To the High Redoubt (41 page)

The rain struck late in the afternoon, and by the time they found shelter in a grove of scrub, they were drenched and miserable.

“I don't know if I can get a fire going in this,” he mumbled as he brought the bay to a halt. “The ground's wet, and if there's any kindling to be found, it won't take a spark.” He had known other such nights, on campaign, and the memory of huddling in dripping tents, clothing damp and stinking of sweat and wool made him grind his teeth.

“It won't trouble me,” Surata said, sniffing once. “It is a shame we had to leave the tent behind.”

“It's a shame that the tigers got the mules. It's a shame that the caravan became unsafe. It's a shame that—” He made himself stop. “Don't pay any attention, Surata. I'm disgusted with myself for not thinking ahead. I should have found us shelter before the storm broke.”

“I have no objections, Arkady-champion.”

The saddle groaned and squeaked as Arkady dismounted, and his boots squished as he walked. There was a finger of water down his back. He shook his head and water flew off his hair. “I'll have to dry my weapons somehow. I don't want them to rust. If we find the Bundhi, I'll need them.”

“Yes, you will,” she agreed. “Are there boughs enough to bind them together, to make a shelter for us?”

“Probably,” he said, thinking that he could use a hatchet now. Cutting boughs would be bad for his swords. “There's some thongs we can use to tie them.”

“That's a start. If you will help me down, I will help you all I can, Arkady-champion.”

“Thanks,” he said curtly. He reached up to her and brought her down, noticing that the water in her clothes made her much heavier than usual.

“There must be a place where the trees are thick enough to block most of the water. If we go there, that will be a good place to make our shelter.”

Because that was exactly what he had been planning to do, he had an irrational desire to suggest something else, but he suppressed it. “Sounds like a good idea,” he said in the flattest tone possible.

Three hours later they huddled together under a makeshift lean-to, eating cold, dry fruit and shivering under their sodden blanket.

“Does the horse have enough food?” Surata asked Arkady, her teeth chattering.

“For tonight and some for tomorrow. We have some gold left, and when we find a village, we can buy food and new provisions.” He had been worried about the bay but hated to admit this to Surata, since without the big gelding, they would be on foot and almost helpless.

“Samarkand is not far,” Surata promised him.

Arkady bit back a challenge to her calm assertion. “I hope so,” he forced himself to say.

She leaned back, trying to sleep. “My bones hurt,” she said, not so much in complaint as in surprise.

“That's not surprising in weather like this,” he told her, cuddling close to her, grateful for the warmth she provided.

“Tomorrow it will rain, as well. The day after it will be clear.”

“You can't be certain of that,” Arkady protested but knew inwardly that she was telling the truth.

“Perhaps we should carry this shelter with us, so that tomorrow night, we will not be entirely without protection.” She did not wait to hear his comment but yawned and turned on her side.

Arkady dozed through the night, never fully asleep, and in the morning, he was dull and irritable. He saddled up and packed their belongings with little more than a few forbidding grunts, and as they resumed their way through the rain, he began to feel a certain grim satisfaction that they had come so far, endured so much, to end up this way.

Surata endured his surliness, willing to let him sulk. She suggested once that they might make camp early, to give the horse some relief and let themselves get warm.

“What good is that?” Arkady muttered. “We won't be dry and it would mean using up our supplies faster than we have to.”

“It would give us all a chance to rest,” she ventured, making every effort not to be daunted by his mood.

“And then what?” He sighed heavily. “I don't know where we are, and neither do you. If we stop, we might as well wrap up in shrouds and be done with it.”

“That's not necessary,” she said, a faint irritation in her voice. “We are still going the right way.”

“With nothing to guide us?” he sneered.

“I am here, and I know that we are going in the way that we have been sent.” She sounded stubborn now.

“More from that guardian, I suppose.” He wanted to shout at her, to force her into denying that she had known anything of what was ahead of them, that she was trying only to keep them from losing hope back there in the wastes.

“Yes, in part. You think we are lost because you cannot see the stars or the sun.” She was upset now, and she did not guard her tongue as she usually did. “Well, I cannot see the stars or the sun in any case, and I know that we are going to the east and a bit to the south. You may be lost without the stars, but—”

“Surata, don't,” he said to her, embarrassed by his own callousness as well as wearying of their animosity. “I hope you're right, but you don't have to claim this to cheer me.”

“I am
not
trying to cheer you!” She grabbed his soaked brigandine in her hands and jerked at it. “I am telling you that I know this is the right way. If you cannot trust me so far, what has everything we have endured, in this daily world and in that other place, been for?”

Arkady shook his head. “I believe that you are convinced you're right,” he said carefully, shocked at the depth of her feeling.

“Then what harm is there in trusting me? You have no better alternative to offer.” She released her hold on his clothes. “I do not mean to…impose on you. I want only to…bring us to a safe place.”

“I realize that,” he said, more kindly than before. “And you're right, I have no better plan than you have. I suppose we might as well go where you think best as let the horse follow his nose.”

“Thank you,” she said, mollified by his change in attitude. “So far, the horse's nose has been pointed in the right direction.”

Arkady did not think he could laugh, but he smiled a little and hoped it would be clear to her. “No harm in that.”

They rode on in silence through the weeping, fading day.

That night they came upon more ruins, not as old as the ones they had passed through most recently, but more ancient than the first empty city they had encountered.

“What place is this?” Arkady asked as they came to an avenue of broken pillars.

“I don't know,” Surata admitted when he had described it to her. “The guardian mentioned only two empty cities.” There was a flickering of doubt in her words.

“Well, perhaps he forgot to mention this one.” He peered through the mizzle, trying to find a place where they would be out of the wet for the night.

“I…” She could not go on and said very little when he brought his bay to a halt in a vast, broken doorway.

“We will be dry here,” he said as he dismounted. “The ground is damp, but we can put the branches underneath us, and that will help a little.”

She permitted him to decide what they were to do; she remained silent and withdrawn, caught up in her fear that they once again were lost.

As they had the last of their food that night, Arkady put his hand on her shoulder. “It's all right, Surata,” he said awkwardly. “We'll do what we can, come morning. It could be that the Bundhi is too much for us.”

“You mean, that he has forced us to lose our way? That is good-hearted of you, Arkady-immai. But I have been riding with you, not the Bundhi. If we are lost again, it is because I have not…” There was a sudden tightness in her throat.

“You aren't to blame.” He kissed her forehead. “Go on: get some sleep. We'll both feel better in the morning.”

She nodded miserably. “I did not think it was my karma to do this. If I had known, I would not have brought you into it.”

“Just as well you didn't know, then,” he said affectionately. “I don't like to think what would have become of me without you. And if this is the end of it, then praise God and amen.” He crossed himself before pulling her into the circle of his arms.

“Arkady-champion,” she protested softly.

“Shush,” he whispered.

Chapter 21

There were rag-tail clouds in the morning sky, and the shadow of mountains in the south. Arkady stretched, hearing his joints crack from stiffness and the damp. His attention was held by the sight of the mountains and the nearer structure that he had not bothered to explore the previous evening. He walked toward the enormous conical structure, noting its age and the utter quiet of it.

At one time the tower had been fronted in marble, but most of that was gone now, leaving rough bricks exposed, which made climbing the thing relatively easy. As he clawed his way toward the top, Arkady felt the stiff leather of his boots, and he hoped he might find some wax to rub into them to restore their suppleness.

“Arkady-immai!” Surata's call from below, not urgent but not entirely at ease.

“Here! Up here!” he shouted back to her. He was almost at the top of the structure now, and he felt a cold certainty at what he would discover within it.

“Up where?” she inquired. “Where are you?”

“There is a…a tower,” he answered, a bit uncertain of how much more he should say. He clung to the bricks, breathing hard from the exertion of the climb and the sudden rush of apprehension that came over him.

“And?” she persisted.

He did not answer at once; he went the rest of the way up the hive-shaped building until he reached the open top. He balanced there, staring down into the interior in excitement. “There are…bones.” The last word was hard to say, and he felt a moment of vertigo as he stared down at the bleached skeletons that littered the inside of the tower.

Surata clapped her hands. “We are not lost, after all!”

“I suppose not,” Arkady said, more to himself than to her. He looked into the distance, shading his eyes. He was not sure what to expect, yet he discovered he was holding his breath as he stared east, toward the foot of the mountains. At first he saw nothing more than the blue and tawny yellow of the peaks rising out of the plain. Then he noticed the shapes against the foothills, and slowly he picked out the walls and towers of a city. “Samarkand,” he breathed, certain that was what he saw.

“What is it, Arkady-immai?” Surata shouted. “What do you see?”

“Walls and towers. A long way off.” To his astonishment, his voice cracked as he told her, and he felt his eyes fill with tears that were so unexpected that they baffled him.

“Ah!” she yelled. “Tell me!”

Very slowly and carefully, he answered her. “The walls are as yellow as the sands and rocks, and the domes are blue.”

This time she said nothing, but her laughter was eloquent.

As Arkady climbed back down the tower, he searched his mind for explanations and could find none but the one Surata had given him. He whispered a prayer, but to whom and for what he did not know.

They entered Samarkand shortly before midafternoon three days later and heard the men at the gates call their city The Most Splendid Face of the Earth.

“Do you know the language, then?” Arkady asked Surata when she had translated this for him.

“A little. Enough.” She hesitated. “I will tell you what to say, and you must speak for us. The Islamites do not like to deal with women.”

Arkady shrugged. “The Islamites are heretics and fools,” he said automatically, repeating what he had been told for so long. They were making their way down a narrow street paved with hexagonal stones.

“Do not let them know you think so, or it will go hard with both of us,” she warned him.

Ahead he saw a feathery ornamentation of blue-and-gold mosaic tiles covering a square, closed building surmounted by a blue dome. The structure was surrounded by trees and borders of sweet-smelling herbs.

“Is it beautiful?” Surata asked him softly.

“Yes. After the plains, it is paradise.” He did not like to admit how much the city awed him. They passed the closed building and continued on, nearing another stone box topped with a fluted dome. “What are these places?” he wondered aloud.

“I will tell you what to say to find out,” Surata offered, and painstakingly repeated the syllables to him, insisting that he do his best to imitate her accent.

At the first opportunity, Arkady stopped one of the turbaned inhabitants and repeated the sounds Surata had taught him. His inquiry was met with a flurry of words and abrupt gestures that made Arkady nervous to hear. “What did he say?” he asked Surata.

“He says that they are tombs for noble families,” she told him. “Say this to him next,” she instructed, giving him some more incomprehensible things to parrot.

This time the outburst was different, more voluble and definitely more cordial. At the end of it, the man made the Islamic bow of respect and passed on.

“What was that? What did I say to him?” Arkady demanded of her as soon as their helper was out of range.

“You asked him where the market was, and who had built so beautiful a city. He told you that it was the design of Timur and of the great Ulug-Beg, and that there are many marketplaces in Samarkand. The greatest is at the Registan, amid gardens, or so he claims.” She smiled. “He loves this place.”

“It
is
beautiful,” Arkady said. They continued along the narrow, crowded street in the direction that the friendly man had indicated they should go. On their way, they passed several more of the ornate mausoleums, and on the front of one, Arkady saw the image of a pacing lion with the sun—a face smiling amid golden rays—perched on the lion's back. This sight stirred some recollection, but he could not grasp it and, after a short time, dismissed it. He was too caught up in the glory of this magnificent city. Even the towers that marked the Islamite mosques could not detract from his admiration.