The Bird King(30)

For a moment, Fatima didn’t understand.

“I’m setting you free,” said Lady Aisha gently. “You’re no longer a thing I own, since that’s how you put it. Go, make your escape.”

Fatima let her head sink against Lady Aisha’s shoulder. She kissed the exposed sweep of collarbone, thinly clad in skin the color of the elms on the hill above.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

There was a sound above their heads, the sharp clatter of talons on rock. Vikram dropped to the ground beside them.

“There are dogs out on the hill,” he said. “And silent men. You have minutes before they pick up your scent. It’s time to leave, one way or another.”

Lady Aisha got to her feet. Hassan, who had been sitting in a daze with his knees pulled up, did likewise, clutching his leather case to his chest with the fervor of a lover.

“What do we do?” he asked.

Lady Aisha sighed and surveyed the hillside.

“You’ll never outrun dogs in this terrain,” she said. “You’ll have to cross the Vega. There’s no help for it.”

“The Vega?” Fatima looked out over the smoky plain and felt a stab of fear. “It’s so open—it’s just an empty field that goes on and on. There’s nowhere to hide, no trees, no hills, not for miles.”

“Then I suppose I must lose you as well,” said Lady Aisha to Vikram. She stroked his head. “After all these long years.”

“If you want these little palace-bred children to live, yes,” said Vikram. He caught her hand and pressed a kiss into it. “For your sake, I will help them cross the Vega.”

Lady Aisha withdrew her hand and twisted a ring off her finger, wiggling it over the bony protrusion of her knuckle. Fatima recognized it: it was set with a dark ruby encircled by tiny pearls, a gift from her husband while he still lived. Lady Aisha dropped it into Fatima’s palm.

“When you reach the edge of the valley, follow the harbor road south,” she said. “Stay off the road itself, if you can, but follow it, for there are few paths through those mountains and autumn is nearly upon us. When you reach the sea, this should buy you both passage on a ship, with a little left over if the captain is fair. Where you go then is your own business.”

Fatima slipped the ring onto her own finger. It was heavy and still warm. She wanted to say thank you, but before she could open her mouth, she heard the faint baying of a hound, intent and anguished, echoing over the hillside.

“They’re coming,” said Vikram, leaping down the rocks. “Follow me.”

Lady Aisha turned away.

“Go,” she said, pulling up her veil. “Let’s not spoil things with promises none of us can keep.”

Fatima felt Hassan tug her hand. Stumbling, she followed him, feeling as though something needful had been left unsaid; longing, with a force that startled her, for the silk-shrouded figure that diminished in her wake. The palace above them had begun to cast its shadow over the medina, its red towers square and sharp, an extension of the hill on which they sat. They had stood for centuries and might stand for centuries more, but as she looked back, Fatima knew, though she could not say how, that she would never lay eyes on them again.





Chapter 7


Humming and picking at his ears, Vikram led them down the face of a sandstone cliff. The slope, all descending angles of umber and red, was so nearly vertical that Fatima’s guts heaved each time she forced herself to take a step. Too soon, she began to wonder whether she had made a grave mistake.

“Your left foot goes there,” called Vikram, pointing. “Then your right, here. You’ve got four limbs: as long as you only move one at a time, the other three will save you.”

“This is insane,” shrieked Hassan, who clung to a slanting boulder like a redheaded bat, his leather satchel swinging in the air below one shoulder. “We’re all going to die.”

“Not if you follow directions,” sang Vikram, flinging himself into the air and landing silently on a largish rock below. “The hounds won’t come this way. You need free will to do something this mad. We’re nearly to the bottom. The hard part begins then.”

Fatima wedged her left foot in the crack to which Vikram had pointed, uncurling one hand to shift her weight. She saw with dispassion that the skin of her thumb and forefinger had split open, leaving angry vertical tears. She was also profoundly hungry. None of it was pain, exactly—she was too alert for that, too focused to feel anything acute. Yet it was a hindrance. A small part of her quaked silently, convinced that she was ill-equipped for any purpose beyond that for which she had been raised.

“Tougher hands,” she murmured. “A smaller stomach. Better shoes. Skill with a knife.”

“Are you making a list for the greengrocer?” asked Vikram. He was standing below her on solid ground, looking up: Fatima had reached the bottom of the ledge.

“What do I do now?” she asked, craning her neck.

“Let go,” said Vikram. “I’ll catch you.”

“I’m not sure I want to do that.”

“There are other options,” conceded Vikram, scanning the mounds of tufted grass that led down to the Genil, and beyond that, to the treeless expanse of the Vega. “You could fall and break your legs and I could leave you here for the black-cloaks, though the crows might make a pass at you first.”