The Lions of Al-Rassan (28 page)

She said, “I remember what you said in Fezana. That it was none of your doing.”

“You didn’t believe me.”

“Yes, I did.”

He glanced at her. They continued walking.

She had seen him go by earlier, from the doorway of the infirmary. Her two patients had been sleeping, one drugged against the pain of a shattered arm, the other still deeply confused, a contusion the size of an ostrich egg on the side of his head. Jehane had left instructions that he be awakened after each of the night bells. Too deep a sleep tonight carried a risk.

She had been standing near the open doorway, breathing the night air, struggling against fatigue, when ibn Khairan went past. She had put on her cloak and followed him, without thinking about it, no reason save impulse for justification.

They had done something astonishing that day, he and Rodrigo Belmonte. Two men against five and had she not known better it might have seemed that the five had consented to be cut down, so swift and crisply defined and elegant had it been. She
did
know better, though. She was treating two of the five tonight. The Karcher with the broken arm was struggling to deal with what had happened. He was bitter, humiliated. Not a man accustomed to losing battles. Not that way, at any rate.

Stepping out into the street after ibn Khairan Jehane had been awkwardly aware that there were other kinds of women who did this sort of thing, especially after what had happened today. She half-expected to see some of them trailing behind the man, adorned, perfumed. Pursuing the hero of the moment, approaching to touch—to be touched by—glory, the shimmer that clung to fame. She had nothing but contempt for such women.

What she’d done in following him was not remotely the same thing, she told herself. She wasn’t young or bedazzled; she wore a plain white cloth cap to keep her hair from her eyes while she worked, no jewelry, mud-stained boots. She was level-headed, a physician, and observant.

“Weren’t you hurt this afternoon?” she said, glancing sideways and up at him. “I thought I saw you take a sword in the leg.”

He looked dryly amused, an expression she remembered. “A scratch, truly. One of them caught me with his blade when he fell. It is kind of you to ask, doctor. How are your patients?”

She shrugged. “The broken arm will be all right. It set easily enough. The Batiaran that Ser Rodrigo felled was still having trouble remembering his mother’s name before he fell asleep.”

Ibn Khairan grinned, the white teeth flashing. “Now that
is
serious. If it were his father’s name, of course, I’d call that normal for Batiara.”

“Go ahead and jest,” she said, refusing to laugh. “You don’t have to deal with it.” A silly thing to say.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, all solicitude. “Did I add to your burdens today?”

She winced. She’d asked for that. It was important to watch what one said with this man. He was as sharp as Mazur was. At least as sharp.

“How is your father?” he said, changing tone. She glanced over in surprise and then away. She had a clear memory, as they walked through the dark streets, of this man on his knees before Ishak last summer, their hands clasped together.

“My parents are well enough, I thank you. My father . . . has dictated some letters to me since that night in Fezana. I believe that . . . speaking with you was of help to him.”

“I am honored that you think so.”

No irony in the voice now. She had heard his lament tonight. He had slain a man she herself had sworn to destroy. Had made her own vain, childish oath the meaningless thing it always had been. She had actually been close to grief, hearing the cadenced verses. The sorrow behind the sword.

She said, “I had intended to kill Almalik myself. For my father. That’s why I left Fezana.” As she spoke the words, as she told him, Jehane understood that this was why she had come out into the cold of the night.

“I am not surprised,” he murmured, after a pause. A generous thing to say. Taking her seriously. A Kindath woman. A child’s rash vow. “Are you angry that I forestalled you?”

She hadn’t expected that either. She walked beside him a while in silence. They turned a corner. “I’m a little ashamed,” she said. “I did nothing at all for four years, then came here and did nothing again.”

“Some tasks take longer than others. As it happens, it was a little easier for me.”

Disguised as a slave. She had heard the tale from Mazur just before the banquet this evening. Poison on a towel. The royal son entirely complicitous, then exiling ibn Khairan. There had to be pain there.

They turned another corner. Two lights shone ahead of them now at the end of the street, outside the infirmary. Another memory rising suddenly, against her will. That same summer’s night in Fezana, the same room. Herself with this man at the window, rising on her toes to kiss him. A challenge.

I must have been mad,
she thought. She stopped at the entrance to the infirmary.

And as if he could actually trace the course of her thoughts, Ammar ibn Khairan said, “Was I right about the chancellor, by the way?” A revealed edge of amusement again, infuriatingly.

“Right about what?” she temporized.

He would have seen where she had been placed tonight, at the banquet. He would have duly noted the fact that she was there at all. She hoped, fiercely, that he could not see her flushing. She almost regretted now that she had come.

He laughed softly. “I see,” he said. And then, mildly, “Are you looking in on your patients, or going home?”

She glared up at him. Anger again. Useful. “What does that mean?” she said coldly. In the light from the torches she could see his face clearly now. He regarded her with composure, but she thought she saw laughter lingering in his eyes. “What does ‘I see’ mean?” she demanded.

A brief silence. “Forgive me,” he said gravely. “Have I offended?”

“With that tone you did, yes,” she said sturdily.

“Then I shall have to chastise him for you.”

The voice was behind her, and known. She wheeled, but not before she saw ibn Khairan’s gaze shift beyond her and his expression change.

In the doorway to the infirmary Rodrigo Belmonte stood in a spill of candlelight, wearing the same overtunic and vest he’d worn to the banquet, with his sword on one hip.

“I am always being chastised by someone,” ibn Khairan complained.

Rodrigo gave a snort of amusement. “I doubt that,” he said. “But you ought to know, if you don’t already, that Mazur ben Avren’s lack of success with our doctor here has been the talk of Ragosa for months.”

“It has?” said Ammar politely.

“It
has
?” said Jehane in a very different tone.

“I’m afraid so,” Rodrigo replied, looking at her. He, too, was amused now, a certain wryness to the expression beneath the full moustache. “I must confess I’ve made a sum of money in this matter.”

“You’ve been
wagering
on me?” Jehane heard her voice swirling upwards.

“I have great confidence in all the members of my company,” Rod-rigo said.

“I am
not
a member of your company!”

“I continue to live in hope,” he murmured blandly.

Behind her, ibn Khairan laughed aloud. She wheeled on him. He held up his hands in a quick, warding gesture. Jehane was silent, speechless in fact. And then, resisting all the way, she felt her own amusement welling up. She began to laugh, helplessly.

She leaned in the doorway, wiping at her eyes, looking from one man to the other. From within the infirmary the two night attendants looked disapprovingly towards the three of them. Jehane, who had to give the attendants firm instructions in a moment, struggled for composure.

“She can’t join us,” said Ammar ibn Khairan. He had moved into the entranceway, out of the cutting wind. “Ben Avren will never let her leave the city.”

“Us?” said Rodrigo.

“Leave the city?”
said Jehane, in the same moment.

The handsome, smooth-shaven face turned from one of them to the other. He took his time before speaking.

“Some things do seem obvious,” said ibn Khairan, looking at the Valledan. “King Badir will be exceedingly nervous about having both of us in Ragosa this winter without gainful activity. We will be sent somewhere. Together. I’ll place a wager on that. And given what you have just told me about the chancellor’s entirely understandable interest in our splendid physician he is not going to permit her to leave Fezana with two such irresponsible men.”

“I am
not
an irresponsible man,” said Rodrigo Belmonte indignantly.

“I beg to dissent,” Ammar said calmly. “Jehane told me that you caused a Batiaran mercenary—a fine man, a doughty soldier—to forget his own mother’s name this afternoon! Deeply irresponsible, I call that.”

“His mother’s?” Rodrigo exclaimed. “Not his father’s? If it was his father’s name—”

“You could understand it. I know,” said Jehane. “The high lord ibn Khairan has already made that feeble jest. Among other things the two of you appear to share the same childish humor.”

“Other things? What other things? I may now be offended.” Ibn Khairan’s expression belied the words. He didn’t look weary or unfocused any more, she noted. The physician in her was pleased with that. She chose to ignore the question.

“I am the one offended, remember? And you haven’t apologized yet. Nor have
you,
” she said, turning upon Belmonte. “Wagering on my conduct! And how dare you assume that the chancellor of Ragosa—or anyone else—dictates where and when I travel?”

“Good!” said Rodrigo. “I have been waiting a long time to hear you say that! A winter campaign will be an excellent trial for all of us.”

“I didn’t say—”

“
Won’t
you come?” he said. “Jesting aside, Jehane, I badly need a good doctor, and I still remember something you said, about working among Esperañans. Will you give us a chance to prove a point about that?”

Jehane remembered it too. She remembered that night extremely well.
Even the sun goes down, my lady.
She turned her mind from that thought.

“What?” she said, sardonically. “Are there no pilgrims heading to blessed Queen Vasca’s Isle this year?”

“Not from my company,” said Rodrigo quietly.

There was a silence. He had a way of stilling you, she thought.

“You might also consider that a campaign outside the city would give you a respite from ben Avren’s attentions,” said ibn Khairan, a little too casually.

She spun to glare at him. His hands came up again, defensively. “Assuming, of course, you want a respite,” he added quickly. “He’s a remarkable man. A poet, a chancellor, a genuine scholar. Prince of the Kindath. Your mother would be proud.”

“If I let him bed me?” she asked sweetly.

“Well no, not that, I suppose. I was thinking of something more formal, of course. Something . . .”

He stopped, having registered the look in her eyes. His hands came up for a third time, as if to block an assault. His rings glittered.

Jehane glared at him, her own fingers curled into fists. The problem was, she kept wanting to laugh, which made it difficult to cling to outrage. “You are in grave trouble if you happen to get sick on this campaign,” she said grimly. “Did no one ever warn you not to offend your doctor?”

“Many people, many times,” Ammar admitted ruefully. “I’m just not a responsible man, I fear.”

“I am,” said Rodrigo cheerfully. “Ask anyone!”

“Only,” she snapped over her shoulder, “because you’re terrified of your wife. You told me so!”

Ibn Khairan laughed. A moment later, so did Belmonte, his color high. Jehane crossed her arms, refusing to smile, scowling at both of them.

She felt extraordinarily happy, though.

The temple bells chimed, beyond the rooftops south of them, bright and clear in the cold night, to awaken the devout for prayer.

“Go home,” said Jehane to both men, looking into the infirmary. “I have patients to check on.”

They glanced at each other.

“And leave you here alone? Would your mother approve?” asked ibn Khairan.

“My father would,” Jehane said crisply. “This is a hospital. I am a doctor.”

That sobered them. Ibn Khairan bowed, and Belmonte did the same. They left, walking together. She watched them go, standing in the doorway until they were swallowed up by the night. She stood for another moment there, staring at the darkness before going into the infirmary.

The Karcher with the fractured arm still slept. It was what he needed. She had given him absinthe for pain, and her father’s mixture to help him rest.

She woke the other man gently, with the attendants on either side of his pallet. Sometimes they were violent when awakened. These were fighting men. The Batiaran knew her, though, which was good. She had them hold up a torch for her and she looked at his eyes: cloudy still, but better than before and he followed her finger when she moved it before his face. She put a hand behind his head and helped him drink: cloves, myrrh and aloes, for what had to be a brutal headache.