The Bird King(39)

“They had been flying for several days when the falcon grew restless. Why did the king have to live so far away? It seemed a very unreasonable distance to travel. Spotting something glimmering in the grass below, the falcon veered away from the party and swept down to investigate. There, wedged between the rocks and tufts of dry reeds, was a bracelet of beaten gold.

“‘Oh,’ cried the falcon. ‘Come back, come back, look what we almost missed.’ The other birds turned back and flew down when they heard the falcon’s cries. The falcon wrapped her talons around the bracelet and fluttered her wings, trying to wrench it free. The bracelet was stuck fast between the rocks.

“‘Why do you delay us?’ asked the hoopoe. ‘We have no time for baubles and bracelets. The king is waiting.’ But the falcon was adamant.

“‘It would be a crime to leave something so valuable lying on the ground,’ she said. ‘Why should we pass up a chance like this?’ The falcon pulled and pulled at the bracelet until the other birds became uneasy and pressed on without her. The falcon was so consumed by her task that she barely noticed their absence. Finally, as the sun set, she realized she was alone and began to grow frightened.

“‘What a fool I’ve been,’ she lamented. ‘For one bracelet, I missed my chance to meet the king of the birds. Oh, hoopoe! How sorry I am!’ Just then, she saw a flash of red in the deepening gloom. It was the hoopoe, come back to fetch her companion. The falcon was so happy to see the hoopoe that she let go of the bracelet and pushed off into the air, beating her wings. In the commotion, the bracelet rolled free and tumbled down the rocks, ringing as it fell.

“‘Look, falcon,’ said the hoopoe. ‘Your bracelet is free at last.’ But the falcon shook her head. ‘It was never mine,’ she said. ‘It was only weight, and I am glad not to carry it.’ And on they flew.”

“Are your stories always so moralizing?” murmured Fatima.

“No,” said Vikram. He yawned and for a moment she saw the muzzle and lolling tongue of a dog. “But this isn’t my story.”

He ambled along the thick branch where Fatima was sitting and lay down across the tapering end, where it thinned into innumerable little leaf-clad fingers, draping his limbs on either side like an indolent leopard. Just past him, the topmost branches were split, revealing a fragment of sky. False dawn had turned it the color of smoke; only the brightest stars were still visible. Fatima watched them wink and grow indistinct as they faded into the light of the hastening sun. She felt alert and clearheaded, though disinclined to move.

“I’m awake,” she said.

“You’re asleep,” said Vikram. “You’re still asleep.”

“Hsst! Fa!”

“See? She looks dead to me. Poke her with a stick to make sure.”

“She’s not dead, you animal. Fa! Wake up.”

The cicadas were riotous, their heady thrum nearly drowning out the sound of voices. Fatima tried to rouse herself and succeeded only in twitching her eyelids. Her stomach was a pit of fetid water. Even the smallest movement brought up the taste of blood and flesh and a sour, boggy feeling: a bodily bad omen. Moaning, Fatima reached out and felt herself lifted in furred arms and then set down again. A matted mound of yellow grass as dry as paper came into focus beneath her feet.

“If you’re going to be sick, don’t do it here,” came Hassan’s voice, alarmed. Fatima forced herself to straighten, breathing slowly to keep her bowels in check. The sun was bright and hot: it was late morning.

“Why did you let me sleep so late?” she demanded. “I thought we were going to leave at dawn.”

“We did leave at dawn,” said Vikram, flashing his teeth. “I’ve been carrying you like a baby for most of the way. You slept like a baby, too, with your fingers curled up in my pelt to keep yourself from falling.”

Fatima flushed and turned in an unsteady circle, attempting to orient herself. The tree that had sheltered them at night was nowhere to be seen. They had passed from the flatlands into the gentle hills that made up the southern reaches of the Vega. Fatima was standing on the edge of a loamy, terraced slope with rows of thick-bellied olive trees marching from end to end. A packed dirt path led down the hill and into a valley toward a stone house with no roof. The trees had not been pruned in several years and had a feral look about them: their leaves were parched and silver, but some of them had fruited in spite of their neglect, and clusters of small green pips were visible among the branches. Hassan had availed himself of this modest bounty and was seated between the roots of the largest tree with a pile of olives in his lap, his shoes off and overturned in the dust.

“They taste awful,” he said cheerfully, spitting out a pit. “A raw olive is a different animal from a cured one, apparently. God bless the man who first taught the world how to cure olives. He and the man who invented cheese are two unsung pillars of civilization.”

“They were probably women,” muttered Fatima, fanning her face with the sleeve of her robe. “If they were men, we would remember their names.”

“You’re in a good mood this morning. Here, have an olive. It’s no worse than what we ate last night, tastewise.”

Fatima winced and shook her head. In front of her, Vikram was bounding along the dirt path down the hillside, his black hair trailing behind him like a tattered flag. In the strong light, he looked quite human: like a hermit perhaps, or a dervish, a man long alone in the wilderness, but a man nonetheless. When he reached the bottom of the hill, he made for a stone circle with slats of wood piled on top that sat a little distance from the empty house, ringed with clumps of grass that looked very green against the parched landscape that surrounded them.