To the High Redoubt

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  They rode on in silence through the weeping, fading day.

  That night they came upon more ruins, not as old as the ones they had passed through most recently, but more ancient than the first empty city they had encountered.

  “What place is this?” Arkady asked as they came to an avenue of broken pillars.

  “I don’t know,” Surata admitted when he had described it to her. “The guardian mentioned only two empty cities.” There was a flickering of doubt in her words.

  “Well, perhaps he forgot to mention this one.” He peered through the mizzle, trying to find a place where they would be out of the wet for the night.

  “I…” She could not go on and said very little when he brought his bay to a halt in a vast, broken doorway.

  “We will be dry here,” he said as he dismounted. “The ground is damp, but we can put the branches underneath us, and that will help a little.”

  She permitted him to decide what they were to do; she remained silent and withdrawn, caught up in her fear that they once again were lost.

  As they had the last of their food that night, Arkady put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Surata,” he said awkwardly. “We’ll do what we can, come morning. It could be that the Bundhi is too much for us.”

  “You mean, that he has forced us to lose our way? That is good-hearted of you, Arkady-immai. But I have been riding with you, not the Bundhi. If we are lost again, it is because I have not…” There was a sudden tightness in her throat.

  “You aren’t to blame.” He kissed her forehead. “Go on: get some sleep. We’ll both feel better in the morning.”

  She nodded miserably. “I did not think it was my karma to do this. If I had known, I would not have brought you into it.”

  “Just as well you didn’t know, then,” he said affectionately. “I don’t like to think what would have become of me without you. And if this is the end of it, then praise God and amen.” He crossed himself before pulling her into the circle of his arms.

  “Arkady-champion,” she protested softly.

  “Shush,” he whispered.

  Chapter 21

  There were rag-tail clouds in the morning sky, and the shadow of mountains in the south. Arkady stretched, hearing his joints crack from stiffness and the damp. His attention was held by the sight of the mountains and the nearer structure that he had not bothered to explore the previous evening. He walked toward the enormous conical structure, noting its age and the utter quiet of it.

  At one time the tower had been fronted in marble, but most of that was gone now, leaving rough bricks exposed, which made climbing the thing relatively easy. As he clawed his way toward the top, Arkady felt the stiff leather of his boots, and he hoped he might find some wax to rub into them to restore their suppleness.

  “Arkady-immai!” Surata’s call from below, not urgent but not entirely at ease.

  “Here! Up here!” he shouted back to her. He was almost at the top of the structure now, and he felt a cold certainty at what he would discover within it.

  “Up where?” she inquired. “Where are you?”

  “There is a…a tower,” he answered, a bit uncertain of how much more he should say. He clung to the bricks, breathing hard from the exertion of the climb and the sudden rush of apprehension that came over him.

  “And?” she persisted.

  He did not answer at once; he went the rest of the way up the hive-shaped building until he reached the open top. He balanced there, staring down into the interior in excitement. “There are…bones.” The last word was hard to say, and he felt a moment of vertigo as he stared down at the bleached skeletons that littered the inside of the tower.

  Surata clapped her hands. “We are not lost, after all!”

  “I suppose not,” Arkady said, more to himself than to her. He looked into the distance, shading his eyes. He was not sure what to expect, yet he discovered he was holding his breath as he stared east, toward the foot of the mountains. At first he saw nothing more than the blue and tawny yellow of the peaks rising out of the plain. Then he noticed the shapes against the foothills, and slowly he picked out the walls and towers of a city. “Samarkand,” he breathed, certain that was what he saw.

  “What is it, Arkady-immai?” Surata shouted. “What do you see?”

  “Walls and towers. A long way off.” To his astonishment, his voice cracked as he told her, and he felt his eyes fill with tears that were so unexpected that they baffled him.

  “Ah!” she yelled. “Tell me!”

  Very slowly and carefully, he answered her. “The walls are as yellow as the sands and rocks, and the domes are blue.”

  This time she said nothing, but her laughter was eloquent.

  As Arkady climbed back down the tower, he searched his mind for explanations and could find none but the one Surata had given him. He whispered a prayer, but to whom and for what he did not know.

  They entered Samarkand shortly before midafternoon three days later and heard the men at the gates call their city The Most Splendid Face of the Earth.

  “Do you know the language, then?” Arkady asked Surata when she had translated this for him.

  “A little. Enough.” She hesitated. “I will tell you what to say, and you must speak for us. The Islamites do not like to deal with women.”

  Arkady shrugged. “The Islamites are heretics and fools,” he said automatically, repeating what he had been told for so long. They were making their way down a narrow street paved with hexagonal stones.

  “Do not let them know you think so, or it will go hard with both of us,” she warned him.

  Ahead he saw a feathery ornamentation of blue-and-gold mosaic tiles covering a square, closed building surmounted by a blue dome. The structure was surrounded by trees and borders of sweet-smelling herbs.

  “Is it beautiful?” Surata asked him softly.

  “Yes. After the plains, it is paradise.” He did not like to admit how much the city awed him. They passed the closed building and continued on, nearing another stone box topped with a fluted dome. “What are these places?” he wondered aloud.

  “I will tell you what to say to find out,” Surata offered, and painstakingly repeated the syllables to him, insisting that he do his best to imitate her accent.

  At the first opportunity, Arkady stopped one of the turbaned inhabitants and repeated the sounds Surata had taught him. His inquiry was met with a flurry of words and abrupt gestures that made Arkady nervous to hear. “What did he say?” he asked Surata.

  “He says that they are tombs for noble families,” she told him. “Say this to him next,” she instructed, giving him some more incomprehensible things to parrot.

  This time the outburst was different, more voluble and definitely more cordial. At the end of it, the man made the Islamic bow of respect and passed on.

  “What was that? What did I say to him?” Arkady demanded of her as soon as their helper was out of range.

  “You asked him where the market was, and who had built so beautiful a city. He told you that it was the design of Timur and of the great Ulug-Beg, and that there are many marketplaces in Samarkand. The greatest is at the Registan, amid gardens, or so he claims.” She smiled. “He loves this place.”

  “It is beautiful,” Arkady said. They continued along the narrow, crowded street in the direction that the friendly man had indicated they should go. On their way, they passed several more of the ornate mausoleums, and on the front of one, Arkady saw the image of a pacing lion with the sun—a face smiling amid golden rays—perched on the lion’s back. This sight stirred some recollection, but he could not grasp it and, after a short time, dismissed it. He was too caught up in the glory of this magnificent city. Even the towers that marked the Islamite mosques could not detract from his admiration.

  The streets grew more crowded, and among the throng were merchants in strange Eastern garments, leading Bactrian camels and asses laden with goods for trade. Arkady threaded his way toward the square his i
nformant had indicated, trying hard not to dawdle and stare at the city around him.

  “We’re being followed,” Surata warned him softly when he paused to let a band of scrawny children run ahead of them. “There are three men who are coming after us as if coming after…prey.”

  Arkady felt a twinge of worry but said to her, “Surata, we’ve been out in the wastes by ourselves for a long time. We have seen almost no one. In such a place as this, it would be an easy thing to assume that all those around us are trying to follow us.” He patted the flank of his gelding as if this simple gesture would make them all relax.

  “They are following us,” she insisted. “They are the Bundhi’s men, and they have been sent to find us for him.” Her hands were white-knuckled with emotion, and she set her jaw. “It is a trap, Arkady-immai.”

  “It’s only the main square of Samarkand,” he corrected her, then tried to soften his blow. “Even if the Bundhi has sent men to watch for us, what can they do here? They might want to denounce us, but for what?” He patted the gelding as the noise around them grew louder. “We’ve been so isolated, Surata, that so many people are…troubling. It isn’t just you, it’s the horse and me as well. The city is unfamiliar, and that makes it worse.”

  “That isn’t what I sense, Arkady-immai, it is the presence of the staves.”

  Arkady shook his head and shouldered past a tinworker and his donkey. “We are almost to the square, and once we arrive, we can purchase food and grain and water, for us and for the horse. You’re tired and you’ve let your fear get hold of you,” he admonished her, trying to be pleasant in his manner.

  “You are certain?” she challenged him. “Why not look behind you for two men in tan silken robes? One is carrying a tall bamboo staff. You know what that bamboo is.”

  “Surata,” he said with a greater show of patience, “you’re being…impulsive.” He had nearly said arbitrary, but he was determined to make full allowances for their arduous journey and their fatigue. To satisfy her, he turned around, and saw a mass of men, none of them looking like the agents of the Bundhi. “There are merchants all around us, but I see no one with a bamboo staff. If you still think we’re being followed after we’ve had a meal and the gelding’s been stabled, then there might be reason to be on guard, and I promise you I’ll take every precaution.”

  “This isn’t hunger and exhaustion talking, Arkady-immai; it is certainty. I know the Bundhi, what he is, and I can scent him, though we were in a jungle of animals and men. Believe me, I beg of you. I know that you have reason to doubt when I…when I lost us as I did. This is different.”

  Arkady did not know what to say to her, and he was inclined to admit his doubts. “We’re coming to the marketplace. They say it is part of a garden.”

  She looked defeated. “That is delightful,” she said tonelessly.

  “There are men everywhere.”

  “I can hear them,” she conceded.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, wanting to cheer her.

  “And the Bundhi’s men are almost upon us. But do not let that deter you. The horse does need grain and we’re both hungry. We ought to take care to eat enough, for the Bundhi might not want to feed us, once he has us.”

  The narrow street opened onto a large sandy square, flanked on two sides by large buildings, one of which was the famous Madrasah of Ulug-Beg. The central massive gate was flanked by two tall towers, and the whole was ornamented with white, gold and blue mosaic tiles. At right angles to it, an ancient mosque of crumbling stone rose in majestic decay. There were fountains, the largest of which provided water for camels, horses and asses. The air was alive with the cry and chatter of the merchants who brought their goods to this enormous marketplace.

  “What place is this?” Surata asked nervously.

  “The market square,” Arkady said in relief. “I’m going to get water for the horse and then we can see about food.”

  “And perhaps take the time to find out if we are being watched,” she suggested.

  “We’re foreigners, Surata. Undoubtedly someone will be watching us.” He said this easily enough, but as he spoke he realized that there would be few places in the city that were better suited to watching them. Here no one would think another stranger unusual, and any odd behavior would be ignored. In a place where so many merchants from so far away gathered, a few more foreigners would mean nothing. He shook his head as he brought the bay to the fountain to drink.

  “There are three men,” Surata repeated in an undervoice. “If only you’d look, you’d find them.”

  “Surata,” Arkady said, making her name a rebuke. “When we’ve eaten, we can discuss this,” he declared, wiping his brow with his grimy sleeve. “For the moment, I don’t care.” He knew as soon as he had spoken that he had gone too far; she looked as if he had struck her. “Surata, I didn’t mean it that way,” he protested.

  “Naturally not,” she said in a strained tone.

  “I didn’t.” He tried to find the right explanation. “I’m worn out. That’s all.”

  “And you don’t believe me.” There was a quiver in her words that shocked him. “Oh, Arkady-immai, don’t you understand that the Bundhi wants to deceive you? Don’t you know that he thrives on deception? He could not be more pleased, because you cannot accept he is really here, and really chasing us. We are in the place of lions.” She clamped her jaw shut, her face stark with lonely terror.

  “The place of lions,” he repeated, remembering the mosaic he had seen on the side of the mausoleum.

  “I told you that there was a place where lions walked with the sun on their backs. This is that place, I know it. You may not see the lions, but I know—I know—they are there.”

  Arkady frowned thoughtfully, watching his horse drink. “There was a tomb, back in that narrow street. There was a lion on it, with the sun on his back.”

  “Arkady-immai, please. Get us away from this place!” She reached out and fumbled for his hand. “Now.”

  “We need food and water, Surata, and rest. Neither you nor I can do much until we have restored ourselves.” His frown deepened to a glower. “Food first, I think. Without that, we’ll be too worn to go on.”

  “Quickly,” she urged him. “And then we must find a safe place, where the Bundhi would hesitate to come.”

  “What place would that be?” He had not seen a church anywhere and could not bring himself to enter a mosque.

  “I don’t know. A place that’s guarded, a place where there are men who watch such things.” She was clearly at a loss, and her voice rose in desperation. “Arkady-immai, I don’t know what place it would be, but I want to find it.”

  He looked around the marketplace. “Your Bundhi isn’t going to try to attack you here, with so many people about.”

  “I am a slave,” she reminded him. “He need only say that he is reclaiming his property.”

  “He would have to argue with me, and I would insist that we take it to the local magistrates. The Islamites aren’t so lost to honor that they would give away a man’s slave for nothing.” As he spoke, he brought his horses’s head up and started away from the fountain, taking care to keep Surata close to him. “Would you rather ride? I’ll boost you up, if you want.”

  “I don’t…yes,” she decided. “Yes. If I am on your horse, they will see me more easily, but it will be harder for them to reach me unnoticed.” She accepted his help to mount, getting into the saddle rather than behind it. “Do not go far, Arkady-immai. Stay where there are many men.”

  He had already spotted where the grain-sellers had their stands, and he was heading toward them through the milling crowd. “I’ll stay in the square, don’t worry about that. And I have my swords and my maul.” He did not mention his cinquedea which was, as always, tucked under his belt against his back. “If they try anything, they’ll have to make a real effort.” In some part of his mind, he wished they would attack. He longed to fight flesh and bone instead of things of light and air that so frust
rated him in that other place. It would be satisfying to hack at a man, or to chop one of those pernicious bamboo staves into bits.

  “They are getting nearer, Arkady-immai,” she warned with an effort at calmness. “Two men, the ones who followed me when I was sent into slavery. I…do not know about the third.”

  “The Bundhi?” Arkady asked as he approached the nearest grain-seller and gestured that he wished to buy oats.

  “No. But a very advanced student of his, I think. He has the feel of one who has learned much and is…eager.” She shifted in the saddle, as if trying to make herself less accessible to those around her.

  The merchant smiled, showing toothless gums, and held out large, flat baskets of grain, nodding and holding up his fingers to indicate the price, obviously prepared to haggle.

  “I want three large sacks of grain,” Arkady said, pointing out what he had in mind and indicating what he was willing to pay for them.

  The merchant chuckled and made a counteroffer.

  “What lies on the street to the northeast of here?” Surata asked.

  Arkady glanced in that direction. “There are towers, probably another mosque.” He motioned to the merchant and pointed toward the tops of the spires he had noticed.

  “Ahie!” the merchant cried out and went on, pointing to the building. “Bibi-Khanym!” He then expostulated further and grinned at Arkady.

  “He tells you that this is the Ulug-Beg Madrasah, here on the square, where the great man taught and worshipped. But the place where he went to study the stars is in that building, beyond the mosque.” She put her hand to her forehead. “He says that all wise men come here to learn from what Ulug-Beg recorded.”

  “How fortunate,” Arkady said, returning the merchant’s grin and bowing. “What does he want for three large sacks of grain?”

  “Four gold pieces. He will take half that. It is more than he usually charges, but you are a foreigner, and therefore you are expected to pay more.” She cocked her head. “They are coming nearer.”

  “In this mess, how can you tell?” Arkady asked lightly. “Half of the Grand Turk’s army could be in this marketplace and I wouldn’t notice them.” He held up two fingers to the merchant, and dug into his pouch to bring out the gold pieces.