the forest felt like plunging into the ocean, all cool air and deep green light. All along the narrow road grew ancient trees, twining their branches overhead. In a few minutes Soutan paused his horse in the dappled shade and let them catch up. They set off again, riding three abreast with the sorcerer in the middle.
‘A question for you, Captain,’ Soutan said. ‘Arkazo says that nothing’s more important than the books of the Prophets. Do you agree?’
‘Well, it seems extreme, I know, but actually I do.’
‘I suppose it’s a question of following the laws of God. But other prophets have written books of those laws for other peoples, after all.’
‘True. But our books, our way – that’s what makes us who we are. We follow the Three Prophets, and that sets us apart from people who follow other religious leaders. If I stopped following the laws, I wouldn’t know who I was any more.’
Soutan frankly stared. ‘You must love your god a great deal,’ he said at last.
‘I don’t know if I’d call it love, not like love for your family or for a woman. It’s more like – well, what?’ Warkannan thought for a moment. ‘More like a sense of mutual obligation. I have a duty to serve God but in return, that duty gives me a place in His universe.’
‘God as the supreme commander of a celestial cavalry?’ Soutan drawled. ‘It would make sense to you, I suppose.’
‘I don’t like your tone of voice.’
‘Sorry.’ Soutan shrugged. ‘Just a figure of speech.’
Two nights later they arrived at the last Kazraki villa. Kareem Alvado’s compound stretched out like a small town, with his mansion and gardens, the cottages of the craftsmen, the barracks for his private troops, and the dormitories for the workmen who tended the flocks and the tax forests. Since Warkannan had served on the border with Kareem, and Kareem’s son Tareev and Arkazo had attended university together, they stayed for two full days.
On their last evening, the men sat finishing their dinner around the true-oak table in the dining-hall, a long room with walls of purplish-red horsetail reeds, twined together with pale yellow vines. At regular intervals ChaMeech skulls, bleached white and bulbous, hung as trophies. The older men had been reminiscing about Jezro Khan when Tareev interrupted. Like many Andjaro families, Kareem’s had some comnee blood that gave father and son both pale grey eyes and dark, straight hair, and they turned to each other with the same tilt of the head, the same crook of a hand.
‘A favour to beg you, sir,’ Tareev said. ‘The captain’s going to have a hard time guarding our khan with just a couple of men. Let me go with them.’
Kareem’s heavy-set face turned unnaturally calm.
‘Why should Arkazo get all the glory?’ Tareev went on. ‘It’s unfair. Let me go and invite the khan here personally.’
‘Now listen, boy,’ Warkannan broke in. ‘This isn’t going to be some pleasant little ride.’
‘I know that, Captain,’ Tareev said, still grinning. ‘That’s why you need me along.’
‘It’s up to your father. There’ll be plenty for you to do once the war starts.’
Kareem had a sip of wine, his calloused fingers tight on the goblet.
‘What about that girl you promised to marry?’ Kareem said at last.
‘What would her father want with a coward?’
Kareem smiled, a weary twitch of his mouth. ‘Very well, then. But you’re riding under Warkannan’s orders. What he says, you do. Understand me?’
‘Yes sir, I do.’
Warkannan glanced around the table. Arkazo was leaning onto the table on his elbows, watching, unusually solemn, while Soutan lounged back in his chair.
‘This might be a good time to make something clear to everybody,’ Warkannan said. ‘It’s dangerous out on the grass. I spent fifteen years of my life there, and I know. When we ride out, I’m the officer in charge of this little venture. Understood?’
‘Of course, sir,’ Arkazo said.
Soutan sighed, long and dramatically. ‘I was waiting for this,’ he remarked to the air, then looked Warkannan’s way. ‘Someone needs to be in charge of the boys – oh, excuse me, our young men, I mean – but no one orders me around, Captain. Understood? If not, you can try to find Jezro on your own.’
Warkannan took a long breath and let his anger ebb.
‘Let’s hope we don’t get ourselves into the kind of trouble where orders are necessary,’ Warkannan said at last. ‘But if there is trouble, sorcerer, then I’ll have to put the safety of the other men first, Jezro or not.’
Soutan got up, bowed to Kareem, and strode out of the room. He slammed the door behind him so hard that the wall bounced. Kareem let out his breath in a long whistle.
‘I don’t envy you this ride,’ Kareem said.
‘Thanks.’ Warkannan managed a smile. ‘The Cantons aren’t that large. If worse comes to worst, we should be able to track the khan down sooner or later.’
‘Well, inshallah.’ Kareem spread his hands wide. ‘All right, Tareev and Arkazo. You’d better have weapons with you. Let’s go to the armoury and see what’s there.’
Later that evening Kareem invited Warkannan to his study for a glass of arak. They settled themselves in comfortable chairs while servants lit oil lamps and bowed themselves out of the room. Once they were alone, Warkannan asked Kareem if he regretted putting his son in danger. Kareem shook his head no.
‘If he’d wanted to stay home safe, I’d have had some harsh words for my wife. I’d have known he wasn’t mine.’
‘I’ll do my best to keep him out of trouble.’
‘Let’s pray you can. If the Chosen have taken a hand in this –’ Kareem shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘That’s true, unfortunately. That reminds me, I’ve got something I want to leave with you. Suppose the Chosen decide to eliminate me and Soutan – I don’t want them getting their ugly paws on this.’
From his shirt pocket Warkannan took out a roll of rushi, protected by a leather cover stamped with a design of two crossed swords below a crescent: Jezro Khan’s crest. Kareem kissed it, then slid the rushi free with a snap of his wrist that unrolled the letter. The sheet had one long torn edge, as if the khan had ripped a blank page from a book in his haste.
‘It’s Jezro’s handwriting, sure enough,’ Kareem said. ‘Thanks be to God, merciful as well as mighty!’
Warkannan had read it so many times that he knew every word by heart.
‘To Indan, Warkannan, and all my friends in Kazrajistan,’ the letter began. ‘That is, of course, assuming I have any friends left. I wonder what you’ll say when you find out I’m alive. Will you celebrate, or will I only be seen as a damned nuisance, a ghost who should have stayed
