“What reason have you to believe you were her first? No normal Anglonian girl marries before she has accumulated some experience.‘1
“Good gods!” groaned Marko. “I never thought’ of that!”
This discussion went on for several days. Finally Marko said: “Sir, I still think it my duty to kill the guilty part. But I don’t wish either to be hanged myself I’m not really brave, I fearor to get you into trouble. So I’ve given up the idea of killing them, at least unless they return to Vizantia, where it would be legal.”
“Good!” said Halran. “I congratulate you on your good sense. Then you will yourself return to Vizantia as soon as we attain the other side of the Saar?”
“No, sir. You forget I have a jail sentence hanging over me there. Could a man like myself make a living in Anglonia?”
“MmmI suppose you could. There are various possibilities such as mercenary soldier, teacher of Vizantian, and so forth.”
“Besides,” said Marko, “even if I don’t kill Mongamri and my wife, it is my duty to confront them and demand an explanation.”
“What is there to explain, except that she prefers him to you?”
“Wellahperhaps Petronela, having come to know Mongamri better, would like to come back to me,” said Marko wistfully.
“Do you learn nothing from one painful experience? I advise you to have nothing to do with them,” said Halran. “A conflict might arise that would eventuate in somebody’s being injured despite your good intentions.”
“Isn’t one even allowed to kill in self-defense?”
“Yes, but the burden of proof is on the slayer. Forget them.”
“I can’t. You have no idea how ashamed I am at giving up my resolution to kill them. I’m a weak, wavering, immoral, dishonorable knave. The least I can do is to find and confront them.”
They rode on. Once he had shelved his homicidal resolution, Marko found Halran perfectly friendly. The little man was not well adjusted to the rigors of caravan travel, having a fastidious dislike of soiling his hands and hating the discomforts of camel riding and sleeping out. On the other hand, he mixed well with the other people and was always organizing them into teams and groups for any purpose that arose, from fetching water to folk singing. His favorite expression was “Let us get organized,” and he could always find some way of making tasks lighter by planning them.
“Indolence,” he told Marko, “is the mother of invention, and I am the laziest philosopher in Anglonia.”
He was also an expert card player. In three days, before the other caravaners learned to be wary of him, he had won half his fare from them in small games.
On the sixth day, the caravan stopped for its siesta at the Oasis of Siwa. The oasis lay in a wide basin, broken by irregular outcrops. From a distance, it was distinguished from the rest of the barren scene by clumps of kackinsoni, whose spearlike leaves added a splotch of green to the otherwise drab, gray-and-buff scene.
Slim Qadir rode his camel up to the water hole and made it lie down, shouting to the others to keep the animals back until some water had been scooped up for the people. There was much noise and confusion, neighing of horses and burbling of camels struggling to get to the water and shouts of their riders and drivers trying to keep them back.
Marko heard Slim Qadir yelling to his guards in Arabistani. Marko knew only a few words, but the intent seemed to be that they should get out to the edges ~ of the oasis to guard the party against surprise attack, instead of flopping down on their bellies to have the first swill of water.
The camel ridden by Halran and Marko, together with the led camel bearing the jugs of stupa gum, were near the tail of the procession. From the back seat, Marko said:
“Hurry, Dr. Halran, or the water will be all muddied.”
“There is plenty of time,” said Halran.
When Marko and Halran were almost the only persons in the caravan still mounted, somebody shouted and pointed. Marko heard the drumming of hoofs. As he turned to look, there came the snapping of many bowstrings and the harsh swish of arrows. The sound of an arrow’s striking flesh caused him to look down to see one embedded in the side of his camel, just below his left foot. The camel started and roared.
A band of mounted men had ridden out from behind the nearest outcrop and now were charging the oasis. They were small dark men on stocky ponies. Besides the usual sheepskins, some wore colored scarves around their heads and other bits of incongruous finery.
The people of the caravan seemed to lose all sense. They rushed about, screaming and trying to climb back on their mounts. Halran emitted a wordless squeak and tugged wildly on Mutasim’s halter.
Marko, however, remained steady. He thought what he ought to do and set about doing it. He drew from its case the steel bow he had taken from the robber near Skiatho and began shooting at the oncoming attackers.
“What shall we do?” cried Halran. “What shall we do? They will kill us! I am terrified!”
“Turn this beast around,” said Marko.
Marko saw his fourth arrow strike one of the Arabistanis, who were now close. Some of them swerved around the oasis, shooting. A few rode right through it, spearing and swording as they went. People shrieked.
Marko continued shooting, squirming about in. his seat to loose arrows wherever he saw a robber. Those that had charged through the oasis circled around and galloped back. In the rear of the charge rode a man on a white horse, clad from head to foot in fine chain mail, with an inlaid steel helmet on his head. Perhaps, thought Marko, Zaki Riadhi himself.
Marko reached for an arrow to try a long shot at the leader of the robbers and glanced at his quiver. This was his last arrow. As he nocked it, he had a glimpse of one of Slim Qadir’s archers lying on the ground while a mounted robber jabbed at him; of another flinging himself on his horse and galloping off into the desert. The fat merchant from Begrat ran past Marko’s camel until a robber’s lance took him in the back and hurled him prone.
Another robber rode up alongside Marko’s camel, fumbling with an arrow. As he came abreast, he got it nocked and raised the bow. Marko, who had started to sight on the leader in armor, brought his aim down and released at the near robber. The arrow hit the man in the upper chest, while the. robber’s own arrow hissed past Marko’s head.
The robber dropped his bow, threw out his arms, and fell out of the saddle. The riderless horse trotted past, right under Marko. Marko hesitated, thinking out a plan.
Boert Halran had gotten the riding camel turned around, so that it faced away from the oasis. The burden camel plodded after. Marko hung his bow on the pommel in front of him and leaped off the back of the camel onto that of the horse, which staggered under the impact. He unslung his buckler, drew out his ax, and called up:
“Make all the speed you can. I’ll try to keep off the Arabis.”
Marko gathered up the reins with his shield hand and turned the horse. The robbers were scattered all over the oasis, within and without it. Some were killing the remaining caravaners.
A couple fought Slim Qadir himself, who stoutly swung a scimitar with his back to a clump of kackinsoni until another robber thrust a lance through the clump into Slim’s back. Down he went.
Other robbers rode about in aimless fashion. The arrows had ceased to whiz because the archers, like Marko, had exhausted their quivers.
At the sight of Marko’s camels trotting off, the armored man shouted and pointed. A little knot of horsemen gathered and cantered towards Marko and the camels, opening out into a fine abreast.