Balkis shuddered. “It is horrible to think that a man could be so twisted as that!”
“Yes, using the magic of goodness for evil purposes,” Matt agreed. “One way or another, he certainly seems to have recruited a military genius and made a gur-khan of him.”
“Yes, and convinced whole peoples of their right to conquer!”
“We’ll have to set them straight about that, won’t we?” Matt flashed her a grin.
Balkis stared, startled by his optimism. Then, slowly, she returned the smile.
“But before we can convince them, we have to find them.” Matt turned toward the end of the street and offered her his arm.
Tentatively, she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow, but her smile faded. “You do not truly mean to beard the horde by ourselves!”
“No, but the closer we get to them, the more we’ll learn,” Matt said. “When we know enough, we’ll turn west and travel till we meet my wife’s army. Then we’ll tell her what we’ve learned and let her deal with the horde—her, her allies, and about fifty thousand soldiers.”
Balkis’ smile came back, and they walked together between the rows of hovels. “What lies north?”
“More of this land of Hind—India, some people call it—a lot more. Beyond that, though, there’s a range of huge mountains, and on the far side of that range, Central Asia begins.”
“Central Asia!” Balkis’ eyes widened. “Is that not where you said I was born?”
“That’s my guess, yes.”
“Might we not also learn some more of my homeland?”
“That’s possible,” Matt conceded. He didn’t tell her he’d been planning on it.
“Only possible.” She seemed crestfallen.
Matt shrugged. “The horde is off in the west fighting the Arabs. We’ll be going through conquered territory, so it should be peaceful, as long as we don’t attract the attention of the garrisons the barbarians have left to oversee the local government. When we find a land where all the people look like you, we’ll know.”
Balkis walked silently beside him for a while, digesting the idea. When she spoke, it was about a much more immediate issue. “How shall we pass the gates? For surely so vast a city as this must be walled.”
“I expect it is,” Matt agreed, “but I didn’t notice any walls along the waterfront. Of course, I couldn’t see much, running away from my erstwhile owner. We’ll just follow the water until we’re out of town.”
“Will the city’s wall not come down to the shore?” Balkis asked doubtfully.
Matt nodded. “But you can change into a cat, and I’ll boost you up to the top. Then I’ll swim around and catch you as you jump.”
“I trust you are skilled at such catching,” Balkis said with asperity.
Matt dismissed the problem with an airy wave. “Just keep your claws in when you leap. Besides, don’t cats have nine lives?”
“I am not eager to test the notion,” Balkis said dryly.
Actually, Matt wouldn’t have minded a few extra lives now and then; he’d heard about the crocodiles in Indian waters. He consoled himself with the idea that he wouldn’t be in very long, but just in case, he started working up an anti-croc verse.
Either the spell worked or the giant lizards were taking the night off. Luck or good planning, he collected Balkis from the wall, catching her as promised—though he suspected it was due more to her skill than his. Once in cat form, she decided to stay that way, riding his shoulders with indolent ease.
The heat rose with the sun, but it was bearable, and Matt was enchanted by the land itself. The air was fragrant with exotic blossoms, and the peasants at work in the fields seemed picturesque and happy. The soft air caressed him, the breeze in the tamarinds and deodars sang to him, and every Kipling story he’d ever read came alive again in his mind.
By mid-morning, though, the sun was beating down with a fiercer heat than he had ever known, and it was heavy going. Matt found a stream and followed its banks, shielded by the low trees that grew there, and managed to keep on until noon with a sleeping cat on his shoulders. When the sun was directly overhead, though, even the leaves couldn’t stop the heat, and Matt found a stand of underbrush to crawl into. Balkis woke as he sat, and he whinnied as her claws came out to hold on. “Velvet paws, velvet paws!” he pleaded, and she withdrew her miniature scimitars, meowing, “You might have warned me.”
“Didn’t want to wake you,” Matt told her. “A nap is the best shield from this heat. Go back to sleep.”
Balkis looked around her, then back at him. “You will sleep, too?”
“You bet,” Matt said, and closed his eyes. He felt her curl up on his stomach, and did manage to recite a brief warding spell before he fell asleep.
He woke to find the sun much lower in the sky and an evening breeze already stirring the jacarandas. Groggily, he lifted his head—and saw Balkis lying on his stomach like a little sphinx, head up and eyes open. He stared. “Have you been awake this whole time?”
“Someone had to stand guard.” Her mew sounded leaden.
“You poor thing!” Matt lifted her as he sat up, then set her on the ground. “You must have broiled!”
“There was shade,” Balkis said. “Still, let us find somewhere cooler to sleep tomorrow, shall we?”
“Good idea.” Matt shoved himself to his feet, then lifted her to his shoulders. “Your turn to sleep, then.”
The cat hung herself around his neck and promptly dozed off.
Matt walked slowly, waiting for his body to work its metabolism up to cruising speed. All in all, he decided, it was definitely better for Balkis to travel as a cat—she might prove all too interesting to any passing nobleman, and they had no patron to protect them from being seized.
She also might prove all too interesting to himself, he had to admit. She was, after all, a very beautiful sample of teenage womanhood.
Oddly, though, he found that his appreciation of her good looks was entirely aesthetic. He wondered about that. Weren’t men supposed to respond to feminine beauty, whether they were married or not? Of course, he hadn’t felt any great lust for Lakshmi the djinn princess, except on the rare occasions when she had assumed human size and deliberately tried to be sultry—but it was hard to feel desire toward a woman as tall as a house, no matter how voluptuous she was.
As tall as a house, or as small as a child?
Matt considered that possibility. Maybe there was something about being thirty-four and having been a teaching fellow, plus being married to a very beautiful woman in her thirties. He’d had a few students rather obviously fall in love with him, but hadn’t felt any answering surge of emotion, though he knew some faculty members who had. He had put it down to his hopelessly romantic nature, with his vision of the ideal woman before him in his loneliest hours—and, against all odds and the logic of his home universe, he had found her. More amazingly yet, she had fallen in love with him, and thanks to some spells cast on him in his first few months in Merovence, he had even become handsome enough and courageous enough to believe himself worthy of her and to be able to love her. Sayeesa the lust-witch, and the ceremony of knighting, conferred by a legendary emperor and his descendant, had raised his self-esteem to the point at which he could dare to love a queen, and a very beautiful one at that.
Little Balkis couldn’t hold a candle to Alisande, though of course he didn’t tell her that. But she was a pleasant child.
At sunset they came into a village. The smells of cardamom and curry made Matt’s mouth water, and he knew he would have to take a chance on conjuring up some money. Accordingly, he went back to the edge of town, gathered a few pebbles, then chanted,