The Afgan Campaign

54

Ash adds one caution as we ride out: I must make absolutely certain, when I deliver them, that the brother takes the money and the horse into his hands. “Once he accepts the bridle, he cannot go back on his oath. Until then, you have nothing but air.”

I report everything to Shinar as soon as I return. She has known, from the day of the Women’s Festival, of her brother’s presence in camp. Two girls of her village spoke to her there. “They said nothing of him. But I could read their eyes.”

Ghilla is staying with us. Both women are uneasy. They want to move to a new camp. Now, tonight. They fear that Baz and the cousins, despite their pledges, will come after them here.

But where can we move? The city is overrun. There’s not a slave’s closet left.

Stephanos saves us. Through a friend he gets us into the bachelor officers’ compound, the most secure part of the military camp. Macks only. We get a tent with the grooms. It’s not bad. Because of the horses, there’s day-and-night security. Among the scores of camps sprawling over thousands of acres, it’s impossible that Baz could locate us here.

Dawn lacks only an hour by the time I get the women and infants settled. I’m too frayed to sleep, and besides, I have to present myself early at the Quartermaster’s to apply for the army monetary draft.

I’m changing into a clean tunic when Stephanos appears with his friend, the captain who got us in to the secure compound. He vows to watch over Shinar and Ghilla. He’ll put three men on the tent, so two will always be awake.

I should stay myself. I should get Flag and Boxer and squat on the threshold all day, till it’s time for the wedding.

But I have to get the money.

I have to seal the contract.

By noon I have crossed and recrossed the city half a dozen times. Every clerk hands me a different story. The Quartermaster’s office is closed for the wedding. The office is open but it’s been moved across town. The office wants to help me, but the secretary can’t find my service scrolls. The office is closing in twenty minutes.

Alexander’s wedding has sent the town into hysteria. Every lane is jammed with tailors and laundry-runners. Shoeless urchins dash along army-camp byways, delivering freshly shined boots and just-burnished helmets. I have never seen so many military cloaks so pressed and dazzling. Bronze grommets flash like diadems. At the river’s edge, horses line up flank-to-flank, being lathered and scrubbed by their grooms. The plain must hold a thousand camps. At the margins of each squat natives by the hundred, saddle-soaping tack and wax-buffing bridles and brightwork. To keep the city spotless, our host, the warlord Chorienes, has pledged one copper coin for every gallon of horse droppings scooped from the public way and delivered to his stable stewards. Urchins brawl over turds at every street corner. The city sparkles.

The third quartermaster shunts me to the Honor Registry. The clerk can’t find my service documents, but does succeed in locating those of my brother Elias. Did I know I have a disbursement coming? Half of Elias’s death benefit (the other half goes to Philip).

This will save me.

Can I collect it?

Indeed. At home in Apollonia, in six months.

The clerk has to shutter his office. He’s a decent sort, though, and as I turn away, muttering, he hails me. “What about your dowry, Sergeant?”

The king’s treasury, he reminds me, will today present each wedded couple with a golden cup-easily worth the amount I need.

The problem is, the gift comes after the wedding.

“Find an Egyptian,” says the clerk. A payday lender. Someone who’ll advance me cash against my pledge of the dowry.

I try for two more hours. The bankers’ quarter has been sealed off by security forces. Its lane offers access to the Citadel; no one gets by except with a pass stamped with the royal seal. Someone tells me the usurers have decamped to temporary quarters; their tables are set up behind the Lane of the Armorers. I get within twenty feet before a procession of priests walls off the way. Zoroastrians, shuffling at a pace that makes a slug look speedy. Ceremonial mace-bearers shield the holy men’s flanks; you can’t cut through or the whole mob will fall on you. I can see the bankers’ tables, though. Each has a line before it, twenty men deep. Every other tapped-out scuff has the same idea I do. By the time I get round the parade, the tables are being taken away. No more shine. The crows have lent it all at double-and-a-half.

I get back to the bachelor officers’ compound an hour past noon. Ghilla and two other girls are preparing the ritual bath for Shinar. They won’t let me in the tent; it’s bad luck. My pressed cloak hangs on the post. I’m matted in dust. I have failed completely. I don’t have the cash for Baz and there’s no chance of getting it. As I sink onto a bench outside the tent, Flag rides up. He leads his own horse and my Snow, both curried and gleaming, and a third animal for me to ride back.

“Get the money?”

I shake my head.

Flag tosses a leather pouch. It strikes the ground, heavy and jingling.

“Shut up,” he says, “and take it.”

He won’t let me thank him.

“I’ll be back in an hour with Boxer and Little Red.” He means we four will ride out to meet with Baz. “Pack extra iron. In case they disarm us.”

I nod. “Where’s Ash?”

“At the Pactyan camp. Or he said he’d be.”

The site where we are to meet Shinar’s brother and the cousins is about twenty minutes out on the plain. It will take twice that long to get there today, with the throngs packing the roads.

I dress in five minutes. The remainder of the hour I spend prowling the perimeter of our lane. The captain’s guards stand in place. All our women are accounted for except Jenin, the abortion girl, who is off fetching laundry.

I repeat Ash’s warning to myself: Get Snow’s bridle into the brother’s hands. That will seal the compact.

So close now.

One last turn and we’re in the clear.

Flag comes back with Boxer and Little Red. He has changed into full formal uniform, for the wedding, including his military cloak, under which he has stashed a Spartan-style gut-cutter (in case Baz and the cousins try to pull something shady) with a khofari knife strapped to his thigh and a pair of throwing daggers tucked in his boots. Boxer and Red wait outside on their horses. I part from Shinar. It takes my mates and me an hour to reach the Pactyan camp. Three thoroughfares converge there; the approach lanes swarm with companies of cavalry, allies, and irregulars, and thousands of festival-goers on foot. The postnoon sun is blistering. Grit kicks up from a hundred heat dusters. “There it is,” says Flag.

We can see the entry, where our shikari was turned back yesterday. A cluster of tribesmen awaits. Ash paces out front.

No Baz.

No cousins.

I rein before him.

“Where’s the brother?”

Ash looks distraught.

“Where are they?”

“I knew they’d pull this,” says Flag.

“Ash…”

“I don’t know,” he says.

“…what’s going on?”

“I don’t know!”

Flag’s glance scans the onlookers’ faces. They know. They have come to watch us. To enjoy our discomfiture.

Two Afghans make a grab for my mare. I jerk her clear. “Where is Baz?” I shout in Dari.

The men lunge to steal Snow. Flag looses his saber; Boxer’s and Red’s lances freeze the pack where they stand. “Ash,” I bawl, “what the fuck is going on?!”

“Matthias!” Flag points into the crowd looking on.

Jenin.

The abortion girl.

She sees us pointing and takes off like a hare. My spurs dig. In a heartbeat Flag and I are at the gallop. The girl dodges between tents. A crowd blocks our pursuit.

“The fuckers have skulled us,” Flag calls. Lured us away from our compound. From protecting Shinar and the baby.

I see Jenin bolt away down a lane of the camp. Ash’s warning from yesterday screams in my ears.

Fear these wenches, for A’shaara binds them as pitilessly as an eagle’s claw holds a dove.