‘I do not know what it means to have our own people trailing us,’ he continued. ‘But it counts for nothing good.’
‘It does not matter.’
‘You do not wish to know what it means? Why we have been betrayed?’
‘If the message does not make it to the Romans, then nothing matters.’
‘At least let a single rider go back.’
She smiled again, her ghastly, murderous smile. ‘Oh, you look to escape at the last? I thought better of you.’
‘Send someone else. Go yourself, none doubt your courage. A word of warning to our clan, that is all.’
‘Brother.’ How long it had been since she had called him that, he thought, as she gestured to the riders scattered about them. ‘They ride towards death gladly,’ she said, ‘for they feel there is no choice. Give it to them, and they will desert in but a few days. We have both seen warbands break that way. The courage of men is such a fragile thing. All must go, or none.’
She looked at him, and for a moment there was nothing of their feud etched upon her face. Only something imploring in the softness of the eyes, a hand half reaching towards him. A sister wishing for her brother to make the right choice.
‘You are the captain,’ Kai said at last. ‘And I ride at your command.’
‘That I am. You have done well. Go and take your place in the line.’
He turned back towards his horse – he would have to lose himself, then, in the rhythm of the horse beneath him, the feel of spear in hand and the taste of the spring air upon his lips. But before that, he asked one more question. A question that he knew the answer to already.
‘What did you say to Bahadur?’ he said.
‘The truth, of course,’ she answered. ‘As I always do.’
22
Those days that followed all passed like one another. Hard riding, seeking to outpace those who followed, and more besides. A moment of shame or cowardice, a broken heart or a lost fellowship – all could be forgotten in the movement of a horse across the plains. To forget what lay behind them, to believe it an impossibility to turn back as though the ground fell away into some black abyss behind the horses’ hooves at every step. That only the world ahead mattered.
The riders drew close on the ride, close enough to be able to reach out and touch another with a crooked arm and an open palm. Closer still at night, huddled together in the blankets, rushing to help each other with the thousand little chores of a warband on the march, careful to do nothing alone. Speaking of many things, but more often holding the silence together. That comfort of the pack, when one man often found his thoughts spoken by another, an action begun that was completed by a companion. And Kai let himself be swallowed up by them, for it seemed that the past no longer mattered. He had his place amongst his people once more.
And so, one night by the fire, when Kai felt an arm wrap about his shoulder, it was no surprise – every day found a different companion settling beside him. Yet the sharpness of the embrace was unexpected, the arm bones hard across his shoulders. The grey eyes he saw that had once been sharp and full of life were watery now, the eyes of a drunkard or an old man. But there was comfort to be found there still, as Bahadur took the place by his side.
They leaned against each other for a long time, and they did not speak.
At last, Bahadur said: ‘I was told a story, of our ancestors. How each man hung a quiver on his tent, and at the end of each day, he dropped in a white stone or a black, to mark a good or evil day. And at the end of a man’s life they would turn out the quiver, and so judge it.’
Kai made no answer at first. Then: ‘Where did they find so many stones upon the steppe?’
A hiss from Bahadur. ‘Quiet, idiot. Must you spoil the story?’ A pause, and then he continued. ‘I think that, were I to count them for my own life, I would have more white stones than black,’ he said. ‘But some of those black stones, they weigh very heavy.’
‘It would be the same for me,’ said Kai. ‘And that day upon the ice when I thought I saw you dead, that would be the worst of them all.’
Bahadur nodded. ‘Arite is a beautiful woman, is she not?’
‘She is.’ Kai hesitated. ‘You must know, I thought—’
‘I know, I know.’ A hand taking his, holding it in the darkness. ‘No harm in lying with a dead man’s wife. I was dead, then.’ Bahadur chuckled. ‘Just do not lie with a living man’s wife. At least, not mine. Though I am still not quite living now.’
‘You do live, Bahadur. And I am glad of it.’
‘I am a little mad now, Kai. I can feel it there always. As though there is some fragment of a blade in my heart. Every so often, it cuts something, and I lose myself again. I will try not to.’ A heavy breath that Kai felt as much as heard. ‘She sought to drive us apart. Your sister, I mean, when she spoke to me. We must not let that happen.’
‘It shall not.’
Bahadur looked towards the rest of the company – Saratos teasing a thorn from his horse’s hoof, Laimei kneeling in prayer to a god of love or war, the others snatching what fragment of sleep they could before the order came to move once more. Kai wondered if the other man was trying to remember his courage by looking on them, to find that bravery they shared as freely as wine and song. But when he spoke again, Kai understood why Bahadur’s eyes seemed to linger on the markings on their armour and their banners, the silhouettes of the horses against the low sun.
‘Will you tell me what happened at the ford?’ he said. ‘The truth of it, I mean.’
‘If you are asking, then I think you know already.’
‘I suppose that I do. They were our people that you fought?’
‘Yes. I could not tell which of the clans they came from. But they are Sarmatians that hunt us now.’
Bahadur looked back to Kai then, and there was something of his old self in his eyes. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said.
Kai started at that – for all that he had thought that Bahadur might say, he had not expected those words. Perhaps it had been that he had forgotten that he still had a choice. Perhaps it was that he had wanted to forget. ‘It is her command to continue,’ he said.
‘But what will you do?’
Another man would have given an order, but that was not Bahadur’s way. Always the choice, always the trust that the right choice would be made, and Kai felt a bitter little smile force its way onto his face, for what else was there to do when one could hear the gods laughing?
To the west, he felt a longing stronger than love. It might be death waiting for them there, but a death like a sacred river, a place where all shame might be washed away. He had lived so long in shame that he had forgotten what it was to be free of it. He could almost taste that freedom in his mouth, feel its lightness upon his skin. And to be part of a company once more, to bear that mark of honour, to feel those riders at his back and trust them completely, to have that trust returned. He did not know if he could give that up again.
And to the east, the dark stain of desertion, like wine upon fine silk. For what forgiveness would there be from one who ran from the warband? Whatever shame he had worn, it was nothing compared to that. And if he were caught, the death given only to deserters, the slow death by knife and fire.
He searched the air for an omen – an eagle turning one way or another, a pattern of light upon the grass that might speak of something godly. But there was none that he might see.
‘I will go back,’ he said.
‘Tell me why,’ Bahadur asked, his voice gentle.
‘If I were to stay, I would stay for myself. My precious honour. Not for our people.’ He looked to his hands. ‘I do not know why they hunt us. I do not know what I may do against that, on my own. But I must try. Laimei—’