“I don’t have to, though, do I?” Balkis cried. “Can’t I stay here with you?”
Idris’ manner softened, and she reached out to caress her pupil’s hair. “As long as you like, child, and glad I am of your company—but you would do yourself an injustice if you do not become all that you can be. How, then, shall you learn more?”
Balkis balked, knowing the answer but trying to turn away from it. “By attempting new spells that I make up myself?”
“Possible, but dangerous,” Idris said, “and a very long way of learning.”
Balkis’ heart sank “You’re telling me I must go find another teacher.”
Idris nodded heavily. “I am. To do less would deny that destiny that I can see hovering about you, lass. Mind you, I’ll not make you go, and when you do, I’ll long for your visits—but go you must, or regret it all your days.”
“Where could I go, then?” Balkis cried. “Where could I be safe?”
“For you, now?” Idris smiled without mirth. “Anyplace you like—you know enough magic to guard yourself well, and cope with anything but a magician who’s even stronger than yourself. You can be sure you’ll meet one sooner or later, lass, even if you stay here—and you would be better off by far to seek out a kindly one who draws his power from goodness, than to wait till an evil sorcerer finds you.”
Balkis shuddered at the thought. “Where shall I find a good wizard, then?”
“In Merovence,” Idris said, with decision, “for women are treated better there than anywhere else.”
Balkis frowned. “Why in Merovence?”
Idris shrugged. “Belike because a woman rules there—Queen Alisande. Perhaps it is also because of her that the minstrels there have begun to sing of the glories of courtly love, of admiration so strong that it can kindle desire for a woman all by itself, a desire that need not be consummated but is ecstasy when it is. Such a notion exalts women far beyond the rest of the world, which regards us as little more than beasts of burden, and chattels that men trade like coins.”
Balkis shuddered. “Merovence let it be, then! But to which wizard shall I go?”
“Why not begin with the best?” Idris gave her a sunny smile. “Ask the Lord Wizard himself—the queen’s husband and consort, and by all tellings, the mightiest in the realm! If he turns you down, go to a lesser—but I’ve a notion that he’ll take you as a pupil for his wife’s sake, if not for his own.”
Balkis turned thoughtful, and voiced what Idris hadn’t. “And because his wife is the queen, he would be unlikely to importune me for sexual favors?”
“For his wife,” Idris agreed, “but more because, if he draws his power from Goodness, adultery would weaken him tremendously. No, child, seek you the Lord Wizard of Merovence and you’ll be as safe as you may, and become tremendously learned in the bargain!”
“Let us hope I can bargain well indeed,” Balkis said darkly.
Cat-memory served Balkis well, and she had no trouble joining a mule train bound for Merovence-as a mouser, of course. The merchants hired a full company of armed guards, ones who specialized in protecting commerce, for they had to pass through deep forests and cross broad rivers. Twice the soldiers had to beat back forest bandits, once they had to fight off river pirates, and they reached Merovence with only a dozen wounded. Some of those wounds would have killed the soldiers, though, had not Balkis crept among the groaning and fevered in the makeshift hospital wagon, and recited healing charms in her meowing voice. One or two soldiers later told of bizarre dreams in which the caravan’s cat spoke to them, and all their mates enjoyed a good laugh over such an outlandish tale.
At last the morning sun burned away the mist, to show a small city lapping up the slopes of a long hill, on top of which stood a castle with high walls and graceful towers.
“Bordestang!” the merchants cried, and their eyes glinted in anticipation of sharp trading and good profits. “The Queen’s Town!”
Balkis’ pulse quickened, too, but whether it was in anticipation or dread she did not know. She had some hard dealing of her own to do.
Far to the east, Suleiman the Caliph had some hard decisions to make—in the thick of battle. But his wits worked at their quickest and most certain when they were encased by a steel helmet that rang with the echoes of battle-cries, screams of pain and rage, and the clash of steel, of sword against sword and lance against shield.
“Back!” he commanded his adjutant. “Our soldiers are more skilled, but for every barbarian they slay, five more gallop in—and every single one of them is mounted!”
Cavalry was only half of his army. The adjutant nodded, grim-faced, never doubting his sovereign for a moment, and turned to signal to the trumpeter. The man set his instrument to his lips, and the signal for retreat blared out over the army. Other horns took it up, momentarily drowning the sounds of steel. The Arabic army pulled together and began their retreat, foot by foot, defending against overeager barbarians every inch of the way. Fired with triumph, many of the horde rode to the flanks to slay as many of the Muslims as possible, some even attempting to ride behind the army—but its back was to a river, and the rearguard defended the bridgehead well. Nomad after nomad rode against their grounded spears, and died.
On their own flanks, their comrades met similar fates, for the Arab crossbows thrummed and sent a message of death that the barbarians received before they could come near the army—received in their chests, fell from their horses, and died. Their companions turned, but loosed arrows from tough, short, compound bows before they fled. Many of their arrows fell short; those that did reach the Arabs clattered against light armor or shields and fell, to be trodden underfoot. Only a few found flesh; only a few of the retreating army fell on the flanks.
Their comrades in the van, though, fared far worse, for they were indeed outnumbered five to one. They had become the rearguard as the army retreated. They fought furiously. Crossbows and archers could do nothing, for the enemy followed within yards of them, charging again and again against their own blooded mares. Horses screamed and reared, lashing out at one another with sharpened hooves, and the barbarian horsemen rode against trained and disciplined Arab cavalry. Behind them waited infantrymen, hungering for a few feet of space to rush in, stab upward with their spears, and retreat. Those strokes were short, for the barbarians rode ponies, and if the Arab lances did not transfix the riders, they brought low the horses. The Caliph’s cavalry struck downward at their opponents, and though it seemed to take ten strokes to slay even one of the tough little men, die they did.
Then hooves rang hollow on the pontoon bridge, and the army yielded their platform board by board. But as the rearguard passed the first of the boats that supported the bridge, they slashed the ropes that held them in place, then struck as deeply as they could with lances. The barbarians followed them onto the bridge—and sank, their horses screaming. They could not stop quickly, for hundreds of their fellows pressed them from behind, and a thousand barbarians plunged into the river as boat after boat drifted from the bridge, then sank.
A few barbarians had managed to thrust themselves so deeply into the Arabic army that they were carried away with the retreat, calling out in despair in a dozen different barbarous tongues—but as the soldiers swung scimitars high to slay, those same “barbarians” called out in good Arabic, “Not me, you fool! I’m a spy for the Caliph!”
The soldiers didn’t believe them, of course, but they couldn’t take the chance. They bound the barbarians and took them along.
When the army had finished the crossing and the remnants of the pontoon bridge were drifting away, the trumpets blew the halt, and the Arabs turned to digging a ditch to guard their perimeter, and to pitching their tents. As dusk closed in, campfires flared, cooking pots steamed, and the army paused to lick its wounds, sentries vigilant for the slightest sign of barbarians moving in the night—there was always the chance that they might find a way to cross in the darkness. It seemed unlikely, though, for they rode their horses like men who came from plains that stretched so wide they scarcely knew what a true river was.