Medjhah was right. The tall and haughty woman came back, taller and haughtierthan ever, but cutting a course much closer to the alley mouth. Medjhahrenewed his invitation. The ice woman responded with a sway of body that saidhips were moving in cruel mockery beneath her clothing. Her satellites giggledbehind their hands and one who could not have been more than a year older thanYoseh flashed him a clumsy wink that scrunched up one whole side of her face.
He winked back just to keep the game alive. He whispered, They, too, were children when the rivers ran with blood."
Medjhah uncoiled. "I'm going to stretch my legs, kid."
"Be careful."
"Hey. What's my middle name? I'm not going to get near her. Them. I'm justgoing to see where they live." He drifted into traffic and disappeared. Yosehsat and brooded on the meaning of life and death and decided he probablywouldn't live long enough to figure it all out.
The glare off the harbor was intense. Yoseh closed his eyes. He may have dozedfor a few minutes. When he opened his eyes again he found a veydeen childstaring at him. The boy seemed familiar ... He looked some like the girl downthe street. Of course! He had seen the boy with the old woman.
Something scaly and cold uncoiled and stretched inside his stomach. "Hello.
What's your name?" He tried very hard to get his tongue around the odd shapeof the Qushmarrahan dialect.
"Arif. What's yours? Are you really a Dartar soldier?"
"Good morning, Arif. I am Yoseh, the son of Melchesheydek. Yes, I am a Dartarwarrior, though I am very new at it." Could the boy understand the differencebetween soldier and warrior? Probably not. Few adult veydeen could do that."
"How come you always wrap your face up in those black cloths?"
Yoseh could not answer that one. It was something you began doing when youbecame an adult. It was something the lesser tribes of the veydeen and theferrenghi did not do, so that they stood apart, branded, uncouth andlascivious. It was something he did not ponder. It was something that was.
He countered with a question of his own. "What is your sister's name?"
The boy looked baffled.
Yoseh repeated himself slowly, carefully, thinking he had botched the dialect.
The glow of illumination lighted the kid's face. He said, "You must mean Mish.
She's not my sister. She's my aunt. My mom's sister. Her real name is Tamisabut everybody calls her Mish. She's a real grouch."
Well. So.
Yoseh fell into a long conversation with Arif. He did most of the talking, answering questions about his native mountains and deserts and those greatsalt flats called the Takes, and about Dartar skirmishes with the Turoksavages who lived beyond the Takes. He got in a few questions of his own, mostly defining Arifs family.
Another of those families decimated by the war. No close relatives leftoutside this house except some married aunts. The same sort of story you heardeverywhere.
So where the hell did all the people come from? What had this crazy city beenlike before the fighting took so many? So crowded you couldn't breathe?
Their talk must have gone on half an hour. Medjhah came back, winked, went andsat in the shade and appeared to doze.
The girl came boiling out of the door down the way, looked around frantically, the back of one hand to her mouth. She was in a panic. Terror filled her eyes.
She spotted Yoseh and Arif. She looked like she went limp with relief.
Yoseh stood as she bustled toward them. He could not help staring. The scalything in his stomach thrashed. She did not look at him at all. Her cheeks werered.
"Arif! What are you doing out here? You know the rules! You're going to getthe spanking of your life when I tell your father what you did."
"Aw, Mish, I was just talking to Yoseh." "He was perfectly safe here, Tamisa.
When you tell his father will you mention that it took you a half hour tonotice that Arif had left the house?"
Her color deepened. She faced him, mouth opening to snarl. But then her eyesmet his. Nothing came out.
Down in Yoseh's stomach Old Scaly went into his death throes. Or something.
Medjhah chuckled into the silence that hung between them. Mouth dry, Yosehsaid, "My name is Yoseh." Tamisa said, "My name is Tamisa." "You are verybeautiful, Tamisa." The girl blushed. Medjhah chuckled again. Arif lookedpuzzled and displeased.
"Tamisa, don't you have another kid to watch, too?" Yoseh had just glimpsed asturdy little one headed their way like he owned Char Street.
"Oh, Aram! Stafa! Mother is right. I'm a hopeless, irresponsible half-wit."
She started to go. Too flustered to remember the older boy.
The younger one was there. The girl scooped him up as if that would save himfrom all the dangers he'd already evaded successfully.
Arif said, "Tell Mish about the time your father and Fa'tad ambushed theTuroks, Yoseh."
"I don't think girls are interested in those kinds of stories, Arif." Tamisaput the younger boy down in front of her and held on. "I don't mind. At homeall I hear is Mom grumbling about how her legs hurt."
Medjhah chuckled a third time.
Yoseh did not know what to say now. It was all in his lap. He was painfullyaware of the disapproval of the passing veydeen who saw one of their virgindaughters speaking to a Dartar.
He just started talking. After a while the girl started talking back to him.
They sat down. The boys began playing among the animals. Yoseh thought thecamels were unnaturally tolerant of their behavior. The little one, thefearless one, climbed all over them. He got bumped down once when he planted afoot too painfully, but otherwise did as he pleased.
Nogah came out of the alley with a coffle of five pasty-looking prisoners andturned them over to Medjhah. His expression was unreadable as he drank from awaterskin. But he said nothing. He returned to the alley with the waterskinslung over his shoulder.
Medjhah got a javelin and perched himself where he could keep an eye on the prisoners. There wasn't a hint of laziness or sleepiness about him now.
Yoseh tried to keep talking to Tamisa, but the appearance of the prisoners hadunsettled her. And the boys now clung close, frightened by the wild men out ofthe maze.
Medjhah whistled softly. "Hey, kid. Down the hill."
The smaller boy took off. "Daddy! Dad's home."
Old Scaly had a few convulsions left.
Azel leaned into the room where the eunuch was eating a late supper. "Hey, Torgo. We got a problem. I need to see the woman."
Torgo's eyes went tight and narrow. "I thought you walked out on us."
"Did I? I don't remember that. I remember saying I wouldn't commit suicide. Not the same thing." He kept his tone neutral. "I got to see her. Got an emergency request from the General. It's important."
Torgo rose, went to a sideboard. He washed his hands in a gold laving bowl, rinsed them in lilac water. "You're serious, eh? You would have stayed away otherwise. What is it?" "I need to see her. She has to make the decisions on this."
"She can't."
"Can't?"
"Unfortunate, but true. "The eunuch smirked. "She examined one of the children last night She won't recover before tomorrow evening. At the earliest."
Azel spat a curse.
"I hope it's not a deadly emergency." The eunuch's smirk grew malicious.
"It could be. For all of us."
Torgo was amused by his effort to be polite. Azel knew he would protract this, make it a bully's game.
Azel gave details about the highly placed Herodian spy.
Torgo said, "I don't see a problem for us in here."
"The General wants to turn the spy around. He's dead set on it. His best leverage is here. The last kid I brought in was the spy's son."