“Ah, but has that bond ever been tested?” Lakshmi asked, hips rolling as she stepped closer to Papa.
“Several times.” Now it was Papa who stepped closer, the gleam growing more intense “It has always held.”
“But there have been times when you wished it had not?” Lakshmi breathed, swaying very close indeed
Matt stared, scandalized. Papa had been tempted? While he was Papa? “I have never wished for that bond to be broken, or even loosened,” Papa said firmly, though his eyes said otherwise. “But you have lusted after other women,” Lakshmi insisted. “Lust is not love, beauteous lady,” Papa sighed, “and gives rise to no bond. Rather, once it is satisfied, it loses what little bond it had.”
Lakshmi recoiled, revolted. “What strange creatures you humans are! If a djinni desires a djinna, he will desire her whenever he sees her!”
“We do not speak of desire,” Papa said. The gleam was still there, but his smile turned sad. “We speak of a bond, an invisible tie that holds two people together for a lifetime, a tie that is like a growing vine and must be nourished and watered and given sunlight, but which thus grows stronger and stronger with every month that passes.”
Lakshmi eyed him warily, turning pensive. “I could almost wish my soul was such that it could know the delights of which you speak.”
“Almost?” Papa asked, still sadly smiling. “Almost,” Lakshmi confirmed. “To a djinna who has only now regained her freedom, a bond smacks too much of bondage. Does it not chafe you? Do you not long for freedom?”
“There was a year or two when I did,” Papa admitted, “but even then, I wished even more to be with my Jimena. For all the rest of my married years, I have scarcely missed my freedom at all, for I have treasured my love far more.”
Lakshmi shivered “Yes, I wish I could know such a feeling,” she said slowly, “but not for long. Still, that is not possible, is it?”
Papa shook his head, eyes glowing. “If it is only for a short time, it cannot give the warmth and closeness and delight of which I speak. Do not misunderstand me… there is great pleasure in falling in love for a few months, even a few years… but it is a different sort of delight entirely.”
“Oh, a pox upon it!” Lakshmi jammed her fists on her hips, stamping her foot. Matt had to catch his breath all over again at the vividness her anger gave her. “It is disgusting, it is outrageous, and I must be done with it!” Lakshmi threw an arm around Papa, growing as she did, so that it only took her one step to seize Matt in her other arm. She continued to grow, swelling into a giant again, the men clasped to her bosom like toddlers as she sprang into the air. Her contralto deepened to basso, almost too deep to hear.
“I shall take you to the Mahdi, and be done with you for once and for all! When you have come to your goal, you shall have no need to travel where I may see you!”
Behind them, a roar of outrage split the night with flickering flame.
“Follow, dragon!” the djinna called. “But do not land within the ranks of the Moors, for they are desert folk, and may take a fancy to reptile’s flesh!”
Somehow, her expansion in size killed off Matt’s lust completely; she no longer seemed human. He glanced down past the huge curve of her bosom to the ground far below and swallowed heavily. He hoped she was still enough enamored of him to hold tightly.
Chapter Fifteen
“Go with God, and good luck ride with you!” Sir Gilbert clapped each man on the shoulder.
“Thank you, sir,” each said. Then the postern gate opened, and Marl, Hode, and Doman led their horses out into the night, mounted, and sped away under the stars, with Bordestang and its castle between themselves and the Moors.
At the foot of the slope they came to a crossroads. Hode rode to the left, to join the river upstream, following it away from the Moorish army. Doman turned to the right, riding toward the distant bulk of the forest, and Marl rode straight ahead, down a road that would curve east, then south toward the mountains.
Marl rode through the night, rested in the morning, then rode through the afternoon. He slept that night, then rode out again at sunrise. The Pyrenees were a dark line on the horizon ahead when he came to the fork in the road, and the Moorish patrol emerged from behind a roadside thicket to surround and imprison him.
Hode rode along the river through the night, kept riding after dawn, then dismounted, hid, ate, and slept the afternoon. He began his ride again in the evening, and came to the forest as the day was breaking.
He slept in a thicket at the edge of the trees and woke at sunset. He came out of the thicket, leading his horse, and found the boat waiting. He froze in surprise, and the soldiers stepped out from behind trees to surround him. One look at their conical helmets, and he knew he had failed.
Doman rode through the night but when the sky lightened, drew off to find a hiding place, chewing hardtack as he searched. He slept in a barn and woke at dusk, saddled his horse, and rode on through the night, munching his hard biscuits on horseback whenever he grew hungry.
He rode around the forest in the dark until he came to a road that led east, and followed it till dawn, when he hid and slept again. When he woke, he heard hooves approaching, and had just time enough to soothe his horse Bubaru and hold its mouth shut while voices spoke in foreign words outside the cave in which they’d hidden. When the hoofbeats faded into the distance, he came out and rode again. The third night found him in the mountains.
He was climbing a mountain path scarcely four feet wide when a giant rat came scuttling out of the rocks ahead. Bubaru shied from the creature, and only hauling savagely on the reins and kicking with the off side spur kept him from going over the edge. Then the horrible rodent ran at them, baring long, slimy teeth, reaching high to bite the horse’s side, Doman’s leg, whatever it could reach. Again Doman spurred frantically to keep from going over the edge while he drew his sword and plunged it down the rat’s throat. The beast screamed, scrambling, but was dead as it fell over the cliff, almost dragging Doman with it… but he had the presence of mind to let go of the sword at the last moment. He felt horribly vulnerable without it, but he was alive.
Bubaru took a deal of calming, but finally they went on their way. Doman still trembled. Were such rats native to the mountains? He’d never heard of any. Or had a Moorish sorcerer set it to guard the passes? If so, did that sorcerer now know where Doman was?
“You’re borrowing trouble,” he scolded himself, and tried to shut off his thoughts as he rode on up the pathway through the night… but he couldn’t help thinking that he might switch to daytime riding now.
By the end of the week, an army of thirty thousand Moors was camped around Bordestang, with more arriving every day. Gilbert and Mama stood with Saul on the castle battlements, looking down over the capital at the new city of tents that had grown up past the frame houses beyond the wall. To their right, a dozen ships lay moored, having just disgorged their cargoes of men and horses. They would sail with the morning tide. “They will stage their assault soon,” the young monk-knight said, “perhaps even tomorrow.”
“It’s a wonder they haven’t attacked already,” Saul said. “They were wary,” Gilbert told him, “because we did not resist their coming ashore.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” Mama said “They fear a trap, do they not?”
“When they come and find the docks deserted, and all the houses outside the walls too? When they find their moorings ready and their quarters swept and waiting? Yes, I would be wary, too.”