Snare (10 page)

When Warkannan and his men had turned east, they had left all of their plausible reasons for being on the road behind. They also traded the public roads for narrow dirt paths, and the constant rise of the land slowed them down as well. As long as they travelled through Kazrajistan proper, they rode at night and by day either camped well off the road or bribed some farmer to let them sleep in his barn. They avoided every town that was more than a village and kept clear of the military posts and courier stations that stood along the Darzet River.

After some days of this slow riding, they reached Andjaro, a province that had gone from being ChaMeech territory to an independent nation until, a mere hundred years ago, the khanate had decided that an independent nation on its border was a threat. The low hills angled from the north-east towards the south-west, so soft and regular that they reminded Warkannan of the folds a carpet forms when pushed and rumpled by a careless foot. Among these rolling purple downs, Warkannan had allies, and the allies, large landowners all, had private armies. Each night Warkannan and his party stayed in compounds surrounded by thousands of acres of purple grass, dotted with flocks of sheep. At each, Warkannan received coin for the journey, supplies of food and fuel, pack horses when he mentioned needing them, and the assurance that Jezro would have a place to hide when he came home.

Early on their third day in Andjaro, they crested a down and saw, stretching below them, a valley filled with green, billowing in the wind like clouds. Arkazo reined in his horse and stared, his mouth half-open.

‘What is that?’ he stammered. ‘Water?’

‘No,’ Warkannan said, grinning. ‘Trees.’

‘I’ve never seen so many in one place. All that green! And they grow so close together.’

‘How observant of you,’ Soutan drawled. ‘The word for a lot of them in one place is forest. That university of yours seems to have taught you little of value.’

‘We studied the works of the Three Prophets,’ Arkazo said. ‘Nothing’s of greater value. Not that an infidel like you would understand why.’

They had reached the tax forests, stand after stand of true-oak, planted in regular rows and watched over by foresters. As part of their most solemn duty to the Great Khan, the border landowners put as many acres into the slow-growing forests as they could afford – more, in some cases. Although in the volcanic mountains every metal imaginable lay close to the surface in rich veins, fuel for the smelting of it was another thing entirely. So far at least, no one had ever found any of the fabled blackstone or blackwater that were supposed to burn twice as hot as true-oak charcoal. As a result, while any peasant could pan the easily-melted gold from a stream and work it, it took a lot of that gold to buy a little steel.

‘It’s a pity about our prospecting venture,’ Soutan remarked. ‘If we’d actually found blackstone we could have been as rich as a khan ourselves.’

‘If,’ Warkannan said, grinning. ‘Those maps of yours show likely spots, not sure things.’

‘Ah, but they’re copies of ancient maps – spirit maps, the Tribes would call them.’

‘Well, Nehzaym will take good care of them. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll have better odds backing Jezro Khan than looking for blackstone.’

Soutan turned in the saddle and considered him for a moment.

‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ Soutan said at last. ‘Ancient writings exist that present strangely disturbing implications concerning the black marvels.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Your manners are painfully bad, Captain. I see no reason to speak further and be mocked.’

Soutan kicked his horse to walk, passed Warkannan, and headed downhill. For a moment Warkannan considered returning the insult, then shrugged the matter away. Most likely the sorcerer thought talking in riddles impressed people. Damned if he’d encourage him in it.

Entering the forest felt like plunging into the ocean, all cool air and deep green light. All along the narrow road grew ancient trees, twining their branches overhead. In a few minutes Soutan paused his horse in the dappled shade and let them catch up. They set off again, riding three abreast with the sorcerer in the middle.

‘A question for you, Captain,’ Soutan said. ‘Arkazo says that
nothing’s more important than the books of the Prophets. Do you agree?’

‘Well, it seems extreme, I know, but actually I do.’

‘I suppose it’s a question of following the laws of God. But other prophets have written books of those laws for other peoples, after all.’

‘True. But our books, our way – that’s what makes us who we are. We follow the Three Prophets, and that sets us apart from people who follow other religious leaders. If I stopped following the laws, I wouldn’t know who I was any more.’

Soutan frankly stared. ‘You must love your god a great deal,’ he said at last.

‘I don’t know if I’d call it love, not like love for your family or for a woman. It’s more like – well, what?’ Warkannan thought for a moment. ‘More like a sense of mutual obligation. I have a duty to serve God but in return, that duty gives me a place in His universe.’

‘God as the supreme commander of a celestial cavalry?’ Soutan drawled. ‘It would make sense to you, I suppose.’

‘I don’t like your tone of voice.’

‘Sorry.’ Soutan shrugged. ‘Just a figure of speech.’

Two nights later they arrived at the last Kazraki villa. Kareem Alvado’s compound stretched out like a small town, with his mansion and gardens, the cottages of the craftsmen, the barracks for his private troops, and the dormitories for the workmen who tended the flocks and the tax forests. Since Warkannan had served on the border with Kareem, and Kareem’s son Tareev and Arkazo had attended university together, they stayed for two full days.

On their last evening, the men sat finishing their dinner around the true-oak table in the dining-hall, a long room with walls of purplish-red horsetail reeds, twined together with pale yellow vines. At regular intervals ChaMeech skulls, bleached white and bulbous, hung as trophies. The older men had been reminiscing about Jezro Khan when Tareev interrupted. Like many Andjaro families, Kareem’s had some comnee blood that gave father and son both pale grey eyes and dark, straight hair, and they turned to each other with the same tilt of the head, the same crook of a hand.

‘A favour to beg you, sir,’ Tareev said. ‘The captain’s going to
have a hard time guarding our khan with just a couple of men. Let me go with them.’

Kareem’s heavy-set face turned unnaturally calm.

‘Why should Arkazo get all the glory?’ Tareev went on. ‘It’s unfair. Let me go and invite the khan here personally.’

‘Now listen, boy,’ Warkannan broke in. ‘This isn’t going to be some pleasant little ride.’

‘I know that, Captain,’ Tareev said, still grinning. ‘That’s why you need me along.’

‘It’s up to your father. There’ll be plenty for you to do once the war starts.’

Kareem had a sip of wine, his calloused fingers tight on the goblet.

‘What about that girl you promised to marry?’ Kareem said at last.

‘What would her father want with a coward?’

Kareem smiled, a weary twitch of his mouth. ‘Very well, then. But you’re riding under Warkannan’s orders. What he says, you do. Understand me?’

‘Yes sir, I do.’

Warkannan glanced around the table. Arkazo was leaning onto the table on his elbows, watching, unusually solemn, while Soutan lounged back in his chair.

‘This might be a good time to make something clear to everybody,’ Warkannan said. ‘It’s dangerous out on the grass. I spent fifteen years of my life there, and I know. When we ride out, I’m the officer in charge of this little venture. Understood?’

‘Of course, sir,’ Arkazo said.

Soutan sighed, long and dramatically. ‘I was waiting for this,’ he remarked to the air, then looked Warkannan’s way. ‘Someone needs to be in charge of the boys – oh, excuse me, our young men, I mean – but no one orders me around, Captain. Understood? If not, you can try to find Jezro on your own.’

Warkannan took a long breath and let his anger ebb.

‘Let’s hope we don’t get ourselves into the kind of trouble where orders are necessary,’ Warkannan said at last. ‘But if there
is
trouble, sorcerer, then I’ll have to put the safety of the other men first, Jezro or not.’

Soutan got up, bowed to Kareem, and strode out of the room. He slammed the door behind him so hard that the wall bounced. Kareem let out his breath in a long whistle.

‘I don’t envy you this ride,’ Kareem said.

‘Thanks.’ Warkannan managed a smile. ‘The Cantons aren’t that large. If worse comes to worst, we should be able to track the khan down sooner or later.’

‘Well, inshallah.’ Kareem spread his hands wide. ‘All right, Tareev and Arkazo. You’d better have weapons with you. Let’s go to the armoury and see what’s there.’

Later that evening Kareem invited Warkannan to his study for a glass of arak. They settled themselves in comfortable chairs while servants lit oil lamps and bowed themselves out of the room. Once they were alone, Warkannan asked Kareem if he regretted putting his son in danger. Kareem shook his head no.

‘If he’d wanted to stay home safe, I’d have had some harsh words for my wife. I’d have known he wasn’t mine.’

‘I’ll do my best to keep him out of trouble.’

‘Let’s pray you can. If the Chosen have taken a hand in this –’ Kareem shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘That’s true, unfortunately. That reminds me, I’ve got something I want to leave with you. Suppose the Chosen decide to eliminate me and Soutan – I don’t want them getting their ugly paws on this.’

From his shirt pocket Warkannan took out a roll of rushi, protected by a leather cover stamped with a design of two crossed swords below a crescent: Jezro Khan’s crest. Kareem kissed it, then slid the rushi free with a snap of his wrist that unrolled the letter. The sheet had one long torn edge, as if the khan had ripped a blank page from a book in his haste.

‘It’s Jezro’s handwriting, sure enough,’ Kareem said. ‘Thanks be to God, merciful as well as mighty!’

Warkannan had read it so many times that he knew every word by heart.

‘To Indan, Warkannan, and all my friends in Kazrajistan,’ the letter began. ‘That is, of course, assuming I have any friends left. I wonder what you’ll say when you find out I’m alive. Will you celebrate, or will I only be seen as a damned nuisance, a ghost who should have stayed dead? I don’t even know what things are like in the khanate now. Warkannan, do you remember me? Consider this an invitation to come have a couple of drinks with me. I have some interesting things to tell you. I don’t dare say where I am, but Yarl Soutan has agreed to help me. All I can do
is pray to God that he’ll bring you back with him without my brother finding out. Maybe a couple of men can slip over the border unseen. Yours as always, Jezro.’

The signature had touched Warkannan deeply, just a simple name, no longer the honourable and regal titles, just Jezro. With a sigh, Kareem finished the letter and began rolling it up.

‘Well, he’s going to find out what loyalty means, isn’t he? From what you’ve been telling me, Warkannan, we can count on four thousand men the minute he crosses the border.’

‘At least. And there’ll be plenty more as soon as we start marching.’

‘Should pick the khan’s spirits right up. I never thought to see the day when he’d sound so dispirited.’ Kareem tapped the roll on his palm. ‘But exile’s hard on a man.’

‘So it is,’ Soutan said. ‘And Jezro loves his homeland.’

Warkannan stifled a yelp and turned to see the sorcerer standing by the door. Soutan had a way of gliding into a room that set Warkannan’s teeth on edge.

‘The last time I saw the khan,’ Soutan went on, ‘he talked about Haz Kazrak as if it were Paradise.’

‘Well, there’s something about the place a man’s born in.’ Kareem glanced at the letter in his hand. ‘But it’s a shock to see him so hopeless. Especially since you were going to deliver his letter.’

‘He thought I’d never reach the khanate alive.’

‘I wouldn’t have bet good money on it, either.’ Kareem smiled, then turned thoughtful. ‘Ah God! When we were all young and on the border, if someone had told me that I’d end up a traitor to the Great Khan I’d have slit his throat!’

‘I’d have done the same,’ Warkannan said.

Soutan stood hesitating, then found a chair and sat down uninvited. Warkannan decided that the only way to smooth over the incident at dinner was to pretend it hadn’t happened; he handed the sorcerer a glass and the bottle of arak. Soutan smiled in what seemed to be a conciliatory manner and poured himself a drink.

‘I take it you served with our khan, too?’ Soutan said.

‘I did, and proudly,’ Kareem said. ‘The stories we could tell, huh, Warkannan?’

Perhaps it was the arak, or the shadows dancing around the ChaMeech skulls on the wall, but they ended up telling a lot of
those stories that night. Soutan sat unspeaking, seemingly profoundly interested in tales of too much fighting, drinking, whoring, and the resultant hang-overs or disciplinary actions.

‘What surprises me,’ Soutan said at length, ‘is that the khan seems to have been treated just like any other officer.’

‘Exactly like,’ Kareem said. ‘When you’re riding down a pack of screaming ChaMeech, there’s no time for giving yourself airs.’

‘Imph, no doubt.’ Soutan tented his long pale fingers and considered Kareem over them. ‘Back in the Cantons we tend to think of the Kazraks as rigidly hierarchical – everyone knowing their place, everyone afraid to leave it, that sort of thing. What I’ve seen and heard while I’ve been here makes me think we’re wrong.’

‘Well, yes and no.’ Warkannan waggled a hand in the air. ‘The cavalry is one place a man can rise above his birth.’

‘And the university,’ Kareem put in. ‘Get a good religious education, and the faith will take you far.’

‘True,’ Warkannan said. ‘In the cavalry you get your education the hard way. At the end of a spear.’

The pair of them laughed while Soutan smiled, thinly but politely.

‘Jezro told me once,’ Soutan said, ‘that a man can rise from an ordinary trooper, get himself commissioned, and then be accepted as an officer.’