“She jumped, may God be my witness—”
There came a sound Fatima would remember for the rest of her life: the dull pop of bone forcibly dislodged from its slick cradle. An irreparable sound. Fatima was only half aware when the mercenary tried to scream and found he couldn’t. Stars rose and set in the sliver of sky beyond the ditch; the sun crossed rapidly before her eyes and was lacerated by clouds. She heard a muted exchange, an irritated sigh, and then the sound of horses turning, their iron-shod hooves grating like knives against the gravel road. The retinue moved off in the direction from which it had come, its clatter replaced by the little noises of the woods.
Dazed and thoughtless, Fatima got to her feet. There was no sign that Luz or her retinue had ever been there but the half-moon depressions of hooves in the packed gravel—that and a spatter of blood, small but ominous, pooling between the stones. She could think of nothing better to do under the circumstances than continue down the road. She climbed out of the ditch and limped away, following the trail of gravel as it spooled south between the sentinel cliffs. The sun had broken free of the mountains and hung low in the east, casting rosy shadows across Fatima’s feet. That she was alive and upright struck her as extraordinary. She lingered on the gold-flecked dust that dripped from the pines, the clumps of green reeds that lined watery depressions in the earth, presaging the sea. How had the brutality she had witnessed occurred on this very same road? Every time she blinked she saw the little spot of blood and heard the thunder of the birds, and wondered how it could all be cut from the same eternal cloth as the sun, the grass, the unseen ocean.
Fatima was so lost in herself that she did not hear the return of hoof beats at first. It was only a feeling of dread that made her stop and hold her breath. The road was flat there and the sun was high; there was no ditch in which to conceal herself; there were no shadows to protect her. She turned, preparing herself. A very lathered mare was cantering up the road from the north with her head high and her eyes rolling. A large dog, brindle-black, ran along beside her and nipped at her flank. And atop the horse, keeping his seat remarkably well, was Hassan.
Fatima’s feet gave out; she collapsed onto her knees and then fell to her side, sobbing harder than she ever had in her life, as if her body was trying to expel something upon which she had choked.
Little idiot, came Vikram’s voice in her head, why are you lying here like a beached porpoise? I expected more backbone from you. Get up. Fatima felt teeth grip the back of her robe. Up, up.
Fatima forced herself to her feet. She couldn’t catch her breath. Hassan was reaching down: she took his arm, struggling to throw her leg over the mare’s broad back as he hauled her up.
Run, pretty pony, hummed Vikram. Run as fast as you can, or Vikram will start at your hocks and eat his way up.
Squealing, the mare turned on her heel and bolted. The road became a shuddering line, the trees a blur on either side. Fatima wrapped her arms around Hassan’s waist. With each hoof beat, her teeth clacked in her jaw. She pressed her face into Hassan’s back to make it stop. He smelled ripe, like sweat that had dried over dirt. She didn’t mind: she took it in, scent and color and all the jumbled sensations that made up the mutable world.
I want to live, she thought. It seems a terrible lot of trouble, but I want to live.
I know, said Vikram. You’ve developed a talent for it.
Chapter 11
The mare ran until she couldn’t. As the sun climbed higher, they passed slow-moving caravans on the right and left, their haggard custodians leading mules and oxen harnessed to canvas-covered wagons laden with cloth. They stared in disbelief as Vikram set about with his teeth, driving anything that breathed out of their path. No one tried to stop them; no one could. Fatima looked over her shoulder once or twice but could see no evidence of Luz and her men. They pressed on along the road, which widened and narrowed according to the terrain of the valley it followed, shrinking when the mountains on either side grew steep, widening when they flattened out into grassy high plains dotted with the dark green of wild olives. It was the ragged breathing of the mare that finally drew them off the road and into the dwindling hills.
“This poor beast is done for,” said Hassan, his own breathing labored as he slid off the mare’s back. The cicadas were deafening and seemed to be everywhere. Fatima allowed herself to be lifted down and immediately collapsed, clinging to the withered trunk of a juniper bush when her legs wouldn’t hold her. The mare, too, fell to her knees, her flanks heaving. Bipedal again and barely winded, Vikram sat cross-legged on the ground and cradled the animal’s boxy head in his lap, stroking its ears gently.
“She’s run her last,” he said. “She won’t get up again. What selfless creatures horses are. Remember her in your prayers, dull and dumb as she is, for she has saved your lives.”
The horse groaned and pressed its ears back along its neck. The sight of it was pitiful. Suddenly furious, Fatima lashed out at Vikram’s woolly extremities, kicking him as hard as she could.
“You left me,” she shouted. “You both left me. I called and you never answered. I wish I’d never set foot in that stupid cave—it was gone the moment I turned my back. I thought I was going to die—I nearly did. You left me.”
“We looked for you,” said Hassan, crestfallen, his face sallow. “We called too. I had the strangest feeling you were nearby, near enough to touch, even, but I couldn’t see you. We stole this poor horse from a sleeping tinker farther up the road so that we could try to find you. And we did. Everything was all right in the end, wasn’t it?”
Everything was so profoundly not all right that Fatima thought it best not to answer. She lay down in the stiff grass and drew her knees against her chest. She felt Hassan’s fingers on her head, stroking the curve of her skull.
“I wouldn’t leave you behind,” he said, sounding hurt. “I didn’t leave you behind. Please don’t shout at me like that.”
Fatima sniffled and reached back to intertwine her fingers with his.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I saw Luz on the road. Something was different about her—something was wrong, though I can’t tell what. There was a man who chased me through the hills. She asked him about me, and when he couldn’t answer, she—I was right there, under her feet almost. I should have been caught, I should have been dead.”
Hassan squeezed her hand. The cicadas droned in her ear, their shrill song rising and falling in waves. She knew she should apologize to Vikram as well, but apologies were costly and she hadn’t the stomach for another. When she looked up, she saw his face close to her own, framed by a dark mane, looking, for the moment at least, wry and real.
“Cousin,” he said. “Haven’t we been friends, in our own way, since you were a fat baby in swaddling clothes? Is this any way to treat such a friend, kicking him and cursing him?”
Fatima let her head fall forward and buried her face in Vikram’s hair. The scent of it awoke old memories of the harem and its long afternoons, vague and shot through with sunlight.
“I get so angry,” she said. It was as close to an atonement as she could manage.
“Anger is good,” she heard him say. “Anger teaches you things. How to lead. How to make the decisions you’d rather not make. It protects you from fear and hesitation and the desire to turn back. Don’t waste it on old Vikram, or on Hassan, who would die for you in a moment.”