Snare (93 page)

The words seemed to mean several things at once. Zayn forced out a smile. ‘Oh yes. Thank you for your help.’

His father’s hut stood off by itself, built square but rickety of red and yellow reeds and rushes. Each wall leaned in a haphazard direction, it sported no windows, and for a door it had only an old blanket, grey and torn. Knowing his father as he did, Zayn could assume that it was profoundly uncomfortable inside.

‘Father?’ he called out. ‘It’s me, Zahir.’

The blanket twitched to one side, and Bashir looked out with narrowed eyes. He’d gone quite bald since Zayn had last seen him, and he wore a strip of white cloth tied around his head, a strong contrast to his dark skin. His eyes, however, were still a gleaming black, as sharp as needles as they looked Zayn over.

‘What are you doing here?’ Bashir said.

‘I wanted to see you.’

Bashir snorted, then withdrew. Zayn wondered if he should just mount up and ride out, but in a moment the old man reappeared, dressed in shabby clothes.

‘Tie up your horse,’ he said. ‘Or wait, have you watered him recently?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Good, but don’t forget to slack the poor beast’s bit. There’s a rock bench over there. We can sit and chat.’

The bench was hard and narrow, but by turning sideways and resting one arm on the back, Zayn managed to get reasonably comfortable. Bashir looked him over while Zayn’s stomach knotted itself into the old familiar pain. I’m taller now than he is, Zayn reminded himself, and stronger. The pain eased, but only a little.

‘Well?’ Bashir said. ‘What brings you here? I doubt if it’s just to see me, even if I am your father and the holy book makes it clear that you should honor your parents.’

‘I’ve got a favor to ask you.’

‘Huh! What now? I don’t have any money to give you, you know. I sold the business when I came here.’

‘I don’t need money. In the Qur’an, there’s a passage about accepting enemy women who want to follow the true faith.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Bashir paused to clear his throat. ‘It runs, “You will accept them and treat them with kindness and find them husbands.” What are you leading up to? Have you gotten some infidel girl pregnant?’

‘No, I haven’t. I just got back from travelling in the east. I met a woman who wants to submit to God and learn His holy words.
She’s not the only one, either. Her people will follow her in this.’

‘Wonderful! You’ve done a good thing.’ Bashir looked a great deal more surprised at the latter than was perhaps necessary. ‘May God the all-merciful be praised! I hope you told her that she and her people will be welcome and more than welcome. If she wants to study the Qur’an, I can help her.’

‘I was hoping you’d offer. Since you’re out here on the edge of the wilderness, that’ll make things much easier.’

‘She’s a woman of the Tribes?’

‘No sir. A ChaMeech. Or a Chof, really. That’s their real name for their kind, Chof.’

Bashir stared at him for a long moment. ‘Is this one of your stupid jokes?’ he said at last.

‘No sir. It’s the solemn truth, before God and his three prophets. She wants to study so she can take God’s truth home to her people and be a prophet among her own kind. She’s already got the husband, though, so you don’t have to worry about that.’

Bashir leaned forward, examining Zayn’s face, looking, most likely, for any sign that his wretched son was perpetrating a hoax. ‘You really mean this,’ he said at last. ‘You really are telling the truth.’

‘Yes sir, I do, and I am. She’s not far off. She’s waiting to see if you’ll teach her.’

Bashir snorted. ‘The choice isn’t mine. Long long ago the First Prophet told us that every soul should hear the words of God. It would be an evil thing to turn away anyone who asks to hear. If this female will study, then I will teach.’ All at once he laughed, a creaky begrudged mirth, but mirth nonetheless. ‘But I wish I could see the First Prophet’s face when he hears about this in Paradise.’

Zayn took the signal imp out of his shirt and held it up to the sunlight. When the polyquartzide glowed, he took a deep breath and intoned the word Sibyl had taught him, ‘send’. Bashir watched him with narrowed eyes.

‘What –’

‘It’s just a machine,’ Zayn said hurriedly. ‘An ancient one, but only a machine. Water Woman has one like it, you see. This one will make hers ring like a bell, and when she hears it, she’ll know that you’ve said yes.’

‘She’s nearby?’

‘Fairly near. She and her two servants are waiting on the ridge across the valley.’

With a grunt Bashir held out his hand. Zayn remembered him making the same gesture to confiscate a forbidden sling-shot so clearly that he nearly handed it over. Instead he put it back inside his shirt.

‘You always were rebellious.’ Bashir let his hand drop. ‘But considering that you’re cursed, why am I surprised?’

It was the opening that Zayn had been waiting for, but still he had to summon his courage before he could speak. ‘Father, why didn’t you kill me when I was a child? You were supposed to. Every holy man we ever visited told you that.’

‘Not all of them. Hakeem Hamid told me that starvation and pain would drive the demons out. I hated doing what he suggested, but it was better than killing you. I used to weep every time you begged me to stop. Don’t you remember?’

‘You what?’ Zayn stared at him open-mouthed. ‘I thought you were just sweating.’

For a moment they merely looked at each other, each on his own side of a silence. Zayn realized that if he could change the subject, his father would follow his lead. In his mind he heard the crane, calling to him from the Mistlands.

‘Well, how did you expect me to know what you felt?’ Zayn said. ‘I was only a child, and I thought you were trying to kill me. That’s what they’d all – well, everyone but Hamid told you to do.’

‘Of course I wasn’t going to kill you. That should have been obvious. You were my son.’

‘So? They all told you I was as much a demon as your son.’

‘You were still my son, demon and all.’

‘Are you sorry now that you didn’t kill me?’

‘Oh don’t be stupid, of course not! I never felt the least regret, not once. Do you remember when they commissioned you in the cavalry? The Second Prophet taught us that pride is sinful and a snare, but I’ve never been so proud in my life. My son, an officer in the Great Khan’s service!’

Yet again Zayn could only stare at him.

‘I don’t suppose you saw that,’ Bashir said.

‘You never showed it.’

‘Oh. Well, maybe I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been manly to gush, would it?’ He thought for a moment. ‘And now you’re helping bring
a whole race of souls to the Lord. I’m proud of you for that, too.’

‘Thank you.’ Zayn felt his voice choke on tears.

His father pointedly looked away until he brought himself under control. ‘I suppose you’re going to run off and join the damned rebel army,’ Bashir said at last. ‘Get yourself killed, I suppose.’

‘No, I’m not. Jezro Khan’s given me leave to stay out of it.’

‘Well, that’s a surprise. The rotten khans, usually they’re so power hungry they’d throw their own mothers into the battle if it would help them win.’

‘Well, Jezro’s different. By the way, do you have any news of the war?’

‘Oh yes, from time to time a message arrives from one mosque or another. Jezro’s forces hold Zerribir. They’re marching on the city.’

‘I see. It should be over soon, then.’

‘I pray for peace every day. What are you going to do?’

‘Go back to the plains.’

‘Huh, some woman there, I’ll wager. There always is.’

‘Oh yes. You’re quite right about that. I’m going to wait till Water Woman gets here and introduce you, and then I’ll be on my way.’

Since Ammadin had been expecting that Zayn would spend some time visiting with his father, she tended the horses after Water Woman and her retinue left, then laid a small fire, ready against the twilight. During their long ride home from N’Dosha, she had done a lot of hard thinking about the truths Sibyl had told her. Dimly she could see a solution, a way that the comnees would survive even knowing the bitterest truth of all, that their gods were only things of stone and lies. Our rage will save us, she thought. Lisadin was right. Once we know who we really are, we can save ourselves. Still, she felt as if she wandered in the Mistlands; her thoughts would come clear, then cloud over again. She realized that alone she could never solve all the problems the truth presented, but at midwinter, she would join the other spirit riders, and together they would succeed.

‘We are the Inborn,’ she said aloud. ‘And we will be free.’

Zayn returned long before sunset. When she saw him on the road, she walked part-way down the hill to meet him, and he dismounted to kiss her.

‘How did it go?’ she said.

‘Better than I’d hoped.’ He smiled briefly. ‘He actually admitted he was proud of me.’

‘Good for him! Did he tell you why he didn’t kill you?’

‘No, he just kept saying that I was his son, as if that was reason enough.’

‘Huh. I’d say that means he loves you.’

‘That’s the only stupid thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

‘Well, think about it. You keep telling me that the mullahs ordered him to kill you, and that he was a pious man, obedient to your laws and all that. Why would he have disobeyed the holy men? Yes, he treated you horribly, but he thought he could save your life by getting the demons out, didn’t he?’

Zayn started to speak, then merely shrugged. He looked like a man who’d just received a hard blow to the stomach. She waited, smiling at him.

‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘He came as close as he could to saying it himself. It’ll take me a while to get used to the idea.’

‘Of course. Well, we’ve got plenty of time ahead of us.’

In the drowsy gold of an autumn afternoon they walked back to camp together. He unsaddled his horse and tethered it out, then joined her beside the unlit fire.

‘I’ll be glad to get home to the comnee,’ Ammadin said.

‘Me, too, but I was wondering something. Are we going to be riding close to the Mistlands on our way back?’

‘No. Why?’

‘My true name, I never found it.’ Zayn paused and looked out across the valley, where the spire of the distant mosque stood tall over the trees and huts. ‘Although, to tell you the truth, at times I think I already know what it is.’

‘Oh? Let me hear it.’

‘Zayn.’ He smiled in an oddly shy way. ‘It’s an ancient name, but I don’t know if it’s in the holy language or not. It means sword, and I feel like I’ve grown into it.’

Ammadin considered for a long moment. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It suits you. And from now on, none of us will be adding adin and ador to our names, not now that I know what they mean.’

‘Good. I’ve never felt less false in my life.’ Zayn hesitated, and his face turned into a mask. ‘You know, there’s a question I was going to ask you. Do you remember when we were sitting in the wine shop? The one in Sarla.’

‘Sort of.’

‘And you told me to wait to ask something till our quests were over? Well, here we are.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘Do you love me, Ammi?’

Damn! she thought. I can’t get out of it now.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I love you. Which means there’s something I need to ask you. Will you marry me?’

For an answer he threw his arms around her and kissed her. Yet even as she returned the kiss, she was remembering Sibyl, telling her that true love carried the seeds of tragedy. It will end in sorrow, she thought, our love. And oddly enough, she found that comforting.

Lubahva was sitting in the parlour of the suite she shared with her baby when she heard old Lazzo come panting up the stairs. She went cold with fear and rose just as he pounded on the door.

‘Mistress!’ he called out. ‘Someone to see you.’

When she opened the door, she realized that Lazzo was trying to suppress a smile. The fear subsided, leaving her feeling foolish.

‘The master’s home, isn’t he?’ she said.

‘Yes, mistress.’ Lazzo stepped back and outright grinned. ‘And here he is now.’

Idres had just reached the landing. For a moment she could neither think nor speak. He looked thin, weary, dusty from the road, and his hair sported a thick streak of grey, but he was smiling at her.

‘I’m really here,’ he said. ‘Not a ghost or a dream. Jezro’s got the city surrounded, but he’s trying to get his damned brother to surrender so we can spare the town. The negotiations are going to take weeks. They don’t need me there for every minute of it.’

‘No, no, I don’t suppose they do.’ Her hands were shaking, she realized, and the fear was back, choking her. What if he didn’t believe the child was his?

‘I figured that you and Nehzaym would be here, and Jezro sent me to make sure of it. Uh, are you glad to see me?’

‘Of course! I –’ She stepped back to let him into the room, then shut the door behind him. ‘I have to tell – there’s something –’

She gave up trying to explain and walked over to the lace-draped cradle that Indan had insisted on giving her. As she picked up the baby, she heard Idres gasp in surprise. Still no words came to her,
and she fell back on a ritual gesture ancient long before the H’mai had ever come to Snare.

Lubahva walked over to Idres and laid the child at his feet. She stepped back, shaking, and waited. For a moment he looked bewildered; then he smiled, a broad grin of sincere delight. He bent down and picked the baby up, cradling him in both arms, claiming him in the ancient way.

‘Well, you know how to surprise a man,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Boy or girl?’

‘Boy. I named him Rashad. There’s a reason I did.’

‘All right. God’s blessed us.’

‘Yes. He has.’ The tears came then, of relief and joy mingled. She wiped them on her sleeve. ‘I’m so glad you’re alive.’

Idres laughed. ‘So am I,’ he said, ‘and I feel the same about you. Here, let’s go downstairs. I want to claim both of you in front of witnesses. That is, if you like the idea of being a general’s wife. That’s what I am now, the general in charge of Jezro Khan’s cavalry.’

‘You want to marry me?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Of course?’ For a moment she felt close to fainting. ‘But I’ve been a palace girl.’