The Bird King(43)

Fatima was glad it had grown too dark for her to see what he was looking at. She lay back against the rapidly cooling stone and shut her eyes. Free and toes up, her feet were beginning to throb.

“Is this really the farthest you’ve ever walked?” asked Hassan, massaging her ankles. “When I came to apprentice at the Alhambra, I walked for four whole days with a pack that weighed half as much as I did. I still remember the way my knees felt at the end. The other boys were all from wealthier families—they bought rides to the capital with the cloth merchant caravans. They made fun of me for weeks.”

“Hassan,” said Fatima, trying not to betray her frustration, “I was born in the harem, in the yellow-and-white guest room that opens onto the shaded part of the courtyard. The farthest I’ve ever walked in my life was from my room to yours.”

Hassan stared at her in disbelief. Then, impulsively, he leaned down and kissed the instep of her foot.

“Precious girl,” he murmured. “Your poor feet.”

“She’ll survive,” said Vikram with a long-suffering sigh. “Though I may not, at this rate. Up you go, Fatima. Put your arms around my neck. We’ll make for the foot of that slope, there. Hassan—stay close to me and clear of the lights. The men at those campfires are not your friends.”

As gamely as she could, Fatima laced her arms around the back of Vikram’s neck, clinging to him as he hoisted her onto his back. At this angle, all his limbs seemed disproportionate; it was difficult to look at him without a stab of revulsion, of primitive fear. Fatima laid her head between his shoulders and closed her eyes again, remembering the palace dog and attempting to forget everything else.

“This way, then.”

The lithe shoulders beneath Fatima’s cheek swayed back and forth. She could hear Hassan traipsing along nearby, his breath labored. Night air had altered the scent of the hills: the sweetish perfume of carob and juniper replaced the yellow-green smell of grass; the breeze was full of pine sap. Opening one eye, she saw the ground to their left spill away into a rubbly depression, the stones marbled in the bluish light of the band of stars overhead. At the bottom was a shallow pool of black water.

“That’s the flood basin,” said Hassan. “We’re doing all right. We’re doing very well, actually.”

Fatima felt Vikram grumble beneath her cheek, though he said nothing. The grasses thinned into rock and scrub as they moved toward higher ground. The mountains were opaque before them; the campfires Fatima had seen at a distance seemed to hang in the sky. She could hear laughter, faint but sharp, carried with the smell of woodsmoke.

“Men everywhere,” muttered Vikram. “Men on the road, men in the foothills, men at our backs. What a pageant. This is the last favor I’ll ever do for that woman.”

“It’s only a bit farther to this first gully.” Hassan’s face was ghostly in the dark. “It’s quite steep. Maybe we can find an overhang or some such thing to shelter under.”

“Make one,” said Fatima. “A nice, dry place to rest. You can do that much, Hassan, I know you can.”

Hassan mumbled something inaudible and scuffed at the ground with the toe of his boot. Nevertheless, he withdrew the map from his satchel, holding it up against Vikram’s flank as they walked and scratching away at one corner with a nub of charcoal.

“That’s not terribly comfortable,” Vikram complained.

“Wait,” said Hassan. “I’m almost done. There. Look at this, Fa.”

Fatima unlinked one hand from around Vikram’s shoulders and held up the altered map, turning it this way and that to catch what feeble light she could. On the northwestern edge of the map, near the mouth of a narrow valley between two steep slopes, there was now a series of closely concentric shapes, like a knot in the bark of a tree.

“A cave,” said Fatima.

“Yes, a cave,” said Hassan, dancing a little. “I do so like being useful.”

“Let me see that.” Vikram reached over his shoulder and snatched the paper out of Fatima’s hands. He examined it for a long moment. “Remarkable,” he said finally. “The wind has just changed key to accommodate your landscaping efforts. I can hear it whistling up ahead. Look.”

Fatima followed his gaze up the embankment they were climbing. Beyond the pine trees, the ground rose sharply and narrowed to a peak. Another hill was visible just beyond it. The pairing was familiar: it was the entrance to the gully that led southwest on Hassan’s map, and sure enough Fatima saw, tucked into the eastern flank of the nearest slope, a blot of darkness among the rocks.

“Your talent is a far finer thing than I had thought, Hassan of Granada,” said Vikram. He sounded somewhat astonished. “It’s one thing to alter the works of man, but quite another to alter those of nature. Tell me—when you were a child, did you confuse colors with sounds, or perhaps with numbers?”

“Yes,” said Hassan, surprised. “And numbers had genders, too—they were male or female, and sometimes both, and sometimes a third sex without a name. Whenever I heard a loud sound, I saw a color or a pattern, as though a cloth had been laid over my eyes. It was abominably confusing.”

“It would be,” said Vikram in a distracted voice, studying the map again. “Yes. That’s common enough with a gift such as this.”