Andrew stepped aside to chivvy a cluster of local men to their feet: dockside porters, who would undertake the labour of shifting our belongings from ship to barge. Then we went along to the hotel, situated up a very steep hill, which vantage allowed it to catch what cooling breezes were to be had.
The hotel, like many in the south of Anthiope, had separate women’s quarters for the privacy of its female guests. I therefore left Andrew in the courtyard while I saw to my room. When I returned, he had arranged for cups of tea, of a variety I had not tasted before. It was delightfully warming on a day which, despite the sun, was rather more chill than I had expected.
“You know,” Andrew said, with the air that could only mean he was about to say something appallingly blunt, “I can’t understand why anybody thinks you and that Wilker fellow are having an affair. All it takes is one look to know it’s utter nonsense.”
Setting down my drink, I said wryly, “Thank you—I think.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. He might as well be a eunuch, for all you care. There are eunuchs here, did you know that? Mostly in the government. I swear that half the ministers I’ve met are missing their bollocks.”
The army clearly had been a wonderful influence on my brother’s manners. “Have you dealt with a great many people in government?”
“Have I dealt with them? No, not hardly. Mostly that’s up to General Lord Ferdigan and his staff in Sarmizi, or sometimes Pensyth. People senior to me. I just trot along behind them with files and such.”
Andrew’s tone said he was glad to be at the back—a sentiment with which I could sympathize. I was unlikely to be invited to meetings with ministers here, as neither the Akhians nor my own countrymen would be eager to include me in matters diplomatic, and on the whole I was relieved… but I will admit there was a part of me that chafed at the exclusion, or rather at its cause.
It occurred to me that my brother had been present at a variety of meetings that might concern me. Whether he had paid attention, of course, was another matter. “Is there anything I should be aware of, before I go wading in?”
Andrew cocked his head to one side, considering. He had taken his hat off and was fanning himself with it, which was likely a breach of military protocol. Although I felt the day was rather cool, he had sweated through his uniform on the walk up to the hotel. “Everyone’s annoyed. They didn’t expect it to take this long—thought our superior scientific knowledge should make the problem easy, and never mind that people have been trying to breed desert drakes since time out of mind, with no success.” He stopped fanning and leaned forward, propping one elbow on his knee. “To be honest—and not to put pressure on you or anything, but—I don’t know how long this alliance will last. It’s only this business with Yelang and their caeligers that has us and the Akhians working together. If there isn’t some kind of progress soon, that may fall apart.”
Nothing in what he said surprised me, but it was distressing all the same. Tom and I would undoubtedly be blamed for the failure, if we were left holding the baton when the end came. In fact, the dreadful thought crossed my mind that perhaps we had been chosen for precisely that reason. We made much better scapegoats than Lord Tavenor would have.
Well, if that was the plan, then I was determined to thwart it. And in order to do so, I needed information. Our predecessor’s papers would be waiting for us in Qurrat, but I liked the notion of being well armed before we arrived. “Can you tell me anything about what Lord Tavenor was doing?” Andrew shook his head, and I remembered that he had only recently come into the country. “Have you at least met this sheikh? The one who is supposed to supply us with dragons?”
My brother brightened. “Yes! Only once, mind you, but Pensyth briefed me beforehand. Fairly important fellow, as I understand it. The Aritat helped put the current caliphate into power a few generations back, and he’s their most recent leader.”
“Why is he involved with the programme? Is it because of political influence?”
“No—or at least, not entirely. His tribe’s territory is in the Jefi, and apparently that’s where you find the most dragons.” Andrew grinned. “He sends his nomad cousins to capture a few, and then they drag them back to Qurrat for you.”
I could not help but perk up at his words. You may think me mad for doing so: the Jefi is the southernmost portion of Akhia, the inhospitable desert valley between the Qedem and Farayma mountain ranges. It receives perishingly little rainfall; the nomads there survive by grazing and watering their camels at scattered oases. Even for a heat-loving creature such as myself, it cannot be considered anything like an attractive destination.
But it will come as no surprise to my readers that the prevalence of drakes there drew my interest. The Jefi was not so far from Qurrat—which made sense, as no one would wish to transport captive drakes any farther than they must. I was determined to see the creatures in their natural habitat before I left this country; now I knew where to go, and to whom I must speak.
Andrew clearly guessed at my thoughts, for he grinned widely. It lasted only a moment, though, before he sobered. “I wouldn’t try to go down there without the sheikh’s permission, Isabella. For one thing, you’ll die. And if you don’t die, the Aritat will kill you. They don’t like trespassers.”
Not to mention that my actions would reflect on Scirland. Trespassing would endear me to no one. “I understand,” I said, and prayed for cordial relations with the sheikh.
The barge that took us up the river to Qurrat was not a swift vessel, but I did not mind, for it gave me opportunity to study the landscape around me.
The Zathrit, being the southernmost of Akhia’s three major waterways, has its origin in the Qedem Mountains that separate that country from Seghaye and Haggad. An extensive network of irrigation canals spreads out from it like the branches of a tree; they were dry in this season, but come spring the farmers would knock down the mud-brick barriers at their mouths and channel the life-giving water to their fields of barley, millet, and wheat.
Along the banks of the river itself, the desert was far greener than I had envisioned. There were tall grasses and reeds, palm trees and other species I could not identify. Wildlife abounded, too, from fish to foxes to birds in the sky. But from time to time I would see the ground rising past the alluvial plain, and then I could see it desiccating into the distance, a dun colour not much different from my brother’s uniform.
It was, in its own way, a landscape as lethal as the Green Hell. But whereas the jungle of Mouleen tries quite energetically to kill a person, with every tool at its disposal ranging from predators to parasites, the deserts of Akhia most often kill with indifference. Jackals may hasten one’s end and then feast upon the carcass, but they rarely go to great lengths to hunt one down. Heat and thirst will do that work for them: one dies because the means of life are long since spent and gone.
That, however, was not my destination—not yet, and not (from the perspective of my military employers) at any point to come. Of course I did go out into the desert, more than once; but for the time being, I turned my attention to the settled lands of the river valley, and the city that ruled them.
Qurrat is a complex city, as many old settlements are. Unlike the Akhian capital of Sarmizi, it evinces little in the way of planned arrangements; there has been no equivalent to the caliph Ulsutir to knock down half the place and rebuild it in a grand style. There is no Round City at its heart, no sensible grid of avenues dividing one class from another. Like the central parts of Falchester, it simply happened, and people live in it as chance and circumstance dictate.