offense if we demur, even though we’ve just bolted a gutbusting supper back at camp. The brother and cousins do not sit. They don’t eat. They maintain their posts immediately behind the headman. I have no idea what this means. Their demeanor is sullen and combative; they stand with arms folded. When the mountain of rice has been devoured, which takes no more than ten minutes, the men begin debating, in Pactyan, the issue of Shinar and her violation of the code of A’shaara. No one invites me or Flag to speak, nor even glances in our direction. The chief and elders keep up a dialogue of their own of abundant mirth, apparently having nothing to do with our case. Passion animates the debate; at one point several clansmen have to be separated, nearly coming to blows. All hands are having a wonderful time.
Suddenly, as if by some signal that everyone can hear except Flag and me, all palaver ceases. Brother and cousins are called forward. They sit, facing me. “Toumah!” bawls an interpreter. “Speak.”
I do. I address the brother and cousin.
“Nah! Nah!”
The master of ceremonies corrects me. I’m supposed to plead my brief to the elders.
I make my case in Greek, with Ash translating. When I finish, a second round of debate begins. Again the headmen pay no attention. Several actually get up and leave, to relieve themselves I assume, returning to resume their animated converse. The period ends. Now Shinar’s brother Baz gets up to speak.
I would feel better if he were more angry. Instead, his manner is flinty and dour. He addresses the elders and the tribe, not me. When he gestures in my direction, which he does infrequently, his voice rises in register. I understand enough Pactyan to reckon that he hates me less as an individual, or for any injury I have personally inflicted upon him, than as a representative of the corps of Macedon, the detested invader. I am to him all aliens, all Macks. He hates us with a crimson passion.
Ash speaks into my ear. “Don’t take this too seriously. The man is good.”
Baz finishes his harangue to the elders and the tribe. Now he turns to me. In terms of cold and stony truculence, he reads out an indictment that would blanch the mane of Zeus. I make out three words from their repetition: “honor,” “insult,” and “justice.”
The brother finishes.
“Now,” prompts Ash, “offer money.”
Start low, he advises. I do. It’s not working. I ante nearly half my total bonus, three years’ pay. I’m getting nowhere.
“I add,” I say, “my horse.”
The congress erupts. Quirts jiggle exuberantly. Tribesmen rap each other with the backs of their right hands (to use the palm, or the left, would constitute a mortal insult). By magic my mare materializes, led by Afghan grooms. The throng surrounds her, five deep. Give these bandits their due; they know horses. From their animated jabbering, it is clear that Snow meets with their approval. I glance to Baz and the cousins. Clansmen are swatting them merrily. It looks good, Flag says. “These sheep-stealers are showing your boy respect.”
He’s right. Men continue congratulating Baz. Certainly no stain of dishonor remains in their eyes.
Offering my horse proves a brilliant stroke. Greedy as the Afghan is, gold holds less appeal for him (since he has so few opportunities to spend it) than articles of honor, such as the armor or weapons of an enemy, and more so his warhorse, particularly if that animal is a superb specimen like Snow in the prime of her fighting years. To acquire such a prize is almost as satisfying as murdering the foe himself.
“Have we got a deal?” I ask Ash.
Indeed, says he. Except for another hour of haggling over bridle and tack. Ash has taken over; he negotiates for me. “Give them everything,” I say. “Who cares?”
“Never! They will despise you and the animal if we don’t fight for this.”
In the end, Ash preserves my armor and weapons.
Now comes a second meal.
“Ash,” says Flag. “Get us the fuck out of here.”
The deal is struck. Shinar’s brother will give up his claim to vengeance under the laws of tor and A’shaara. I will recompense him with my horse and the agreed-upon indemnity.
I want to get this over with. But the amount I’ve pledged is too big to deliver in gold (I don’t have a tenth of it anyway). It will have to be an army draft, and acquiring that will take all night and most of tomorrow, if I’m lucky, to procure through the Quartermaster.
We’ll meet, the brother and I agree, tomorrow at the gate of the Pactyan camp, an hour before the military parade forms up.
Baz does not give me his hand on our understanding; that office is performed by the chief, according to custom. “Good deal!” says the old man in Greek.
I meet the brother’s eye. “Will this stand with you?”
“Bring the money and the horse.”
“If our nations can make peace, surely you and I can.”
Still Baz will not acknowledge.
“Leave my country,” says he. “Never come back.”
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.
