Snare (61 page)

For a moment Zayn could neither breathe nor think. ‘Oh God forgive me! I know Kareem never will.’

‘You may be right about that. Let’s hope he never has to know. I used to be too proud to lie, but the older I get, the more I see that lying has its uses. Life is too damn hard sometimes.’

‘Maybe so. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

‘You don’t need to. But you had to know.’

‘Yes, that’s true. I did.’ Zayn got up and poured them each tay. ‘Something else I have to live with.’

Zayn found himself remembering the Mistlands and the ghosts who had come to mock him. Don’t you feel remorse, Zahir? He did now, especially when he thought of the reason that young Alvado had died. If only I hadn’t gone back for the spirit staff. I killed him for a piece of wood with feathers and beads on it. Standing in the sunny parlour with its cushioned furniture, watching Idres with his translation of the holy book in his lap, it was impossible to believe that the staff could have been worth a man’s life.

But his memory took him back to that afternoon, when he’d been wading through the warm water with Palindor’s bow held above his head. It seemed to him that he could smell the mineral brine and feel once more the shock and its concomitant despair when he realized he’d left the staff behind. His comnee’s spirit rider had given him that staff and told him not to lose it. He had lost it, and if he’d not gone back, his cowardice would have damned him in the eyes of a second set of gods. In the memory he could hear the spirit crane, shrieking at him. I did have to go back. I really did have to.

‘Zayn?’ Warkannan said. ‘Did you hear me?’

Zayn looked around gape-mouthed at the sunny parlour, the
flowered furniture. ‘Sorry, Idres. No, I didn’t. Just thinking about something.’ He handed Warkannan his cup of tay, then took his own back to his chair and sat down.

‘I’ll repeat it,’ Warkannan said. ‘If we hadn’t been hunting you, it never would have happened.’

‘I know that, but – you know, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to go back to Kazrajistan after the things I’ve done. You don’t know all of them. I don’t want to tell you any of them.’

Warkannan considered him over the rim of his cup. ‘After you got your commission, Jezro and I had a long talk about you. We knew something was wrong then. We did nothing about it. We were embarrassed, may God forgive us both! Embarrassed to ask a brother officer what was tormenting him. So we did nothing, said nothing. I keep thinking, if we’d had the guts to sit you down and ask you why you were so – so, well what? Unhappy, I suppose I mean. If we’d asked, I wonder if you ever would have joined the Chosen.’

‘What made you think something was wrong?’

‘The way you drank, for one thing. Out on the border most men drink for one of two reasons, to have a good time on leave or because they’re bored sick. You drank to drown something.’

‘Did I?’ Zayn hesitated, but only briefly. ‘I still do, I suppose.’

‘I was afraid of that, but the drinking’s secondary. The way you’d suddenly go off somewhere in your own mind was the primary thing, like you did just now, standing up to pour tay and then all of a sudden, you were gone.’

‘I didn’t realize it was so obvious.’

‘It was.’

‘It comes from being one of the Inborn. It’s another thing my memory does, takes me back places until I think I’m there.’

‘Well, that’s alarming.’ Warkannan shook his head. ‘But what I’m really trying to say is, don’t blame yourself for what happened in the Mistlands. We could talk for hours, assigning blame here, taking it away there, but you know what the truth is? Sometimes we can’t control what we do. Sometimes life’s like a net that tangles us up, and we don’t even know who threw it over us. Don’t keep brooding about Tareev. Who knows what God has in store for any of us?’

‘That’s true. Inshallah.’

‘Yes, exactly. Inshallah.’

Jezro returned not long after, with the optimistic news that the town council would take the matter up immediately. To start things moving, they had accepted the outstanding warrant for Soutan’s arrest; they would send messages to the various zhundarees of the canton. The mayor had assured Jezro that he personally would go to the Loremasters Guild and get the messages transmitted immediately.

‘That’s all going to take time,’ Warkannan growled. ‘A lot of time.’

‘Oh yes, and it’s probably useless.’ Jezro poured himself cold tay and sat down. ‘Soutan has his crystals.’

Warkannan pulled his pocket watch out and frowned at it. ‘Eleven hundred,’ he announced. ‘We can assume they left right after the guard saw Soutan, oh three hundred, say. They’ve got quite a head start.’

Both Zayn and Jezro studied him while he put the watch away. He looked steadily back, in control of himself, but his eyes seemed to see beyond the room to something not horrible but bleak, an outcome that was sour rather than tragic. ‘He’s a grown man now.’ Warkannan answered their unspoken question. ‘Has to make his own choices.’

‘I’m sorry, Idres,’ Zayn said. ‘I shouldn’t have –’

‘Hassan, shut up!’ Jezro said. ‘It’s not your fault. You’ve probably saved my arse by getting rid of Soutan before he corrupted everything around him. Like a fart in the mosque, our Soutan. What matters is what we’re going to do now, and what we’re going to do is hunt the bastard down.’

‘What?’ Warkannan said. ‘He could be riding for ChaMeech country.’

‘He probably is, yes. If we find him before he gets there, it won’t matter, will it?’

‘If. He’s found himself allies among the ChaMeech. At least six of them, all armed.’

‘Then we’ll be careful. I’ve already got the servants putting together provisions. It’s time for you gentlemen to start packing. We’re leaving as soon as possible.’

‘It’s too damn dangerous.’ Warkannan got up and turned to face the khan. ‘You’re the last heir, the only hope we have of deposing Gemet.’

‘So? I still haven’t agreed to go back, have I?’ Jezro held up a
hand flat for silence. ‘And suppose I do decide to go back. Shut up, Idres, and let me finish. It’s not safe leaving Soutan loose behind us. He’s got good reason to hate all of us now, not just Hassan. I wouldn’t put it past him to come back here and loot the house. Marya treated me too well for me to let that happen.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘I said let me finish.’ Jezro got up to face Warkannan. ‘I’ve got a few things I want to say to Soutan, and I’m going to say them, even if it means spending all summer riding after him.’

‘But –’

‘Listen, Idres, who’s the commanding officer here, me or you?’

Warkannan sighed and turned his hands palm upward, as if invoking God. ‘Very well, you are. I won’t say one thing more.’

‘What about you, Hassan?’

‘I think Idres is right, sir,’ Zayn said, ‘but I’ll follow your orders.’

‘Good.’ Jezro paused, his hands on his hips, and in his grin Zayn saw the arrogant young officer he had known so long ago. ‘Idres, you came all this way to offer me a throne, and here I don’t even know if I want it or not. It’s ungrateful of me, isn’t it? The least I can do is get your nephew back for you. As long as we’re in Burgunee, we’ll be perfectly safe. Besides, if some fluke happens, and I’m killed, well, then, you’ll know that God doesn’t want me to be the new Great Khan.’

‘I appreciate your concern for Arkazo,’ Warkannan said. ‘Don’t get me wrong about that. But your theology is pretty damn weak.’

Jezro laughed. ‘Go pack up your gear,’ he said. ‘Hassan, Zhil piled your gear up in my office. I’ll take you there, and then I have to tell Robear how to handle things here while we’re gone. I’m leaving him in charge.’

Something came clear to Zayn. ‘You pretty much run this estate,’ he said, ‘don’t you, sir?’

‘Yes, unfortunately, because of the way Marya’s installed herself in her own collection.’ Jezro glanced at Warkannan. ‘You see, I’ve got something to lose here.’

‘I noticed,’ Warkannan said. ‘But it’s not a khanate.’

‘No, and that’s one reason I hate to leave it. I’m not an ambitious man. I never was. It was so damn stupid of Gemet to try to have me killed! But we’ll worry about all that later. What counts now is hunting Soutan down before he gets into wild country.’

While he packed, Warkannan was trying to imagine what had induced Arkazo to run off. Yes, he hated Zayn Hassan, and the new-found glamour of all those machines had certainly snared him. But to betray his family for such things? Warkannan saw Arkazo’s actions not merely as a betrayal of him personally, but as a failure of the loyalty Arkazo owed to all his kin, the two great families of Warkannan and Benjamil that joined in him.

‘You’re brooding,’ Jezro said.

Warkannan nearly yelped in surprise. He looked up to find Jezro standing in the doorway, dressed in boots and riding clothes, holding a riding hat in one hand and his walking stick in the other.

‘Of course I am,’ Warkannan said. ‘Do you blame me?’

‘Not in the least.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re going to brood all day, aren’t you?’

‘Probably.’ Warkannan felt the anger rising, burning just the edges of his soul. He took a deep breath and put it out.

He knew that Jezro was waiting for some outburst on his part – a fit of rage, a spasm of sorrow or fear for Arkazo’s safety. He felt all those things, but he’d not spent his life sculpting his personality into the perfect officer for nothing. Rage could be useful, provided you didn’t let it take you over; fear and sorrow had their place as well, prompting the kind of caution that wins campaigns. But to give in to them generally meant defeat, and he had no intention of losing this fight with Yarl Soutan over his nephew’s soul.

‘Is Hassan ready to ride?’ Warkannan said.

‘Oh yes. I helped him pack, thanks to that cut hand of his, and he showed me some of the equipment he brought with him. I’m damned glad he’s come over to our side, let me tell you.’ Jezro shuddered, but it was a mock-gesture, and he grinned. ‘I’ve never seen some of those weapons before.’

‘Oh? Like what?’

‘Well, for one, this tricky little set of brass balls on cords. You apparently throw it at something’s legs to tangle them and bring it down. And then a wire garotte, which he admitted he’d been thinking of using on me.’ Jezro’s grin disappeared. ‘He wanted to bring it all with us – in case we suddenly needed someone assassinated, I suppose – but I got him to leave his comnee bow and arrows behind at least.’

Warkannan made a sour face.

‘Not nice people, the Chosen,’ Jezro went on. ‘If I do decide to ride home, it’ll be for the pleasure of wiping their officers up like so much spilled piss. Some of the men we can probably save.’

‘That’s the only reason you’d go back?’

‘No, of course not.’ Jezro paused to tuck the hat under one arm, then fish for a handkerchief in his shirt pocket. ‘Look, Idres, I haven’t made up my mind not to go back, either. Do you realize that? I want to stay here, but I know I have a duty to the people back home. That’s why I’m torn. I’m not like you. No matter how badly you wanted to stay, you’d go.’

‘That’s true. I would.’

Jezro looked away. ‘I might be a pretty weak reed for the khanate to lean on,’ he said. ‘It’s too bad God didn’t make you the heir.’

‘He knows His own business best, and He didn’t. I don’t have enough imagination for the job.’

Jezro wiped his nose and shoved the handkerchief away before he answered. ‘I suppose that’s true. But what if I have too much?’

Warkannan had no answer to that. He finished cramming clothing into his duffel bag while he tried to forget that Arkazo had packed it the last time. On the way out they passed Zhil, hovering in the hallway.

‘Sir?’ Zhil said to Warkannan. ‘A word with you?’

‘Certainly.’ Warkannan paused and let Jezro hurry on ahead. ‘What is it?’

‘Do you remember when you asked me about the dookis’s madness?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t say anything then because of Soutan. He always seemed to know everything that anyone said about him, and he could be really nasty if he didn’t like it. But he’s gone now. Sir, I’m sure as I can be that he had something to do with the dookis’s illness. I don’t know what, but she changed when he came to live here.’

‘I thought that might be the case.’

‘She decorated her rooms that way years ago, long before he came, crammed all those cases with things, I mean, but she did it because she enjoyed looking at them, and if a friend of hers admired something, she’d insist on giving it to them. Not now. All this business of being afraid to leave her rooms, afraid of thieves, and all the time she spends moving things around – that’s all new.’

‘Did she get any better while he was gone, off in Kazrajistan?’

‘No sir.’ Zhil sounded miserable. ‘Maybe what he did was permanent. I don’t know, sir.’

‘Well, I’m glad you told me. Let me see what I can find out when we catch up to him. There may be something we can do.’

‘Thank you, sir. I can’t tell you how much we’d all appreciate it.’

What with packing their gear, giving Zhil orders, leaving Robear in charge with more orders, and other such business of the day, it was the middle of the afternoon before they were finished at the estate. By then Warkannan’s rage had soured into simple frustration. He had to stop himself from yelling at the grooms to hurry and barking orders at Robear, who wasn’t his man to command.

Getting on the road did soothe Warkannan’s nerves, but that first day they travelled only some ten miles. First they stopped in Kors. Watching the mayor defer to Jezro, watching the town council, too, scurry to do everything he asked, made it more than clear why the khan hated to leave. Once they left the city, they travelled only as far as the next great estate, where Jezro was treated as an equal, a landowner in his own right rather than a mere secretary.

The owner of the estate, one Mor Gairmahn, insisted that Jezro and his men stay the night rather than camping out. At dinner the eldest Gairmahn daughter flirted shamelessly with the khan while her mother smiled at the daughter’s efforts and Jezro seemed to find them welcome enough. Warkannan began to feel defeated. With the tay and dessert the servants brought news – a messenger had ridden in from Kors with a letter from the mayor. Jezro read over the rushi fast, then slowly, then looked up with a sigh.