Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (60 page)

“Faster? How much faster do you want to go?” An unmistakable whine twisted Kenan’s words.

Syfax glared at the lieutenant.
Not this again, not now. There is no way in hell I’m letting you get my ass killed.
He grabbed the sulking youth’s coat and shoved him back against an icy wall, ignoring the surprised looks from the people around them. He leaned in close to whisper, “You know, Ziri keeps going on about how smart you are. She seems to think you’re officer material for some reason. So why don’t you shelve the attitude and try using some of those brains. Get this through your head. We are behind enemy lines. Eventually, the guys who shot us out of the sky are going to come looking for us. And we’re not armed. And we’ve got no backup. We’re alone out here Kenan. It’s just you and me and a very long road. And you know what’s at stake if we don’t get home and tell the brass about that warship. You may not have any family in Tingis, but that ship will work its way down to Port Chellah eventually and set your precious momma on fire, I promise. So get your head in the game and do your damned job.” He let go of Kenan’s coat and stomped away after the eight young fencers, leaving the lieutenant to make whatever faces and mutter whatever curses he needed to get out of his system.

By the time Diego brought them to an inn where they could eat, Syfax was completely lost. Toledo was all curving roads and cramped market squares, and everything looked the same. The gray clouds continued to obscure the sun, making it impossible to even guess which way was south. Still, Diego’s inn was a bright warm place filled with quiet, middle-aged men who seemed more interested in napping in their chairs than paying any attention to the small crowd filing in through the door. And that gave the major a little hope that they would be safe here, for a while.

There was little enough fare to choose from. Salted pork or salted beef, cabbage, and bread all clumsily arranged into a pile that the innkeeper called a
sandwich
. It wasn’t good, in fact just chewing the thing was as laborious as walking through the knee-deep snow, but it was filling and the crackling fires in the two hearths at each end of the room were all the comfort Syfax needed. Sitting on a wooden chair that had probably been serving the inn for several decades, he scanned the doors and windows, and then the people quietly eating or snoring at the other tables. No drinking, no laughing, no yelling. His first instinct was to call it a dead place for old people, but as he sat massaging the cramp in his leg and the knot in his shoulder, he began to rethink what he meant by “old.” Quite a few of the hairs on his knuckles weren’t dark anymore.

The soft stillness of the room and the heat of the fires were as comforting as his own bed, and Syfax leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again when he heard the door squeak, and he saw two men in matching blue coats stamping their feet on the mat. The long barrels of their rifles swayed against the backs of their shoulders.

Aw, crap
.

In the stillness of the inn, there was no way to move without drawing attention to himself. Still, Syfax tried to shift and casually slump over his empty plate as though about to join the other patrons in a siesta, trying to hide his face. Kenan followed suit. They were both three shades darker than any other men in the room, and for the first time in his life Syfax wished that wasn’t the case.

The two soldiers shuffled inside and sat at a table just a few feet away. They hung their rifles by the straps over the backs of their chairs and waved to the serving girl. Syfax decided to wait until the pair in blue started eating before he tried to walk out. They weren’t paying any attention to the Mazighs now and he doubted they would bother looking up from their food.

The girl had just given them their sandwiches when Syfax signaled to his companions that it was time to quietly stampede out the door. They were about to stand up when one of the soldiers turned around and said, “Diego? Diego Gonzalez? From Gadir?”

The young diestro named Diego blinked wide at Syfax and then turned to talk to the soldier. “Uh, yes, and you are?”

The soldier introduced himself as a Jorge something or other, apparently from the same town and possibly a distant cousin. The faster they talked, the less the major understood as his public school Espani quickly proved inadequate to the animated and informal conversation. Still, Diego seemed to be keeping Jorge’s attention and the food was keeping his companion’s attention, so Syfax decided to risk standing up and walking out. He made a small show of tapping the arms of the students on either side of himself, and then they stood up together and started for the door, leaving the other half of the young men at the table. Syfax half-hoped they would figure it out and come along and half-hoped he could just ditch them here and now.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Syfax froze except for his right hand, which began slowly sliding up toward the knife on his belt. He looked at the soldier who had spoken, the quiet one who had been focused on his lunch. Not-Jorge. Syfax shrugged. “Who, me?”

“Yeah.” Not-Jorge wiped his mouth and stood up. “Have you come from Marrakesh recently? You and your friend?” He nodded at Kenan.

“Nah, we’ve been down in Cordoba for about two years now. That’s my brother’s kid,” Syfax said, jerking his thumb at Kenan. “He’s been helping me out at work lately.”

“I see. And what is it that you do?” The soldier took a few steps closer to them, a few steps farther from his rifle.

“Cabinetry.” Syfax turned slightly to tower directly over the man in uniform. “I make cabinets. And other cabinet-type things. Like shelves.”

“Shelves.” Not-Jorge nodded and turned back to his table, but then paused. “Who is the governor of Cordoba now? Is it still Don Marco? I heard he was in poor health.”

Syfax clenched his jaw, pausing ever so slightly in the hope that Kenan might actually know the right answer and pipe up, but the kid was silent and he couldn’t risk pausing more than a second. “Yeah, it’s still Don Marco.”

Jorge looked over with a frown. Not-Jorge sniffed and said, “No, it’s not. The only Marco around here is me.”

Syfax grinned. “Well, I had a fifty-fifty chance.”

For a moment, nothing happened. The young diestros, both seated and standing, remained frozen with only their eyes darting about, each of them no doubt wondering whether their obligation was to their military or to their companions. In the absence of Don Lorenzo, Syfax knew better than to rely on them.

Everyone moved at once.

Both of the soldiers snatched up their rifles and swung them to bear on the two Mazigh men. The diestros at the table leapt to their feet, hands flying to sword hilts, but not a single blade was drawn as the young men stumbled back from the drawn firearms. Out of the corner of his eye, Syfax saw Kenan grab the nearby diestros and shove them back toward the bar.
Score one for the kid
, the major thought as he drew his knife and lurched toward the soldiers.

He caught the barrel of Marco’s rifle, yanked the smaller man forward off balance, and knocked his gun to the floor. Syfax spun Marco around, pinned the man’s arms in a crushing bear hug, and brought his knife up under the soldier’s chin where Jorge would be sure to see it.

Marco stiffened as the blade pressed harder and harder against his neck and Syfax hunched his larger frame behind his hostage. He locked eyes with Jorge. “Drop it. Drop the gun.”

Jorge did not flinch. He held his rifle tight into his shoulder, sighting along the barrel at Syfax’s head, which was mostly obscured by his hostage’s sweating face. The major made a small show of resetting his feet and retightening his grip on the knife. He bore down on Marco’s arms to make the young man gasp and shudder a bit, and then pulled back on the knife. Marco’s jaw shook and he rasped out, “For God’s sake, drop the rifle.”

Jorge didn’t move. “Diego, who is this man?”

Diego, huddled back with his friends against the far wall, stammered out, “I don’t really know them. We don’t know them. They’re friends of Don Lorenzo. Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir. The diestro. You’ve heard of him. You know him, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” Jorge said. “But what are these two doing here? Why’d he lie about Cordoba? What’s going on here, Diego?”

“Look, look, I swear, they just showed up at the Don’s house yesterday. I don’t know what it was all about. We were all getting ready to leave for our winter holiday, we were packing and getting ready. Then we all ate lunch together, and everyone left, and these two men came south with us.” Diego’s hand went up to his hair. The boy was shaking. “Please, that’s all I know. Please don’t shoot. They’re just friends of the Don. I swear. Please don’t shoot them.”

“Don’t lie to me, Diego!” Jorge shouted without sending even a slight shudder though the weapon held tight against his body. “He has a knife to Marco’s throat. He lied about who he is. And not an hour ago we got orders to be on the lookout for Mazigh spies. So you tell me who he is or I kill him right now. Right now!”

Holy hell, why couldn’t Kenan be more like this guy?
The major locked eyes with the young soldier, not daring to blink.
He’s steady as a rock and cold as ice. I sure could have used him back when I was running down serial killers in Arafez.

“Leave the kid alone,” Syfax said. “He doesn’t know anything. And we’re not spies. We just came to visit the Don. We’re old buddies, me and him. But it turned out to be a bad time, so now we’re heading home. Maybe we’ll get together later this summer.”

“Then why lie about it?” Jorge asked.

“The Don told me to. He said you people were getting antsy about foreigners,” Syfax said. “And it looks like he was right.”

“Jorge, for God’s sake, let them go,” Marco whispered. “Put your rifle down. Please.”

The major frowned. “Don’t worry, soldier. If he was going to shoot me he would have, and if I was going to slit your throat, you’d have drowned in your own blood a minute or two ago.” Syfax eased the knife away from the young man’s neck. “Now, Jorge, you’re going to put that gun down, and I’m going to walk out that door, and no one is going to get shot or stabbed. Deal?”

For the first time that the major had seen, Jorge blinked. The soldier nodded, ever so slightly. And then he began lowering his rifle. Syfax took his blade away from Marco’s neck but kept it high and visible. When the rifle was low enough for his taste, Syfax said, “Kenan, out the door now. Make sure these fellas don’t have any buddies out there.”

The lieutenant slipped to the door and poked his head out into the street. “Looks clear.”

Syfax kept one hand firmly on Marco’s collar to hold him in place. He sheathed his knife and for a moment considered grabbing the other rifle on the floor behind him.

No. That would probably be a bad idea, eventually.

He shuffled sideways toward the door, still holding Marco between himself and Jorge. And when he reached the door, he shoved the soldier toward his friend and bolted backward into the street. He stumbled into Kenan, who was still hovering by the doorway, but he grabbed the young pilot and steered him into the bustle of porters, horses, and carts threading up and down the narrow streets of Toledo.

“Do we run?” Kenan asked breathlessly.

“Not yet.” Syfax glanced back. There was no sign of pursuit.

“Where are we going?”

“Out of this town, I hope.” They came to an intersection and he scanned for street signs. There were none. But there were soldiers loitering here and there, pacing slowly along the shop windows and sitting on the wide steps of every church in sight. And there were quite a few churches in sight. He glanced up, hunting for a gleam of sunlight beyond the iron curtain of the winter clouds, but there was no hint of the sun’s position. “Damn it, which way is south?”

“There.” Kenan pointed at one street out of the square that looked as good as any other so they walked quickly and quietly down that road, and another, and another, and soon the buildings became smaller and slightly cleaner. Over the rooftops, he glimpsed a few trees, and then a bald hill, and finally the cobbled street became a road of frozen mud and dirty slush as they emerged from the town proper. Syfax slowed the pace. “I think we’re okay for the moment. They don’t know where we’re going since we don’t even know where we’re going. Level playing field.”

Kenan shook his head. “If you say so.” He kicked a lump of icy snow off the road.

“Something on your mind?”

“Were you really going to kill that soldier back there? Slit his throat?”

Hell yes, him and his brave little friend. We’ve got a boat to report, because warships mean war, and war means a hell of a lot more than two dead bodies
. Syfax winced.
Since when do I let the math decide who lives and who dies? I really am getting older
. “Nah, I was just doing what I needed to do to get us out of there. Now pick up the pace. We need to put a few miles between us and this town.”

Chapter 11. Lorenzo

As the sun set on their second day on the road to Zaragoza, Lorenzo watched the tiny black line of the northern mountains with an eager eye. The loss of his journal had been as personally devastating as it was politically terrifying, and the appearance of the Mazigh refugees had been as unexpected as it was annoying, but now…
now I’m on the road
. All of the anxiety and anger and fear seemed so far away, so unimportant. Every hour brought him closer to the mountains, closer to the stone.

Ariel’s stone. Our stone. The skyfire stone. A piece of heaven fallen to earth. A holy relic that burns like molten gold and sings like a hundred thousand choirs of angels
.

It was out there. It was real. And when he brought it back to the world and showed it to the quailing hearts of Espani men and women, they would remember who and what they were, and what God meant them to be, and a bright new future would be born.

It will.

It has to.

They had made good time from Alovera, even without the horse that the Italian woman had disappeared on. The sky had glowered at them throughout the day, but withheld its icy sleet and hail and snow, keeping the roads firm and clear all the way to Algora. When they arrived in the village it had taken a bit of effort to find enough beds for nine people and accommodations for four horses and a giant bird, but shortly after sunset everyone was settled either at the inn by the main road or a large farmhouse just up the lane. Qhora had suggested that the foreigners stay at the farm, farther out of sight and thus less likely to attract attention from anyone until long after they had left the next morning. And that left him, his wife, and his students to enjoy the quiet little inn. Qhora seemed to particularly enjoy the enormous fireplace.