The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice (72 page)

It would have been a small force for an army but it was large for a raiding party, six hundred fighting men on horses and camels and twenty-four elephants. Khuff commandeered the brown horse as soon as Rob rode up to the mustering place on the
maidan.

“Your horse will be returned to you when we come back to Ispahan. We will use only mounts that have been trained not to shy at the scent of elephants.”

The brown horse was turned into the herd that would be taken to the royal stables and to Rob’s consternation and Mirdin’s great amusement he was given a scruffy gray female camel that looked at him coldly as she chewed her cud, her rubbery lips twisting and her jaws grinding in opposite directions.

Mirdin was given a brown male camel; he had ridden camels all his life and showed Rob how to twist the reins and bark a command to cause the single-humped dromedary to bend its front legs and drop to its knees, then fold its hind legs and fall to the ground. The rider sat sidesaddle and jerked the reins as he voiced another command, and the beast unfolded itself, reversing the order of its descent.

There were two hundred and fifty foot soldiers, two hundred horse soldiers, and one hundred and fifty on camels. Presently Al
ā
came, a splendid sight. His elephant was a yard taller than any of the others. Gold rings adorned the wicked tusks. The
mahout
sat proudly on the bull’s head and directed his progress with feet dug in behind the elephant’s ears. The Shah sat erect in a cushion-lined box on the great convex back, a splendid sight in dark blue silks and a red turban. The people roared. Perhaps some of them were cheering the hero of the
chatir,
for Karim sat a nervous gray Arabian stallion with savage eyes, riding directly behind the royal elephant.

Khuff shouted a hoarse, thunderous command and his horse trotted
after the king’s elephant and Karim, and then the other elephants fell into line and moved out of the square. After them came the horses and then the camels, and then hundreds of pack asses whose nostrils had been surgically slit so they could take in more air when they labored. The foot soldiers were last.

Once again Rob found himself three-quarters of the way back in the line of march, which seemed to be his customary position when traveling with large assemblages. That meant he and Mirdin had to cope with constant clouds of dust; anticipating this, each had exchanged his turban for the leather Jew’s hat, which afforded better protection from both dust and sun.

Rob found the camel alarming. When she knelt and he settled his considerable weight on her back she whined loudly and then grunted and groaned as she clambered to her feet. He couldn’t believe the ride: he was higher than when on a horse; he bounced and swayed, and there was less fat and flesh to pad his seat.

As they crossed the bridge over the River of Life, Mirdin glanced over at him and grinned. “You shall learn to love her!” he shouted to his friend.

Rob never learned to love his camel. When given a chance the beast spat ropy globs at him and snapped like a cur so that he had to tie its jaws, and aimed vicious backward kicks at him such as are employed by an uglytempered mule. He was wary of the animal at all times.

He enjoyed traveling with soldiers in front and behind; they might have been an ancient Roman cohort, and he was pleased to fancy himself part of a legion bringing its own kind of enlightenment where it went. The fantasy was dispelled late each afternoon, for they didn’t make a neat Roman camp. Al
ā
had his tent and soft carpets and musicians, and cooks and hands aplenty to do his will. The others picked a spot on the ground and rolled up in their clothing. The stink of the excretions of animals and men was ever present, and if they came to a brook it was foul before they left it.

At night, lying in the dark on the hard ground, Mirdin continued to teach him the laws according to the Jewish God. The familiar exercise of teaching and learning helped them forget discomfort and apprehension. They went through commandments by the dozens, making excellent progress and causing Rob to observe that going to war could be an ideal environment for study. Mirdin’s calm, scholarly voice seemed a reassurance that they would see a better day.

For a week they used their own stores and then all provisions were gone, according to plan. One hundred of the foot soldiers were assigned
as foragers and moved ahead of the main party. They scoured the countryside with skill and it was a daily sight to see the men leading goats or herding sheep, carrying squawking fowl or laden with produce. The finest was chosen for the Shah and the rest distributed, so that each night there was cooking over a hundred fires and the raiders ate well.

A daily medical call was held at each new encampment; it was within sight of the king’s tent to discourage malingerers, but still the line was long. One evening Karim came to them there.

“Do you want to work? We’re in need of help,” Rob said.

“It’s forbidden. I’m to stay close to the Shah.”

“Ah,” Mirdin said.

Karim gave them his crooked smile. “Do you want more food?”

“We have enough,” Mirdin said.

“I can get what you want. It will take several months to reach the elephant pens at Mansura. You may as well make your life on the march as comfortable as possible.”

Rob thought of the story Karim had told him during the plague in Sh
ī
r
ā
z. Of how an army passing through the province of Hamadh
ā
n had brought a bitter end to Karim’s parents. He wondered how many babies would be brained against the rocks to save them from starvation, because of the passing of this army.

Then he felt ashamed of his animosity toward his friend, for the raid into India wasn’t Karim’s fault. “There is something I’d like to ask for. Ditches should be dug on the four perimeters of each new camp, to be used as latrines.”

Karim nodded.

The suggestion was implemented at once, along with an announcement that the new system was an order of the surgeons. It didn’t make them popular, for now each evening weary soldiers were assigned to ditchdigging, and anyone who awoke in the night with cramps gripping his bowels had to stumble about in the darkness seeking a trench. Violators who were caught received canings. But there was less of a stench and it was pleasant not having to worry about stepping in human shit as they broke camp every morning.

Most of the troops viewed them with bland contempt. It hadn’t escaped general notice that Mirdin had reported to the raiding party without a weapon, requiring Khuff to issue him a clumsy excuse for a guardsman’s sword, which usually he forgot to wear. Their leather caps also set them apart, as did their habit of rising early and walking from the camp to don prayer shawls and recite benedictions and wind leather thongs around their arms and hands.

Mirdin was bemused. “There are no other Jews here to scrutinize and suspect you, so why do you pray with me?” He grinned when Rob shrugged. “I think a small part of you has become a Jew.”

“No.” He told Mirdin how, on the day he had assumed a Jewish identity, he had gone to the Cathedral of St. Sofia in Constantinople and promised Jesus that he would never forsake Him.

Mirdin nodded, no longer grinning. They were wise enough not to pursue the subject. They were aware of things about which they could never agree because they had been raised in differing beliefs regarding God and the human soul, but they were content to avoid these pitfalls and share their friendship as reasoning men, as physicians, and now as bumbling soldiers.

When they reached Sh
ī
r
ā
z, by prearrangement the
kelonter
came to them outside the city with a pack train laden with provender, a sacrifice that saved the Sh
ī
r
ā
z district from being indiscriminately stripped by the foragers. After he had paid his homage to the Shah the
kelonter
embraced Rob and Mirdin and Karim and they sat with him and drank wine and remembered the days of the plague.

Rob and Karim rode back with him as far as the city gates. Turning back, they succumbed to a flat, smooth stretch of road and the wine in their veins and began to race their camels. It was a revelation to Rob, for what had been a rolling, cumbersome walking gait turned into something else when the camel ran. The beast’s stride lengthened so that each step was a pushing leap that carried her and her rider through the air in a level, hurtling rush. Rob sat her easily and enjoyed various sensations; he floated, he soared, he became the wind.

Now he understood why the Persian Jews had coined a Hebrew name for the variety which the general populace had adopted—
gemala sarka,
the flying camels.

The gray female strove desperately, and for the first time Rob felt affection for her. “Come, my dolly! Come, my girl!” he shouted as they sped toward the camp.

Mirdin’s brown male won but the contest left Rob in high spirits. He begged extra forage from the elephant keepers and gave it to her and she bit him on the forearm. The bite didn’t break the skin but it was nasty, a purpled bruise that gave him pain for days, and that was when he gave the camel her name, Bitch.

58

INDIA

Below Sh
ī
r
ā
z they found the Spice Road and followed it until, to avoid the mountainous inland terrain, they moved to the coast near Hormuz. It was winter but the gulf air was warm and perfumed. Sometimes after they had made camp late in the day the soldiers and their animals bathed in the warm saltiness from hot sandy beaches while sentries kept a nervous watch for sharks. The people they saw now were as likely to be blacks or Baluchis as Persians. They were fisher folk or, at the oases that sprang from the coastal sand, farmers who grew dates and pomegranates. They lived in tents or in mud-plastered stone houses with flat roofs; now and then the raiders moved through a
wadi
where families lived in caves. Rob thought it a poor land, but Mirdin grew exhilarated as they traveled, looking about with soft eyes.

When they reached the fishing villag of T
ī
z, Mirdin took Rob by the hand and led him to the water’s edge. “There, on the other side,” he said, pointing out at the azure gulf. “There is Masqat. From here, a boat could bring us to my father’s house in a few hours.”

It was tantalizingly close, but next morning they broke camp and went farther away from the Askari family with every step.

Almost a month after they had departed from Ispahan they moved beyond Persia. Changes were made. Al
ā
ordered three rings of sentries around the camp at night, and each morning a new watchword was passed to every man; anyone who tried to get into their camp without knowing the word would be killed.

Once on the soil of the foreign land of Sind the soldiers gave way to their instinct for marauding, and one day the foragers drove women back to the camp the way they drove animals. Al
ā
said he would allow them to have females in the camp for this night only and then no more. It would be difficult enough for six hundred men to approach Mansura undetected,
and he wanted no rumors to go before them because of women taken along their way.

It would be a wild night. They saw Karim selecting four of the women with great care.

“Why does he need four?” Rob asked.

“He doesn’t select them for himself,” Mirdin said.

It was true. They observed Karim leading the women to the king’s tent.

“Is this why we struggled to help him pass the examination and become a physician?” Mirdin said bitterly. Rob didn’t answer.

The raiders passed the other females from man to man, choosing lots for turns. Groups stood and watched the rutting and cheered, the sentries being relieved so they could come and share in these first spoils.

Mirdin and Rob sat off to one side with a goatskin of bitter wine. For a time they attempted study, but it wasn’t the occasion to review the Lord’s laws.

“You’ve taught me more than four hundred commandments,” Rob said wonderingly. “Soon we’ll be finished with them.”

“I’ve merely listed them. There are sages who devote their lives to trying to understand the commentaries on just one of the laws.”

The night was filled with screams and drunken sounds.

For years Rob had governed himself well in avoiding strong drink, but now he was lonely and in sexual need undampened by the ugliness taking place about him, and he drank too eagerly.

In a little while he was truculent. Mirdin, amazed that this was his mild and reasoning friend, gave him no excuse. But a passing soldier jostled him and would have been the object of his anger if Mirdin hadn’t soothed and cozened, coddling Rob like a spoiled child and leading him to a sleeping place.

When he awoke in the morning the women were gone and he paid for his foolishness by having to ride the camel with a terrible head. Ever the medical student, Mirdin added to his pain by questioning him at length, at last coming away with a greater understanding that to some men wine must be treated as if it were a poison and a bewitchery.