Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (59 page)

Why would she leave the road?
Taziri tried to list the possibilities, but the only one she could think of was the need to answer nature’s call, which she was currently trying to ignore herself. Unable to think of anything else to do, she turned her horse to backtrack up the road but the hidalgo was suddenly beside her and he reached over to rein back her mare.

“No. Qhora will go. We will wait and see what she finds.”

The little Incan woman nudged her towering bird into a sprint and they vanished up the road, Wayra’s talons digging deep gashes in the frozen gravel.

Taziri sat and waited. Dante complained, though everyone ignored him. Shahera said nothing. The four boys asked permission to spar in the road, but their master said no. After half an hour, they heard a faint squawk and whistle and soon heard the rider returning. Qhora let her mount strut into their midst and said, “Over two miles back, I found a fresh horse trail leaving the road in a thick stand of pine trees. She circled around to the road behind us and went back south. I couldn’t see her over the hills.”

“I’ll go back,” Taziri heard herself say. She didn’t want to go back. She didn’t give a damn about Nicola, or Dante, or even poor Shahera. She just wanted to fall asleep and wake up in her own bed with Yuba and Menna beside her.
But I have to. I just have to.
“I’ll find her.”

“No.” Don Lorenzo pulled down the high stiff collar of his coat to speak. “She chose to go back. God only knows why, but we must stay together and continue north. If your friend is smart, and lucky, then she’ll survive. I wish her well, but she’s gone now, and we need to be moving on. It will be dark soon, and we still have a few miles to go tonight.”

Taziri nodded, grateful to him that he had saved her from herself, and hating him for making her turn her back on her duty.
Or am I just hating myself? Some captain I’m turning out to be
.

Chapter 9. Shifrah

There was no one at the Diaz estate. No smoke rising from the chimney, no lights in the windows, no animals in the stables. But the snow in the yard wasn’t as deep as the snow outside the fence, and when she stared at the dimples in the fresh snow beyond the gate, Shifrah could see the telltale patterns of boots tramping along the lane to the left and the thinner trails of horse legs walking up the lane to the right.

“Another dead end,” she said. “What a waste of time.”

“No, this is the place.” Salvator shook the locked doors and pressed his eye up to the dark glass of the windows.

In Madrid there had been more than a few witnesses who said a procession of strange people in strange clothes had arrived in town, asking for
Don Lorenzo
. A man splitting firewood at the bottom of the lane had described as many as half a dozen of these travelers, which matched the furrier’s description.

And here is Don Lorenzo’s house. His dark and empty house.

“It looks like our Mazigh friends arrived around noon, and then left again just a few hours ago. Assuming this Don Lorenzo was at home when they arrived, it is possible the gentleman is with them now.” Salvator swung back up into the saddle and studied the darkening sky. A light snow was falling, but the evening promised to be mild by Espani standards.

Shifrah glared at the dark gray clouds. She had been daydreaming of desert oases and hot sandy beaches for the last three days. She sighed, the exhaled vapor frosting in the chill air. “So where did they go?”

“South. And north.” Salvator grimaced at the tracks. He rode a few yards one way and then a few the other, staring at the tracks in the fading light.

“Well, which is it?” Shifrah demanded. “I’m freezing. What the hell is wrong with you people, living in the cold like this?”

“I can’t be certain who went where. They may have split up. There’s more than half a dozen people heading both ways.” He sounded, as always, perfectly calm and focused. There was no excitement, no frustration, no fatigue. It was infuriating.

Shifrah shivered. “Well, can’t we assume the Mazighs would go south to get back home?”

“The Mazighs could have gone south from their original crash site straight to Villa Real or Albaset. But they went north to Madrid instead, on foot. They asked for a Don Lorenzo on the road. And at that same time, our dearly departed Rui was stealing a journal also written by a man named Lorenzo. What if it’s the same Lorenzo? Clearly, this Lorenzo is an important person. I can’t be certain how or why, but I believe he may be the key to a much larger puzzle.”

“Well, I don’t care about your Lorenzos. I only care about the Mazighs because that’s who Magellan wants, remember?” Shifrah pulled her hood tighter around her head. “Come on. We’re going south.”

“No, wait just a moment. Consider the possibility that they aren’t trying to return home at all.” Salvator peered into the northern gloom where the long shadows of the hills and trees were already masking the contours of the land. “Maybe they meant to go north all along. They might be continuing their mission as planned, but on foot instead of in the air.”

“What mission? What the hell are you talking about? And why would a bunch of stupid Mazighs be coming to see this Lorenzo person?” Her face was tight and pinched, eyes narrowed to slits, mouth compressed into a long thin line.

Salvator looked up at her. “Wasn’t it you who mentioned that name to me about two weeks ago? A Lorenzo?”

“Did I?” She paused, then smirked as the conversation came to mind. “Oh, yes, I remember. I overheard Faleiro talking to another officer about going to meet with a Lorenzo. It must have been this Lorenzo, this meeting.”

“Did Faleiro say why he was going to meet this Lorenzo?”

She grinned a little wider. “To hire him.”

“To do what?”

Shifrah turned her smile on him. “To replace you, of course. I told you they didn’t like you. I told you they were unhappy with your progress teaching the sailors to fence. But as I recall, you said it was nothing to worry about.”

“Replace me? He must be a diestro, then. A diestro named Lorenzo.” Salvator leaned back and studied the skies again with wider eyes. “Ah! Don Lorenzo
Quesada
. Yes, I’ve heard of the man. A religious idiot, I think.”

Shifrah looked at him sharply.
The swordsman in Marrakesh!
The duel on the road, and the chase at the train station
. “Quesada? I know that name. That’s the bastard who sliced up my hand on the road to Arafez! Didn’t I tell you? He wanted me to run away with him.”

Salvator raised an eyebrow. “Run away with him?”

Her grin returned. “To a nunnery.”

“Oh, yes. That sounds like him. He’s a zealot, from what I hear. Spends too much time in church talking to the dead, and he won’t kill a man for any reason. I suppose he wants to keep his soul nice and clean for Judgment Day.” Salvator scowled. “And you saw him in Marrakesh. He must be working with the Mazighs.”

“On what?”

Salvator shrugged. “I have no idea. But when I bring Magellan a platter of Mazigh heads and Quesada’s skull for a centerpiece, I don’t think I’ll need to worry about my job for quite some time. And then I can return to business of sinking his precious warship.”

Shifrah shivered. “So we’re going north then?”

“Don’t you want to catch him?” He studied her for a moment. “Or are you afraid Quesada will lock you away in a nunnery after all?”

“The fencer doesn’t scare me. He was good, but he didn’t beat me. If I hadn’t been outnumbered both times, I would have stuck him like I stuck his ugly friend.” Her voice was low and husky, and a bit congested. “It’s the Mazighs I’m worried about. They fight dirty. Guns. Bombs. They’re crazy.”

“This is about the eye, isn’t it?” he asked. “You lost it in Marrakesh, but never said how, exactly.”

She nudged her horse gently over to his, and when they were sitting side by side, she slapped him. “It’s not about my eye. And I am not afraid of anyone. But there are plenty of tracks going south, so I am going south. You can go north and kill whoever you like. I hope you enjoy your cold, empty bed.”

He shrugged. “As you wish. Track them down, whoever they are. If you find any Mazighs, do be so kind as to bring back their heads for me.”

She rolled her eye. “Really? Heads? You’re serious about that? I’m an assassin, not a butcher. How am I supposed to cut off a man’s head with one of these?” She whipped out one of her slender stilettos, twirled the blade across her fingers, and slipped it back into her coat.

“Don’t over-think it and I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Good hunting, my dear.” Without so much as a smile, he turned his mare to the north road and trotted away through the thick snow, quickly plunging into the shadowed lanes between the other large country houses and the rows of small pines that lined the road.

Shifrah glared at his back for a moment, then turned her own horse to the south and hunched down under her coats, praying that there would be a warm inn with a warm fire and warm food and a warm bed just over the next hill. She knew there wouldn’t be, so she prayed a bit harder.

Day Four

Chapter 10. Syfax

They got back on the road heading south first thing in the morning. One of the students named Diego led the way, followed by seven other boys and the hidalgo’s cook, maid, and footman. Kenan and the major brought up the rear. It was freezing cold, a light sleet was falling, and the sky was three shades of iron partly veiled by threatening clouds. Over night the snow had piled up to knee height and a thin glaze of ice glistened on it in the early sunlight. Every footstep was painful work, plunging through the ice and dragging through the snow. The freezing wind stung every patch of exposed skin and the day promised to be very long and twice as miserable.

Syfax grinned.
A perfect day.

Last night’s quick march from the hidalgo’s house to the inn in Parla had been bracing for everyone, and they slept soundly enough. Shortly after leaving Parla the maid left them, veering off to the east toward her mother’s house. The cook and the footman left at midmorning, off to stay with their own families in some town around to the west of Madrid. Soon it was just Syfax, the lieutenant, and the eight pale-faced boys trudging down the highway to Toledo.

The countryside marched by slowly, one white hill after another, each landscape as bleak and colorless as the last. A stand of pine trees weighed down with fresh snow. A circle of identical stone houses around a well. Wooden fences and stone walls. And the frozen mud ruts of the road itself.

There were plenty of other people on the road and none seemed at all concerned with the cold or the threatening clouds. Children leading cows. Women leading mules laden with sacks. Men driving wagons behind horses and oxen. They were never completely alone on the road, always within sight of the next traveler or the last one, and every few moments a voice would rise across the snow. Children playing. Mothers shouting at the children. Men shouting at each other. Voices cracked and echoed across the great white plains and hills and iron skies.

They found Toledo just after noon, but long after the first boy had begun grumbling about his empty belly. Syfax slapped the boy on the back, remembering what it was to be sixteen and forever hungry, forever looking ahead to the next meal, and then greedily eyeing the table for seconds and thirds.

The best years of my life. Nothing but eating, sleeping, and working myself to death every day.

The town in front of them looked very much like the one they had left the evening before. The Espani seemed quite expert at dragging gray stones together to create what they called towns, but looked more like small, lumpy hills on the plains. Thatched rooflines formed ridges beneath their blankets of snow, and icicles hung from every eave like an armory of glistening spears. Nothing was clean, nothing was smooth or straight. Toledo was a city of soft curves and broken edges, of rough stone and frozen water. As the men entered the first gully between two tall houses, with muddy slush crunching underfoot and vicious winds whipping down the lanes, Syfax felt the first pang of unease.

Back home in Marrakesh, in any city, he could stand in the middle of the road and look for a hundred yards in every direction, seeing all the people, seeing the doorways and alleys, the vehicles and animals, the solid walls and fragile windows. In a Mazigh city he knew the terrain, its assets and liabilities, where to hide in a firefight, who to protect first, and which way to run. But here he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards before the street curved aside, or uphill or downhill, and the snow hid everything. Every step and gutter,
if these people even have gutters
. Every movement sounded exactly the same, like crunching snow. There was no distinguishing a child from a woman from a man, or even from a dog or a horse. And sometimes a block of snow or a wall of ice would simply break free of a roof and tumble into the road of its own accord.

He couldn’t trust his ears and his eyes were nearly useless, hemmed in by the crooked walls and snow drifts. Syfax began looking back over his shoulder and checking to either side more and more as he trusted his peripheral vision less and less.

There was no way to know if the Espani were really looking for them yet, but this was their fourth day in the country. If they weren’t hunting the Mazighs yet, they would be soon, or not at all. And he was betting on
soon
.

He grabbed Kenan’s arm. “Hey kid, we might want to think about splitting up or spreading out. I don’t like how bunched up we are in these streets. It’s too crowded. No exits. If things go sideways while we’re in town, we’d be screwed before we even saw the first soldier.”

Kenan gently tugged his arm free and nodded with a slight grimace tightening his face. “Yeah, I guess so, sir. What do you want to do?”

“Right now, nothing. We’re just getting lunch and moving on. But we might need to shed some of our little convoy sooner rather than later. Ask around. Find out if any of these kids are going all the way to the coast. If they are, we can just take them and try to make better time. If they aren’t, we might want to leave them all behind and go it alone. It’ll be a lot faster.”