by J. S. Bangs
She reached Patara, and she and Khinda wrapped him in an embrace.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Ashti keep him. I didn’t come in time.”
She began to weep into Patara’s shoulder. Patara shivered, though Khinda and Idhaji warmed him with the heat of their bodies. His blood dripped down his chest. He watched the blood dissolve into the waves, his eyes dry of everything except seawater.
That was how the Red Men found them.
They boarded the Red Men’s galley. There was a time of hurry and confusion, which Patara could not remember afterwards, which ended with Patara lying in a hammock on the deck, his wounds bathed and bound with salt and clean rags, and a sail stretched over him to protect him from the sun. He slept.
His sleep was tormented by feverish nightmares, full of the taste of blood in salt water and lithe, pitiless shapes that swam around him.
He awoke to find the hammock swaying gently with the rocking of the boat and a sea-scented breeze stirring his hair. The shallow angle of the sunlight told him it was morning. A man crouched near his hammock, watching him intently.
“Are you awake or dreaming?” the man asked. It was Khinda.
“Awake,” Patara whispered.
Khinda brought a wooden ladle full of water to his lips. “The ship’s medic said that you’ll live,” he said as Patara drank. “A little weak in the wounded hand, and a great scar. But you won’t lose it.”
After three swallows Patara shook his head and refused any more. Khinda put the ladle down and knelt next to Patara’s hammock. “You might even get up tomorrow,” Khinda said.
“Ashturma,” he whispered.
Khinda hung his head. When he answered, his voice was as quiet and level as the sea becalmed. “Ashti’s bosom. We could have recovered… some of him. But we thought it was better to give him to Ashti.”
A sailor’s burial. He would have done the same thing. “And Idhaji?”
“She’s alive, for now. I could have her come.”
A throbbing pain pierced Patara’s chest. He closed his eyes for a while and let the sea rock him as he gathered the will to answer. “Bring her.”
Khinda’s clothes shuffled quietly, and his feet brushed the deck of the galley. “Right away, my captain.”
A few minutes passed. The sun rose above the lip of sail stretched over Patara’s hammock, and the hot breath of the day stirred his salt-crusted hair. Two pairs of steps brushing against the deck announced Khinda’s return. Patara opened his eyes.
Idhaji’s long gray hair was matted against her skull and trailed listlessly across her shoulders, a few strands blown by the wind over the creases of her face.
“Dear Captain,” Idhaji said, her voice as hoarse and rough as the stones of the reef. All of the mirth that had danced in her words before was gone. “I failed you.”
“We all failed,” he said. His throat gave out, and he gasped for a few minutes, massaging his throat with his uninjured hand. Khinda offered him another ladle of water, and he drank. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Until this evening,” Idhaji said. “The captain honored my request to be given to the sea. At sundown they will cut my throat, pour my blood into the water, and give my body to Ashti. So he has promised me.”
She described her own execution with the same calmness and quiet that she might have used to describe the wind across the waves. Patara studied her face, but could find no trace of sorrow or anxiety hiding in the deep lines of her face. Perhaps the thikratta knew things of death that took away their fear.
“The captain also promised,” she went on, “that he would pay you the bounty for my capture, plus ten talents for the destruction of the Kaleksha pirates.”
“Oh,” Patara said. A deeper heaviness settled over his heart. “Is that to console me?”
“Today nothing will console you, my captain,” Idhaji said, and her voice nearly cracked with sorrow. “But there will be a day when you sail your new dhow on the bright sea, with a strong wind in your sail and shining clouds on the horizon, and you will think of your son, and you’ll be glad you have the dhow for his memory.”
Patara closed his eyes. “Today I see no bright sea and shining clouds.”
“Nor should you. Not today.” She breathed heavily. Her fingers brushed Patara’s cheek, a whisper of movement like a leaf brushing the surface of the water. “I have one more thing to give you. The satchel with my books…”
“You still have it?”
“I never took it off my back. Wet but salvageable. You may have them. Do with them what you think is right.”
“We should go,” Khinda said. “The captain of the Red Men…”
“I see him looking at us,” Idhaji said with annoyance. “Our time of forbearance is up. Goodbye, dear Captain.”
They left. Patara was alone. The hammock swayed, and the warm day breeze blew across the deck and creaked in the rigging of the sail. The regular splash of the galley oars matched his slow breathing. His wounded arm burned with soft, distant pain. He closed his eyes, and he may have slept.
He heard someone’s breathing. Khinda again. He held Idhaji’s leather satchel in his hand. He bowed to Patara and laid the satchel next to the post holding up Patara’s hammock.
“I told the Red Men that it has your son’s things,” Khinda said. “What will you do with it?”
Patara reached out and grasped his mate’s hand. They waited for a moment in silence, the only sounds the creaking of the hammock and the murmuring of the ship’s boards around them.
“I will take my bounty,” Patara said softly, his throat barely capable of forming the words. “I will pay the creditors and get another dhow. But before I sail for tin again, I’ll sail to the place called Pukasra. And I’ll bring her books to Ternas.”
“You’re going to finish her errand for her? She cost us everything. She cost you—”
“Ashturma,” Patara finished his thought. He closed his eyes and felt the sting of tears beneath his lids. “He wanted it. It’s my gift to him.”
“My captain,” Khinda said. He squeezed Patara’s hand tighter. With a rustle of his clothes, he rose and kissed Patara’s forehead.
Patara clutched Khinda’s hand to his chest. They remained there for a long time. The sea air dried Patara’s tears into salt, the sun rose towards its white zenith, and the wind carried them towards home.
Coming Soon
Enjoy this sneak peek at Heir of Iron, the first volume of The Powers of Amur. Heir of Iron is now available on Amazon.
Heir of Iron: Chapter One
The trader’s eyes first went to the rubies on Mandhi’s fingers and the jade pentacle at her throat, then to the knot of hair resting against the nape of her neck. The order was important. It meant that he valued money over worship and would capitulate on those grounds. She raised her right hand to tuck a stray wisp of hair into the bun, flashing him the star-iron ring on her first finger. His eyes, small and quick as a mongoose’s, darted to the ring for a moment, brief enough that she would not have seen it if she wasn’t watching closely. It was enough.
“I am looking for a slave, Rishakka,” she said.
The trader drew his breath in sharply as if her words had wounded him. He pressed his hands together and bowed, his cap nearly touching the tea-tray in front of them. “My lady, I am honored that you chose to meet with me. But I do not know if I can provide you with a slave.”
“You cannot? Are you not a slave trader? Is that not a slave pen?” She gestured through the yellow cotton curtains of the window towards the courtyard walled in red mud-brick and striped with chains.
“May I pour you some more tea? No, I see your cup is full. The problem, my lady, is that my trade is solely with the merchants who run the markets, and there are contracts, you understand. Contracts which prohibit me from plying my trade with anyone else. I am pleased to entertain a woman of your station, but I tremble at the thought of the penalties the merchants will inflict on me should I tran
sgress the bounds of our agreements.”
“But surely you can make an exception. For a price.”
“It would be a very great price. Perhaps you don’t understand.”
Mandhi took a sip of her tea. Bitter, though she liked it that way. More importantly, she learned he was eager to entertain her but too greedy to spare his cane syrup. This confirmed what she had inferred from the room’s decor: cushions of cotton rather than silk for guests, clay teacups on an unlacquered tray, a statue of Dhashi in a niche behind the table with miserly offerings of rice and flowers before it. Each of these things was enough to satisfy propriety, but not enough to indicate wealth. “I understand,” she said. “Now, you do take debt-slaves, don’t you? Not just mountain-folk.”
“Yes,” Rishakka said, after a moment’s hesitation.
“I’m looking for a very particular slave. A man you took as a debt slave from Chivakshi. His name is Navran.”
The man waved his hand in a tight circle next to his shoulder. “My lady, forgive me. I don’t recall the names of the slaves that pass through my pen. I try not to even learn them.”
“But you recall this.” She slipped the star-iron ring from her finger and set it on the tea-tray. The metal made a deep, low click against the wood. The trader’s breath caught in his throat, and his hand clenched briefly at something hidden beneath his kurta. A moment later his face had regained its obsequious smile, and he shook his head.
“What would a slave be doing with such a ring? Especially a debt slave. You could pay the debts of ten lifetimes with such a ring. No, no, my lady, if you’re looking for the slave who stole a ring from you—”
“So you’ve never seen a ring like this before?”
“Perhaps you overestimate the wealth which a trader such as me acquires.”
“Or perhaps he lost it before coming to you.” She slipped the ring back on to her finger and pursed her lips. “His name is Navran. Are you sure you never heard of him?”
“Never once, my lady.”
“Then I’ll have to continue my search elsewhere.” She rose from her cushion and bowed briefly to the trader, then turned towards the curtained arch through which she had entered. At the doorway she paused. “We have taken the largest chamber at the Uluriya guesthouse a short way from here. I’m sure you know of it. Perhaps, if you hear anything about this Navran, you’ll send someone to let us know. You will be suitably compensated.”
An avaricious grin glimmered through the man’s mustache. “If I hear anything, I will run like lightning to tell you.”
“Very well. The stars upon your house.” She did not wait to hear the man’s stammered response.
In the shade before the entrance Taleg, Mandhi’s bodyguard and escort, sat hunched on a bench. Rishakka’s door guard sat opposite him, and a sacchu board balanced between them, the beads tapping erratically as the men made their moves with indifference. With a hefty shout Taleg clicked the last of his beads into place and clapped his hands together in victory. The guard grunted and swatted the board away. The beads clattered against the wall and scattered on the ground.
Taleg let out a rumble of victory and rose, laughing at the other man’s scowl. Once on his feet, Taleg stood a full head over the other man and looked down at him with congenial pity. “Better luck next time, eh?”
The guard spat and moved wordlessly to sulk next to the doorway, glaring at Taleg with naked hostility.
Mandhi tapped Taleg’s elbow. “We’re finished here.”
“Soon enough!” Taleg bellowed. “If I keep beating this chap at sacchu he’s going to test his spear on me.”
He let himself smile at her for a moment, then bent to pick up his stave. Mandhi glanced down to hide the rush of heat in her face. Taleg laughed, his ruddy mane shaking, and thumped the ground with his stave like a ram’s hoof. Then he pushed forward into the open street.
Mandhi kept herself a short pace behind him, though her legs churned the ground beneath her sari keeping up with Taleg’s stride. His girth and boldness plowed a path through the street, forcing aside farmers laden with baskets of grain and women with jars perched atop their heads. Beggars lined the streets, pleading for scraps of roti, and the chanting of dhorsha in the street-side shrines mingled with their cries to drown the area in babble. The air was thick with the smell of dung fires and sweat, smoke and sacrificial blood.
“Anything there?” Taleg asked once they were well away from the Rishakka’s residence. He spoke just loud enough for Mandhi to hear.
“Yes,” Mandhi said quietly. “Navran was there, and Rishakka has his ring. Not that he would admit to any of it.”
“But Navran’s not there now?”
“Not unless Rishakka’s hiding him, and I don’t think he has reason to. But we’ll ask him tonight.”
“Tonight? We’re going back?”
“He’s coming to us. I planted bait.”
“Eh.” Mandhi could not see Taleg’s face, but his voice creaked with concern. “That could be trouble.”
“Trouble? It’s a good thing that my escort is an enormous man of incredible courage, then.”
* * *
The half-circle of the moon pearled the curtains over the archway of the door. A bed covered with down-filled cushions embroidered in silk and sprinkled with spikenard reclined on the far side of the room, half-lit by a square of moonlight. A sleeping figure was draped in thin satin sheets on the bed, the moonlight drawing a white curve over the figure’s hip. The murmur of the night’s traffic pattered through the window with the smell of dung smoke and the town’s effluvium. Something scraped beneath the window.
Hands appeared on the window ledge, then the crown of a white cotton cap, then a face. The man pulled himself up with a stifled grunt and got his knee onto the ledge. He paused a moment to catch his breath. Then he swung his legs over and dropped to the floor with a patter like falling leaves. The sleeping figure did not stir.
Three silent strides brought the man to the bedside. His hand disappeared into the breast of his tunic then reappeared with a glittering knife. He crept to the head of the sleeping form and pressed the blade against its neck. He whispered. “Get up. Make no sound. Do not call for your guard.”
“Too bad he’s already awake,” the sleeping figure said. Taleg’s sinewy arm bolted from beneath the blanket and seized the thief by the wrist. With a flex of his legs he hurled himself off the mat.
Rishakka howled. There was a moment of struggle in which they were shades wrestling in the darkness, but it lasted no more than a breath. The knife clattered across the floor tiles. Then Taleg sat atop the trader, pinning Rishakka’s wrists to the ground with one hand, his other hand at the man’s throat.
“You can come out now, Mandhi,” he said.
Mandhi emerged from the darkness of the alcove leading to the servant’s chamber, where Taleg would have slept on an ordinary night. “Did he harm you?”
“He didn’t get the knife in me, no. And a little tumble in the night isn’t going to hurt me.”
Mandhi knelt next to the trader. “I’m a little surprised to see you here personally, Rishakka. I thought you might send a hired thug. You came to get my right?”
He shook his head vigorously.
“Loosen your grip on his throat,” Mandhi said. “I want to hear him talk.”
The man gasped as soon as Taleg’s fingers widened. A half a sob dribbled out of his lips. “What do you want from me?”
“First off, I want Navran’s ring.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You had it today. I saw you touch it under your shirt, and somehow I doubt you left it behind if you are too paranoid to leave it in your strongbox during the day.” She slipped her hand beneath the man’s kurta and found a purse bound by a leather thong to his belly. “Is there anything in here other than the ring?”
“It’s mine. A safe purse, I sleep with it, honest gold from trade. Nothing stolen.”
“I’m sure,” Taleg said.
“Is it the one?” Taleg asked.
A pentacle etched into the surface of the ring glinted in the silver light. Her mouth was dry for a moment, and a wave of elation and weariness washed over her. “It’s the one,” she whispered.
“I don’t know how a drunk slob like that man got such a thing,” Rishakka said. “I swear on Am’s thighs, I’ve never met a more dissolute and feckless debtor in all my life. If he had an inkling of what that ring is worth, he would have sold it ages ago. You’re lucky I took it from him, or else you’d never see it again.”
“And that’s why you were so keen to get my ring as well? As a token of our gratitude, I’ll let you keep the rest of the gold in your purse. Also, Taleg will not break your neck.”
“Can I at least break his fingers?” Taleg asked.
Mandhi smiled. “Let him answer one more question. Where is Navran now?”
“What? Why do you want to know? He was a worthless man, barely worth my trouble to capture him.”
“Taleg, break his—”
“No! I’ll tell you! I sold him north, in Virnas, as a rower. He’s probably festering in the belly of a trade-galley by now.”
“To whom? I want a name.”
“Bhila. But he doesn’t own the ships, he buys the slaves in bulk and sells them to the ships. I told you, I don’t work directly with buyers. If you’re looking for him you’ll have to find Bhila.”
Mandhi slipped the ring onto her right hand, where it fit snugly above the other one. She nodded at Taleg. He rose to his feet and nudged Rishakka away with his toe. “Get out.”
“You’re not calling the majakhadir’s militia?”
“I said get out,” Taleg rumbled, “before we lose our patience.”
