
Qhora barely understood the man over the noise. The Mazigh language was not difficult, but after mastering four tongues of the Incan Empire and then Espani, she was finding it harder and harder to learn new ones. And she hadn’t even tried Hellan or Persian yet.
“We have nothing to give you,” Lorenzo answered. “No money. No jewelry.”
The men didn’t answer. Qhora moved to stand back to back with Lorenzo. Atoq paced forward and the two men on the high side of the street hesitated, glancing at each other. Without turning her head, Qhora said Lorenzo, “Can you fight three men at once?”
“Yes.” There was no pride in his voice, only certainty. In Espana, the young hidalgo was counted among the finest diestros of his generation, a fencing prodigy. She had seen him duel and acknowledged his skill with the tiny espada, but this was no duel and an espada could be snapped by a man with the courage to grab it. For a moment, Qhora wished that Xiuhcoatl had been the one to follow her to train station. Even after two years together, and despite everything else she felt for him, she still hesitated to trust Enzo’s skill over other men’s strength.
Lorenzo dashed from her side down the street but she didn’t dare look back. The two men above her raced forward, both angling toward Atoq with their clubs raised. The beast crouched, snarling, and then he leapt. The man on the right vanished under eight hundred pounds of wet fur and fangs. The man on the left stumbled around the cat and swung his broken board at Qhora’s head. With practiced grace, she whirled her soaking feathered cloak at his face to blind him with a sudden spray of water, then whirled back in the opposite direction, ducking under the club and burying her dagger in his throat as he stumbled past. He collapsed to the ground, choking and clawing at his neck. A moment later he lay still and Qhora yanked her dagger free, unable to tell the blood from the black puddles of filthy street water in the darkness. She looked up to see Atoq padding away from his kill with blood dripping from his fangs and she glanced at the remains of the other man, his shredded belly and intestines spilled across the cobblestones. Atoq sat down and began licking his drenched paw to wash his face.
Turning, she saw the dark figure of Lorenzo standing beside three bodies, his sword already sheathed and hidden in the folds of his greatcoat. The rain fell harder and colder, drumming on her bare head. Qhora slipped her dagger back into her belt and pulled her feathered cloak tight around her shoulders as she walked over to him to look at the men. Clad in patched trousers and stained shirts, armed only with scrap wood and rusted pig iron rods, they lay in a neat pile at the side of the road. Briefly, she wondered if Lorenzo had moved the bodies or somehow contrived to kill them in such a way that they all fell on top of each other. Both seemed equally likely as she knew how much Lorenzo valued cleanliness. She asked, “Are you hurt?”
“No. Are you?”
“No. Who are they?”
He paused before saying, “Desperados. Men who can’t find work, I suppose. It’s not uncommon here. We should not be out so late. It isn’t safe.”
Qhora nodded slowly. “I had noticed that.”
They resumed their unhurried walk through the rain to the hotel. Atoq followed behind them, sniffing about in the gutters and puddles along the way.
“Enzo, I owe you an apology,” she said.
Lorenzo stopped abruptly and snatched the wide-brimmed hat from his head. He stared at her, eyes wide with a strange mixture of horror and confusion. She studied his thin, pale face as the rainwater ran down over his sharp nose and cheeks. Once he had worn a tanned skin and a ready smile, and he was as likely to be laughing as singing when she found him. But now he was merely this, merely a thin figure, dark and quiet, anxious and uncertain. The lines around his eyes had deepened so much in the last few months, aging him beyond what had once been a youthful twenty-five. The rough stubble on his cheeks added a few years of their own.
She said, “I’ve been unkind to you, my love. Over the last year, you’ve done nothing but serve me with great skill and greater patience. And I’ve done nothing but complain. I complain about your boring priests and your bland food, your ghost stories, and even the weather.”
He nodded slowly, his face a blank. “It is very cold in Espana, my lady.”
“But what good does it do to complain about it?” Qhora shivered as a trickle of freezing rain snaked down from her hair along the curve of her spine. “I realize that I’ve been comparing Espana to Jisquntin Suyu, which is unfair. Espana is a strange place, but it is beautiful too in its own way. And your people have many fine qualities. Loyalty, devotion, discipline. Beyond that of my own people, I admit.”
“No, my love.” Lorenzo wiped his gloved hand across his face to push his soaked hair back. “We’re only people, no better or worse than any other.”
“Of course you’re better than others.” Qhora tried not to snap too sharply at him. Sometimes his humility goes too far. “You’re better than these Mazighs. You’ve sung their praises to me for the last two weeks, and here I find a filthy city full of vagrants and killers. No. I’m sorry, Enzo. The Espani are a fine and noble people and I am grateful that you took me in when I had no place to go. And I will be just as grateful to be done with this errand and back in Tartessos, listening to your hymns and ghost stories again. And with a much more grateful heart.”
“I know it’s been difficult for you. Maybe, after we go home, we can find a way to make things more comfortable for you.” He smiled faintly as he replaced his hat and they continued walking, the saber-toothed cat always just a few paces away. “Tonight may count as a ghost story, you know. If Ariel hadn’t warned me, we might have been unprepared. We might have been hurt.”
Qhora pressed her lips for a moment before answering. “Yes, Enzo. But the next time your little ghost friend warns us about something, please have her be more specific about where the enemy is hiding.”
He said, “I will do that.”
They rounded the corner and saw the dark windows of their hotel reflecting the light of the oil lamps hanging across the street.
“Have your horses ready at dawn,” Qhora said. “I want to be on the road as soon as possible. And be certain they give Wayra fresh meat. I don’t trust these Mazighs to keep their filth out of our food.”
“Yes, my love.”
She saw his hand resting on his chest, on the medallion hanging around his neck beneath his shirt, as he stared up at the moon. He isn’t even here, is he? He’s off with his god and his ghosts, hating this life and dreaming of the next one. Enzo, when did I lose you?
Cha
pter 5. Sade
The porter brought the telegram just as Lady Sade began thinking that it was time to go to bed. She took the envelope, dismissed the man, and went to sit at her desk in the corner of her study. The message was from a certain young woman who worked in the customs office in Tingis, a young woman with the good fortune to receive a second paycheck in return for sending daily reports to her benefactor in Arafez.
Lady Sade sighed as she unlocked the bottom desk drawer and pulled out the translation key. It took half an hour to decipher the telegram’s handful of words and she spent most of that time wondering if this elaborate means of security was really worth the effort and trouble.
Of course it is. The stakes are too high.
The translated message read, “Morning. Copper prices still rising. Storms reported to west. Persian steamer seen in Strait. Afternoon. Chaou met envoys. Brought two fanged cats. Chaou upset. Evening. Train explosion. Airship explosion. Many dead. Hamuy arrested. Chaou missing.”
Lady Sade frowned at those last words. Arrested. Missing.
Damn it, Barika.
She rang a small bell on her desk and a moment later her secretary entered. “Yes, madam?”
“I need a cat, Izza. Two would be ideal, but one will do.”
“Any particular type, madam?”
“Something with large fangs, if possible. Something Espani would be best. At the very least, it must be foreign and about this large.” She held up her hands two feet apart.
“Yes, madam,” Izza said. “I’m not sure how long it will take to secure an exotic animal. When do you need it?”
“Noon tomorrow.” Lady Sade watched the young woman hesitate, swallow, and wet her lips. “Have the cage loaded on my steam carriage, out of sight.”
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