The Lions of Al-Rassan (62 page)

Trepanning, it was called in the text of Galinus. Jehane knew that, and so, it appeared, did Bernart d’Iñigo, the Jaddite physician assisting them. And they both knew, as well, that it had never been done.

She would have never even tried, Jehane was aware, all through what happened. Never have
thought
to try, or dreamed it was possible. With awe, fighting back the desire to cry all the time, she watched her father’s sure, steady hands probe and define the wound, circumscribe it, then wield the small saw and chisel with which he cut a hole in Diego Belmonte’s head.

He gave them instructions when he needed to; her mother, standing above them, under a torch held by the king of Valledo himself, translated his words. Jehane or Bernart moved, as ordered, to offer a blade, a saw, a clamp, to sponge away the heavily flowing blood where Ishak had peeled back the skin of the boy’s scalp. Diego was being held in a sitting position, that the blood might drain away and not into the wound.

It was his father who was holding him.

Rodrigo’s eyes were closed most of the time, concentrating on keeping utterly still, which Ishak, through Eliane, had said was imperative. Perhaps he was praying. Jehane didn’t know. She did know, moved beyond words, that Diego never budged. Rodrigo held his child rock-steady, without shifting his position once through the whole of that impossible, blind surgery on the plain.

Jehane had a strange illusion at one point: that Rodrigo could have sat like this with his child in his arms forever if need be. That he might almost
want
to do that. A stone, a statue, a father doing the one thing left for him to do, and allowed.

The shattered bone of the skull came out in one ugly, jagged piece. Ishak had Jehane probe the open wound to be sure he had it all. She found two small fragments and removed them with pincers d’Iñigo handed her. Then she and the Valledan doctor sutured the flaps of skin and bandaged the wound and when that was done they remained, on their knees, on either side of the boy.

They laid Diego down then, Rodrigo moving to stand silently above him beside Miranda. The brother—Fernan—was behind his mother. To Jehane’s eyes he had an obvious need for something to make him sleep. She doubted he would accept it.

The white moon was directly overhead by then, the blue climbing in the eastern sky. The fires had been put out. Other doctors had come, summoned from the body of the army north of them. They were dealing with the survivors. There didn’t appear to be very many of those.

A great deal of time seemed to have passed, Jehane realized. Ishak, guided by Eliane and Ammar, had moved a little apart, to a camp stool provided for him.

Jehane and the Jaddite doctor, d’Iñigo, looked at each other across the body of the boy. D’Iñigo had an unfortunate face but kind eyes, Jehane thought. He had been calmly competent all through what had just been done. She hadn’t expected that of a Valledan physician.

He cleared his throat, struggling with fatigue and emotion.

“Whatever . . .” he began, and then stopped. He swallowed. “Whatever happens to me, whatever else I do, this will always be the proudest moment of my life as a doctor. To have been a small part of this. With your father, who is my . . . who I respect so much. In his writings, and . . .” He stopped, overcome.

Jehane discovered that she was overwhelmingly tired. Her father must be exhausted. It hadn’t shown. If she wasn’t careful she would begin remembering what had happened in Fezana, before all this, and that wouldn’t do. Not yet. She had to stay in control.

She said, “He may not survive. You know that.”

D’Iñigo shook his head. “He will. He will survive! That is the wonder of it. You saw what was done as well as I. The bone came out! It was flawless.”

“And we have no idea whether anyone can live through an opening up of their skull like that.”

“Galinus said—”

“Galinus never did it! It was sacrilege to him. To the Asharites, the Kindath. To all of us. You know that!” She hadn’t meant to raise her voice. People looked over at them.

Jehane gazed back down at the unconscious boy. He was lying now on a pallet and pillow, covered in blankets. He was utterly white, from the loss of so much blood. That was one of the dangers now. One of them. Jehane laid her fingers against his throat. The pulse was steady, if too fast. But even as she did this and studied Diego’s face, Jehane realized that she, too, was certain he would live. It was unprofessional, hopelessly emotional.

It was an absolute conviction.

She looked up, at Rodrigo, and the wife he loved, the mother of this child, and she nodded her head. “He is doing well. As well as we could hope,” she said. Then she rose and went to where her father and mother were. Ammar was with them, which was good. It was very good.

Jehane knelt at Ishak’s feet and laid her head in his lap, the way she used to when she was a child, and she felt her father’s hands—his strong, calm, steady hands—come to rest upon her head.

After a time she stood up—because she was not, in truth, a little girl any more, dwelling in her parents’ house—and she turned to the man she loved among all others in the world and Ammar opened his arms for her and she let him draw away a little of what had happened to her people in the city that night, with his touch.

Seventeen

A
fter holding a steady torch over Diego Belmonte in the dark of that night, Alvar de Pellino watched Jehane’s father walk wearily with his wife to the edge of the village and then stumble alone through the eastern gate out into the grass. There he knelt down and, rocking slowly back and forth on his knees, began to pray.

It was Husari, coming to stand with Alvar, stained with blood and ash and sweat—as Alvar knew himself to be—who murmured, softly, “This will be the Kindath lament. Under both moons. For the dead.”

“In Fezana?”

“Of course. But if I know this man he is offering a part of it for Velaz.”

Alvar winced. He looked back out at the shape of the man on his knees in darkness. He had, shamefully, forgotten about Velaz. Jehane’s parents would only have heard those tidings tonight. Watching the old physician rocking slowly back and forth, Alvar felt an unexpected renewal, quiet and sure, of what he had begun to realize on the ride west: he was not going to be a soldier, after all.

He could kill, well enough it seemed, lacking neither in courage nor calm nor skill, but he had no heart for the butchery of war. He could not name it as the singers did: a pageantry, a contest, a glorious field whereon men could search out and find their honor.

He had no idea what the alternatives were or might be, but he knew that this wasn’t the night to sort through that. He heard a sound from behind and turned. Rodrigo walked up to them.

“Alvar, I’d be grateful if you’d come with me.” His tone was grave; there was a bone-weariness at the bottom of it. Diego was still unconscious; Jehane had said he would probably be so all night and into the morning. “I think I want a witness for what happens next. Are you all right?”

“Of course,” Alvar said quickly. “But what is . . . ?”

“The king has asked to speak with me.”

Alvar swallowed. “And you want me to . . .”

“I do. I need one of my men.” Rodrigo flashed the faint ghost of a smile. “Unless you have a need to urinate?”

Memory, vivid as a shaft of light.

He walked over with Rodrigo to where the king stood, conferring with outriders. Ramiro saw them approaching, raised his eyebrows briefly at Alvar.

“You wish a third man with us?” he asked.

“If you do not object, my lord. Do you know Pellino de Damon’s son? One of my most trusted men.” There was—Alvar heard it—an edge to Rodrigo’s voice now.

“I do not,” said his king, “but if you value him so highly, I hope to know him well in days to come.”

Alvar bowed. “Thank you, my lord.” He was conscious that he must look a fearsome sight. Like a fighting man.

Ramiro dismissed the outriders and the three of them walked towards the northern fence of the hamlet and then, as Alvar opened a gate, out onto the plain.

A wind was blowing. They carried no torches. The fires were behind them and had mostly died. The moons and the stars shone above the wide land all around them. It was too dark for Alvar to read the expressions of the other two men. He kept silent. A witness. To what, he knew not.

“I am pleased you are back. You will have questions. Ask me,” said Ramiro of Valledo. “Then I will tell you some other things you do not know.”

Rodrigo said coldly, “Very well. Start with my sons. How came they here? You may not be glad of my presence for long, my lord king, depending on the answers.”

“Your cleric wrote a letter to Geraud de Chervalles, a High Cleric from Ferrieres, wintering with us on his pilgrimage to Vasca’s Isle. He was preaching a holy war, along with his fellows in Eschalou and Orvedo. You know the army in Batiara has sailed?”

“I do. What sort of letter?”

“Explaining about your son’s gift. Suggesting it might be of aid to us in a war against the infidels.”

“Ibero did that!”

“I will show you the letter, Ser Rodrigo. Was it a betrayal?”

“It was.”

The king said, “He has been punished.”

“Not by me.”

“Does it matter? He was a holy man. Jad will judge him.”

There was a silence.

“Go on. The letter arrived in Esteren?”

“And de Chervalles asked my permission to send for the boy. This was after what had happened at Carcasia. You heard about that?”

Rodrigo nodded. “A little.”

The king said, “In the wake of those events, I ordered the army to assemble and I sent men to fetch your son. His brother insisted on coming. Your lady wife followed, joining the queen. Am I, also, to be punished, Ser Rodrigo?”

The tone of both men was cold, precise. In the darkness, in that keen wind, Alvar had a sense that he was listening to the first notes of an exchange that had been waiting to happen for a long time.

“I don’t know yet,” said Rodrigo Belmonte flatly. Alvar blinked. The Captain was speaking to his anointed monarch. “What happened at Carcasia? You had best tell me about that.”

“I intended to. Almalik II used a spy at the court of my brother of Ruenda to try to kill the queen. His purpose was subtle and nearly succeeded. If the queen had died and I blamed Sanchez it would have shattered any alliance and sent us to war against each other. I nearly rode against Ruenda. I would have, had she died.”

“But?”

“The physician, d’Iñigo—who assisted with your boy tonight—was able to save the queen where her own doctors could not. He realized, from the nature of the wound, that there had been poison on the arrow, and provided the remedy.”

“We owe him a great deal, then,” said Rodrigo.

“We do. He said he learned of that poison from the writings of a certain Kindath physician in Fezana.”

Another silence. Alvar saw a star fall across the sky in the west. A birth, a death. One or the other, in the folk tales at home. He was far from home.

“I see. I had intended to ask you,” said Rodrigo, “whatever else happens, to look to the well-being of Ser Ishak and his family.”

“You need not ask,” said the king. “It is done. For the queen’s sake, and your son’s. Whatever else happens.”

Alvar saw Rodrigo incline his head in the moonlight. A cloud drifted across the face of the white moon, deepening the darkness.

“D’Iñigo also told me something else,” the king said quietly. “He said the poison used was one known only in Al-Rassan. The Ruendans would have had no ready access to it, or knowledge of it.”

“I see.” Rodrigo’s tone changed. “You wrote to your brother of Ruenda?”

“I did. I told him what we had learned. He had fled the meeting, fearing we might attack them. As I said, I nearly did, Ser Rodrigo. If the queen had died . . .”

“I believe I can understand that, my lord.”

“Sanchez wrote back. They had unmasked the Cartadan spy and found arrows in his home with the same poison. My brother was grateful.”

“Of course. Insofar as he can be.” The tone was dry.

“It went far enough. He agreed to come south at the same time I did. He is riding for Salos even now.”

This was news. Alvar could see Rodrigo absorbing it.

“And Jaloña?” he asked softly. “Your uncle?”

“Is driving towards Ragosa and Fibaz. It is happening. The clerics have their holy war, after all, Ser Rodrigo.”

Rodrigo shook his head. “Three wars of conquest, it would seem to me.”

“Of course.” The king’s turn to sound wry. “But the clergy ride with us, and so far as I trust my uncle and brother not to turn back and attack Valledo, it is because of them.”

“And because of them my son was brought here?”

“He was summoned because in my anger I allowed an offered weapon to be brought to me.”

“He is a child, not a weapon, my lord.”

“He is both, Ser Rodrigo. With respect. And our country is at war. How old were you when you first rode in my father’s army beside Raimundo?”

No answer. Wind in the tall grass.

“That is my tale. Am I still to be punished?” King Ramiro asked softly. “I hope not so. I need you, Ser Rodrigo. Valledo has no constable tonight, no war leader, and we stand in Al-Rassan.”

Alvar sucked in his breath sharply. Neither of the other men so much as glanced at him. He might not even have been here in the darkness with them.

“You mentioned the name,” said Rodrigo, his voice suddenly no more than a whisper, “of your late brother.”

Alvar shivered suddenly. He was very tired, and the night breeze was growing colder, and he had begun to feel the places where he’d been wounded, but none of these were the reason.

“I always thought,” said King Ramiro, “that we would have to arrive here eventually, you and I.”

He stopped, and after a moment Alvar realized that the king was looking at him, evaluating. It was for this, Alvar understood, that the Captain had wanted him here.

The king spoke again, finally, in a very different tone. “You genuinely loved him, didn’t you? I could not . . . I could never understand why everyone loved Raimundo so much. Even our father. Obviously. Even he was seduced by my brother. He gave him Valledo. Tell me, Ser Rodrigo, answer a question for
me
this time: do you truly think Raimundo would have been a better king, had he lived, than I have been?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Rodrigo said, in that same stiff, difficult whisper.

“It
does
matter. Answer me.”

Silence. Wind, and swift clouds overhead. Alvar heard an animal cry out far off on the plain. He looked at the Captain in the moonlight.
He is afraid,
he thought.

Rodrigo said, “I can’t answer that question. He died too young. We can’t know what he would have grown into. I know what you want me to say. That he had more charm than strength. That he was selfish and reckless and even cruel. He
was.
All of these things, at times. But, as Jad will judge my life when I make my end, I have only known one other man, ever, who came even close to making . . . the act of living through days and nights so full of richness and delight. You have been a far-sighted and a strong king, my lord. I grant you that freely. But I did love your brother, yes. We were young—exiled together and then home together in triumph—and I have always believed he was killed.”

“He was,” said King Ramiro.

Alvar swallowed, hard.

Rodrigo brought one hand up, involuntarily, and touched his forehead. He stayed thus a moment, then lowered his arm. “And who was it who killed him?” His voice actually cracked on the question.

“Garcia de Rada.” The king’s words were flat, uninflected. “You always thought so, didn’t you?”

Alvar had another memory then, torchlit. This same hamlet. Rod-rigo’s whip lashing out, catching Garcia de Rada on the face, ripping his cheek open. Laín Nunez struggling to control the Captain’s black rage. The cold, ferocious words spoken—accusation of a king’s murder.

He heard Rodrigo slowly release his breath. He couldn’t make out his features clearly but he saw the Captain cross his arms on his breast, as if holding tightly to something there.

“Garcia was—what?—seventeen, eighteen that year?” Rodrigo said. “He acted on his brother’s orders?”

Ramiro hesitated. “I am speaking truth, Ser Rodrigo, believe it. The answer is, I do not know. Even tonight, with Gonzalez dead, I do not know for certain. My thought has always been, he did not. I believe Count Gonzalez innocent of my brother’s blood.”

“I do not share your belief, I fear. Would an eighteen-year-old have killed his king, unprompted?”

“I don’t know,” said King Ramiro again. He paused. “Should I point out that Gonzalez de Rada died terribly tonight because he would not leave Diego’s side from the time your boys joined this army?”

Rodrigo was unmoved. “He swore an oath to me last year. He valued his family honor.”

“Then would he have murdered his king?”

“He valued many other things, my lord. Power and wealth among them. He, too, was younger then. He might have done so, yes. I thought you could tell me.”

“I have given you my belief.”

“You have. Which leaves us with only the last question, doesn’t it? You know what it is, my lord.”

Alvar knew it as well, by now.
The last question.
What followed the last question? He wished he were somewhere else.

The king said, quietly, “I had no love for Raimundo. Or Sanchez, for that matter. Nor they for me. It was no secret, Jad knows. Our father chose a certain way to raise his three sons. But I knew I could do more for Valledo and perhaps all of Esperaña one day, than either of my brothers ever could. I
knew
it. In my own time of exile here in Al-Rassan, when men came south to speak with me, I will not deny that I voiced anger that Valledo was probably going to be given to Raimundo when our father died. Which is what happened, of course.”

The king stopped. Alvar heard the animal call out again, far off in darkness. King Ramiro said, “It is . . . very possible . . . that someone listening to me in a tavern or wine shop here might have concluded that were Raimundo to die . . . unexpectedly, I would not be displeased.”