Snare (36 page)

Whenever Zayn asked about Ammadin, he was told that she was in Kassidor’s tent, and interrupting spirit riders at their work was of course Bane. Zayn disliked the way he’d seen them talking together, standing so close, sharing a language he couldn’t understand. Still, if Kassidor could figure out how to handle Soutan, he could put up with his jealousy. A shape-changer, a man who could transform himself, who could change his face the way a normal man changed his shirt – the thought turned Zayn cold. Once he left the comnee, he might be looking straight at Soutan and not recognize him. He could imagine passing some stranger in the street only to feel a knife in his ribs the next moment.

Zayn spent the evening drinking with Dallador and some of the men from Sammador’s comnee, but he found himself a place to sit where he could keep an eye on Kassidor’s tent. Eventually, when the silver Herd hung low in the east, Ammadin and Kassidor came out, laughing together. Zayn watched them cross the camp and go into Apanador’s tent, where the two chiefs had retired to talk about the trading ahead. With her safely in someone else’s company, Zayn could relax. He felt even better at the end of the evening, when he went to her tent and found her there alone, studying one of her crystals by the light of a single lamp.

‘Do you want more light?’ Zayn said.

‘No, I’m about ready to go to sleep.’ Ammadin began wrapping the crystal, then paused to sniff the air. ‘Are you drunk?’

‘Almost. Do you mind?’

‘Not particularly, but you might want to stay sober with your enemies so close.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ He sat down on his blankets. ‘About that shape-changer –’

‘I’m still not sure what to do. Kasso’s no help. He’s young, you know. He was an apprentice till last winter.’ She frowned down at the wrapped crystal. ‘Huh, I wonder if Water Woman knows more?’

‘The ChaMeech?’

‘Yes. We talk regularly through our crystals.’ She looked at him, one eyebrow raised as if she was expecting some hostile response.

Zayn made none. He pulled off his boots, then lay down, a bit too suddenly, on his blankets. He heard Ammadin laughing at him, but he fell asleep before he could answer.

Zayn had been planning on hunting up information about Soutan, but with the morning the professional horse dealers arrived at the trading precinct. The long hours of haggling left him no time for the hunt. Whenever a customer expressed interest in one of Ammadin’s horses, Zayn would hook a lead rope onto its halter and bring it out of the herd, then run alongside the horse as it displayed its gait. Afterwards he’d walk the horse cool, then lead it to the river to drink. In the intervals he did manage to find out a few useful things; for instance, that the Cantons lay in a long broad valley between the Rift on one side and mountains on the other.

‘The damned ChaMeech pretty much own the mountains,’ one of the men told him. ‘And the foothills, too. If you ever ride that way, don’t get lost up there.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Zayn said. ‘I’m not planning on getting anywhere near the hills.’

When the horse-traders left, they took the best mounts with them. The local people would come to look over the remaining stock on the morrow, Ammadin said.

‘You’ve had quite a day of it,’ she went on. ‘You must be tired.’

‘A little,’ Zayn said. ‘Dallador was talking about going into town. Would it be all right if I went with him?’

‘Certainly. Do you still have some of the money I gave you? Spend it if you want. We’re doing pretty well.’

‘Thanks. Yes, we are.’

Only when he was walking away did he realize how easily both
of them had said ‘we’. Ammadin may have been keeping herself sexually aloof from him, but she was seeing them as a pair. If I could stay, he thought. If only I could stay! Impossible, of course, but he felt heartsick. He had never been happy before, not even in the cavalry. There he had managed to feel secure, competent even, but happy, no. He felt like a starving man who’d been given a few bites of bread only to have the loaf snatched away.

Walking into town with Dallador only made his heartsickness worse. They walked side by side, so close that their shoulders nearly brushed, and talked idly of the trading and the road ahead. Dallador’s easy assumption that Zayn would be riding back west with the comnee made him sick with shame. He’d lived his whole life as a series of lies, curling around one another like the furled trunk of a spear tree. Once he’d been proud of carrying it off, but it hurt to lie to Dallador. They went to the market square, where Dallador spotted a jeweller’s shop. Zayn leaned against a rough wooden counter and watched while his friend picked over some heavy silver pins, made to the Tribal taste in the forms of various animals.

‘I want something for Benno’s winter jacket,’ Dallador remarked. ‘As much as I love my wife, she can be tight-fisted when it comes to spending for the boy. I hope we get a daughter soon. I’d hate to have her divorce me.’

‘Oh come on, she wouldn’t do that!’ But Zayn felt a twinge of worry that made him realize just how much he’d started thinking like a comnee man. ‘You take good care of her.’

‘Sure, but how much is that going to count in the long run? It means everything to women, having a daughter.’ Dallador shrugged the problem away. ‘Well, the gods will give us a girl or not, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. When we’re done here, want to go to a tavern? They make this peculiar drink here called kerrv.’

‘Good idea. Ammadin gave me some money, so let me buy.’

They left the shop and stepped out onto the street, crowded with passers-by, most of them hurrying about their own business. Some yards away a pale young fellow leaned against a building. A loiterer maybe, but he seemed to be watching the two Tribesmen with more than ordinary curiosity. When Dallador followed Zayn’s glance and looked his way, the young man strolled off with a studied indifference – a less clumsy spy, this time.

‘I hope he doesn’t mean trouble,’ Dallador said. ‘Sometimes the Cantonneurs can be downright unfriendly.’

‘Nothing like picking a fight to give you some excitement, huh?’ Zayn said. ‘Small towns are like that back home, too.’

When they found a tavern, down a side street near the edge of town, they hesitated a moment, wondering if they should just go back to camp, but the place was nearly empty and seemed safe enough. The room was more of a shed, a tottering draughty affair of bundled spear-trunks with one wall open to a muddy yard out back, but the tavernman spoke passable Hirl-Onglay. At a high table the old man poured kerrv into pottery mugs and handed them over when Zayn paid. Zayn took one sip and nearly spat it out – it was bitter, dark, and oddly thick. Dallador was drinking his, however, with a small smile of appreciation. Zayn took another sip and decided that eventually he’d grow to like it.

Although the tavern offered a few chairs and a couple of tables, the two comnee men stayed standing – and near the door. Wiping his hands on a rag, the tavernman strolled over to join them.

‘Kazraki, aren’t you?’ he said to Zayn.

‘Yes. Something wrong with that?’

‘Not in my opinion, but you know what opinions are like. You can always find someone who doesn’t share yours, if you get what I mean. Now, I mean that in a friendly way.’

‘I’ll take it the same way, then. Thanks. Huh, I didn’t think you people would see enough Kazraks to have opinions about us one way or the other.’

‘Um, well.’ The tavernman paused, sucking his teeth. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’

‘Has someone been asking around after me?’

‘Not about you, exactly. About Kazraks, if I’d seen any.’

‘Ah. And he didn’t seem to like my kind much?’

‘Don’t know about that.’ He paused for a long time. ‘A pale sort of fellow with brown hair, and I don’t know…there was just something about him that put your wind up. Wouldn’t want him asking for me.’

Zayn and Dallador exchanged a glance, handed their mugs back, and left the tavern. As they were walking back across the bridge, it occurred to Zayn that he’d managed to forget to ask about Soutan.

Late that night Zayn went back to the tent to sleep and found Ammadin there ahead of him, studying her crystals. She’d lit a
pair of oil lamps and laid the crystals in a semi-circle around them. Zayn sat down on his blankets and began pulling off his boots. In a moment Ammadin looked up.

‘When you were in town today,’ she said, ‘did you notice anything wrong?’

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘I’m not sure.’ She smiled faintly. ‘Just an odd feeling.’

‘Well, I noticed someone following me and Dallo around. And then a tavernman told me that some brown-haired Cantonneur was asking around about Kazraks.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that at all. I’m glad we’re leaving soon.’

Zayn managed a casual nod and lay down on his blankets. A thin, black line of smoke from the lamps was circling up to the smokehole. Even though he tried to concentrate on it, he was painfully aware of her, so close by but so far away. Finally he turned over onto his side and watched while she wrapped the crystals and put them away. Trust his luck to bring him to the one comnee woman who valued her chastity as much as any Kazraki girl! Never once in his life had he made love to a woman he liked and respected, Zayn realized, only bought sex from the sort of whore who hung around the cavalry. Single officers like Warkannan, with aristocratic connections and independent incomes, could arrange pleasant liaisons with girls from the palace troupes of musicians and dancers, but not men from families like his.

Zayn wasn’t even surprised when Ammadin realized the drift of his thoughts. She laid the last crystal down and scowled at him. ‘Zayn, I said no.’

‘I never did.’

Much to his surprise, she laughed. ‘Fair enough,’ she went on. ‘I’ll offer you a bargain – you tell me the things you’re hiding, and maybe I’ll reconsider.’

Zayn came close to betraying every secret he had. It was as if the words were live things, desperate to escape his mouth. Ammadin leaned forward, her smile gone.

‘Something’s really wrong,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

The moment ended. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m just generally miserable and lovesick.’

‘Oh ye gods! Then you’ll just have to suffer.’

‘I figured you’d say something like that.’ Zayn sat up. ‘You know, I think I’ll go sleep outside.’

‘It’ll probably be easier for you.’

‘Damn it, Ammi! You can’t be as cold as –’

‘Yes, I can. Haven’t you got that through your thick skull yet?’

Zayn stood up and grabbed his blankets. ‘Go to hell!’ he snapped, then ducked through the tent flap and stalked off. He’d gone about ten yards when he realized that he’d left his boots behind, but he decided against going back. He laid his blankets out under the wagon, then crawled onto them. For some while he lay awake, feeling foolish, wishing he’d thought up something better to say as he left. Eventually sleep rescued him.

In the morning Ammadin treated him as if nothing had been said between them. For that alone, he decided, she was worth desiring, hopelessly or not.

In the morning they had few customers, and none of those bought a horse. Zayn began thinking about going back into Nannes. He could use finding a book for Ammadin as his excuse and start his hunt for information about Soutan, but first he decided that he needed to feed their riding horses some grain. After that, he watered all their stock, then fixed a loose cinch on Ammadin’s saddle. The morning eased itself into afternoon before he realized that he was avoiding all thoughts of Yarl Soutan. Finally, however, the hunt came to him. A customer arrived, a man in his thirties, Zayn guessed, who wore a black smock as long as a Kazraki woman’s dress and a round little cap of black felt. He announced himself as Reb Donnol.

‘I lead the congregation here in town,’ Donnol said. ‘The Church of the One God, that is. Now, my congregation’s given me the money for a riding horse, but, er, I do hope you’ve got a gentle one.’

‘How about a mare?’ Zayn said. ‘A young buckskin mare.’

‘I’ll look at her, certainly.’

Zayn went out to the herd, caught the buckskin by the halter, and led her back to the rabbi. Ammadin had joined him to do the haggling. Zayn broke into a run and let the mare trot back and forth, then slowed her down and brought her over. When Donnol held out his hand, she whuffled into his palm.

‘She likes me,’ he said, beaming. ‘How much do you want?’

Ammadin briefly considered. ‘Twenty of your silver vrans, and
I’m not haggling. It’s a low price for a horse like that.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Donnol said. ‘Some of the men in my congregation primed me, you see, and told me what to pay. I’ll take her.’

‘Zayn?’ Ammadin said. ‘Get that extra bridle for His Holiness. We’ll give it to him as part of the deal.’

As Zayn followed the order, he was aware of Reb Donnol studying him. He bridled the mare, then handed the reins to the rabbi, who handed over the money. By then, Ammadin had walked away; Zayn pocketed two big silver coins, each worth ten vrans.

‘A Kazrak, are you?’ Donnol said.

‘I was once. I think of myself as a comnee man now. You must not see many of us out here.’

‘Almost never. But there was one other fellow through here once, years ago now.’

‘Someone else mentioned him to me. His name wasn’t Jezro, was it?’

‘You know, it certainly was! He was some sort of political exile. I gather your leader had tried to have him killed. He asked for asylum and stayed with us at the seminary for a few months. That was before I was called to Nannes.’

‘I see, yes. Does Jezro still live around here?’

‘No, he headed off to the north-east, probably to Burgunee, since that’s the only civilized place out that way. Our abbot gave him a letter of introduction to a seminary there, if I remember rightly. I have no idea what happened to him after that.’

‘I take it he was a religious man.’

‘Well, he hadn’t been before, no. Before almost dying, I mean. He told me that it had had a profound effect on the way he saw the world.’

‘I suppose it would. Interesting. Well, thank you, sir. I hope our little mare serves you well.’

For a long few minutes Zayn stood watching the rabbi lead his new horse away. He felt cold, and it seemed ridiculously hard to think. So. It was true. Jezro Khan was alive, after all these years of thinking him dead. Jezro’s alive, and it’s my job to kill him.