“You mean to pursue this Italian? I would not advise it,” said the major.
“No. I mean to put an end to this business entirely. But I will need you to look after Hector and Gaspar for me.”
“Of course.” The major nodded. “But where are you going?”
“Back to La Seo for my mount, and then to Valencia.”
“I see. Well, I’ve heard that Lord Admiral Magellan is a passionate man, but a good officer and a true patriot. I’m certain he will hear you out and see that justice is served.”
Qhora smiled. “I hope you’re right, major. Hector, Gaspar? Take care of each other and when you’re ready to travel again, I’ll see you back at home in Madrid.”
They all said their farewells and Qhora hurried back through the narrow icy corridors of Zaragoza back to the great cathedral. It took over an hour for the monks to help her pack a single bag of clothing and food while readying Wayra to leave. Most of the brothers wanted to express their seemingly boundless regrets at the invasion of their sanctuary the night before and the harsh treatment Qhora and her companions had suffered while guests under their holy roof. But eventually she was ready and mounted on Wayra’s shoulders once more. The monstrous eagle quorked and hissed as she strutted out into the bright glare of the morning sun reflecting off the icy walls, icy river, and icy snow drifts that covered the city in a glistening shell.
The hour was still early, but many people were already out in the streets on their way to work or already hard at it. The crowds forced Qhora to wind her way along side streets and back streets and any place that offered her a clearer path to the edge of city where she could escape the gasps and stares of the pedestrians and let her feathered hatun-anka run free across the frozen plains. It took nearly half an hour to do so, but when the vast rolling hills of Espana spread out before her she felt all her anxiety about controlling her mount melt away. There was no single road running straight from Zaragoza to Valencia, but Qhora glanced at the sun and noted the nearby mountain peaks and soon she had her bearings.
A light snow began to fall and Qhora folded up the stiff collar of her Espani coat to shield her face. She pressed her tricorn hat tightly over her hair and shook the reins.
“Sah!”
Wayra lowered her head on her long feathered neck and set out at a blistering sprint, her vicious claws slicing and splitting the frozen dirt with every step. The falling snow whipped back into Qhora’s eyes and she felt the tails of her fur coat and Enzo’s old army coat flapping behind her in the wind.
The huge eagle ran and ran. She dashed up and down hills, across roads, and over frozen streams. Time and again they startled some poor rabbit or fox crossing their path and the tiny white creature would bolt away into the half-dead remains of the underbrush to hide. And more than once Qhora cried out to some person ahead, “Pardon me!” just before the towering bird thundered past, leaving children screaming and adults stumbling back in the snow.
At noon she stopped at a small pond, hoping that the ice would prove easy to break and that there would be no angry spirit to contend with, but the ice proved too hard even for Wayra’s iron beak and so they were forced to eat snow, though Lorenzo had often cautioned her not to. They ate sparingly from the rations that the monks had provided and rested on a dry, rocky spot above the pond.
She was just about ready to coax Wayra back up to her feet when a familiar growl caught Qhora’s ear. Searching the northern trail they had been following, she saw a dark shape coming down the hill side. One part of her heart took wing with joy at the sight, while another part shriveled and quaked.
What are you doing here?
A few minutes later a very large saber-toothed cat was butting his head against her hands.
“I’m happy to see you too, my big brave boy,” she said into his thick bristling fur. “But you shouldn’t be here. You should have followed Enzo north. You should be protecting him, not me.”
Atoq merely purred his godlike purr, his entire skull vibrating with the sound.
“It’s all right,” she said. “But we have a long way still to go, and I have no meat for you. You’ll have to hunt for yourself and try to keep up as best you can.”
She stared into his huge golden eyes and tried to force him to understand her words by sheer willpower alone. He blinked and looked away, licking his fangs.
“All right then.” She climbed up into Wayra’s little shoulder saddle and turned to the southeast. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 20. Syfax
The long walk from Ciudad Real to Cordoba shrank by quite a few hours when a passing wine seller took pity on the two Mazighs and let them ride in the back of his cart. But it was an Espani cart, just a few wooden planks on a wooden axle with iron-rimmed wooden wheels, and the ancient contraption rattled and banged along the pitted road, rocking violently over every dip and bump. It rolled slowly and loudly, and it was completely exposed to the winter wind. And despite his best efforts, Syfax couldn’t sleep on it.
But Kenan could. The young lieutenant slept through the day and night and when he finally woke up his cold was gone and there was almost a hint of the old grinning kid in him again, despite the biting cold and the miserable cart. His nose hadn’t been broken after all, just bloodied and bruised. The major wondered if the kid had ever been seriously hurt in his life.
All the way to Cordoba, Syfax watched the horizon for soldiers on foot, soldiers on horseback, and military pigeons carrying death warrants across the gray skies, but he didn’t see any. It had taken most of an hour to lose the soldiers in Ciudad Real and then slip outside the city past the guards at the gate, but now it was almost as though the entire chase had never happened. No one out here seemed to know. No one seemed to care.
Syfax sat on the rear lip of the cart, feet dangling just above the icy road, staring out across the bleak white hills and thinking of his one-eyed lover.
What the hell sort of woman screws you, then calls the cops, and then helps you get away?
They had nearly reached Cordoba when a rider appeared on a distant hilltop behind them. Syfax watched the rider grow and grow until the figure became a tall Italian woman riding along next to the cart.
“Well, I’ll say this,” Nicola began. “At least this time I didn’t have any difficulty leaving the city to follow you. The soldiers were so busy looking for Mazighs that they didn’t care about me at all.”
“Yeah, sorry about running off like that,” Syfax drawled. “We ran into a little trouble first thing in the morning and had to get moving, and I sort of forgot about you. No hard feelings?”
“Of course not,” she said, her face blank and unreadable. “The first rule of anything is survival. I understand that as well anyone.”
When they reached Cordoba, Syfax almost thought they’d turned around in the night and returned to Ciudad Real. The cities looked so similar. Snow and ice on stone and brick, with too many bodies crammed into too narrow streets. Too many church spires loomed above the city like shepherds or sentinels, and too many soldiers loitered near the gates and intersections. After thanking the wine seller for the ride, Syfax led a very quiet Kenan through the main gates, passing within an arm’s length of three soldiers in blue. Nicola rode along in stately silence behind them. None of the men gave the towering Mazigh a second look.
They don’t know yet. We must be ahead of the pigeons still, so we have a few hours. Maybe a day or so. When they were well inside the city in the press of bodies and away from the guards, he said, “We should find someone who knows the coast and can give us directions. Maybe there’s a book store with a map.”
“I’m the map,” Kenan said, squinting into the bright light glinting off the icicles that hung from every eave and sign and withered tree. “Captain Ohana had me memorize them. All of Marrakesh and all the coasts of Espana, Numidia, and Italia. It seemed like a waste of time back then since I figured we would always have a map on the plane. I never figured on having to navigate without the plane.”
“Yeah, you learn something new every day,” Syfax said. “So we’re in Cordoba. Where should we go next, mister map? Sevilla? Tartessos?”
“No, no, you’re way off. That’s all west of here. We want the shortest way south to the coast, right? So we go south to Malaga, get a boat, sail along the coast to Gibraltar or so, and then cross the Strait to Tingis. Very easy. We’re halfway there already.”
