The Lions of Al-Rassan (40 page)

“What do you think?” he said over his shoulder. “I’m proud of my wolf, actually.”

“It is a magnificent achievement,” Jehane said.

The two boys evidently thought so too; they were raptly attentive. The wolf, even as she watched, stalked and then devoured what was presumably meant to be a chicken.

“I’m not impressed by the fowl,” Jehane managed to say.

“It’s a pig!” ibn Khairan protested. “
Anyone
should be able to see that.”

“May I sit down?” Jehane said. Her legs seemed to be failing her.

A stool materialized. Idar ibn Tarif smilingly motioned for her to sit.

She did, then sprang to her feet again.

“
Velaz!
We have to free him!”

“It is done,” said Alvar from the doorway. “Ziri told us where the courtyard is. Husari and two others have gone to release him. He’ll be safe by now, Jehane.”

“It is over,” said Idar gently. “Sit, doctor. You are all safe now.”

Jehane sat. Odd, how the worst reactions seemed to occur after the danger had passed.

“More!”
the elder of Zabira’s boys cried. The younger one simply sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the shadow-figures on the wall, his eyes wide.

“There is no more, I’m afraid,” said the lord Ammar ibn Khairan. “Once the wolf eats the pig, or the fowl, whichever, there is no more to see.”

“Later?” the older child asked, with some deference.

“Later, indeed,” said ibn Khairan. “I will come back. I must practice my pigs, and I’ll need your help. The doctor thought it was a chicken, which is a bad sign. But for now, go with the steward. I believe he has chocolate for you?”

The steward, in the doorway behind Alvar, nodded his head.

“The bad man have gone?” It was the smaller one, speaking for the first time. The one her father had delivered through his mother’s belly.

“The bad man have gone,” said Ammar ibn Khairan gravely. Jehane was aware that she was close to crying. She didn’t want to cry. “It is as if they never came looking at all,” ibn Khairan added gently, still addressing the smaller child. He looked over then, to Alvar and the steward by the door, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

Alvar said, “Nothing out there. Some stains on the floor. A broken urn.”

“Of course. The urn. I’d forgotten.” Ibn Khairan grinned suddenly. Jehane knew that grin by now.

“I doubt the owner of this house will forget,” Alvar said virtuously. “You chose a destructive way of signaling their arrival.”

“I suppose,” said Ibn Khairan. “But the owner of this house has some answering to do to the king for the absence of any proper security here, wouldn’t you say?”

Alvar’s manner altered. Jehane could see him tracking the thought, and adjusting. She had made that sort of adjustment herself many times, during the campaign to the east. Ammar ibn Khairan almost never did anything randomly.

“Where is Rodrigo?” she asked suddenly.

“Now we
are
offended,” Ammar said, the blue gaze returning to her. It was brighter in the room; Idar had drawn back the shutters. The two boys had left with the steward. “All these loyal men hastening to your aid, and you ask only about the one who is obviously indifferent to your fate.” He smiled as he said it, though.

“He’s on patrol outside the walls,” Alvar said loyally. “And besides, it was Ser Rodrigo who had Ziri watching you in the first place. That’s how we knew.”

“In the first place? What does
that
mean?” Jehane, reaching for something normal, tried to grab hold of indignation.

“I came here some time ago,” Ziri said softly. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to glare at him. “After I was certain my sisters were all right with my aunt, I went to your mother in Fezana and learned where you had gone. Then I came through the mountains after you.” He said it with the utmost simplicity, as if it was nothing at all.

It was, though. He had left his home, what was left of his family, all of the world he knew, had crossed the country alone, and . . .

“You went to my . . . you
what
? Why, Ziri?”

“Because of what you did in my village,” he said, with the same simplicity.

“But I didn’t do anything there.”

“Yes, you did, doctor. You made them allow me to execute the man who killed my mother and my father.” Ziri’s eyes were very dark. “It would not have happened without you. He would have lived, ridden back to Jaddite lands to tell that tale as a boast. I would have had to walk there after him, and I fear I would not have been able to kill him there.”

His expression was grave. The story he was telling her was almost overwhelming.

“You would have gone to Valledo after him?”

“He killed my parents. And the brother I have never had.”

No more than fifteen, Jehane thought. “And you have been following me here in Ragosa?”

“Since I arrived. I found your place in the market. Your mother said you would have a booth there. Then I sought out the Captain, Ser Rod-rigo. And he remembered me, and was pleased that I had come. He gave me a place to sleep, with his company, and instructed me to watch you whenever you were not at court or with his men.”

“I
told
you all I didn’t want to be watched or followed,” Jehane protested.

Idar ibn Tarif reached down and squeezed her shoulder. He wasn’t much like any outlaw she’d heard about.

“You did, indeed, tell us that,” Ammar said, without levity. He was sitting on one of the small beds now and was regarding her carefully. The candlelight burnished his hair and was reflected in his eyes. “We all apologize, in a measured degree, for not obeying. Rodrigo felt, and I agreed, that there was some chance you were at risk, because of your rescue of Husari from the Muwardis among other things.”

“But how could you know I wouldn’t recognize Ziri? I
should
have recognized him.”

“We couldn’t know that, of course. He was urged to be cautious in how he followed you, and had a story to tell if you did see him. Your parents approved of this, by the way.”

“How would you know that?”

“I promised your father I would write him. Remember? I try to keep my promises.”

It seemed to have been quite thoroughly worked out. She looked at Ziri. “Where did you learn to use a knife like that?”

He looked both pleased and abashed. “I have been with the Captain’s men, doctor. They have been teaching me. Ser Rodrigo himself gave me my blade. The lord ibn Khairan showed me how to conceal it inside my sleeve and draw it down.”

Jehane looked back at Ammar. “And Velaz? What if he had known him, even if I didn’t?”

“Velaz did know him, Jehane.” Ibn Khairan’s voice was gentle; rather like the tone in which he’d spoken to the younger boy. “He spotted Ziri some time ago and went to Rodrigo. An understanding was achieved. Velaz shared our view that Ziri was a wise precaution. And so he was, my dear. It was Ziri who was on top of the wall of that courtyard this morning and heard the men from Cartada tell you their purpose. He found Alvar, who found me. We had time to be here before you.”

“I feel like a child,” Jehane said. She heard Alvar’s wordless protest behind her.

“Not that,” said ibn Khairan, rising from the bed. “Never that, Jehane. But just as you may have to care for us, if arrow or blade or illness comes, so we must, surely, offer our care to you? If only to set things in balance, as your Kindath moons balance the sun and stars.”

She looked up at him. “Don’t be such a poet,” she said tartly. “I’m not distracted by images. I am going to think about this, and then let you all know exactly how I feel. Especially Rodrigo,” she added. “He was the one who promised I would be left alone.”

“I was afraid you would remember that,” said someone entering from the corridor.

Rodrigo Belmonte, still in boots and winter cloak, with his sword on and the whip in his belt, strode into the room. He had, incongruously, a cup of chocolate in each hand.

He offered one to Jehane. “Drink. I had to promise this was for you and no one else. The older one downstairs is greedy and wanted it all.”

“And what about me?” Ibn Khairan complained. “I did damage to my wrists and fingers making wolves and pigs for them.”

Rodrigo laughed. He took a sip from the other cup. “Well, if you must know the truth, this one
was
for you as a reward, but I didn’t actually promise, and the chocolate is good and I was cold. You’ve been inside and warm for a while.” He lowered the cup and smiled.

“You’ve chocolate on your moustache,” Jehane said. “And you are supposed to be outside the walls. Defending the city. Much good you are to anyone, arriving now.”

“Exactly,” Ammar said with a vigorous nod of his head. “Give me my chocolate.”

Rodrigo did so. He looked at Jehane.

“Martín fetched me. We weren’t far away. Jehane, you’ll have to choose between being angry with me for having you guarded, or for not being here to defend you myself.”

“Why?” she snapped. “Why can’t I be angry for both?”

“Exactly,” said Ammar again, sipping the chocolate. His tone was so smugly pleased it almost made her laugh. He does nothing by chance, she reminded herself, struggling for self-possession. Ziri and Idar were grinning, and so, reluctantly, was Alvar.

Jehane, looking around her, came to accept, finally, that it was over. They had saved her life and Velaz’s, and the lives of the two children. She was being, perhaps, just the least bit ungrateful.

“I am sorry about the broken promise,” Rodrigo said soberly. “I didn’t want to argue with you back then, and Ziri’s arrival seemed a stroke of fortune. You know he came through the pass alone?”

“So I gather.” She
was
being ungrateful. “What will be done about those two men?” she asked. “Who were they?”

“Two that I know of, as it happens.” It was Ammar. “Almalik used them several times. It seems his son remembered that. They were the best assassins he had.”

“Will this cause a scandal?”

Ammar shook his head and looked at Rodrigo. “I don’t think it has to. I think there is a better way to deal with this.”

“No one knows they came so close but the servants here,” Rodrigo said thoughtfully. “They can be trusted, I think.”

Ammar nodded. “That is my thought. I believe I heard,” he said carefully, “that two merchants from Cartada were unfortunately murdered in a tavern quarrel shortly after they arrived here. I think the appropriate Guild ought to send apologies and condolences to Cartada. Let Almalik believe they were discerned the moment they came. Let him feel that much more anxious.”

“You know the man,” Rodrigo said.

“I do,” ibn Khairan agreed. “Not as well as I once thought, but well enough.”

“What will he do next?” Jehane asked suddenly.

Ammar ibn Khairan looked at her. His expression was very sober now. He had laid down the cup of chocolate. “I believe,” he said, “he will attempt to win me back.”

There was a brief stillness.

“Will he succeed?” Rodrigo was as blunt as ever.

Ammar shrugged. “I’m a mercenary now, remember? Just as you are. What would your answer be? If King Ramiro summoned you tomorrow, would you abandon your contract here and go home?”

Another silence. “I don’t know,” said Rodrigo Belmonte at length. “Though my wife would stab me if she heard me say that.”

“Then I suppose I am in a better circumstance than you, because if I give the same answer, no woman is likely to kill me.” Ibn Khairan smiled.

“Don’t,” said Jehane, “be quite so sure.”

They all looked at her uncertainly, until she smiled.

“Thank you, by the way,” she said, to all of them.

Twelve

T
owards the end of winter, when the first wildflowers were appearing in the meadows, but while snow still lay thick in the higher plateaus and the mountain passes, the three kings of Esperaña gathered near Carcasia in Valledo to hunt elk and boar in the oak woods where the smells were of rebirth and the burgeoning of spring could be felt along the blood.

Though even the best of the ancient straight roads were little more than muddy impediments to travel, their queens were with them and substantial retinues from their courts, for hunting—pleasurable as it might be—was merely a pretext for this meeting.

It had been Geraud de Chervalles, the formidable cleric from Ferrieres who, together with colleagues wintering at Eschalou and Orvedo, had prevailed upon three men who hated and feared each other to come together early in the year to hold afternoon converse after chases in field and wood.

A greater hunt was near to hand, the clerics had declared in the court of each king; one that redounded both to the glory of Jad and the vastly increased wealth and fame and power of each of the three lands that had been carved from what was left of Esperaña.

The glory of Jad was, of course, an entirely good thing. Everyone agreed on that. Wealth and power, and certainly fame, were prospects worth a journey. Whether these things were also worth the associated company remained, as yet, to be seen.

Two days had passed since the Ruendans, last to arrive, had joined the others within Carcasia’s walls. No untoward incidents had yet transpired—little of note either, though King Bermudo of Jaloña had proven himself still the equal of his nephews on horseback and with a boar spear. Of the queens, the accolades had gone to red-haired Ines of Valledo, daughter of the hunting-mad king of Ferrieres, clearly the best rider of the women there—and better than most of the courtiers.

For a man known to be clever and ambitious, her husband appeared preoccupied and inattentive much of the time, even during the afternoon and evening discussions of policy and war. He left it to his constable to raise questions and objections.

For his part, Bermudo of Jaloña hunted with fury in the mornings and spoke during the meetings of vengeance against the cities of Ragosa and Fibaz, which had defaulted on his first-ever
parias
claim. He accepted condolences on the death of a favored courtier, the young Count Nino di Carrera, ambushed by outlaws in a valley in Al-Rassan. No one was quite clear how a party of one hundred trained and well-mounted Horsemen could have been slaughtered by a mere outlaw band, but no one was unkind or impolitic enough to raise that question directly. Queen Fruela, still a handsome woman, was seen to grow misty-eyed at the mention of the slain young gallant.

King Sanchez of Ruenda drank steadily from a flask at his saddle horn, or a brimming cup at the afternoon meetings or the banquet hall. The wine had little evident effect on him, but neither did he hunt with notable success. His arrows of a morning were surprisingly erratic, though his horsemanship remained impeccable. Say what you liked about the hot-headed king of Ruenda, but he could ride.

The three High Clerics from Ferrieres, schooled in dealing with royalty, and beginning to comprehend—if belatedly—the depths of distrust they had to contend with here, carried the discussion for the kings.

The two brothers never even looked at each other, and they regarded their uncle with evident contempt. All, however, appeared to have taken due note of the implications of the army now assembled in Batiara, ready to sail with the first fair winds. They wouldn’t be here had they not given thought to that.

There was a movement abroad in the world, and the men in this room were privileged to be reigning at such a time, Geraud of Ferrieres declaimed ringingly on the first afternoon. The carrion dogs of Ashar in Al-Rassan, he said, were ready to be swept back across the straits. The whole peninsula was there to be retaken. If only they would act together the great kings of Valledo and Ruenda and Jaloña might ride their stallions into the southern sea by summer’s end, in the glorious name of Jad.

“How would you divide it?” King Bermudo asked bluntly. Ramiro of Valledo laughed aloud at that, his first sign of animation all day. Sanchez drank and scowled.

Geraud of Ferrieres, who had been ready for this question, and had spent time with maps over the winter, made a suggestion. None of the kings bothered to reply. They all rose instead, without apology—moving in unison for the first time—and walked quickly from the room. Sanchez carried his flask with him. The clerics, left behind, looked at each other.

On the third day they flew falcons and hawks at small birds and rabbits in the wet grass for the delight of the ladies of each court. Queen Ines carried a small eagle, caught and trained in the mountains near Jaloña, and loosed it to triumphant effect.

Younger than Fruela, undeniably more accomplished than Bearte of Ruenda, the queen of Valledo, her red hair bound up in a golden net, her eyes flashing and her color high in the cool air, rode between her husband and the High Cleric from her homeland and was very much the focus of all men’s eyes that day.

Which made it the more disturbing, afterwards, that no one was able to identify with certainty the source of the arrow that struck her shortly after the dogs had flushed a boar at the edge of the forest. It seemed obvious, however, that the arrow was either a terrible accident, having been intended for the boar beyond her—or that it had been aimed at one of the two men beside her. There was, it was generally agreed, no evident reason for anyone to desire the death of the queen of Valledo.

It did not appear at first to be a deadly wound, for she was struck only on the arm, but—despite the standard treatment of a thick mud-coating, followed by bleedings, both congruent and transverse—Ines of Valledo, clutching a sun disk, took a marked turn for the worse, feverish and in great pain, before the sun went down that day.

It was at this point that the chancellor of Valledo was seen entering the royal quarters of the castle, striding past the grim-faced guards, escorting a lean man of loutish appearance.

She had never been injured in such a fashion in her life. She had no idea how it was supposed to feel.

It felt as if she were dying. Her arm had swollen to twice its normal size—she could see that, even through the coating of mud. When they bled her—working through a screen for decency—that, too, had hurt, almost unbearably. There had been a quarrel between the two physicians from Esteren and her own longtime doctor from Ferrieres. Her own had won: they had given her nothing for pain. Peire d’Alorre was of the view that soporifics dulled the body’s ability to fight injury caused by sharp edges. He had lectured on the subject in all the universities.

Her head was on fire. Even the slightest movement of her arm was intolerable. She was dimly conscious that Ramiro had hardly left her side; that he was holding her good hand, gripping it steadily, and had been doing so since she had been brought here, withdrawing only when the doctors compelled him to, for the bleeding. The odd thing was, she could see him holding her hand, but she couldn’t really feel his touch.

She was dying. That seemed clear to her, if not yet to them. She had caused a sun disk to be brought for her. She was trying to pray, but it was difficult.

In a haze of pain she understood that someone new had entered the room. Count Gonzalez, and another man. Another doctor. His features—a long, ugly face—swam into view, very close. He apologized to her and the king, and then laid a hand directly upon her forehead. He took her good hand from Ramiro and pinched the back of it. He asked her if she felt that. Ines shook her head. The new doctor scowled.

Peire d’Alorre, behind him, said something cutting. He was prone to sardonic remarks, especially about the Esperañans. A habit he had never shaken in all his years here.

The new man, whose hands were gentle, if his face was not, said, “Do we have the arrow that was removed? Has anyone thought to examine it?” His voice rasped like a saw.

Ines was aware of a silence. Her vision was not good, just then, but she saw the three court physicians exchange glances.

“It is over here,” said Gonzalez de Rada. He approached the bed, swimming into view, holding the arrow gingerly near the feathers. The doctor took it. He brought the head up to his face and sniffed. He grimaced. He had an awful face, actually, and a large boil on his neck. He came back to the queen and, again apologizing, he shifted the covers at the bottom of the bed and took one of her feet.

“Do you feel my touch?” he asked. Again, she shook her head.

He looked angry. “Forgive me, my lord king, if I am blunt. It may be I have spent too long in the
tagra
lands for courtly company. But these three men have come near to killing the queen. It may be too late, and I will have to lay hands and, I fear, more than hands upon her, but I will try if you allow me.”

“There is poison?” she heard Ramiro ask.

“Yes, my lord king.”

“What can you do?”

“With your permission, my lord, I must clean this . . . disgusting coating from her arm to prevent more of the substance from entering the wound. Then I will have to administer a compound I will prepare. It will be . . . difficult for the queen, my lord. Extremely unpleasant. It is a substance that may make her very ill as it combats the poison in her. We must hope it does so. I know of no other course. Do you wish me to proceed? Do you wish to remain here?”

Ramiro did, both things. Peire d’Alorre ventured an acerbic, unwise objection. He was unceremoniously ushered by Gonzalez de Rada to a far corner of the room, along with the other two doctors. Ramiro, following part of the way, said something to them that Ines could not hear. They were extremely quiet after that.

The king came back and sat once more beside the bed holding her good hand in both of his. She still couldn’t feel his touch. The new doctor’s coarse features appeared close to hers again. He explained what he was about to do, and apologized beforehand. When he spoke softly, his voice was not actually unpleasant. His breath was sweetly scented with some herb.

What followed was worse than childbirth had been. She did scream, as he carefully but thoroughly cleaned the mud from her wounded arm. At some point the god mercifully granted her oblivion.

They revived her, though. They had to. She was made to drink something. What ensued was even worse. The queen, racked with spasms in the belly and sweating with fever, found that she could not even bear the muted light of the candles in the room. All sounds hurt her head amazingly. She lost track of time, where she was, who was there. She heard her own voice at one point, speaking wildly, begging for release. She couldn’t even pray, or hold properly to her disk.

When she swam back towards awareness, the doctor insisted that she drink more of the same substance, and she sank back into fever and the pain.

It went on for an unimaginably long time.

Eventually it ended. She had no idea when. She seemed to be still alive, however. She lay on the sweat-soaked pillows of the bed. The doctor gently cooled her face and forehead with damp towels, murmuring encouragement. He asked for clean linens; these were brought and, while the men turned away, Ines’s ladies-in-waiting changed her garments and the bedding. When they had finished the doctor came back and very gently anointed and then bandaged Ines’s arm. His movements were steady and precise. The king watched intently.

When the doctor from the forts was done, he ordered the room cleared of all but one of the queen’s ladies. He spoke now with the authority of a man who had assumed command of a situation. More diffidently, he then asked permission to speak in private with the king. Ines watched them withdraw to an adjacent room. She closed her eyes and slept.

“Will she live?” King Ramiro was blunt. He spoke as soon as the door was closed behind them.

The doctor was equally direct. “I will not know until later tonight, my lord king.” He pushed a hand through his untidy, straw-colored hair. “The poison ought to have been countered immediately.”

“Why did you suspect it?”

“The degree of swelling, my lord, and the absence of any feeling in her feet and hands. A simple arrow wound ought not to have caused such responses. I have seen enough of those, Jad knows. And then I smelled it on the arrow.”

“How did you know to do what you did?”

There was a hesitation, for the first time. “My lord, since being assigned the great honor of serving in the
tagra
forts, I have used the . . . proximity to Al-Rassan to obtain the writings from some of their physicians. I have made a course of study, my lord.”

“The Asharite doctors know more than we?”

“About most things, my lord. And . . . the Kindath know even more, in many matters. In this instance, I was schooled by certain writings of a Kindath physician, a man of Fezana, my lord.”

“You can read the Kindath script?”

“I have taught myself, my lord.”

“And this text told you how to identify and deal with this poison? What to administer?”

“And how to make it. Yes, my lord.” Another hesitation. “There is one thing more, my lord king. The reason I wished to speak with you alone. About the . . . source of this evil thing.”

“Tell me.”

The doctor from the
tagra
forts did so. He was asked an extremely precise question and answered it. He then received his king’s permission to return to the queen. Ramiro of Valledo remained alone in that adjoining room for some time, however, dealing with a rising fury and coming, quite swiftly after long indecision, to a clear resolution.