The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
He skidded around a leather-goods stall and grabbed for the awning pole to help him turn. The pole rocked, the canopy tilted dangerously. The artisan, a man he knew, cursed him routinely as Alvar shouted an apology over his shoulder.
Jehane and Velaz would be at their own stall in the market. She had been following her father’s practice and her own from Fezana. Even though handsomely rewarded at the palace, she was always at the booth on the country market morning, and in her consulting rooms two afternoons a week. A physician needed to be known outside the chambers of the palace, she had told Alvar. Her father had taught her that. A doctor could as easily go out of fashion at court as come into it. It was never wise to be cut off from other sources of patients.
It had been Velaz who had told Alvar what had happened to Jehane’s father.
In the time before Rodrigo’s arrival the two men had taken to having dinner together some evenings when Jehane was at court and Alvar free of watch or patrol duties. The night he heard the story of Ishak ben Yonannon and King Almalik’s youngest son, Alvar had dreamed, for the first time but not the last, of killing the king of Cartada and coming back through the mountain pass to Jehane in Ragosa with word that her father had been avenged for his dark, silent pain.
This morning’s news had ended that particular dream.
She was not at the booth. Velaz was alone at the back, closing up early, putting away medicines and implements. She must have just left; there were patients still milling about in front of the stall. A buzz of excitement and apprehension animated the whispered conversations.
“Velaz! Where is she? I have news!” Alvar said, breathing hard. He had sprinted all the way from the western gate.
Velaz looked at him over his shoulder, his expression difficult to read. “Alvar. We heard, from the palace. Almalik’s dead. Zabira of Cartada’s here. Jehane’s gone to court.”
“Why?” Alvar asked sharply.
“Mazur wanted her. He likes her with him now, when things are happening.”
Alvar knew that, actually. It didn’t bring him any pleasure at all.
Jehane derived a healthy enjoyment from the extremely rare occasions when she engaged in the act of lovemaking.
She also had an equally healthy sense of self-respect. The universally acknowledged truths that Mazur ben Avren the chancellor of Ragosa was the most illustrious member of the Kindath community in Al-Rassan, the most sagacious, the most subtle and the most generous, did not negate the equally fundamental fact that he was the most sexually rapacious man she’d ever encountered or even heard of, outside of royalty with its harems.
He was royalty, in a sense, and he might as well have had a harem. Ben Avren was known as the Prince of the Kindath throughout Al-Rassan, and though he actively disavowed the name—a prudent act given the malevolent watchfulness of the wadjis—there was truth to that title, too.
Royalty or not, Jehane resisted being bedded by a man who clearly expected to do so as a matter of right.
She had made that point as emphatically as she could the first night he’d invited her to dine in his private quarters in the palace. There had been two musicians in the room. It became evident that they were expected to linger after the meal and continue playing while the chancellor and his current companion disported themselves.
Jehane was otherwise inclined.
Mazur ben Avren, seeming amused more than anything else, had contented himself with sharing sweet wine and small cakes after their meal, offering anecdotes about her father whom he had known well, and culling her own thoughts—comprehensively—about the likely course of events in Fezana now, among the Kindath community and the city at large. He was the chancellor of Ragosa before all else, he made that clear.
He made it equally obvious, however, that he expected her resistance to him to be temporary, and regarded it as an affectation more than anything else. He was fifty-seven years old that year, trim and fit, with a full head of grey hair under a soft blue Kindath cap, a neatly barbered, perfumed beard, a modulated, meditative voice, and a mind that could move without hesitation from poetry to military planning. He also bore the unmistakable look, in his dark brown, heavy-lidded eyes, of a man accustomed to pleasing and being pleased by women.
There had been days and nights in the period that followed when Jehane had asked herself whether her resistance to him was, in fact, merely an impediment of pride. Most of the time she didn’t think so. Ben Avren, stimulating and gracious as he was with her, bestowed the exact same appraising glance upon too many women. Upon all women, in fact. He certainly wasn’t waiting for her favors in chaste frustration. In a certain way, one had to admire his omnivorous hunger. Not many men at his age could harbor—let alone implement—such an appetite.
His amusement at her refusal did not fade; neither did his witty, elegant courtesy or the invitation that always lay just beneath that courteousness. There was never even a hint of anger, or force. This was, after all, one of the most cultivated men in Al-Rassan. He asked her opinions, flatteringly. She was careful about what she had to say, and not too quick to answer.
She began noticing changes in herself as time passed, in the way she thought about things. She found herself anticipating what Mazur’s questions might be, considering her answers in advance. He always appeared to listen to her, which was something rare in Jehane’s experience.
It came to be accepted that the chancellor was being regularly attended upon by the court’s new doctor, in the audience hall and elsewhere. Everyone at court, even King Badir, seemed to be aware that ben Avren was persistently wooing her. It was, evidently, a source of amusement for them. She was a woman of his own faith, which made the entire, extremely public dance even more diverting, as summer gave way to autumn and the code of dress in the palace changed with the changing leaves in the gardens and in the forests beyond the walls.
Jehane didn’t much like being a source of diversion for anyone, but she couldn’t deny it was pleasant to be attending at a court as sophisticated as this one. Nor could she complain about being afforded less than complete respect professionally. Her father’s name had ensured that at the beginning, and her own unfussy competence in a number of matters had consolidated it, after.
Then Rodrigo Belmonte had arrived, with his full company, exiled from Valledo in the wake of events she knew. The Day of the Moat and the burning of Orvilla had altered lives other than her own, it seemed.
Things began to change again. Alvar went to live in the barracks with the rest of Rodrigo’s company, leaving her alone with Velaz. His departure was a source of both relief and regret for Jehane. The second emotion surprised her a little. His feelings for her were too obvious, and too obviously more than what she’d hoped they were: the transitory passion of a young man for his first love.
There was more to Alvar de Pellino than that, however, and Jehane had to admit that during the time of her steady siege by the chancellor, when pride kept her from his bed, it had occurred to her to take refuge with her Jaddite soldier again. He wasn’t her soldier, though, and he deserved better of her. Alvar might be young, but Jehane could see clear signs of what had led Rodrigo Belmonte to bring him south and then let him accompany her alone to Ragosa. But had she wanted a domestic life she could have had it in Fezana by now with a number of Kindath men, not with a Jaddite from the north.
There might be a day when she regretted decisions made and the ones not made, the paths that had led her to be well past her prime marrying years now, and alone, but that day had not yet come.
Their small house and treatment rooms seemed quiet and empty after Alvar left. She had grown into a habit of discussing the events of the day with him. How very domestic, she’d thought wryly more than once. But the truth was that many times the thoughts she’d later relayed to the chancellor had been Alvar’s, over a late-night cup of wine.
Even Velaz seemed to miss the young Jaddite; she hadn’t expected a friendship to develop there. Singing the sun god’s exultant chants of triump
It was hard to attach that long, stony bitterness to Alvar de Pellino, though. Or to Rodrigo Belmonte, for that matter. The Captain still wanted her as physician to his band; he had made that clear as soon as he’d arrived. Had said it was one of the reasons he was here. She didn’t believe that, but he’d said it, nonetheless, and she did know how important a good doctor was to a fighting company, and how hard they were to find.
She remembered the night ride with him across the land north of Fezana and the river, Orvilla burning behind them, the bodies of the dead lying on the grass. She remembered words spoken around the campfire later. He remembered them too; she could see that in his grey eyes. Rodrigo was still unlike anything she might have expected him to be.
She had teased him on that solitary ride under the two moons, letting her hands slide down to his thighs. She had been irritated, deliberately provocative. She didn’t think she would risk that again. She couldn’t believe she had done it in the first place. It was reported by Alvar that the Captain was married to the most beautiful woman in Valledo.
Rodrigo had spoken of his wife that night near Fezana as if she was an unholy terror. He had an odd sense of humor. Alvar worshipped him. All his company did. It was obvious, and it said a great deal.
They had spoken seldom since he’d arrived, and only in public. It was among a number of people, including ben Avren, the chancellor, at a reception in a palace courtyard, that Rodrigo had again declared his intention of recruiting her. The chancellor had arched his expressive eyebrows but he hadn’t raised the matter later when they were alone. Neither had Jehane.
Rodrigo was usually outside the walls through the autumn’s early, mild days, leading his company—or parts of it—on a sequence of minor, overdue expeditions designed to deal with outlaw bands to the northeast, and then making a show of strength in the small, important city of Fibaz, by the pass leading to Ferrieres. Ragosa controlled Fibaz, and drew taxes from it, but King Bermudo of Jaloña had increasingly obvious designs upon the town.
He had already made his first tribute demand, the parias gold being exacted from Fezana by his nephew in Valledo serving as an example. The Jaddites were growing bold. Remembering that moonlit conversation by a campfire, Jehane asked Mazur once how long he thought Al-Rassan’s city-kings could survive. He hadn’t answered that question.
Rodrigo had made it explicit that he wanted Jehane to come as physician with his company on those early expeditions. She knew he saw them as a test for both of them. It wasn’t entirely her decision, in a way. She could have accepted or refused, but did not, waiting to see what would happen. King Badir promised his newest mercenary leader that he would consider the matter, and then promptly increased Jehane’s duties at court. Mazur was controlling that, she knew. She was uncertain whether to be vexed or amused. By the terms of her engagement she was free to leave if she wanted, but they were determined to make it difficult. Rodrigo, in and out of the city through the autumn, bided his time.
Husari ibn Musa rode with him on several of those expeditions. Jehane’s former patient was almost unrecognizable. No longer the portly, soft merchant he had been, he had lost a great deal of weight in a season. He looked a younger, harder man now. The kidney stones no longer vexed him, he said. He could ride all day, and had been learning to handle a sword and bow. He wore a wide-brimmed Jaddite leather hat now, even in the city. Jehane had said teasingly that he and Alvar appeared to have exchanged cultures. When the two men first saw each other they laughed, and then grew thoughtful.
The leather Jaddite hat was an emblem of sorts for Husari, Jehane decided. A reminder. He, too, had sworn an oath of vengeance, and the recollection of that served to modify her surprise at the changes in him. He was still actively doing business, he told her one night when he came for dinner in the Kindath Quarter, as he used to come to her father’s house. His factors were busy all over Al-Rassan, even here in Ragosa, he added, as the servant Velaz had hired poured wine for them. There were, simply, other priorities for him now, Husari said. Since the Day of the Moat. She’d asked, cautiously, what affairs he was pursuing in Cartada, but that question he had deflected.
It was interesting, Jehane thought, lying in bed that night: all these men who trusted her had certain questions they would not answer. Except Alvar, she supposed. She was fairly certain he would answer anything she asked him. There was something to be said for straightforwardness in a world of oblique intrigue. She had Velaz for directness, though. She’d always had Velaz. More of a blessing than she deserved. She remembered that it was her father who had made her take Velaz when she left home.
Amid all of this, the king’s three other court physicians actively hated her. That was to be expected. A woman, and a Kindath, and preferred by the chancellor? Openly coveted by the most celebrated Jaddite captain for his company? She was lucky they hadn’t poisoned her, she wrote in a letter to Ser Rezzoni in Sorenica. She asked him to continue writing her father. She said there was reason to believe there might now be a reply. She wrote home herself twice a week. Letters came back. Her mother’s careful handwriting, in slanted Kindath script, but her father’s dictation now, some of the time. Small, good things, it seemed, still happened in the world.
She didn’t make that jest about being poisoned to them, of course. Parents were parents, and they would have been afraid for her.
On the autumn morning when Mazur’s messenger brought her tidings from Cartada and bade her follow him to court that jest didn’t seem particularly witty any more.
Someone had been poisoned, it appeared.
In the Palace of Ragosa, as Jehane arrived and made her way to the Courtyard of the Streams where the king was awaiting the newly arrived visitor, no one’s thoughts or whispered words were of anything else.
Almalik of Cartada, the self-styled Lion of Al-Rassan, was dead, and lady Zabira—more his widow than anything else—had arrived unannounced this morning, a supplicant to King Badir. She had been accompanied only by her steward in her flight through the mountains, someone whispered.
Jehane, who had made the same journey with only two companions, wasn’t impressed by that. But neither was she even remotely close to sorting out how she felt about the larger tidings. She was going to need a long time for that. For the moment she could only grasp the essential fact that the man she had vowed to kill was somehow dead at Ammar ibn Khairan’s hand—the story was now very clear—and the woman who had birthed a living child and had herself survived only because of Jehane’s father was soon to be entering through the arches at the far end of this garden.
Beyond these two clear facts confusion reigned within her, mingled with something close to pain. She had left Fezana with a sworn purpose, and had proceeded to spend the past months in this city enjoying her work at court, enjoying—if she was honest—the flattering attentions of an immensely civilized man, enjoying the determined skirmishing for her professional services. Taking pleasure in her life. And doing nothing at all about Almalik of Cartada and the promise she’d made to herself on the Day of the Moat.
Too late now. It would always be too late, now.
She stood, as was her custom, on the margin of one bank of the stream, not far from Mazur’s position at the king’s right shoulder on the island. Wind-blown leaves were falling into the water and drifting away. As many times as she’d been in this garden, by daylight and under torches at night, Jehane was still conscious of its beauty. In autumn only the late flowers still bloomed, but the falling leaves in the sunlight and those yet clinging to the trees were brilliant, many-colored. She was aware of the effect this garden could have on someone seeing it for the first time.
The Courtyard of the Streams had been designed and contrived years ago. The same stream that ran through th
Birds flitted in the branches overhead. Four musicians played on the far bank of the stream that ran behind the isle. Goldfish swam in the water. It was cool, but pleasant in the sun.
Jehane saw Rodrigo Belmonte on the other side of the garden, among the military men. He had returned from Fibaz two nights before. His eyes met hers, and she felt exposed by the thoughtful look in them. He had no right, on so little acquaintance, to be regarding her with such appraisal. She abruptly remembered telling him, by that fireside on the Fezana plain, that she intended to deal with Almalik of Cartada herself. That made her think of Husari, who had also been there that night, who had shaped the same intention . . . who would be experiencing much the same difficult tangle of thoughts and emotions that she was.
If someone doesn’t do it before either of us, he had said that night. Someone had.
Husari wasn’t here now. He had no status at court. She hoped there would be a chance to talk with him later. She thought of her father in Fezana, and what had been done to him by the king now slain.
Between coral-colored pillars at the far end of the garden a herald appeared, in green and white. The musicians stopped. There was a brief silence, then a bird sang, one quick trilling run. Bronze doors opened and Zabira of Cartada was announced.
She entered under the arches of the arcade and waited between the pillars until the herald moved aside. She had arrived without ceremony, with only the one man, her steward, two steps behind her for escort. Jehane saw, as the woman approached along the walkway, that there had been nothing at all exaggerated in the reports of her beauty.