The Bird King(68)
“Gwennec,” she breathed.
“That lying pig-eater,” said Hassan incredulously. “This is how they knew. He must have found a way to signal them from the boat while we were sleeping. That’s why he was always scuttling up the mast and messing about with the ship’s colors. He’s betrayed us.”
Chapter 15
The horses bore down on them so fast that Fatima could feel the rhythm of their hoof beats in her feet, through the shuddering earth. She turned in a circle, looking for a path of escape: to her right, a cluster of low, plaster fishing huts streaked with lichen and moss; to her left, a row of merchant stalls and money-changing houses atop a stone seawall, flanked by weary-looking palm trees. Between the fishing huts, there were narrow alleys cluttered with remnants of old gear: moldy rope and buckets of lime and the half-finished errata of boat carpentry. These, perhaps, held promise. Fatima ran toward the closest opening, dragging Hassan behind her. They splashed through a puddle that was deeper than it looked and soaked themselves up to their calves, Hassan swearing loudly all the while. Then there was a sound, a hiss, and something rippled the surface of the water: it was a crossbow bolt, quivering where it had lodged in the mud. Fatima shrank back, panting.
“You can stop there,” came an amused, accented baritone. “Unless you want a bolt in the back as well.”
Fatima turned. She couldn’t tell who had spoken: the voice had come from one of the innumerable steel helms, rendering the speaker as anonymous as a woman in a veil. The only bare head was Gwennec’s. He was close enough now for Fatima to see his face: he looked stricken and pale, his usual ruddy color confined to a stripe of sunburn across his nose and cheeks. He stared at her with a trapped, wide-eyed expression that might have been guilt. Fatima felt a profound desire to spit in his face, but since he was mounted and she was on foot, the angle was inconvenient.
“Well,” said the baritone. “This is a happy meeting.” A stout man on a large, dappled charger removed his helm. The face beneath was familiar, sun-darkened and square: it was, Fatima realized with some surprise, the general who had come to the Alhambra with Luz under a flag of peace. He handed the reins of his horse to the man beside him and dismounted, landing in the mud with a solid, wet sound.
“Do you remember me, Fatima?” he asked. Fatima said nothing. He ambled toward her, smiling, as though they had met by chance on some pleasant outing. “No? You once served me bread with your dirty little foot.” He balled one gauntleted hand into a fist.
“Fatima,” came Gwennec’s voice, trembling. “Fatima, listen to me—”
Fatima collapsed. For a moment, she couldn’t catch her breath: it was only after she had air in her lungs that she felt the pain radiating out from her middle and realized the general had punched her in the gut. Pricks of light obscured her vision, and she heard, rather than saw, the sound of steel colliding with flesh, twice, while Hassan howled in agony.
“Send word to the baronesa,” said the general, his feet squelching in the mud as he walked back toward his horse. “Tell her the situation is resolved. Take the girl back to my tent. On second thought—take the sorcerer too. Why not? Both of them, one after the other. We’ll see who likes it better.”
Fatima tasted blood in the back of her throat. Someone was dragging her to her feet: she resisted for only a moment before she began to wheeze again and the pain overtook her. She told herself she must find her footing and reached out with her toes, digging them into the mud to keep herself upright. The boat—their boat—rose and sank beyond the throng of men, tethered to the wharf only by the gangplank the dockmaster had left there, its sails struggling to catch the rising air. Fatima watched it with regret.
“It’s not fair,” she slurred, swaying into the steel-plated man who held her arm.
“No,” came the general’s voice, which sounded, at least to her, sympathetic. “It isn’t fair. These things never are. But, my dear, this is the only possible outcome when a couple of unarmed civilians confront a superior force with heavy weaponry. You can count, can’t you? This is about numbers. You should never have run in the first place. Not even your demon familiar can help you, unless he can conjure ten thousand men and arm them with pikes.”
“He wasn’t a demon,” said Fatima, shaking.
“Of course you’d say so. You moon-worshipping sodomites are as backward about the unseen as you are about everything else.” The general inhaled noisily and spat a gob of phlegm at her feet. Before him was a row of tents forming a bivouack in the mud a short distance from the western edge of town, where the red-roofed houses gave way to pigsties and pastures. The largest, a circular tent of white canvas upon which the Castilian arms were painted, was open, the tent flap drawn back to reveal an interior as well appointed as a palace room: there were furs and a brazier with coals glowing inside, and a wooden table covered with charts and missives. To one side was a pallet on a low platform; it had been slept in recently, the blankets crumpled around the absent form of the sleeper. Seeing it, Fatima bent forward and gagged.
“You’re making this too easy,” said the general drily. He dismissed the man who held her arm, and taking her by the collar, shoved her through the open tent flap. She stumbled, landing on the carpet of furs inside. Behind her, she could hear the general begin to unbuckle his breastplate. A numbness crept up her legs, making them heavy, as if she had spent too long in a hot bath. She fought it, knowing it was surrender, her mind abandoning her body to save itself from what came next.