Snare (14 page)

‘There’s only one kind of magic.’ Soutan paused for one of his teeth-baring smiles. ‘The kind that works.’

That afternoon they made camp by a stream deep enough for
bathing. The three Kazraks stripped off their clothes and waded in, passing a bar of soap back and forth. Soutan sat on the bank, however, and read a book he’d been carrying in his saddlebags.

‘Don’t you want to come in?’ Warkannan called to him.

‘Later perhaps.’ Soutan kept his nose in his book. ‘Not right now.’

His choice, Warkannan supposed. When Tareev and Arkazo lapsed into horseplay, threatening to drown one another and yelling mock insults, Warkannan left the water. Still naked he knelt on the bank and washed out his undershirt and shorts, then put them on wet. In the heat of late afternoon, they’d dry fast enough. He washed his socks and shirt, too, and laid them onto the grass to dry. Soutan looked up and shut his book.

‘Where did you get that scar?’ Soutan said. ‘The long one on the back of your leg.’

‘From a ChaMeech spear.’

‘It looks like you’re lucky to be alive. A few inches higher, and you’d have bled to death.’

‘Yes, that’s certainly true.’ Warkannan reflexively reached down and rubbed the scar. ‘But that’s not the worst thing they ever did to me.’

‘Oh?’ Soutan cocked an eyebrow.

‘I was taken prisoner by the slimy bastards – me and Zahir Benumar. Kareem and I mentioned him, if you remember. He was one of my sergeants, then; he was commissioned later. Anyway, we caught a pack of them trying to steal our horses, and they outnumbered us.’

Soutan winced. ‘That must have been unpleasant.’

‘You could call it that. They tied leather thongs around our wrists, tied ropes to those, then took off at a lope in the hot sun.’ Warkannan held up his hands so Soutan could see the scars, thick as bracelets, around each wrist. ‘Benumar has a set to match these.’ He lowered his hands again. ‘They dragged us along when we couldn’t run any more. Now and then they’d stop, let us rest, then take off again.’ Warkannan shook his head to clear it of the memory. ‘If it weren’t for Jezro Khan, we’d have been killed for their amusement. Very slowly.’

Soutan winced again, then put the book down on the grass beside him. ‘Jezro was an acknowledged heir then, yes?’

‘Acknowledged and sanctified. He had the zalet khanej around his neck.’

‘Ah yes, the medallion. He showed it to me once. He seemed quite proud of it, but it ended up being his death warrant.’

‘Once the old khan – his father – died, yes.’ Warkannan felt his rage, rising sharp in his blood. ‘Gemet turned out to be a murderous little swine.’

‘Indan told me that it wasn’t technically murder, that the oldest son has some sort of legal right to clear away excess heirs.’

‘That’s true, but it’s a very old law. Most great khans find positions at the palace or in the army for their brothers, or at least for the ones who are willing to swear loyalty. The recalcitrant ones are usually just castrated. Gemet had every single one of them killed, loyal or not, even the bastards.’

‘Except Jezro.’

‘Yes, except Jezro. The Lord is merciful, blessed be His name.’

Soutan glanced away, his lips pursed as if he were thinking something through. Out in the stream Tareev and Arkazo were still splashing around like schoolboys.

‘All right,’ Warkannan called out. ‘That’s enough. Out of the water! Get your stinking underwear clean, will you?’

Still laughing they climbed out to follow his orders. Soutan picked up his book again and ostentatiously began to read. Soutan’s loose trousers had once been tan, and his tunic blue, but they were spotted and stained with grass and sweat both. His face, oddly enough, looked both unstubbled and clean, but the rest of him stank.

‘Soutan?’ Warkannan said. ‘You can bathe in peace now.’

‘Thank you, but no.’ Soutan kept his gaze on the book. ‘I prefer to bathe in complete privacy. I know this seems strange to you Kazraks, what with your public bath houses and all, but I detest the idea of someone watching me.’

‘To each his own.’ Warkannan raised his hands palms upward. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

After the evening meal, Soutan did indeed borrow the soap and take himself off downstream. As they sat by their fire, they could hear him splashing and even, at odd moments, singing.

‘Tell me something, Uncle,’ Arkazo said. ‘That girl this afternoon?’

‘What girl?’

‘The one in the comnee’s camp. The pretty one.’

Warkannan suppressed a smile. ‘Most Tribal women are pretty,’ he said.

‘Yes sir,’ Arkazo went on. ‘It’s really something, isn’t it, how all these people look alike? But we meant –’

‘Sir, the one who –’ Tareev interrupted. ‘Well, I thought she was looking me and Kaz over. Those stories you hear about comnee women? Are they true?’

‘That they’re good with a bow when they have to be?’

‘You’re teasing, aren’t you?’ Arkazo was grinning at him.

‘Yes, of course I am,’ Warkannan said. ‘If you mean, do they sleep with men they fancy when they want to, yes. But here’s another true saying – make a comnee man jealous, and you’ll have a knife fight on your hands. Kindly don’t go propositioning girls who belong to someone else. We don’t need any more trouble on this trip than we have already.’

Warkannan was about to say more when he heard someone approaching through the raspy grass – Soutan. He was wearing clean clothes, pale khaki in the same loose cut that the Kazraks were wearing, and carrying his other things wet.

‘There is just something about a bath,’ Soutan announced. ‘Here’s your soap back, gentlemen, and I thank you.’

On the morrow they reached the Great River, where, late in the afternoon, they ran across an unusually large comnee of some thirty families. Their chief, Lanador, greeted them as hospitably as always, but he warned them that the comnee would be riding west on the morrow.

‘You’re welcome to ride with us, of course, if your road takes you that way.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Warkannan said. ‘But we’re heading south. I’m looking for someone, you see. Zayn the Kazrak. Someone told us he rides with Apanador’s comnee.’

Lanador blinked twice; then his face went expressionless.

‘Ah. Well, come have a bowl of keese with me.’

Lanador took them in to his enormous tent, where blue-and-green tent bags hung on the orange and red walls. The chief sat them down on leather cushions, then poured keese into the ritual skull-cup. Warkannan took a sip and passed it to Arkazo, who ran a finger over rough bone and nearly dropped it. Tareev grabbed it from him just in time.

‘Drink from it,’ Warkannan whispered in Kazraki. ‘Skull or not.’

Arkazo took it back, forced out a smile, and drank. Much to Warkannan’s relief, the chief raised one broad hand and
pretended to cough, covering a laugh rather than taking insult. Lanador was just handing round the ordinary bowls when an old man lifted the tent flap and came in to join them. He was gaunt, with prominent cheekbones and long bony fingers; his grey hair hung down to his shoulders in greasy strands. The saurskin cloak and the true-hawk feather in his ear marked him for a witchman. He refused a bowl of keese and squatted down next to Warkannan.

‘Why are you looking for Zayn?’

‘He’s a friend of mine. I want to see if he’ll come home with me instead of living in exile.’

The old man’s eyes caught him. Warkannan could neither move nor speak until the spirit rider looked away, his mouth twisted in something like disgust.

‘Do you know where Zayn is?’ Warkannan said.

‘No.’ The spirit rider got up and left the tent.

Lanador rose, muttered a few excuses, and followed him outside. Soutan leaned over and grabbed Warkannan’s arm.

‘You idiot!’ Soutan spoke in Kazraki. ‘You never should have lied to him. Witchfolk can practically smell lies.’

‘What was I supposed to say?’ Warkannan shook his hand off. ‘That I’m going to kill Zayn when I find him?’

‘Imph, well. You have a point –’ Soutan broke off.

Lanador was lifting the tent flap. He came in, smiled vaguely at his guests, and sat down. As the afternoon wore on, he was as gravely courteous as if the incident had never happened. A few at a time, the other men in the comnee came in to take their place in the circle and drink. Warkannan noticed one of them studying him. A handsome, almost girlishly pretty young man, he carried the long knife in his belt that marked him for a warrior, and on his face were the green and yellow marks of old bruises.

That evening, to honour their guests the comnee cooked a communal feast over several different fires. Everyone ate standing up, carrying bowls of food with them while they drifted from friend to friend to talk. Warkannan noticed a pair of comnee girls, both in their teens, staring at Tareev and Arkazo and giggling behind raised hands. As the feast wore on, the two girls began to follow the two young Kazraks, always at a discreet distance, always giggling. Warkannan eventually pointed them out to Soutan.

‘Where are their mothers, I wonder?’ Warkannan said.

‘Trying to ignore the whole thing, most likely,’ Soutan said. ‘Do you know what they’re giggling about?’

‘No.’

‘Neither do I.’ Soutan shrugged. ‘Doubtless nothing in particular. We should be asking questions about this Zayn, not worrying about other people’s morals.’

‘True enough.’

But when Warkannan mingled with the comnee, everyone he asked claimed never to have heard of Zayn – not that he believed them. Since the comnees despised lying, their lack of practice showed. Warkannan let the matter drop and talked only of the weather and the ChaMeech. Some of the men in the comnee had sighted ChaMeech a few days past, but only three females.

‘Three females without any males?’ Soutan said. ‘That’s really peculiar.’

Their informant, a beefy young comnee man, nodded his agreement. ‘We left them alone,’ he went on. ‘They weren’t likely to give anyone any trouble.’

‘They wouldn’t, no, not females,’ Soutan said. ‘And travelling this time of year? Odd. Very odd.’

The comnee man drifted away, and Warkannan glanced around – no one within earshot. There was also no sign of either Arkazo or Tareev.

‘We need to talk about things,’ Warkannan whispered in Kazraki. ‘I’ll just collect our young colts.’

‘They can find our camp on their own,’ Soutan said. ‘I have no doubt that those girls are satisfying their curiosity.’

‘Their what?’

‘I finally heard what the little sluts were giggling about. Both of our boys have big noses. The girls were wondering if other – er – features are commensurately large. You know, the old folk superstition about organ size.’