The Wanderer by Cherry; Wilder, Katya Reimann Page B

sights of the bazaar through a gap in the curtains. In the curve of a doorway outlined in raw turquoise, she saw a man watching them: he was very tall, hawk faced, in a straight black robe embroidered in gold. On his neat white turban he wore a single emerald that flamed suddenly as if the sun had caught it.
    Her ring sent out a little dart of fire onto the curtain of the litter and the sword. Ishkar moved in its sheath under Blayn’s hand.
    “What the devil … ?” he said.
    “See, my lord!” said Gael. “The tall man yonder, could it be … ?”
    “Yes,” he said, rising and peering through the curtains, “it might be Zallibar, the Swordmaker. I glimpsed him once in the Dhey’s train when they came to Pfolben four years past. When I received my sword.”
    “He is surely a great magician as well as a craftsman,” she said. “He watches us.”
    “Have no fear, Maddoc,” laughed Blayn. “He serves the Dhey, and old Lalmed the Fat still has hopes that I will wed his daughter Farzia.”
    Gael gave him a questioning look, although she had heard the tale before. Blayn shook his head.
    “One day you must come to it,” she said, smiling.
    “Maddoc, stop talking like my mother!”
    Gael Maddoc glanced again into the streets of Aghiras and caught sight of a poor woman carrying a waterskin and a slender, curly-headed lad who ran after her on dusty feet. She
thought of her own childhood; she seemed to see her brother Bress following as her mother did the chores and drew water from the well. She held fast to the moment and the memories it conjured. Through all the ceremonies in the palace of the Dhey, she remembered who she was, Gael Maddoc, from Holywell Croft on the Chyrian coast of Mel’Nir.
    Later she saw the Dhey himself, overflowing his jeweled throne; she saw the silken luxury of the palace, where even the kedran were housed in perfumed splendor. Beyond the pleasure gardens with their fountains and groves of tamarisk, she went with the other men and women of the escort to choose a horse, one of the coursers of the sun, from the Dhey’s stable.
    It was here that she first met Jazeel. She examined a black mare in its box and knew that two of the Gaura and a woman house servant stood behind her in the shadow of a palm tree. One voice said in the language of Aghiras:
    “That is the one … tall as an afreet with fox-red hair.”
    “Walks like a man. You know what they say about women warriors.”
    “Find out!” ordered the old woman. “Find out her secret heart … .”
    Then he was before her, bowing gravely as he said his name.
    “Madame Captain,” he said in the common speech. “Let me show you the horse I would choose …”
    “My thanks, good Jazeel.”
    Gael Maddoc laughed to herself and thought of the night back at home in Pfolben when she would be telling the tale to her friends Amarah and the light-laughing Mev Arun. The man sent to gain her favor was tall and strong; he had a rugged face and a ready smile. She knew why he was sent to her and could guess who had sent him. The Princess Farzia, a languorous, dark beauty, still cherished hopes of a match with Blayn of Pfolben. She wished to know his heart.
    It had all happened before: she had been offered presents of one kind or another, she had been courted. So far she had proved incorruptible. She asked no favors of her lord Hem Blayn, and she told none of his secrets. There were times when she wished she had put in a word to her master. Sergeant Witt had said that the kedran escort for the Royal Hunt were showy
and lightweight; they needed a leaven of experienced soldiers. The desert held uncalculated dangers, and everyone had heard of hunting accidents.
    Now, far from her friends in Kestrel Company, Gael Maddoc did not put off Jazeel.
    If Hem Blayn kept the poor princess dangling, why shouldn’t she do the same with this guardsman? The voluptuous air of Aghiras worked its magic upon all the visitors … a month spent by the Lakes of Dawn was