Yoseh suspected Fa'tad had had one of his visions, or intuitions, orinspirations, or whatever they were, and had decided that the Shu maze wassufficiently important to rate more manpower and the watchful eye of one of his oldest cronies.
Joab was one of those half dozen men who had flown wingtip-to-wingtip with theEagle for forty years.
Nogah ought to think about that and not about his hurt feelings.
The sun was still just an imminent threat when the troop rode out of thecompound and turned toward the Gate of Autumn. Yoseh and his companions rodepoint. An honor, of sorts, but one Yoseh was willing to forgo if things shouldlook like they were getting sticky.
He had not come to Qushmarrah to become the hero of epic adventures, nor toget dead.
The gate was not yet open. Other traffic was arriving, too, piling up in thesmall square the gate towers commanded. Joab rode forward and began cursingthe sleepy Herodian gatemen in their own language, calling them the sons ofwhores, feeders on the dung of camels, and suppurating pustules upon themanhood of their god. Joab did not like Herodians. He insulted Herodiansoldiers every chance he got, in repayment for the insult implicit in the factthat the Herodian military commander required the tribesmen to be out of thecity and in their compound by nightfall every evening.
Yoseh said, "He's provoking them. Deliberately. Someday somebody is going toget mad and try to kill him."
"No," Nogah said. "He scares the shit out of them. They think he's crazy."
"So do I."
"It's all an act. Something Fa'tad put him up to, to make them think we're allcrazy. I think."
"You think?"
"You never know with Fa'tad."
Joab's fulminations had their effect. The gate groaned open. Arrogantly, Joabled his troop through before the merchants. The regular patrols were arriving.
They attached themselves to the column. The merchants had to wait while athousand tribesmen entered the city.
Yoseh hadn't been north a week before he had realized there was a verycomplicated and subtle game going on between Fa'tad and Cado, the Herodianmilitary governor. Herodian troops held all the key points of the city, andwhat had been the palace of the city's impotent figurehead prince was nowcalled Government House and was occupied by Cado and his captains. Cado kepthis men out of sight as much as possible. Their standards were seldom seen inpublic. The hand, the mailed fist, of the occupation was always Dartar.
Fa'tad had responded by making his men work as a police force of sorts, metingout instant and ferocious retribution to the city's human predators wheneverand wherever they were unearthed. They settled disputes impartially. Theyscared up employers who needed workers and people who needed work and put themtogether. Where it was within their power they tried to relieve the sufferingof the poor.
"So we end up helping old women cross the street and change the young ones'babies," Nogah grumped. "And for what? Answer me that, kid. So we can win thesympathy of the lower classes? They don't have any power and their sympathywon't send one head of livestock down south."
"I think Fa'tad's mind encompasses more than the chore of keeping the tribesfrom starving."
"That's the problem. He's so busy scheming he can't keep his mind on thebusiness that brought us here."
The patrols dispersed into the city but Joab's troop kept on westward, downone of the broad avenues of the Astan, across Goat Creek, a hundred fiftyyards along the foot of the tumbled and brushy remnants of the Old Wall. Oneof the older men behind Yoseh began reminiscing about how the damned stubbornveydeen had tried to make a stand along here and the damned fool ferrenghi hadwanted Fa'tad to make a mounted charge across the boggy ground and creek andup the rubble to dislodge them.
"Al-Akla told them what to do with their charge. So they sent in their ownmen. And they got murdered just like Fa'tad said they would."
The column passed through a gap in the rubble flanked by broken columns, aonetime gateway. It entered the narrow streets of the Hahr, climbed the hillto the wide-open plazas around the citadel. Yoseh could not look at that placewithout shuddering, though he knew Ala-eh-din Beyh had rendered it powerlessStill ...
Still, the Herodians persisted in trying to figure out how to break in. Maybejust to recover the body of their hero, but maybe for something more. Maybefor the fabled treasure.
Yoseh half suspected that Fa'tad had his eyes on the treasure, too.
The column passed through the spaciousness of the acropolis and entered theShu, nudging the head of Char Street tentatively at first, like a snakechecking the mouth of a gopher hole. Then it surged forward.
Char Street was aboil with humanity already. Like a flyblown carcass, Yosehthought, feeling the weight of their numbers pressing in on him. They partedbefore the pressure of the column, then stood at the street sides gawking. Howlong since they had seen such a force of Dartars in the Shu? Since the days ofQushmarrah's fall? Maybe not even then. There wasn't much in the Shu worthfighting for.
Men began dropping off the column's tail in sixes and eights each time anentryway to the labyrinth appeared. Yoseh soon realized that a hundredeighteen men were not enough to cover just the rat holes on Char Street, letalone all the others around the periphery.
Nogah told Mo'atabar, "This is the place."
"Go ahead. Peel off."
Nogah beckoned the rest of them to the side of the street, jostlingQushmarrahans who took that in silence. Yoseh looked into the mouth of that alley and shivered. Superstitious dread, he told himself. That dangerous, widelittle man was long gone.
The column moved on. They watched, waiting to dismount. Yoseh glanced downtoward the heavenstone blue of the bay. His eyes met those of the same oldwoman he had seen yesterday afternoon. This morning the iron was missing fromher expression. She looked a little puzzled, a little lost.
A girl came to the door behind her. Yoseh's gaze was drawn to her unveiledface. His eyes bugged. Their gazes met.
The old woman snarled something at the girl.
She retreated, but only a step or two. Just far enough not to be seen from thecorner of the crone's eye. She continued to stare. And so did Yoseh, whichgave her away.
Mahdah struck him in the thigh. "Yoseh, you want to come down from there?" Andhe realized it was the third time he had been told to dismount. Cheeks hot, hemade the camel kneel, ' slid off.
Nogah said, "You and Medjhah stay with the animals, kid." Yoseh had thefeeling his brother was laughing behind his veil. Nogah punched Mahdah'sshoulder as they got their stuff together to go into the alley. "Justyesterday he was asking me why we stay in Qushmarrah."
Bel-Sidek watched the Dartar column come down the hill, the groups droppingoff at each alley, and had to struggle to keep from gaping. "What the hell isgoing on?" he muttered. He'd never seen anything like it. He counted bodies.
Over a hundred of the bastards. What the hell was Fa'tad up to now?
The man was like that wild hare they had out along the marges of the Takes, always zigging just when the wild dogs expected it to zag. It showed a littlewiggle of the tail like it was going to go right and when the dogs were setfor the move it bounded to the left and gained thirty yards while they weregetting their legs untangled.
The Dartars just kept coming. The teams that dropped off began preparing ropesand shields and weapons and torches.
They were serious about invading the labyrinth.
Why? It was an exercise in futility.
Another of Fa'tad's efforts to please the mob? Another symbolic gesture?
Bel-Sidek was anxious to get across and check on the old man, but there was nopushing through the Dartars. Not without attracting unwanted attention.
"What are they doing, sir?"
Bel-Sidek glanced sideways at the man who had spoken. He was one of theassistants to one of the old man's lieutenants here in the Shu. Naszif something, a slimy little man bel-Sidek did not like. Almost by chance the manknew he was involved with the movement and more important than he. He had asubtly ingratiating manner that repelled bel-Sidek more than did King's openass-kissing.