To the High Redoubt (13 page)

“Why's that?” He squinted ahead on the road but saw nothing but the dull earth cutting through the tall, rich grasses.

“Arkady-champion, you were not born to this as I was, and you have no idea what…happens. You did not take most of your youth to learn what I know.”

“Most of my youth I spent learning to fight,” he said roughly.

“And for that you are my champion,” she said more confidently. “I know nothing of fighting and battle, and yet I must wage war on the Bundhi. Alone I am helpless, worse than a babe. But with you, I have strength, and there is much less danger.”

“What does that have to do with last night?” He could hear the anger in his words, which startled him. “I…” he began, then could not finish.

Surata patted him. “Arkady-champion, the realm of this earth is not the only one.”

“Heaven and Hell and Purgatory. Purgatory is a mountain,” he said, repeating what he had been told as a child.

Behind them, the ass let out a loud, complaining bray which made the gelding bring his head up sharply. In the distance, another ass answered.

Arkady's heels urged the bay to move again. “Heaven is the Presence of God,” he told her as his lessons came back to him. “It is where those who have been forgiven all sin may go. Purgatory is where the sins of the life are purged away without fault, where those of virtuous conduct but without the sacrament of baptism reside until they can come to Grace. Hell is for those whose sins condemn them to everlasting torment.” He had sometimes joked with his soldiers about Hell, agreeing with them that those who have seen battle have little to fear from damnation.

“Karma will correct…errors. Until all karma is gone and all desire extinguished, we are bound to the Wheel.” She thought a moment. “I have read of sin. I do not understand it. Surely karma provides…atonement.” She tightened her hold on him, not enough to make him uncomfortable, but to give him a closer contact than they had had. “You do not need to have the Godhead forgive you, but to do in return what was done.”

“You must have sin and atonement,” Arkady said, shocked at the notion she proposed. “Without sin, there is no redemption.”

“And must you be redeemed?” Surata asked quietly, her hands firm as she held him.

“Of course. Man is conceived in sin, and through God and His Son, we may be saved.” He crossed himself.

“Do you think to ward off evil that way?” Surata wondered. “I know there are signs that are supposed to do that.”

Arkady could not help but smile in his amazement. “You don't understand this at all, do you?” He had met pagans and heathen before, but no one like this young woman, who treated him as if he were the one without comprehension. “God sent His Son to die for mankind, so that we might be free from sin.”

To Arkady's distress, Surata laughed out loud. “Oh, I know that one. My father knew a man from the West, who wore stinking black garments and had a tall hat on his head, who said…prayers all day for his redemption and salvation. My father tried to explain how misled he was, but the man from the West eventually said that my father was the servant of the Devil. You have such funny gods in the West, who do only one thing all the time. Think of Lord Siva and Lord Krisna. They are not at all like what your gods are. You have one goddess, don't you? Isn't that silly.”

If Arkady could have managed it, he would have turned around in the saddle and slapped her for being so blasphemous. “You're outrageous. I should not even be in your company.”

“You are truly offended,” Surata realized and at once put a placating hand on his. “Arkady-champion, I did not mean to upset you, please believe that. But you see, with the studies I have done for so long, you sound like a little child, and not a grown man with courage and worth.”

“You don't have to flatter me,” he grumbled, trying to convince her that he would not be drawn into her heretical arguments. “I know that I am not a good Christian, but that does not mean I do not know what is right and wrong.”

“And I am wrong,” she said softly. “Your gods are very hard gods.”

“Not gods, Surata; God. There is one God.” He set his jaw and made a point of sitting straighter in the saddle.

“But what is the son, then? Isn't he a god? You said that he did a divine thing. Is he a god or a bodhisattva?”

“He is the Son of God, the Second of the Trinity,” he insisted, wishing now he had paid more attention to the instruction of his priest at home. He felt out of his depth discussing such things with Surata.

“Then there is
not
just the one,” she said reasonably. “That makes more sense.”

“There are three in one,” Arkady said with more determination.

“Father, Mother and Child,” she said confidently. “That is very limited, but not unwise.”

“No, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” he corrected her. “That is the Trinity.”

Surata said nothing for a little way, then: “What of the Mother? How do you venerate the Female?”

“There is the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.” He cleared his throat. “Look, Surata, I didn't have that much of an education. I can't explain this very well. If you want to learn, then it would be best for us to go back and find you a priest who could make it all clear to you.”

“You are doing very well, Arkady-champion,” she said warmly. “You have some understanding, but you don't assume you know more than you do, which is very wise.” She lapsed into silence once again. “The Mother of God is also a god?”

“Well, not exactly. She is the most exalted servant of God, for she brought the Son to earth.” He remembered the way the priest had told his congregation that because of the Sin of Eve, no woman could ever aspire to the exaltation of the Trinity. Female Saints, he had reminded his listeners, were women who put their femaleness behind them for love of God.

“That is ridiculous!” Surata burst out. “What madness!”

Arkady pulled in the bay. “What is madness?”

“What you were remembering. That women must not be women or they are unholy. What would become of the world if this were true? There would be no love, no children, no transcendance.” She shook her head, and Arkady could feel the movement through his brigandine. “I grow impatient with your priests, who are stupid and closed-hearted. No wonder you cannot trust what you achieved last night.”

“And what
did
I achieve?” Arkady countered, his irritation becoming acute. “Men have…odd visions when they take a woman, especially when much time has gone by.”

“Do you believe you took me?” Surata demanded. “I am your slave, but if I did not seek you, you would not touch me, no matter how your body yearned and throbbed for me.” She took her arms from around him and deliberately clung to the cantel.

“Surata…Surata, I didn't mean that…I know it was something different, but…” Helplessly he got his horse and the ass moving more briskly. He had no way to tell her how his emotions and thoughts were troubling him.

By midafternoon, they caught up with a small party of merchants carrying salt and amber to Sarai, where they would trade them for precious metals and fine paper coming from China. Two of the merchants were Poles and were delighted to have Arkady join them.

“I don't hesitate to tell you, Captain, that out here, a man gets worried about thieves. It wasn't so long ago that the King of Poland ruled here, but now that the men of Islam are ravening like the Devil's lion all through Christian lands, we must be careful.”

“We'll go part of the way with you, certainly,” Arkady agreed at once without reference to Surata. “I gather you know the road well.”

The oldest merchant, who was Georgian by the look of him, said in stilted Polish, “We have travelled this road for more than sixteen years. There have been many changes, but not even the Islamic heretics can change east to west, or deny their need for salt.” He glanced once at Surata. “Your woman?”

“My slave. She cost me a good amount.” Arkady read the lust in the old merchant's face. “I have no intention of parting with her.”

“And you would not share her?” he asked. “Well, we can discuss that later, I suppose. Yevgen,”—one of the two out-riders swung around in his saddle at the old man's bellow—“this good soldier will go part of the way with us. He's a Pole!”

“A Pole,” Yevgen shouted back. “Good enough.”

At his back, Surata murmured to Arkady, “Be careful of these men. They expect…things of you.”

“It will be fine, Surata,” he told her softly. “You're being too cautious.”

“Just because they are of the same country as you, and bow before the same altars does not mean that they are one with you in feeling and fellowship.” She put her arms around his waist again. “I want to see them.”

Arkady shook his head at this, struck by her plight once again. “There are seven men, all merchants, and two out-riders. You heard what they are selling.”

“Yes, I heard. Take care of your pouch of gold while they are near.” She rested her head against his shoulder and Arkady admitted to himself that he had missed that for the last hour.

“Tonight we can stop in a village that is another two hours along the road. They're Georgians, most of them, and they have good inns for travellers. The guard does not tax merchants too severely. You might have to pay a token for your slave, but if you don't plan to sell her, the sum should not be great.” The oldest merchant chuckled. “If I had a slave like that, I wouldn't part with her until her hair turns gray. I've seen women like her in the East. I've gone as far as Khiva in the Timurid Emirate of Herat, when I was younger. There were many strange woman along the way, some as beautiful as the woman behind you, Pole.”

“How fortunate for you,” Arkady said, striving to keep the ire from his voice. “This is the first time I have travelled beyond the lands of Europe.” He put his hand on the hilt of his longer sword where it hung from his saddle. “For as long as we journey with you, my sword is at your disposal.”

“Captain Sól, that is an honorable oath,” the Polish merchant who had spoken earlier declared. “What I would expect of a fellow countryman.”

Arkady said nothing, though he could not help but think that these men would be less grateful for his presence if they knew how he came to be so far from his troops. He nodded his acknowledgment to the merchants and spurred toward the out-riders.

“Take the left point and I'll hold to the middle,” Yevgen called out to Arkady, pointing to this position. “Do you have to keep that ass with you?”

“It has our provisions,” Arkady shouted back, and was accompanied by a loud protest from the ass.

“Not very happy about it, is he?” Yevgen remarked, laughing at his own wit. “Keep a watch for men on horseback. There are parties of Islamites in this region. They want all the Russias as much as they want Europe.”

Arkady made a half-hearted salute and took up his position on the left point. He had not been a scout for several years, but the habit remained and he fell into his watch easily.

“The merchants are afraid, Arkady-champion,” Surata said some little time later. “They think they are being followed, and one of them is certain that you are with those who will prey on them.”

“Surata…” He shook his head. It was foolish to challenge her. “How do you know this?”

“How do you know when there is an ambush ahead?” she inquired. “How do you know when your opponent is lying?”

He did not want to give this too much consideration. “You learn these things, in time,” he dismissed the issue.

“And that is how I know,” she said. “These merchants believe that you will be their hostage if they must bargain with thieves or…brigands.” She paused, thinking about the word. “But a brigand is a soldier.”

“Yes,” Arkady acknowledged unhappily. “Cashiered soldiers often turn robber.”

“Ah.” She held him lightly. “You watch in your manner and I will watch in mine.”

Arkady was content to accept this, still not quite prepared to question what she said to him. He kept his gelding to the same pace as Yevgen's heavy-barreled dun and the other outrider's leggy chestnut mare. If he let his mind drift, he might almost convince himself that he was a young soldier again, on his first campaign, getting his first taste of boredom.

The afternoon faded into dusk and they had yet to reach the village. The other two out-riders had exchanged uneasy words, not wanting to remain on the road after dark. It was not very risky during the day, but once night fell, any travellers not safely camped ran an increased risk of robbery.

“How much further?” Arkady finally called to Yevgen.

“I don't know. I'll have to ask Old Milo. He's the one who knows the way.” Yevgen rode heavily; both he and his horse were tired. “Hey! Tibor!” he shouted to the other out-rider, “See anything?”

Tibor yelled back, “Nothing but grass!”

Surata leaned closer to Arkady. “They will not find what they are looking for. They have passed the place. It is gone now. The last time the old man saw it was almost a year ago, and since then, disease has come to it and the whole place was burned to the ground. Everyone from the village fled if they were able, and died if they were not.”

“How can you be certain?” Arkady asked, disturbed anew by her talents.

“I am certain. We passed the place a while ago, where the old and empty sheepfolds were.” She sighed. “There will not be an inn for more than an hour. Do you think you should wait that long to camp?”

“You can't know this. You said yourself that you were brought to the West by another route.” He resisted what she said more out of the fear that she was right than the concern that she might be wrong.

“I knew there was money on the road earlier. And what would it matter, since I am blind and have no means to see it, no matter which road it may be.” She laughed slightly. “Trust me, Arkady-champion. It is hard for you to do this, but trust me.”