He rowed, considering. The man was round-faced, his skin darker than the Berbers’ and his hair and moustache jet-black. From the accent in which he spoke Arabic, Matt guessed he was from India. Too far south to put him in contact with the barbarians, really, but he’d picked up a lot of interesting rumors from his fellow galley slaves, and decided to play along for a while yet.
As he rowed he happened to notice a pair of yellow eyes watching him from the shadows at the stern. He tried to grin, and felt an illogical fondness for the little cat. She might have had her own purely selfish reasons for it, but she was loyal.
He rowed hour after hour, and realized that he was rowing east along the shoreline. When darkness fell, the man told him to beach the craft, then drove him ahead on a long, long walk through the darkness. His captor didn’t enlighten him, but Matt glanced at the stars and guessed he was hiking south. He guessed that if they went far enough, they would come to the Red Sea. After a long while he smelled salt air again and knew they were approaching. His captor drove him down a rocky beach to another rowboat.
“Get in.”
Matt did and, as he took up the oars, wondered how Balkis was ever going to find him-it had been an awfully long distance for a little cat. But as his captor pushed the bow free, Matt saw a shadow flow over the gunwale. His heart warmed.
The captor jumped in, and Matt started to row. He rowed for an hour and more. Then suddenly, black against black, a small galley loomed beside him.
“Stop.”
Matt did, with massive relief. He reflected that he never could have rowed for so long only a few weeks ago, when he’d left home. He turned and looked over his shoulder to see a rope come flying down from the galley. His owner caught it, then untied his tether and gestured to the rope. “Climb.”
Matt climbed. His owner climbed up right behind him. He wondered if they’d leave the rope down long enough for Balkis, then remembered that they would probably tie the rowboat to the galley.
His owner bowed to an older man resplendent in a brocade robe, even this late at night. “Your new slave, my captain.”
The captain gave Matt an assessing glance. “Where is your home?”
Matt tried to say “Merovence,” but only heard the familiar cawing.
The captain nodded, satisfied. “He will do for crew aboard a smuggler. Shackle him to his bench.”
As the blacksmith hammered the rivets home, Matt reflected that the ship had to be a rather special smuggler. Of course, any illegal ship would be painted black and running only at night—but this one was long, low, and slender, built for speed rather than cargo capacity. Admittedly, smugglers needed to be able to outrun the tax police, but they usually tried to carry enough goods to make the journey worthwhile. Gold? Diamonds? Matt couldn’t offhand think of anything of high enough value that would be cheaper smuggled than bought and sold openly.
Except, perhaps, information …
He felt a chill down his back, and wondered whose spy network he’d blundered into. It did make sense for even the oarsmen to be mute, though—not only could they not tell what they didn’t know, they couldn’t even tell what they did know. Apparently nobody had considered the possibility that he might be able to read and write—but how many slaves could?
“Out of the kettle and into the flames,” hissed a barely heard voice overhead.
Matt looked up at the brindle bundle stuffed into a niche where the overhead deck met the side, and bared his teeth, hoping Balkis would understand it as a grin.
They rowed all night, but at the first hint of dawn the captain ordered them into hiding—a river-mouth with a sea-cave large enough to hold the little ship; he had obviously come this way before. In fact, Matt suspected it was his regular route, running information between India and the Arab world. There in the gloom, the slaves rested on their oars, pillowing their heads on their arms, to sleep as well as they could.
Matt, however, discovered one advantage to the smuggler-ship—it didn’t have a resident wizard. With no need to worry about alerting a magical rival, Matt peered up through the gloom to discover the glowing yellow eyes still on him. He stared at Balkis, pantomimed unzipping his mouth, then wondered if the cat was really frowning. He tried again, opening his mouth, taking hold of his lips with both hands and wriggling them into letter shapes.
Balkis stared, frown disappearing.
Matt stuck out his tongue and twisted it up and down with his fingers.
“And the same to you,” Balkis hissed. “Do you tell me that your tongue is still tied?”
Matt nodded.
“A fine master I have chosen!” the little cat huffed, but she went ahead and recited in a cat-whisper,
Balkis hesitated, looking uncertain, then concentrated so fiercely that her slit-eyes crossed.
Matt realized, with a sinking heart, that she was stuck for a rhyme. Heard, he thought, desperately hoping Balkis was a telepath, Heard!
The little cat might not have been a mind reader, but she came through for him anyway:
Matt heaved a sigh of relief and whispered, “Thanks, Balkis.” He had never liked the sound of his own voice as much.
“You are welcome,” the cat hissed, then added almost apologetically, “I have difficulty with final lines, or last verses, if there are more than one.”
A flag went up in the back of Matt’s mind—cats didn’t apologize. On the other hand, of course, cats didn’t talk. He let surprise take over. “You mean you improvise all your spells—make them up on the spot?”
“When I have not learned a spell for the situation, yes,” the cat sniffed. “Do not all wizards?”
Matt took a deep breath, then said, “Yes, but I’ll obviously have to teach you a broader range of verses.” His heart thrilled at the thought of actually teaching literature again. In fact, though, he wondered if one small feline head could hold any spells at all. Cats weren’t reputed to have very long memories.
Of course, anybody who thought that hadn’t tried to open a rustling bag of cat food when he thought he was alone.
Down the Red Sea they rowed, the slaves getting a break when the offshore breeze took them out into the midnight sea. They crossed the Persian Gulf, and the temperature grew hotter and hotter. Then Matt lost track of how many days they were at sea, or how many times the overseer came down the aisle with water, interrupting the slaves’ sleep. They sweated the water right back out at night, bending to their oars in the tropical warmth.
Finally the order came to ship oars, and the smuggler slipped into its berth. Matt was amazed at how slight the jar of docking was, then remembered that these were men accustomed to secrecy and who practiced it by habit even in their home port.
If this was their home port. Balkis went out to scout.
But when the sun sent shafts of light through the oar-holes, Matt knew they weren’t in a cave or forest. Not long after, Balkis came back to report.
“We have come to a great city that stretches as far as the eye can see! The houses are white, there are gilded temples, and the palace is trimmed with gold!”
“Sounds rich,” Matt agreed. “How about green space?”
“There are trees everywhere, but some of them are only tall straight trunks with a bunch of slender leaves at the top.”