The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fernan was enjoying almost everything about the campaign they had joined. Diego thought it was an interesting place to be, certainly better than another summer on the ranch, but he had a recurrence of his old feelings of anxiety when it appeared that he was disappointing those who had brought him here to help. At that first meeting he had answered the sharp questions from the High Cleric as best he could, and a few from the constable and the king, too. He liked the king most, though he supposed it wasn’t really his place to like the king or not.
In any case, he couldn’t be much help to them and he did his best to make that clear. Some days ago he had sensed his mother’s arrival among the main body of the army, half a day behind them. He had told Fernan, of course. He’d considered telling the king and the cleric from Ferrieres just to have something to offer them, but thinking about his mother led him to keep quiet. Her movements, surely, weren’t a part of this campaign. It felt like a kind of betrayal to talk about her, and so he didn’t. Besides, he knew why she had come. Fernan did, too. It made Fernan prickly and angry; Diego just felt sad. They probably ought to have waited for her to come home that day before riding off. He’d been thinking guiltily about that since they left.
He knew she would not have let them join this army had she been at the ranch when the soldiers arrived. Fernan had scoffed at that suggestion when Diego mentioned it, pointing out that their mother, forceful as she might be, was hardly likely to have defied a direct summons from the king.
Diego wasn’t so sure about that. He found that he missed his mother. She was gentler with him than with most people. He knew Fernan missed her too, but his brother would deny that if Diego spoke of it, so he didn’t. They talked about their father, instead. It was all right, the way Fernan saw the world, to miss their father.
Then one morning Diego woke with an image of Rodrigo in his mind. It was blurred, because his father was riding very fast, and the landscape changed too quickly for Diego to get a clear picture. But he was coming towards them from the east, and he wasn’t far away.
Diego lay under his blanket for a little while, eyes closed, concentrating. He heard Fernan wake up beside him, and start to say something. Then Fernan was quiet. He could usually tell when Diego was reaching out, or reaching in. It was hard to know the right words for this.
The landscape refused to become clearer. He saw that his father was with only a few people, not a large company, and there seemed to be a river beyond him—which would make sense, if Diego remembered the maps correctly. Rodrigo would be riding along the Tavares. He seemed to be agitated about something, but Diego had no sense of immediate danger. He tried casting his mind a little away from his father, to see if he could place him more exactly. He saw the river, grasslands, hills.
Then, vividly, an image of a city and its walls. That had to be Fezana.
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 H
“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?”
“My lord
Diego struggled to orient himself. He never saw actual faces with this sight, only presences, auras, an awareness of people, with his father—or mother, or brother—at the center. He sensed tall houses, walls, a fountain. A press of running figures. Then two domes, blue and white.
Behind his father. East. He opened his eyes, fought the dizziness, looking south. He pointed.
“They are going towards a place in the walls on this side of the city. There must be a way out, as you said. There is fighting. Why is there fighting, my lord?”
He looked anxiously up at the king. Ramiro’s expression was grim.
“I don’t know. I can only guess. If your father is with ben Yonannon and he is fighting, then it may be the Asharites are attacking the Kindath in the city. Why, I cannot tell. But it works to our gain: if Rod-rigo gets out.”
Which offered no comfort.
“Come!” the king said. “You have helped me again. You are my beam of light, Diego Belmonte, truly.”
Even as he said this, the sun went down. Twilight descended, swift and beautiful, over the plain north of Fezana. To the west, a last glow of red suffused the sky. The gleaming of the domes was gone. Diego, looking south as they ran back towards the others, saw smoke rising from the city.
He was not allowed to go see if his father was able to get out and greet him if he did.
The king let Fernan come with him but Diego was forbidden. It was judged that there was too much danger near the walls, with only the fifty men the king took with him, quietly stealing up to the river and moat in darkness.
Diego was outraged. He was the reason the king knew where Rod-rigo was going, he was the only reason Ramiro was able to do this, and he was being denied the chance to join them. There were, it emerged, disadvantages to being useful to the king of Valledo.
Fernan was elated, but sympathetic enough to try to conceal it. Diego wasn’t fooled. He watched his brother leave with the king’s party and he turned, grim and silent, to go with the other half of the vanguard troop. Ibero was with him, of course, and—to Diego’s surprise—Count Gonzalez de Rada.