She awoke with a start and a terrible ache in her neck and shoulders. The sky had grown gray and dim and dark clouds were gathering in the north. A light dusting of frozen rain was falling all around them, tinkling on the road and the frozen snow drifts to either side of the uneven lane. Taziri straightened up and glanced over at Shahera. She looked much older and even a bit thinner now that she was out of her jester’s costume. The Eranian girl offered her an exhausted smile, and then looked away. Lorenzo and his wife were still plodding along just ahead, but the saber-toothed cat was nowhere to be seen. Behind her, Taziri saw Dante leaning low in the saddle to talk to the youths, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She turned to face forward again and was about to trot ahead and ask the hidalgo where they would be staying the night when she realized that they were a rider short.
“Nicola? Nicola!” She stared up and down the road for some sign of another figure, another horse.
Everyone looked at her, looked around, and came to a full stop as they realized they had lost one of their party. Don Lorenzo questioned his students, but none of them could say when the tall Italian woman had disappeared or how long she had been gone. Taziri felt her heart racing.
How could I let this happen? How could I fall asleep and just lose one of my people?
But looking around, she realized that everyone had been nodding off or staring miserably at their boots, and at any given moment their little group had been strung out over as much as fifty yards. The road had wound through heavy woodlands and tall stone houses, and plenty of other places where a rider might have left unseen at just the right moment.
Why would she leave the road? Taziri tried to list the possibilities, but the only one she could think of was the need to answer nature’s call, which she was currently trying to ignore herself. Unable to think of anything else to do, she turned her horse to backtrack up the road but the hidalgo was suddenly beside her and he reached over to rein back her mare.
“No. Qhora will go. We will wait and see what she finds.”
The little Incan woman nudged her towering bird into a sprint and they vanished up the road, Wayra’s talons digging deep gashes in the frozen gravel.
Taziri sat and waited. Dante complained, though everyone ignored him. Shahera said nothing. The four boys asked permission to spar in the road, but their master said no. After half an hour, they heard a faint squawk and whistle and soon heard the rider returning. Qhora let her mount strut into their midst and said, “Over two miles back, I found a fresh horse trail leaving the road in a thick stand of pine trees. She circled around to the road behind us and went back south. I couldn’t see her over the hills.”
“I’ll go back,” Taziri heard herself say. She didn’t want to go back. She didn’t give a damn about Nicola, or Dante, or even poor Shahera. She just wanted to fall asleep and wake up in her own bed with Yuba and Menna beside her. But I have to. I just have to. “I’ll find her.”
“No.” Don Lorenzo pulled down the high stiff collar of his coat to speak. “She chose to go back. God only knows why, but we must stay together and continue north. If your friend is smart, and lucky, then she’ll survive. I wish her well, but she’s gone now, and we need to be moving on. It will be dark soon, and we still have a few miles to go tonight.”
Taziri nodded, grateful to him that he had saved her from herself, and hating him for making her turn her back on her duty. Or am I just hating myself? Some captain I’m turning out to be.
Chapter 9. Shifrah
There was no one at the Diaz estate. No smoke rising from the chimney, no lights in the windows, no animals in the stables. But the snow in the yard wasn’t as deep as the snow outside the fence, and when she stared at the dimples in the fresh snow beyond the gate, Shifrah could see the telltale patterns of boots tramping along the lane to the left and the thinner trails of horse legs walking up the lane to the right.
“Another dead end,” she said. “What a waste of time.”
“No, this is the place.” Salvator shook the locked doors and pressed his eye up to the dark glass of the windows.
In Madrid there had been more than a few witnesses who said a procession of strange people in strange clothes had arrived in town, asking for Don Lorenzo. A man splitting firewood at the bottom of the lane had described as many as half a dozen of these travelers, which matched the furrier’s description.
And here is Don Lorenzo’s house. His dark and empty house.
“It looks like our Mazigh friends arrived around noon, and then left again just a few hours ago. Assuming this Don Lorenzo was at home when they arrived, it is possible the gentleman is with them now.” Salvator swung back up into the saddle and studied the darkening sky. A light snow was falling, but the evening promised to be mild by Espani standards.
Shifrah glared at the dark gray clouds. She had been daydreaming of desert oases and hot sandy beaches for the last three days. She sighed, the exhaled vapor frosting in the chill air. “So where did they go?”
“South. And north.” Salvator grimaced at the tracks. He rode a few yards one way and then a few the other, staring at the tracks in the fading light.
“Well, which is it?” Shifrah demanded. “I’m freezing. What the hell is wrong with you people, living in the cold like this?”
“I can’t be certain who went where. They may have split up. There’s more than half a dozen people heading both ways.” He sounded, as always, perfectly calm and focused. There was no excitement, no frustration, no fatigue. It was infuriating.
Shifrah shivered. “Well, can’t we assume the Mazighs would go south to get back home?”
“The Mazighs could have gone south from their original crash site straight to Villa Real or Albaset. But they went north to Madrid instead, on foot. They asked for a Don Lorenzo on the road. And at that same time, our dearly departed Rui was stealing a journal also written by a man named Lorenzo. What if it’s the same Lorenzo? Clearly, this Lorenzo is an important person. I can’t be certain how or why, but I believe he may be the key to a much larger puzzle.”
“Well, I don’t care about your Lorenzos. I only care about the Mazighs because that’s who Magellan wants, remember?” Shifrah pulled her hood tighter around her head. “Come on. We’re going south.”
“No, wait just a moment. Consider the possibility that they aren’t trying to return home at all.” Salvator peered into the northern gloom where the long shadows of the hills and trees were already masking the contours of the land. “Maybe they meant to go north all along. They might be continuing their mission as planned, but on foot instead of in the air.”
“What mission? What the hell are you talking about? And why would a bunch of stupid Mazighs be coming to see this Lorenzo person?” Her face was tight and pinched, eyes narrowed to slits, mouth compressed into a long thin line.
Salvator looked up at her. “Wasn’t it you who mentioned that name to me about two weeks ago? A Lorenzo?”
“Did I?” She paused, then smirked as the conversation came to mind. “Oh, yes, I remember. I overheard Faleiro talking to another officer about going to meet with a Lorenzo. It must have been this Lorenzo, this meeting.”