Children of Earth and Sky (44 page)

And with that, both of them turned to look at Pero. Something occurred to him. He shook his head, because amusement, unexpectedly, now overtook him as well—even with a travelling companion about to die, murdered, in the morning.
Because
that was about to happen.

“Yes, come with us. But we aren't going anywhere tonight.”

“Why?” Tomo asked. Pero saw Djivo's brow furrow.

“You don't see it?” Pero felt an unexpected pleasure. Too long being the least-adept person here? He said it. “And I am supposed to be the inexperienced artist, guided along the road?” He shook his head again. “First reason: we don't need to go on ahead, with Ferri no longer with us. Signore Grilli will take the sun disks from hiding and declare them to the officials and pay the duty. Tomo will help him find them if he has to. He will say Ferri's servant told him where they are.”

“He did tell me,” Tomo said.

Pero smiled. “How convenient. You are able to tell the truth.”

Djivo laughed. “And is there another reason?”

Pero looked at him. “Think about it. A merchant dies suddenly, unexpectedly, and two of his companions and their servants have slipped away in the middle of the night?”

“Oh,” said Djivo.

“Oh,” said Tomo.

—

SIGNORE GUIBALDO FERRI OF SE
RESSA
was found dead when the sun rose the next morning. He was discovered so by Marco Bosini, with whom he had been sharing a bed in their room. Young Bosini's cry of alarm woke Nelo Grilli in the other, smaller cot, and the next shout brought others rushing into the room.

Attempts to revive the merchant were unsuccessful. It was judged that his heart had given way in the night, perhaps in the always dangerous hour before dawn when—it was known—death drifted close to men. Prayers to Jad under the world in the night were made in fearful awareness of this.

It seemed that death had found Guibaldo Ferri here, only days from Asharias and the end of a long journey.

Grilli, the most senior of the merchants, undertook to arrange for the burial and rites, and to supervise the sale of the merchandise Ferri was carrying, when they reached the city markets. There was no questioning Grilli's integrity, and he asked the other merchant,
Bosini, to review all his actions and affirm their rectitude. There were precedents. This did happen when men travelled a long way to trade.

After the burial—in a grave by the stream west of the inn—Nelo Grilli, advised by Ferri's badly shaken servant, and assisted by the artist's man, Tomo, opened a particular chest. He removed from a hidden drawer a number of small sun disks, of considerable value here, even after the tariff on religious artifacts was paid.

On the advice of Tomo Agosta, offered diffidently, Signore Grilli placed some of the gold coins Ferri had been carrying in his purse into the hidden compartment, to make it appear he had been secreting some of his money. That was hardly illegal. It could be called prudent. The money would be found, of course. The customs officials of Asharias would have seen boxes of this sort before.

They would undoubtedly steal some coins, but not—one might hope—all of them. The khalif did want trade, there was an administration supervising foreigners' rights.

The party remained another night at the inn and Grilli led evening prayers by the stream on a mild evening, with the sun of Jad going down. He was assisted by the Dubravae merchant, Djivo, who had a pleasant singing voice.

They left together in the morning. They were met towards evening by an escort. The next afternoon they saw the triple walls and the water and the enormous dome of what had once been the Sanctuary of Jad's Holy Wisdom and was now consecrated to Ashar and the stars. As so many had been through centuries, they felt humbled as they passed through the gates.

The City of Cities had been built to do that to visitors, and it still did.

Men and women cannot know—it is in the nature of our lives—what would have happened had another road been taken, other decisions been made, a life continued instead of being cut short. Nonetheless . . .

Guibaldo Ferri, had he lived, would have had his secreted sun disks found by customs officers. It was true—they were familiar with such contrivances, howsoever intricate. It was also true that officials paid with their own lives if they missed goods that were later found by the
second
careful inspection.

Pero Villani's paint pots were examined, twice. His arsenic would have been discovered. The entire party would have been taken to an unpleasant location and interrogated, and more than one of them (not just Ferri), seeking the mercy of death, would have volunteered the information that Rasca Tripon, named Skandir, had ambushed a company of red-saddle cavalry and djannis. And that he had been assisted by the Dubravae, Djivo, and also by the artist, Villani.

They would all have been tortured for further information in a spirit of very great anger. There would have been no swift deaths. There would have been no portrait of Grand Khalif Gurçu, the Destroyer.

These events did not occur because Guibaldo Ferri died and Pero Villani discarded his poison—as did his servant, Tomo Agosta.

Several of the hidden coins in Ferri's chest were taken by customs officers, both the first and the second searchers, but all was judged in order, and appropriate stamps and seals were provided after the assessed duties were paid.

The two remaining Seressini merchants, Bosini and Grilli, were escorted across the strait to the residences and warehouses allowed to Jaddites there.

Marin Djivo made his way, having been here before, to Dubrava's permitted residence, not far from the ruins of the Hippodrome where, centuries ago, men had raced in chariots behind horses for the delight of enormous crowds and in the presence of emperors.

The artist Villani was escorted to the palace complex. It was alarmingly irregular and the officials there were duly alarmed, but
he had been awaited and their instructions were exact. His servant did not accompany him. Servants, the artist was told when he inquired, would be provided him.

Events proceeded in the city and the world.

Eventually, Tomo Agosta did, in fact, find his way home to Seressa and its canals with a tale to tell. He would live a long life, unusual for a man of his profession. He never went to Asharias again. He remembered it, however. Few who journeyed there did not.

A
s spring churned muddily towards summer, with a calculation of distance and food and health and time to be made, the supreme serdar of the army of the Grand Khalif Gurçu began to endure troubled nights on the road to Woberg Fortress.

It was raining. Almost every day, every night.

Men and horses were wet, weary, mud-stained, dispirited. He looked at the cavalry mounts and he thought even they looked disheartened. He had been a cavalryman. His love, all his life, had been for horses. It pained him, seeing them this way, and there were broken legs happening in the slack, treacherous footing, which meant shooting them, or slitting throats to save a bullet.

The stars were not shining upon him, the serdar thought. And now the heavy wagons that had been trundling two of their largest cannons had both broken.

A bitterness occupied the serdar's spirit. They had done the latest river crossing so well this morning with the temporary bridge the engineers assembled, even in rain—only to have the wagons both crack (loudly!) as their guns were reloaded on the slippery northern
bank. He could almost hear that sound again tonight, over the drumming of the rain.

They were not far now from the line of Jaddite fortresses, but they were so very far. And deathly distant from home and safety, where they needed to be before autumn arrived and became winter and men and horses began to die without a blow being struck, by them or against them.

He didn't mind losing soldiers in battle. It was expected. He also, from experience, anticipated that disease would take a certain number. But if he turned back too late and winter came early and only a starving remnant of almost fifty thousand made it home . . . well, he would do best to end his own life on the road, because it would be ended for him, badly, in Asharias.

The serdar had seen that happen.

And so, given all this, how should a man fall asleep in the night? He thought of calling for a woman or a boy to ease him, but these anxieties were not the sort that could be physically assuaged.

Instead, the serdar ordered a lantern lit and roused himself to look, again, at the dates that had been presented to him this evening. He knew what they said, what they imposed, he really did know what he needed to do. But he didn't
want
to do it. He wanted to be the man who took Woberg for the khalif. To return to Asharias in glory, as the one who'd done what no one had ever been able to do: crack open the gateway to the Jaddite emperor's rich lands.

Conquered fortresses were also gateways for those who took them, opening wide upon power, wealth, fame. Perhaps even an avenue to the throne when Ashar took Gurçu the Destroyer to the stars. If the son—whichever one emerged—proved weak, unworthy, less glorious than the brilliant serdar who'd taken Woberg, was this not possible?

He fell asleep on his camp stool over the desk they had set up for him, his head dropping onto dates and numbers. Either his slave or
his adjutant must have blown out the lantern, because it was dark in the tent when the serdar woke. He was stiff and unhappy, and none of the numbers had changed while he slept.

Slowly a wan light filtered into the tent. Dawn coming. With rain. He could hear it. He pushed himself to his feet and pissed in his chamber pot. The slave came forward from his corner and carried it out. He lifted the flap to do so and the serdar glimpsed greyness and mud, was hit by a gust of the wet wind blowing.

It was the thought of the horses, slopping forward in that slippery footing, that ended it for him. A cavalryman from the beginning, promoted to red-saddle when not much more than a boy. You cared for your horses, you loved your horses. He looked at the numbers in front of him, but he decided because of the horses.

He sent his adjutant to summon the serdars serving beneath him. It might be the last time he did this. You weren't normally given more than one opportunity to command the assembled army of Asharias. Unless you conquered. And he wasn't doing that.

He gave the order when the eight men had gathered in his tent. No one challenged him. No one would do that here. It would be different back in Asharias. He was hardly the only ambitious man in the army. They would lie, some of them. They would say the rains hadn't been so bad, that the supreme serdar of the khalif's great army had been overly cautious. Even, perhaps, cowardly.

The serdar of the cavalry cleared his throat and made a proposal, based on word that had come in the night from scouts he'd sent ahead.

It was a good suggestion. It involved killing Jaddites without delaying the withdrawal of the main army or trying to get the massive guns north through this accursed mud and the rivers ahead.

It also, as it happened, involved Senjan, that notorious seaside town that vexed the western borderlands and merchant goods at sea. The serdar wasn't sure why there were Senjani here, making their way towards Woberg on their own and in the open. It was
an absurd trek for them. Surely the Jaddite emperor had reinforcements available that didn't have to journey so far?

On the other hand, Senjani had died in Sarantium when the walls were breached and the city burned—so they clearly did not mind covering distance to find death.

He gave the order to gratify this desire of theirs. He phrased it that way. There were hard smiles in the tent, on the grey morning with rain when they decided to turn home.

There were a hundred Senjani or so, he was told, on foot, with pack animals, not much more than a day ahead, across the next river. He sent eight hundred djannis and two hundred red-saddle cavalry. Too many, but why not? It would be a small triumph, close to a meaningless one, but he instructed the serdar of the djannis to take some of the raiders alive for him to parade through the city. The court could decide how they died.

He needed something to bring home. These infidel raiders from the coast weren't the only ones at risk of a bad death.

—

HRANT BUNIC HAD
not put himself forward to command the Senjani party headed towards the fortress. That might have been a part of why he had been chosen as leader when they'd set out weeks ago—when they'd been a hundred men, not the ninety-three still alive and moving east on another rainy morning.

Yes, he was an experienced raid leader, but there were others like that among them. This was, he thought, one of the best companies ever to set out from Senjan. That
might
keep them alive long enough to be killed in Woberg. He didn't share that thought, but found it privately amusing. He was that sort of man, at this point in his life.

They were a larger party than hadjuks would ever engage, but that didn't mean archers or spear-throwers couldn't pick off men in rain or at twilight, especially in territory the Asharites knew well, where the Senjani were strangers and at risk if they pursued.

They'd destroyed three small villages and a number of farms. Bunic didn't much enjoy doing that, since they couldn't
take
anything of value while headed north, but he also knew that if anything might deter attacks on them it was the affirmation that there would be consequences. He'd made that clear to the handful they spared in each raid.

Leave us alone. Make sure the hadjuks know.

Of course, in his experience hadjuk militia didn't much care about the lives or deaths of farmers or villagers—hereabouts, or anywhere. The hadjuks lived their own kind of life on the mountain slopes or in deep woods, and sometimes they were commanded by soldiers. They were
offended
by villagers, it often seemed. Contemptuous of them. There were reasons beyond religion for conflicts in the world.

It was not, Hrant Bunic thought, a good time in the unfolding of Jad's creation to be a farmer or village-dweller anywhere. And in these parts of northern Sauradia, with a huge army approaching (he didn't know yet how far the Osmanlis had come), people were likely to have everything they possessed confiscated soon. Armies needed servants or slaves, food and firewood, women for various reasons.

Ordinary folk suffered and died in the places where empires met.

You couldn't really hide when war came to you, especially not if you had a house, land, elderly parents, small children. It didn't make him sorry or anything like that for the infidels here, but it did make him lift his voice more urgently in prayer with the two clerics at sunrise and sunset. He sometimes wondered if the great emperor in his palace in Obravic had any idea what he'd asked them to do when he'd sent messengers to Senjan.

Hrant Bunic had lived thirty-three hard years that spring. He had a father and a wife and a five-year-old son at home, and a woman he loved on Hrak Island. He didn't expect to see any of them again. He was at peace with this. Life did not offer you many
kindnesses, and it didn't last long. You hoped for light with Jad after, against the dark.

Two of his scouts—one of them the boy, Miro—came back towards midday. They were exhausted, having run through the night. They reported that the evening before, at sunset, they'd seen—and possibly been seen by—mounted Osmanlis. The riders had been well armed, on good horses with red saddles.

Bunic knew what that meant. They all did. The army was upon them and they were exposed, in the open. He nodded slowly. He smiled at the boy. Some things were clear: they couldn't outrun cavalry to the fortress, still two weeks away, probably. And there were too many of them to hide in this countryside. They had destroyed villages. They would be reported. An ending of this sort had always been possible, from the morning their journey began.

He ordered a halt to allow himself a chance to think. He sent four men across the river to try to find and assess what might be coming this way. Their scouts might not have been seen, though if they thought they had it was likely to be so. Best assume as much. He set about assessing the terrain (not good here) and considering alternatives. He was calm. They were all calm. They were warriors of Jad, those they might soon be fighting were infidels, and there was a price to be exacted from anyone encountering the heroes of Senjan in battle, even far from home.

They were on the north side of a river with usefully steep banks. There was forest cover to the north. It ran back west only a little distance, he wasn't sure about east. None of them had been here before. The river was high and swift with the rains. They had passed a waterfall and rapids coming this way. They'd been working uphill for days. South across the river was open land, then hills, mostly lost in greyness and rain now. Somewhere out there, an army.

Everything depended on how many came after them. Even if they had seen and followed his own scouts, the Osmanlis might
decide to ignore a group of men on foot and push towards the fortress. It was late in the season and they hadn't reached Woberg yet. Indeed, it might already be too late for them, if Jad was being kind. The Osmanlis needed their cannon to batter the fortress into submission before they had to turn for home or risk starvation when autumn came—and they were surely having trouble getting the gun-wagons through the mud and across rivers.

That gave him an idea. It might be foolish, but they weren't here for ease and safety, were they? They were marching to defend Woberg, and you didn't have to wait for enemies to come to you. When had Senjan ever done that? The god might offer mercy, but men needed to act for themselves.

They knew the sea and all waters—better than any people alive was the boast. Bunic asked for volunteers for something dangerous. Every man raised a hand, including the scouts who had just returned, including the boy. Some raised both hands.

He felt, not for the first time, a pride that went bone-deep and had been lifelong. Whatever the world might think or say, in envy or fear or failure to understand, Senjan was what it was.

“This is ours, Hrant, whatever it is you have in mind.” The eldest of the Miho clan had stepped forward.

He nodded. One way to choose, an offer worth honouring. There were six Mihos with them. He picked four. He explained his thinking. He saw them smile, all four of them. He would remember that. They looked like wolves preparing to hunt, not men being pursued. There were no farewells, even with their kin left behind. You didn't do that. Why say farewell? They expected to return, in triumph.

The four of them went farther east, upstream, then swam across, the current bearing them back this way. They carried the necessary equipment in packs. The river was fast but narrow; the steep bank was a problem in rain but not impossibly so for good men. He watched them scale the bank and stand on the far side,
directly opposite. He'd had his troubles with some of the Miho clan, but they knew what they were doing, these men.

Ropes were tied to arrows and sent high across the river. The four men on the other side untied them, then deployed small wheels from their packs and made knots and loops, while the same thing was done on this side, and a contrivance was made to pull wooden boxes and other things across the water. They knew how to accomplish these things. Their grandfathers had known how.

The men on the other bank took the boxes when they came. Two of them picked up a box between them. They each raised a free hand to those on the north side of the racing water. They turned and went into the rain and disappeared.

The other two Miho cousins remained, blurred in the mist. Bunic watched them place three crates in the ground there, half-buried. They took the last crate between them and they, too, turned south and ran off. They would need to avoid any Osmanlis searching this way. They would do that, he knew. The rest was chance and the god.

One thing done, two things made possible. He had other thoughts. He shared these. Agreement was reached. Time mattered, choices were limited, life was short. They turned back west, the way they'd come. Not far. They reached the place he'd had in mind by day's end. The rain had stopped, though the world was sodden and grey, no sign of the sun. The flowers in the meadow towards the woods seemed leached of colour. Sound was muffled.