Players of the Game

With commendable casualness and riding with ease, Tohmarz slipped back down from the head of the column and took up a position alongside Jeniche and Alltud. They would have admired the deftness with which it was done had it not been for the equally casual way in which the riders had gone from two abreast in the city streets to three once they were on the open road, scouts galloping ahead in the first light of dawn.

‘That was an education,’ said Alltud to no one in particular.

They had heard no order, seen no signal; knew they were riding with an experienced and well-drilled cavalry troop. The only reply offered by Tohmarz was a satisfied smile and a nod.

As they followed the road along the coast, the early morning sky behind them took flame, sunlight filtered through the last of the dust. A rich red emerged from the dark and faded as the day grew, casting a strange light across the low mist before it burned away.

To their right the sea was flat calm, small waves expiring on the smooth, pale beach. To their left, low sun-baked hills threw out long, misty shadows, glimpses of green lining the shallow valleys through which rivers ambled. The road rose and fell in gentle curves across the landscape, pale dust rising as they passed. Ahead, a ridge which they climbed at an easy pace.

On the far side, the road dropped down into a wide valley. It continued to run parallel to the coast and in the distance they could see a broad, shallow river running sluggish through the many wandering islands of a delta. Long before that, however, they turned south onto another road.

As they headed inland, the column broke into a trot, stretching out as it did so. Jeniche and Alltud had to concentrate. It had been a long time since either of them had ridden and they both took a while to find and keep the rhythm to rise to the trot.

‘Going to be sleeping face down tonight, desert girl.’

‘And riding on hot coals tomorrow.’

The deeper they rode into the valley, the greener it became. Trees on the high slopes sheltered small fields and pasture, producing a harvest of dates and figs. Down by the river, strip fields were planted out with vegetables, people working back and forth while it was still cool.

Hiding between the trees and buried beneath rocky outcrops were the farm buildings and small villages. Several times they passed wagons laden with produce heading down the valley, ignoring the curious stares of the locals. Along the side of the road, there were signs of camp fires, places stripped of brush for fuel, crude latrines swarming with flies, all the detritus people could not help but leave in their wake, especially those a long way from home. They were too close to the city for refugees to think of camping permanently, but they had passed that way.

Jeniche and Alltud exchanged glances. They had been refugees once, knew what sort of reception the people who made those camps were likely to have received. And the further inland they travelled, the more they could sense unease, wariness, even suspicion in the villagers and farmers they passed.

Not long after midday, with the horses back to a walk, Tohmarz rode ahead to meet one of the scouts. A few minutes later the troop turned off the road and into the shelter of a stand of trees that grew along the banks of a stream. The horses were stripped of their saddles and bridles, watered and hobbled, allowed to crop the thin grass.

Once their mounts were settled, Jeniche and Alltud went back down to the stream and sat themselves in a shallow pool of water. There was some laughter, but they didn’t care.

As they sat and nibbled at their rations, they watched Tohmarz set pickets, check on the state of the horses, and talk with the members of the troop, all the while keeping an eye on them where they sat cooling their backsides.

‘I wonder what his history is?’ said Alltud. ‘He looks like a toy soldier; son of a wealthy family given a sinecure.’

‘Sleight of hand. It always looks as if someone else might be in charge until you actually look for them. Then you realize it’s that affable young chap who looks like he’d have trouble choosing the right end of his sword to hold.’

‘Right up to the moment he slides it through you.’

‘And even then you’d probably want to apologize to him for getting it dirty.’

Dripping, they climbed out of the half full watercourse and found a bit of unoccupied shade close to their horses.

‘This is an army, isn’t it,’ said Jeniche, just as Alltud was dozing off.

‘Well we aren’t transporting treasure, that’s for sure. Unless Tohmarz has it in his pocket. And we aren’t a diversion, either.’

They lapsed into a drowsy silence.

‘No,’ said Alltud, just as Jeniche closed her eyes. ‘If Dahbeer had wanted to raise an army, he only needed to spread the word. Alboran was packed with young men looking for something to do. Remember that prophet? His lot were recruiting.’

‘So what are we doing, then?’

‘I have no idea, Jen. At least we aren’t on camels. Yet. But I have a horrible feeling that somewhere along the way this is going to involve mountains. And then a desert.’

Chapter Six

‘Again,’ said Jeniche. ‘That line of scrub along the hilltop directly behind me.’

She continued to fiddle with a strap on one of the saddlebags, standing close against her horse. Alltud, still mounted, stretched and eased his neck, taking in the view as he did so.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he replied. ‘They probably dropped down the other side as soon as you pulled out of the column and dismounted.’

‘Anything the matter?’

Alltud turned where he was sitting and Jeniche peered across the seat of her saddle to see that Tohmarz had come down the line. The last of the troop were passing them on the narrow stony path. The rear guard were further down the slope and had also stopped.

Jeniche shook her head. ‘Not sure there’s much point in telling you.’

Tohmarz smiled. ‘If these are the same people you first mentioned four days ago… The scouts have seen no one.’

‘One person. Always the same.’

‘Really?’

It was remarkable, thought Jeniche, how Tohmarz managed to sound grateful for the information whilst completely disbelieving it. All in one word.

‘If that’s what she said, that’s what she saw.’

‘Yes, Alltud, your loyalty is commendable, but I can’t keep sending scouts out hither and yon when the only person who has seen anything is Jeniche here.’

‘I’d trust her eyes over anyone else’s.’

Jeniche watched the two men squaring up. Alltud had become very quiet over the last few days and she couldn’t decide if this was just him testing the defences, as it were, or something deeper.

‘Then we must ask her to keep watching on our behalf and if she sees anything more alarming than… a moonstruck boyfriend of one of the riders… let us know.’

He kicked lightly against the flanks of his horse and carried on downhill to the rear guard. Jeniche mounted her own steed and, once Alltud had persuaded his own to turn round, they carried on up the slope. After a few moments, Alltud twisted in his saddle, thunder clouds still in his face. He dropped an eyelid in a solemn wink and Jeniche grinned.

She knew how much he wanted to go home. He talked of little else at night when they were camped out under strange skies, each day a little further south, a little further away from that orchard behind the library of the Great College of the Derw on Pengaver, one of the isles of Ynysvron. And when he talked, she thought more and more of Makamba where she had grown from a broken child into a confident young woman.

Try as she might to keep them suppressed, other memories were inextricably entwined and dragged to the surface. The light of happy times was surrounded by shadow. The misery of growing up in Antar, escaping across the desert to Makamba with little more than her life, the death of friends, the years of wandering after the Occassans appeared. At least Alltud knew his homeland was in safe hands. Jeniche had no homeland and no idea how the one place she had put down tentative roots now fared.

She shut down her memories and scanned the horizon once more, trying to keep her mind in the here and now. It was no more comforting a place to be. They felt like they had been in the saddle for a year. The dust of the road and the desert was deeply ingrained in their flesh, their food was getting stale and running low, and they smelled of horse. They were stiff, bruised, and bored, constantly wondering what they were really doing and where they were going. But now they knew how the pickets operated at night they were beginning to think seriously of cutting loose.

When the track widened and they could ride two abreast, Jeniche made sure they were well away from the others and then said, ‘Time, I think, for us to part company with this circus. Make our way home.’

Alltud nodded, looking ahead. ‘Before we get into those higher hills and our routes get limited.’

They had climbed steadily since leaving Alboran. Several days across the gently sloping fertile coastal region, with broad river valleys and prosperous villages. Several more through this slightly cooler upland of rough pasture and little hidden valleys where the farms and villages were smaller and poorer and the goats watched them with thoughtful eyes and half smiles. Ahead, higher hills could now be seen, hazy in the distance. Steep-sided and dark, stretching as far as the eye could see to east and west.

At least their grasp of Arbiq had improved. Several of the other riders were glad of the conversation and the chance to pick up a bit of Makamban or Ketic, Alltud’s native language. It passed the time and relieved the monotony of constant travel. All attempts to find out what they were or were not guarding, however, proved fruitless. Tohmarz knew. Everyone else just did what they were told.

As the sun began to set, they found the ground levelling off. The track they were on had taken them up into a wide, shallow valley where a near-empty river meandered. It was a curious, fractured place as if dumped onto an older landscape that was patiently re-asserting itself.

The path they followed brought them out along one edge of the valley at the foot of a low, notched ridge from which streams flowed at intervals, each cutting its own smaller valley back into the soil and rock of higher ground.

The floor of the main valley was mostly smooth, but large, erratic boulders cast long shadows across the wiry grass and scrub. There wasn’t a person or sign of settlement in sight. More than once they thought of their nearly empty saddle bags as they scouted for somewhere to camp that night.

Tohmarz chose a side valley, in the end. The further they travelled, the larger the tributary vales had become, branching and winding, cutting into the higher terrain. Most of them were dry although the presence of scrub and low withered trees were evidence of water beneath the ground, of seasonal floods. The one they chose had a reasonable flow of water in the very bottom of the stream bed. In the winter it would have been a different prospect as the scatter of boulders testified.

The horses were seen to first, as always. Details were then sent off to collect fuel for fires, pickets were set, and the troop settled itself as best it could in the long, twisting stony ravine.

Jeniche sat on her heels, lost in thought. Alltud returned from collecting a loaf of unleavened bread that one of the others had baked on a griddle. He stretched out beside her, broke the loaf in two, and handed her one half.

‘Seen any more of our camp follower?’ he asked before biting into his share of the bread.

‘Camp follower my bruised backside. Whoever it is, they’re good. They’ve kept pace with us for days and, apparently, they’re invisible. Not one other member of this troop has seen them.’

‘Well, neither have I.’

‘The other sixty? The scouts that Tohmarz may or may not have sent out? No sign of the person, their trail, their camp? Nothing?’

‘Perhaps they really are a useless bunch of ne’er-do-wells hired to act as a decoy.’

‘I’ll treat that observation with the derision it deserves.’

‘So, what else? You think he knows someone else is out there and he doesn’t care?’

She rolled a small pellet of the bread between thumb and finger before flicking it at Alltud. ‘I don’t suppose it matters in the long run.’

He sat up, brushing the pellet away as Jeniche looked round. ‘Why?’

‘Tomorrow night? We can head back toward this spot and then cross to the far side of the main valley before it gets properly light.’

‘Well, as far as a plan goes… It’s a plan.’

‘Right. Well, if you’ll just make up my bed, I have an appointment with a bush. If I can find one that’s private enough.’

In the quiet, Jeniche lay on her back and watched the stars. It was well past midnight and the Milky Way lay at an angle with a long irregular line of red stars pulsing slowly down its centre. Off to the right a blue star shone steadily, surrounded by a faint magenta aura. It was mesmerising and the clarity reminded her why Makamba came first to her thoughts so often. Ynysvron was wonderful, there were distinct attractions, but it was a land of cloud and mist.

Against the background of the slow stellar dance, she picked out the planets Baspati and Angraka, just as Teague, the astronomer at Makamba University, had taught her. And then the wandering stars which moved swiftly in their paths through the dark. She had watched them through Teague’s telescope. Odd-shaped objects that rotated and tumbled, catching the light. Put there by men, Teague had said, before the Evanescence. Sometimes they lost their way, breaking apart and blazing as they fell to Earth. She wished she had learned more; wished there had been time to learn more.

The top of the ravine where willow vale, lavender, and morning glory grew started to glow and, as she watched, the Moon began to rise. Two days from full, it dimmed the stars in that part of the sky. The plains, mountains, and craters on its surface were clear, even to the naked eye. And tonight, the fine spider web of lines that crossed Serenity glistened as they caught the sun.

Teague had studied those lines night after night; she had filled whole books with drawings, notes, and speculations, with gleanings from sparse references that had survived the great dissolution; had planned a more powerful telescope. And when she spoke of them, of her impossible dream of travelling to the Moon to see them, touch them… But Teague was lost. Like the child Shooly with her dolls and Wedol, the baker’s son. Trag. So many victims in Makamba. And Mowen Bey, the gentle Tunduri nun, killed on the threshold of her own country. Remembering the dead, Jeniche drifted off to sleep.

Woke on her feet, swords drawn. Alltud stood beside her, watching her back as she watched his. Around them, noise, people running and calling, hysterical voices. And then, above the pandemonium, Tohmarz could be heard calling for Jeniche.

She made her way down the floor of the ravine to where she knew Tohmarz was camped. Someone was throwing extra fuel on the fire there and in the blaze she saw members of the troop on the slopes surrounding a pitiful band of interlopers.

Sheathing her swords, she stepped forward into the firelight. Several of the strangers turned to look at her and then back to Tohmarz.

‘Refugees,’ he said.

She could see that for herself. Tired, half-starved, and terrified.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I thought your presence might reassure them. Calm them.’

‘A woman with two swords?’

‘You know what I mean.’

She did, and she didn’t much like it. After all, she had ridden with the troop for a week and barely knew any of them. She had been with Alltud for three years or more, depending on how you counted it, and they were still strangers in some ways. Now she was being asked to calm distraught refugees.

Not knowing what else to do, she gestured for them to sit and then did so herself. With slow, wary movements, they gathered by the fire, eleven of them in total, and sat on the stony ground. The three children attached themselves to the women and two of them fell asleep straight away. At that Jeniche ran out of ideas, but Alltud appeared with some food he had gathered.

Tohmarz had the good sense to get his men out of sight, although she could hear him questioning some of them about how a group of refugees could stumble into the camp so easily. He sounded angry. Very angry. And it was the only sense she got out of anyone that night.

Once the refugees had eaten, she asked them where they were from, where they were going, if they had been alone. They stared at her with frightened eyes but remained mute. She didn’t push too hard. Instead she told them of the path to the coast, of the villages and towns, of the poor reception they were likely to get. The men nodded. And then they lay down and slept as well.

She left them to it, picking her way quietly into the dark beyond the flames where Tohmarz stood.

‘There’s your watcher,’ he said.

She shrugged. He didn’t sound convinced and she certainly wasn’t. The little band of refugees had been heading north, had likely come down from the mountains, perhaps from beyond them.

‘If you wish,’ she said and went on up the ravine to find Alltud, and maybe some sleep as well.

Chapter Seven

‘What’s eating you?’

Jeniche looked up from where she was making a mess of packing her bedroll. She sat back on her heels.

‘I don’t like being treated with such contempt.’

Alltud waited. He had long since packed up his own stuff and had even saddled his horse. This was an event. Normally, Jeniche was the one who waited whilst he stumbled around half asleep gathering his things.

‘Come on,’ he said, and knelt beside her. He took her roll, shook it out, and packed it for her. ‘Explain.’

‘Tohmarz. Trying to imply it was one of those refugees that had been watching us.’

They both turned their heads as she spoke, looking across at the battered huddle by the smouldering fire. Some of them still slept. The others were listless. One of the children watched the remains of the fire with eyes that saw no future. Jeniche cursed under her breath. Children shouldn’t even be looking for the future, let alone discovering it may not actually be there.

‘You told me all this last night. Remember? During that bit when I was trying to get back to sleep.’

She turned her gaze back to him. Most men would have flinched.

Taking a moment, she stood and approached her horse, strapped the bedroll on behind the cantle of the saddle. ‘Not that. It’s just the way he wasn’t even trying to make it seem convincing.’

‘So what?’ He climbed to his feet and glanced around with a casual air to make sure no one was too close. ‘This time tomorrow, with a bit of care, we’ll be well away from them and whatever idiot plan they have.’

Jeniche smiled, but she wasn’t sure it reached her eyes. Like the child, she was looking for a future and discovered that she, too, couldn’t see one.

Leaving the refugees with what food they could spare, the troop mounted and, as they walked down the ravine, picking their way over the rough ground, formed up in twos. At the mouth of the ravine they turned south, the early morning sun obscured by the side of the valley on their left. Each time they trotted across the mouth of one of the ravines, the sunlight struck them. Hard light in pure air, casting shadows that slowly shortened.

The side wall of the valley grew ever taller and the ravines grew further apart and deeper. Substantial dry water courses cut across their track, slowing their progress. The far side of the main valley was now visible as a hazy smudge on the western horizon. Vegetation on the flat valley floor was little more than low scrub and scattered, withered trees. There was no shelter worth speaking of. Yet Jeniche and Alltud knew they would have to cross it at some time if they were to get away. The ravines on their side at least gave them some hope that the far side would offer similar shelter.

As the gullies became deeper, they offered protection to increasing amounts of vegetation. Aromatic scrub, dwarf trees, taller evergreens, grazing. Shelter, shade, pools of water in the bleached stream beds. At least the season was in favour of an escape. Had it been winter, water would be pouring down from the hills and distant mountains, funnelling into these ravines and making them dangerous. The main valley floor looked like it would become soft underfoot, if not impassable with the river in full flood.

Alltud and Jeniche took careful note of each ravine as they passed, memorising landmarks to argue about later. By some bond they neither of them understood, they turned and looked at each other, breaking into broad grins. The day seemed less harsh.

As the morning wore on, a gentle breeze began blowing from the south. Warm, but pleasant, it cleared away the stale odours of baked clay and stone, of drifted desert dust, and lifted the scents of wild thyme and lavender. The sky had changed as well. A milky gauze of high cloud filtered the worst of the midday sun and to the south and west the horizon had become a slate grey.

Into the long afternoon they rode, alternating between walking and trotting. Alltud dozed in the saddle when he could; Jeniche watched the landscape and calculated distances. They would need to be under cover before dawn without working the horses too hard. To her it seemed that cutting straight across the valley would be the best course.

She spent so much time watching the far side that it came as a surprise to see how high the valley wall beside them now was. A broken slope of loose soil and stones covered with patches of grass and small shrubs. Along the top, bushes softened the edge and prevented worse erosion than was already apparent. And provided excellent cover for anyone who might be watching them. Like that small cluster of bushes beside a jutting slab of rock.

Still angry about Tohmarz’s reaction and just a little on edge about their plan to sneak away, she turned her horse and urged it up the slope toward the bushes. Something moved out of sight as they began to climb. Dust rose from her mount’s feet and loose stones began to clatter back down the steep incline. It was slower going than she had hoped and by the time they reached the top, there was no one to be seen.

Behind her she heard other horses climbing the slope and turned in her saddle to see. Dust drifted away from the track and dispersed northward on the breeze. She looked back that way, surprised at how much could be seen from the top of the bank. Taking advantage of the few seconds left to her, she turned the other way and looked directly across the valley, checking for hazards and hiding places.

There seemed to be none, but she didn’t have much time to be sure before Tohmarz, Alltud and two others appeared, urging their horses up onto the flat area at the top where she waited. Ignoring them, she turned and looked eastward, standing in her stirrups for more height.

Tohmarz drew up alongside her. ‘I really must ask you not to do that again,’ he said.

Jeniche was surprised at the mildness of the request, but did not take her eyes off what she could see.

‘Your mysterious snooper again, I suppose?’

‘No. That is, there was someone.’ Without moving her gaze from the horizon, she pointed to clear tracks on the ground. ‘A horse went that way just a few minutes ago. You could probably track it if you wanted. But a rider could easily hide in these broken lands.’

She sat down, still staring intently into the distance, aware of Tohmarz and the others taking in the landscape. At first glance it seemed like a flat expanse, but it was cut through as far as the eye could see with gullies and ravines, the tops of trees showing where depressions offered shelter for all sorts of plants from the winter winds. And people. It would take them months to search. Ultimately a pointless exercise as it would be easy for someone to move about unseen in the dark.