down at the paper in his lap, Samir turned his back, strode across to the window and began to climb out.
“I shall see you soon, sir. Have a good night.”
With a last smile, Samir clambered down from the window, climbed as far as the end of the bonding tile layers, and then dropped lightly to the street.
In the dark room, the governor put down the weapon and, standing, wrapped his robe tightly around him. Taking the paper and untying the ribbon, he placed it on the shelf while he lit the oil lamp and then retrieved and unfolded the note, and began to read.
As he neared the bottom of the text, his eyes sparkled.
The guard on duty outside the governor’s apartment started in surprise at the sound of deep laughter ringing out from his Excellency’s chamber in the middle of the night.
In which another journey begins
Asima stopped at the gate and listened to the midnight bells echo away.
“Move along, miss” the cavalry sergeant said quietly.
“Just a moment.” She turned and looked back up at the town gate, with its heavy towers to either side and battlements above. She was outside once more, away from the narrow, teeming streets in which she had grown up. M’Dahz should feel like home really, or at least it should have some vague connection for her. Instead, as she looked at it, the town of her birth, home to her father’s grave elicited no emotion from her at all.
With a raised eyebrow, she realised she’d not gone to see his last resting place after all. She’d left her father there so long ago in the knowledge that, by going to Pelasia for the satrap, her father would be safe. Curious how she’d hardly even thought of him after that. Had she always been this way, or had Pelasia changed her?
The sergeant, commander of the unit of a dozen Imperial cavalry that were to escort her back to the neighbouring kingdom, cleared his throat and smiled sympathetically.
“Sad to be leaving, miss?”
“Hardly!”
With a sneer, she spat once in the direction of the town and turned her back on it, hopefully for the last time, this time.
The guard stepped away, taken aback a little by her display. His face hardened and he gestured forcefully to the staging post a few hundred yards ahead where the coach, along with the baggage cart and the horses, waited, tended by her cavalry escort.
“Get in the coach, miss, and we’ll get you away from here.”
Asima nodded sourly as she strode over toward the small settlement. Staging posts now existed outside each of the city’s gates, growing gradually into villages in their own right. The new governor had banned unlicensed work animals and vehicles from the town. The administration claimed that it lowered the chance of accidents and trouble in the steep and narrow streets and made the city cleaner and safer. This was certainly true, though the more cynical also noted that the licenses were a good source of revenue also.
And so these small settlements were springing up; corrals with animal traders and stabling facilities to take advantage of the new laws, traders to take advantage of the high turnover of travellers, desert nomads come close to the city to sell their own wares and purchase goods unavailable in the hot sands, and finally the inevitable beggars, homeless and hopeless.
The coach and its escort stood at the edge of the small settlement, the guards keeping a watchful eye over the vagrants and nomads in their makeshift shelters nearby. Asima barely noticed them as she strode past, her nose wrinkling at the smell, toward her transport to Pelasia.
A few yards from the coach, one of the scarecrows in tattered black, lounging cross-legged beside a dancing fire, stood and, her curved back giving her a slight stoop, shuffled toward them on a course of interception. The sergeant began to steer Asima to the side away from the woman, gaunt and dark and haggard, but the desert- dweller changed direction and homed in on them once again.
Asima’s sneer was still in full effect and the old woman cackled, grinning, as she approached.
“Want to hear your fortune, lady?”
Asima shook her head, irritably.
“A toothless desert hag has less idea of my future than the stars, let alone myself. Get back to your tent, crow-woman.”
The sergeant frowned at her. He may not approve of beggars and vagrants, but these people had broken no law and served a purpose, no matter how small.
“Here,” he said, dropping a few copper coins into her hand as he reached out to grasp Asima’s wrist and arrest her forward motion. As she jerked to a halt, her eyes flashing angrily, the sergeant turned to her.
“I’ll pay to hear your future, just to be sure that in no way am I in it, lady Asima.”
His charge glared at him as he turned and smiled at the old woman with the dishevelled hair.
“Tell her and I’ll double your money when we leave.”
The old woman smiled a cracked smile and reached out gently for Asima’s hand. The young lady recoiled in disgust, but the sergeant, his hand still on her wrist, pushed her hand out so that the fortune teller could reach. This she did and, with narrow, leathery fingers, she caressed the top of Asima’s hand.
“You are a woman with a destiny” the old woman said quietly.
Asima nodded.
“I hardly need a stinking old crow to tell me that!”
The sergeant treated her to an angry glare as the old woman went on, rubbing small circles on the back of Asima’s hand before turning it over to examine the palm.
“Your life has been transition, constantly. Each time you feel you are nearing your goal, it is snatched away from you, yes?”
Asima stopped struggling to pull away, her brow furrowing. Her astonishment at the fact that the woman had so accurately summed up her life since the day the satrap Ma’ahd came was compounded by the surprise at the old woman’s soft tone and educated use of language. Despite everything in her that told her to push this woman away, Asima couldn’t fight it… she was interested.
“The world has repeatedly promised you great things but never quite delivered them. You lash out when this happens and the result is often that you fall further away from your goal. You are beginning to believe that you are owed a great deal and are determined to squeeze the world until it pays.”
That was a bolt from the blue for Asima. It was horribly, cuttingly accurate and yet news to her; she had never realised this was the case.
“Stop.”
The old woman smiled.
“Everything happens for a reason, lady. You will achieve your destiny, but you must not fight it. Each time you fight it, your destiny pulls away from you. You need to follow the path you are now on and stop trying to change it.”
Asima frowned.
“I do not believe in Gods, or fate, or fortunes, old woman. A clever mind sees past the trickery. You are merely insightful and a good judge of character… but not a great one. If you were, you’d have steered well clear of me.”
The old woman laughed merrily.
“You do not believe? You who have murdered lords and ladies? You who have bought and sold souls and lives to climb the ladder of success? You who have sat with kings and worn jewels that were worth more than M’Dahz has to offer? You who cannot stop yourself?”
“Stop!”
There was something in Asima’s voice that made the sergeant frown; a great deal of irritation and anger, of course, but also a note verging on panic.
“Never, lady. You have taken a wrong turning at some point on the path of your life. You would have been poor but loved as a nobody. Sometimes you realise that and it makes you sad, but not sad enough to turn you away
