“Excellent.” Mama nodded. “Since they are together, if one receives the message, both will. Come, let us go up to the battlements. These Moors may anchor near Bordestang before the day is out. We should prepare a few surprises for them.”
On the way up, Mama told the Captain of the Guard to dispatch three couriers by three different routes.
Saul was amazed at her air of authority and at how easily she had taken to running the castle. By evening, the Moorish ships were anchoring in Bordestang’s harbor. They found empty docks, and a waterfront so silent that its only longshoremen were ghosts. Mama and Saul looked out over the city with Sir Gilbert, Captain of the Guard under protest… he had protested not being able to ride with the queen and her army. The castle stood atop a talus slope, kept bare of all trees and bushes, sheep-cropped to smooth lawn. A road wound down its sides from the drawbridge to the first houses, a hundred yards away. There it turned into a broad avenue that ran straight downhill, between half-timbered houses, inns, and stores, to the gate in the city wall.
Outside that wall lay a ring of more modest houses and commercial buildings. The boulevard ran on from the gate, all the way down to the river. There, the buildings were all warehouses and chandlers’ shops, with a generous sprinkling of taverns with upstairs rooms for sailors between ships… all dark now, emptied of valuables and people.
Sir Gilbert chafed under restraint. “We could have fought them on the docks, Lady Mantrell! We could have prevented them from coming ashore!”
“You could not, Sir Gilbert, and you know it,” she said gently. “They would have poured in more soldiers than we have in the castle, hundreds more, perhaps thousands. Your men would have died to no purpose.”
Saul nodded. “Even if you had fought them off, they would have just landed someplace else. No, better to clear the docks and let them come ashore where we can keep an eye on them.”
“But the city!”
“Your men-at-arms have already evacuated most of the civilians,” Mama said. “They found shelter in the parts of the city away from the river, did they not?”
“Yes, and the movement out of the city has begun. With any luck, most of the common folk will be safe in the hills before the Moors draw their siege lines tight.”
“And you sent the merchant ships out upstream in a timely manner,” Mama said. “I think the citizens who have fortified their houses along the streets will prove all the defense Bordestang needs.”
“The Moors could overcome them in a day!”
“Yes, but it is the castle they seek, not the port or the suburbs, and staying to overcome the civilian defenders would cost the Moors lives they need for their siege. No, they shall secure the boulevard that leads up to our walls and be content with that. Then your militia may slip away unnoticed, if it is necessary.”
“It will be, if the siege lasts longer than a week!”
“Then we must see it does not,” Mama said calmly.
The Moorish ships were able to sail right up to the docks, tie up, and unload their cargoes of men and horses without having to ferry them ashore in longboats. Then, to Saul’s and Mama’s astonishment, the ships not only shoved off and made room for the next to unload… they sailed back down the river and out of sight!
“They are leaving their men!” Mama exclaimed. “Are they so sure of victory that they do not even feel the need to secure their line of retreat?”
“No, milady,” Sir Gilbert said, his face somber. “They disdain retreat. Those ships are returning to Morocco for more soldiers. The Moors will have to conquer Bordestang, or die.”
Papa finished the last bite of beef jerky stew and wiped his bowl with a sigh. “Well, that was filling.”
“But nothing more?” Matt shrugged apologetically. “Sorry about the menu. Too bad there isn’t a little game in this woodlot.”
“Too many refugees, even this far from the border?”
“More likely the hazards of traveling with a dragon,” Matt told him. “Just think how much slower we’d be going without him.”
“Think how much more quickly you would go if I did not need to land every time you did see a heat-flickering in the air or even the smallest whirlwind,” Stegoman huffed.
“Yeah, but who knows how many djinn we’ve avoided this way?” Matt pointed out. “Besides, we’re halfway to the Pyrenees… not bad, for one day’s travel.”
“If you must say so,” Stegoman grumped.
“I do,” Matt told him. “What’s the matter? Still hungry?”
“Nay. The roebuck that I seized from the air was ample.”
“Look, I told you it would taste better if you’d let me cook it a little,” Matt said. “Just a few turns over a hot fire… “
“And it would be inedible,” the dragon huffed. “Seared roebuck? Disgusting!”
“I must agree.” Papa looked up from rinsing his bowl. “I prefer my steaks rare, too.”
“Not as rare as he likes ‘em,” Matt retorted. “I know what I tell the waitress when I’m ordering well done, but he takes it literally.”
“Perhaps, but deer don’t moo,” Papa said.
“Yeah, I know the lowdown, and I know he isn’t really grouchy because of his dinner,” Matt sighed.
“He’s just impatient because of the delay.”
“Impatient? From what little I know of medieval travel, he has taken us much faster than any horse could!”
“And the Mahdi will wait.” Matt finished washing his bowl and put it back in his pack. “That is, unless he’s marching our way. Got a blanket, Papa? The spring’s still early enough to have chilly nights.”
“A blanket? I have none,” said a husky contralto that made every male hormone stand up and take notice
“May I share yours?”
Matt jumped to his feet… this was one antagonist he didn’t want to catch him lying down… and turned slowly, forcing a smile. “Why, Lakshmi! Nice of you to stop by!”
“When night fell, I thought of you.” The djinna was in her human-size form, fairly glowing with desire.
She stepped very close to Matt, murmuring, “When the nights are chill, beings nestle against one another to stay warm.”
“Oh, it’s not too cold for more than a blanket,” Matt assured her. He held up his poncho on display… right between them. “See? Nice, tight weave.”
“I can weave tightly, too,” Lakshmi breathed, leaning closer “Allow me to demonstrate.”
Matt swallowed through a suddenly tight throat. “Look, I told you that you were free to go where you wanted!”
“I did,” she said Her sensuous aura was so strong that it bypassed Matt’s mind and heart completely, going straight to his glands. No matter how much he was in love with Alisande, this female spirit had a very commanding presence… and he was all too present to her commands. Still, the thought of Alisande was a defense in itself. “I hate to say no… you don’t know how much I hate to!… but I’m very thoroughly married.”
“Thoroughly?” The djinna frowned. “One is married or one is not! How can one be more thoroughly so, or less?”
“Uhhhh… ” Matt thought fast, trying to put words to what he meant. “By how deeply one is in love, and whether or not one has children.”
“Are the small ones so great a seal upon union as that?”
“They are,” Papa said, “when a man loves them. The more souls he loves, the more deeply he wishes to stay where they are.”
“And you?” Lakshmi turned to him, her allure suddenly blazing at him… and leaving Matt shaking with relief. “Your child is grown,” the Djinn said. “He has left your house. You should be less thoroughly married now.”
Papa didn’t even look tense, he only smiled, a gleam appearing in his eye. “Ah, but twenty years sharing the pain and the burden and the joy of his upbringing… the bond that grew between us in that time is far deeper and far, far stronger than it was when we married. Even then, it was so powerful we could not imagine it being any stronger.”