King and Emperor

trifle better than the others, also carrying other men's gear besides his own.

“Next time that little bastard comes back,” Shef rasped. “If he takes off again, shoot him. Solomon”—the Jewish interpreter seemed less troubled at least by heat and thirst than the others, though he too was gasping and staggering with fatigue. “Tell him. Rest and water. Or he's dead.”

Solomon seemed to say something in reply, but Shef ignored him. The little bastard was back. Shef reached painfully to grab his one garment, but he twisted aside, swept an arm impatiently, started to scuttle forward. Cwicca had him in wavering sights. And there, just above, there seemed to be a crest with the boy disappearing fast over it.

With his last strength Shef struggled over it. Saw in front of him a small, mean village of a dozen houses, of stone that looked as if it had grown from the rock all around. More important than the houses, the flat green in front of it. By the side of it, trickling from the rock, a spring running into a stone cistern. Suddenly and clearly through the relentless noise of the cicadas in the scrub, Shef could hear the tinkle of water running.

He turned back, saw his men straggled out for a hundred yards down the hillside. He tried to call out to them, “Water!” found the word stick in his throat. The nearest saw it in his eyes, came on with renewed energy. Far down the slope Styrr and Bersi, Thorgils and Ogmund crawled hopelessly on.

Shef slid down the hill, seized the nearest, muttered “Water,” in his ear, pointed him to the crest-line. Slid on to the next. Styrr had to be half-pulled the last fifty feet, and when he reached the top, even with Shef's shoulder under his arm he staggered like a drunk on the level ground.

They were making a bad show, Shef realized, whoever was watching. They looked less like a king and his bodyguard than they did a troop of beggars with a dancing bear. He heaved Styrr more firmly upright and snarled at him to pull himself together, look like a drengr. Styrr simply tottered towards the water, was met by Bersi with a bucket. He threw half of it over the gasping giant, thrust the rest into his hand.

“He will die if he swills cold water in that state,” remarked Solomon, holding an empty dipper. Shef nodded, looked round. The rest had drunk, seemed able to think of something other than their thirst. He himself could smell the water, felt the urge to throw himself at it and into it as the others had clearly done.

They were being watched. If this had been a trap it would have worked. For long minutes there his men would have offered no resistance to sword or spear or arrow, unless it had been between them and the water. Shef stiffened himself pridefully, took the dipper full of water that Cwicca passed him, forced himself to hold it without apparent awareness. He walked towards the ring of watching men with his head up.

They had bows and axes, but they did not look formidable. Mere working and hunting tools, and the men who held them, some thirty or so, looking like shepherds or fowlers, not warriors. No signs of rank were visible, but Shef had learnt to watch men's bearing. That one there, the greybeard with no weapon: he was the chief.

He walked towards him, tried to speak sardonically, to say, “You brought us by a weary road.” The words would not come out. He lifted the dipper, rinsed the dust from his mouth, felt it swirl across his throat. The urge to swallow, constricting, almost overpowering. He would show them who was master, of himself at least. He spat the water on the ground, spoke his piece.

No understanding. The eyes had widened when he spat out the water, but just a furrowed brow when he spoke. He was speaking the wrong language. Shef tried again in his simple Arabic.

“You took our woman.”

The greybeard nodded.

“Now you must give her up.”

“First you must tell me something. Do you not need water?”

Shef lifted the dipper, looked at the water in it, threw it on the ground. “I drink when I choose. Not when my body chooses.”

A slight ripple from the listening men. “Tell me then. What is that you wear on your breast?”

Shef looked down at the sign of his god, the pole-ladder of Rig. This was like the scene he had undergone long ago when first he met Thorvin. More was meant than was being said.

“In my language it is a ladder. In the language of my god and the Way I follow, it is a kraki. I met a man once who called it a graduale.”

They were listening now, very intently. Solomon was at his side, ready to translate. Shef waved him back. He must not lose the intimate contact, even if all the two could speak was mangled Arabic.

“Who called it that?”

“It was the emperor Bruno.”

“You were close to him? He was your friend?”

“I was as close to him as I am to you. But he was not my friend. I have had his sword at my throat. They tell me he is close to me again, now.”

“He knows about the graduale.” The greybeard seemed to be talking to himself. He looked up again. “Stranger, do you know of the Lance he carries?”

“I gave it to him. Or he took it from me.”

“Maybe, then, you would take something from him?”

“Willingly.”

The tension in the air seemed to drain. Shef turned and saw that his men were on their feet again, weapons raised, looking as if they might be able to resist attack, or even, as they reckoned the limited odds against them, begin one.

“We will return your woman. And feed you and your men. But before you return”—Shef's flesh shrank at the thought of retracing their steps, downhill or up—“first you must pass a test. Or fail it. Either is the same to me. But to pass it might be good for you, and for the world. Tell me, your god, whose sign you bear: do you love him?”

Shef could not help the grin from spreading across his face. “Only an idiot would love the gods of my people. They are there, that is all I know. If I could escape them, I would.” His grin faded. “There are some gods I hate and fear.”

“Wise,” said the greybeard. “Wiser than your woman. Wiser than the Jew at your side.”

He called an order, men began to bring out bread, cheese, what looked like skins of wine. Slowly Shef's men sheathed or uncocked their weapons, looked questioningly at their lord. But Shef had seen Svandis coming limpingly towards him, wearing only the slashed and blood-stained tatters of her white dress.

To the Jewish scholars and counselors of the city-state of Septimania, the departure of their colleague Solomon—off in the mountains somewhere, escorting the king of the barbarians on some pointless chase—came as a relief. Doubt was already strong as to whether Solomon had been wise in bringing the strangers to them. Yet it could be represented as a service to the Caliph, their nominal overlord, to revictual and resupply men who had once been his allies, and who were at any rate enemies of the Christians now pressing so close. Nevertheless one matter at least was outstanding, a worry to both prince and council.

The affair of the young Arab Mu'atiyah. It was clear that he was a subject of the Caliph Abd er-Rahman: as indeed were they, the Jews of Septimania, at least in theory. Did they not pay to the Caliph the kharaj and the jizya, the land-tax and the poll-tax? And did they not guard their gates against his enemies and those of his Faith, the Christians and the Franks? It was true that that guard did not extend in any way to limiting trade with their near-neighbors, true too that the tax payments were made according to calculations done by the council itself, which would not have passed muster with the Caliph's own tax-collectors, none of whom any longer courted embarrassment by appearing in the city. Nevertheless—so said the majority on the council—there was no precedent for imprisoning the young man merely to prevent his return to his master.

As the council debated, the old prince watched his learned men, stroking his beard. He knew what Solomon would have said, had he been here. That the Arab would immediately flee to his master and report that the Jews had made common cause with the barbarians, the polytheists, that they were providing a base for a hostile fleet which had fled from contact with the Greeks and now planned its own attacks on the peaceful countryside. Little of that was true, but that was how it would be presented, and how it would be believed.

In any of the Christian dukedoms or princedoms of the border country, such a matter would have been the simplest thing in the world. Ten words, and the Arab would disappear. If he ever were inquired about, polite regret and ignorance would be expressed. And the baron or duke or prince would have thought no more about it than about pruning his roses.