The Lions of Al-Rassan (59 page)

His father was going into Fezana.

Diego opened his eyes. Fernan was there, watching him. Without speaking, his brother offered him an orange, already sliced. Diego bit into it.

“Why,” he asked softly, “would Papa be going into Fezana?”

Fernan’s brow knitted. “No idea,” he said at length. “Is he? Are you going to tell the king?”

“Guess so. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

Fernan didn’t like thinking of it that way, Diego knew, but it was the truth. They told Ibero first. Then Diego and his brother and their tutor went to find King Ramiro.

A remarkably short time after that conversation they were racing, with the king and the constable and one hundred of Valledo’s best Horsemen towards Fezana, a full day’s fast ride away.

“This is
very
important,” the king had said to Diego. “You have now justified your being here. We thank you.”

“Papa isn’t in trouble, is he?” Fernan had asked sharply. He was no longer shy in this company. “He isn’t exiled from
here,
is he? Only Valledo.”

King Ramiro had paused then, and looked at both boys. His expression had softened. “Is that what you have been fearing? Your father isn’t in trouble at all. Not from me. I have to catch him before he gets to Fezana. I have no idea why he’s going there, but I want to stop him and end his exile. I need him badly on this campaign. I can’t afford to have my best captain trapped inside the city I’m about to besiege, can I?”

Fernan had nodded gravely, as if he’d been thinking along these same lines. Perhaps he had. Diego, different in nature and response, had looked quickly at Count Gonzalez when the king named Rodrigo his best captain. He had been able to read nothing in the constable’s features, though.

They rode so rapidly through the morning and into midday, that they actually caught and passed several groups of farmers and villagers heading for Fezana, fleeing their approach. People began screaming as the Horsemen raced by, but it wasn’t until noontime that the king ordered a party of Asharites killed. Their first killings in this war.

It was important, Diego was given to understand. The people streaming into Fezana, and those already waiting there, had to fear them terribly—to be made to doubt the wisdom of resistance. Walled cities as well-defended as Fezana couldn’t be stormed, they had to be besieged, and the morale of those inside was critical to that. A certain number of people had to die so that word of killings might run ahead into the city.

Neither he nor Fernan was part of the contingent that peeled away from their ranks and began cutting a swath through the cluster of families the king had indicated. Diego, for his own part, was entirely happy not to be involved. He saw Fernan looking back over his shoulder as they rode, watching the slaughter. Diego didn’t look at all, after his first glance. He thought his brother was secretly relieved, as well, not to be part of that group. He didn’t say this, of course. But Fernan’s play-battles had always been against the veiled Muwardis, where despite being hideously outnumbered, the lords Fernan and Diego Belmonte with their gallant riders had managed to prevail, breaking through the ranks of the desert-spawned to rescue their captive father and the king and earn great praise.

Chopping down farmers and small children on a dusty road was something else entirely. The king’s party galloped on, outrunning the screaming. The soldiers who had been detailed to the task caught up with them a little later. Geraud de Chervalles, looking excited and happy, blessed them and their weapons. In a ringing voice Diego thought was too loud, he called what they had done a proud moment in the history of Esperaña.

The king ordered a rest after that and men slipped down from their mounts to take water and food. The sun was high, but it was still early in the year and not too hot. Diego walked a little way apart, found some bushes for shade, sat down on the ground and closed his eyes, looking for his father. It was his task. It was why they were here. There was nothing private or personal about his gift any more. He would have to think more about that, later.

He found Rodrigo quickly this time and realized something immediately. He could see the city in the same image as his father. There was something else, too, an aura Diego recognized from many times before.

He stood up, briefly dizzy, which sometimes happened. He went to find the king. Fernan saw him going and rose to follow. Diego waited for his brother and they walked over together. King Ramiro was sitting on a saddle blanket eating food from his lap, like a soldier, and drinking from a leather wine flask. He handed the flask and his platter to a servant when he saw Diego coming. He stood up.

“What is it, lad?”

“When will we reach Fezana, my lord?”

“Sunset. A little before, if we go very fast. Why?”

“My father is already there. On a hill just east of the walls. I don’t think we can reach him. And I think . . . I believe he’s in danger now, after he gets inside.”

King Ramiro looked at him thoughtfully.

“Be more
precise,
in Jad’s name!” It was the cleric from Ferrieres.

“He would be if he could, de Chervalles. You must see that.” The king didn’t appear to much like the High Cleric. He turned back to Diego. “You can anticipate danger as well as see it happening?”

“For my father, yes, but not always, my lord.”

“You still have no idea why he is going into Fezana?”

Diego shook his head.

“He is not with his company? A small party, you say?”

Diego nodded.

There was a nervous cough. They all turned to Ibero. Diego hadn’t heard him come up. Self-conscious in the extreme, the small cleric said, “I may be able to offer a thought on this, my lord.”

“Do so.” Geraud de Chervalles spoke before the king. Ramiro directed a glance at him but said nothing.

Ibero said, “In his letters home, Ser Rodrigo did say that his company had retained the services of a physician. A woman. A Kindath from Fezana. Jehane bet Ishak, I believe. Perhaps . . . ?”

The king was briskly nodding his head. “That would make sense. Rodrigo knew we might be coming. He would be guided by loyalty if she is part of his company. Would this woman still have family in Fezana?”

“I would not know, my lord.”

“I do.” It was Fernan, speaking with assurance. “He wrote my mother about that. Her father was a physician as well, and still lives in Fezana.”

The king quickly held up a hand. “Ishak of Fezana? Is that the father? The one blinded by Almalik?”

Fernan blinked. “I don’t know anything about—”

“It must be! That’s the man whose treatise the queen’s doctor read! That is how he saved her life!” King Ramiro’s eyes gleamed. “By Jad, I see it now. I know what is happening. Ser Rodrigo is going in, but he’ll be coming out with them any way he can. He needs time before we arrive.”

“You
will
tell us your thinking, I hope, my lord?” Geraud de Chervalles wore an expression poised between pique and curiosity.

“As much as you need to know,” the king of Valledo said agreeably. The cleric reddened. The king, appearing not to notice, turned to Gonzalez de Rada. “Constable, this is what I want done, and I want it done swiftly . . .”

King Ramiro seemed to be extremely good at giving orders, so far as Diego could judge. A king must spend most of his time telling people what he wanted them to do, he supposed. A number of men were seen riding back to the main body of the army soon afterwards. He and Fernan remained with the king’s guard.

They slowed their pace, however. And shortly before day’s end, at a place to which one of the outriders led them—a stand of trees within sight of the river and the city walls, but not too close to them—they stopped, taking shelter at the edge of the trees.

King Ramiro, riding gloves in one hand, walked over, unexpectedly alone, to where Diego and Fernan and Ibero were watering their horses. He gestured, and Diego quickly handed his horse’s reins to his brother and followed. Fernan made as if to come too, but the king held up a finger and shook his head and Diego watched his brother stop, crestfallen.

It was the first time he had been alone with the king. Kings weren’t alone very often, he thought.

They walked through the stand of trees—beech and oak, a few cypresses like sentries at the edge of the wood. There were small white flowers everywhere, like a carpet on the forest floor. Diego wondered how they grew in such profusion in the dark, cool shade. They came to a place near the eastern end of the woods and here the king stopped. He turned to look south and Diego did the same.

In the light of the setting sun they could see the gleam of the Tavares River. Beyond it was Fezana. River and city had been nothing more than names on a map for Diego once, tests from their tutor:
“Name the cities owing allegiance at this time to the king of Cartada. Name that king. Now write those names, and spell them correctly.”

Tavares. Fezana. Almalik. Not just names any more. He was in Al-Rassan, land of terror and legend. Here with the army of Valledo, come to conquer. To
reconquer,
for all of this had once been their own, when Esperaña was a name of power in the world, long ago.

Truth to tell, looking out at those massive stone walls the color of honey in the slanting light, Diego Belmonte found himself wondering how even this king and this army dared imagine taking such a city. Nothing in his experience—he had only seen Esteren once, and then Carcasia—could compare with this splendor. Even as he stood looking south, his image of Valledo grew smaller.

Rising behind the walls Diego could see domes gleaming in the last of the light. Places of worship, he knew. Shrines to beliefs the clerics of Jad named foul and evil.

They looked beautiful, though, to Diego.

As if reading his thoughts or following his gaze, the king said softly, “The two nearer domes—the blue and white—are those of the Kindath sanctuary. The silver ones that shine, the larger ones, are the temples of Ashar. At sundown, soon, we ought to be able to hear the bells for prayer, even from here. I remember loving that sound.”

The king had spent a year exiled in Al-Rassan, Diego knew. Just as, earlier, Raimundo and Diego’s own father had been exiled by King Sancho the Fat to the cities of the infidels. That episode was part of their family history, tangled up with why Rodrigo wasn’t constable of Valledo any more.

Diego, feeling he was expected to say something, murmured, “My father ought to know this city well enough. He’s been here before.”

“I know that, Diego. Do you think you’ll be able to tell me when he is coming out, and where? There will have to be a way out through the walls. The gates will be locked by now.”

Diego looked up at his king. “I’ll try.”

“We need some warning. I want to be there, wherever he comes out. Will you know where he’s going? Which part of the city?”

“Sometimes I can do that. Not always.” Diego felt guilty again. “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t . . . I can’t tell very well what I’ll see. Sometimes there’s nothing. I’m afraid I’m not very—”

A hand came down on his shoulder. “You have already been a help and if Jad finds us both worthy you will be again. Believe this. I am not saying words to ease you.”

“But how, my lord?” Diego knew he probably shouldn’t ask this but he had been wondering about it since leaving home.

The king looked down at him for a moment. “It isn’t complex, if you understand war.” His brow furrowed as he reached for words. “Diego, think of it this way: you know men cannot see very well in the dark of night. Think of war as
all
taking place in darkness. During battle or before battle, a captain, a king, knows only what is happening next to him, and not even that much very clearly. But if I have you with me and I have your father commanding a wing of my army—and by Jad I hope I will soon—then
you
can tell me something of what is happening where he is. Anything you give me is more than I would otherwise have had. Diego, you can be my beam of light, like a gift from the god, to see by in darkness.”

There was a stirring of the wind; leaves rustled. Diego looked up at his king, swallowing hard. It was odd, but in that moment he felt both larger and smaller than he was. He looked away, abashed. But his gaze fell once more upon the mighty walls and gleaming domes of Fezana and there was no comfort there.

He closed his eyes. The familiar spinning came. He reached out a hand and braced himself against a tree.

Then he was with his father, and aware of something else in the same moment. In a stillness at the edge of a wood Diego Belmonte reached out, trying to serve his country and his king, and he found himself enmeshed in Fezana’s streets. He felt danger surrounding his father like a ring of fire.

It
was
fire, he realized.

Heart pounding, eyes still closed, concentrating as hard as he could, he said, “There are torches and a large crowd. People running. Houses are burning, my lord. There is an old man with my father.”

“Is he blind?” the king asked quickly.

“I cannot tell that. Everything is burning.”

“You’re right! I see smoke now. In Jad’s name, what are they doing there? Where is your father going?”