Handing the waterskin to Otti, she told him to take a drink and pass it on, then sat down with her back to a treetrunk and closed her eyes. In a little while, she heard someone beside her and looked around to see Dag settling his lanky frame beneath the same tree.
'Why Stone-Breaker?' she asked after a time.
He smiled, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. 'Well, now,' he said, 'I was born in Jutland, where there are a great many mounds and stones and such belonging to the Old Ones. It is a very fine place-sometimes a little cold, but the hunting is good. Once when I was out hunting with my brothers, we caught sight of an elk and gave chase. Even though I was the youngest, I was in the lead, ya?' He smiled at the memory, and Cait smiled, too, for he also sounded like the Norse fishermen whose voices rose and fell over the dips and crests of their words like a ship ploughing the ocean swell.
'Well, now,' he continued, 'as I raced along I passed one of these standing stones and as luck would have it my horse stumbled in a badger hole at that very moment, and I was thrown from my saddle. Well, I hit this stone, see.' He slammed his fist into his hand with a loud smack to demonstrate. 'I smashed into it head first and knocked it down. The stone fell and I fell. They thought I was dead, but when they came to look, they saw that I was still alive. And when they raised me up, they saw the stone was broken under me.' He grinned, his fine straight teeth a winning flash of white. 'I have been Dag Stone-Breaker from that day.'
Hearing their talk, Yngvar edged nearer to join them, and Svein, too. Cait noticed that Alethea, whose understanding of Norse was nowhere near as good as her own, was nevertheless listening with rapt attention to the handsome nobleman. 'Tell how you got your name, Svein,' said Dag with a nudge of his elbow.
'Nay,' he replied, 'it is never so exalted as Dag's tale.' But at the encouragement of the others, he sighed and said, 'My father kept hounds-every year he had to train up three good dogs to give King Sigurd in tribute. He had several fine bitches, but his favourite was a sweet-natured brown called Fala. A few months after I was born, Fala lost her litter. She was very disturbed over it, and would not eat or drink at all. My father gave her good meat on the bone, but still she would not eat.
'This went on until my father thought he would have to put her away. He held off as long as he could, but it had to be done. So, he went to get his sword and a strap to take her out behind the barn. But when he came back, he could not find Fala. They looked everywhere and finally found her in my bed with me; she had brought me her bone.
'We were both in there together chewing on that bone-Fala on one end and me on the other, chewing away. I have been Svein Gristle-Bone ever since.'
He made the face of a boy gnawing a bone, and Alethea laughed out loud; the others, who had heard the story before, laughed too. 'What about Rognvald?' asked Cait. 'Does he have another name?'
The knights looked from one to the other and shrugged. 'If he does,' replied Yngvar, 'I never heard it.'
'How did you come to be taken captive?' she asked. When no one made bold to answer, she said, 'If it makes an unpleasant tale, you do not have to tell me. Still, do not think to spare me on account of it. My father was captured by the Seljuqs as a young man-that is how he came to be in the Damascus prison-so I know how abhorrent it can be.'
'Your father was captured, too?' wondered Yngvar. 'That is a tale I would like to hear.' Nodding, the others added their agreement.
At that moment, however, there came a shout from the road, and they all rushed to the edge of the wood to see Rognvald riding towards them with a stranger in tow. Cait saw the pale yellow tunic and trousers, the bristly dark hair, and started out to meet them.
'I caught him hiding behind that hill,' said Rognvald, speaking Latin for the benefit of his captive. He pushed the intruder forward. 'He was spying on us.'
'I was resting only!'
'What are you doing here, Abu?' Cait demanded.
My donkey ran away because of him.' The young Syrian crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.
'Answer me, Abu. What are you doing here?'
'Please, sharifah, do not send me away. You will need someone to speak for you. I can do this easily. Please, let me go with you.'
'What about the sick and infirm who depend on you-the patients who keep you running morning to night?'
He frowned. 'Do you have any idea how difficult it is to win favour as a physician in a place like Damascus? You need an amir or two at the very least if you hope to survive.'
She regarded him sternly. 'Do you even have any patients?'
'To tell you the truth,' he replied, 'no.'
'And are you a physician?' she said, her tone defying him to lie to her.
'I studied medicine in Baghdad. I did,' he insisted. Dropping his voice, he added, '- a little. It is a very difficult occupation. You have no idea.'
'Studying was too hard, so you abandoned it.'
'I did not!' he maintained. 'Was it my fault my teacher was executed?'
Yngvar had heard enough. 'Allow us to send him on his way, my lady.'
'Not just yet,' she said. 'I want to hear the end of this. Svein, Dag, go find his donkey and bring it. You,' she said to Abu, 'come with me.'
They returned to the grove and sat down once more, Abu before Cait, and Rognvald and Yngvar on either side-a magistrate and her officers, dispensing justice. Alethea leaned on one elbow beneath a nearby tree, feigning disinterest in the proceedings. Under Cait's questioning, it soon emerged that while languishing in the Baghdad prison for stealing eggs-'How was I to know the chickens belonged to the qadi of Baghdad?'-Abu had chanced to meet the celebrated Muslah Abd Allah Ud-Din Ibn Arabi al-Tusi, court physician to the royal family.
The famed physician had been sent to prison following a failed attempt to poison the caliph. 'It was a grave mistake, an injustice of unrivalled magnitude,' Abu declared with surprising vehemence. 'The khalifa was not well liked, it is true. And those who would have rejoiced at his funeral were as numerous as the desert sands. But dear old al-Tusi could no more have poisoned anyone than a faithful dog pee in his beloved master's cooking-pot. He was a sage and scholar of the highest distinction-a very saint.' Abu shook his head sadly. 'When the poisoners failed, they needed a scapegoat and supplied the royal physician. Indeed, he made a perfect sacrifice; he was too affronted at the suggestion to even defend himself.'
'So you met the physician in prison,' Rognvald confirmed. 'Were you never his pupil?'
Abu shook his head. 'Not in the way you mean.'
Yngvar picked up a strong stick.
'But he taught me just the same,' Abu added quickly. 'Muslah allowed me to help him as he tended the other prisoners. He also taught me Greek. I learned a very great deal from him.'
'What about Cairo?' asked Cait suspiciously. 'Were you ever there?'
'Oh, indeed, yes, sharifah. It is a very great city. I could be your guide if you want to go.'
'But you never studied there.'
'Alas, no.' Abu's face fell. 'I went there to study, it is true, but I fell in with some bad fellows who worked for a man who owned a brothel – the finest brothel in all Egypt!'
'Now, my lady?' said Yngvar, slapping the stick against the side of his leg.
'Still,' Abu Sharma offered, 'it was a good school in many ways. I learned a very great deal.'
Cait was silent for a moment; she regarded the contrite youth before her. 'Why should I let you come with us?' she said at last.
'These men you have redeemed from prison,' he said, indicating the knights. 'Yet before you stands a man no less needy than they were when you plucked them from Mujir's dungeon.'