"I understood you," Godarz said. "That would be a sight, wouldn't it? I've not seen it, either, you know. But don't expect the day to come in your time, though. Their border has marched with ours for eight hundred years now, since the Tharpiya hill-men ruled Makuran. They've not smashed us yet, nor we them. One day, though-"
The dihqan nodded, as if very sure that day would come. Then, with a last grin at his son, he went on down the walkway, his striped caftan flapping around his ankles, every so often bending down to make sure a piece of golden sandstone was securely in place.
Abivard stayed up on the walk a few minutes more, then went down the stairs that led to the stronghold's inner courtyard. The stairs were only a couple of paces wide and had no railing; had a brick shifted under his feet, he could have dashed out his brains on the rock-hard dirt below. The bricks did not shift. Godarz was as careful and thoroughgoing in inspecting as he was with everything else.
Down in the courtyard, the sun beat at Abivard with redoubled force, for it reflected from the walls as well as descending directly. His sandals scuffed up dust as he hurried toward the shaded living quarters.
The stronghold was a rough triangle, taking advantage of the shape of the rocky knob on which it sat. The short wall on the eastern side ran north and south; the other two, which ran toward each other from its bottom and top, were longer and went northwest and southwest, respectively. The living quarters were tucked into the corner of the eastern wall and the one that went northwest. That gave them more shadow than they would have had anywhere else. Abivard took a long, happy breath as he passed through the iron-faced wooden door-the living quarters, of course, doubled as citadel. The thick stone walls made the quarters much cooler than the blazing oven of the courtyard. They were also much gloomier: the windows, being designed for defense as well as-and ahead of-vision, were mere slits, with heavy shutters that could be slammed together at a moment's notice. Abivard needed a small stretch of time for his eyes to adjust to dimness.
He stepped carefully until they did. The living quarters were a busy place. Along with servants of the stronghold bustling back and forth, he had to be alert for merchants and peasants who, failing to find his father, would press their troubles on him. Hearing those troubles was one of his duties, but not one he felt like facing right now.
He also had to keep an eye out for children on the floor. His two full brothers, Varaz and Frada, were men grown, and his sister Denak had long since retreated to the women's chambers. But his half brothers ranged in age from Jahiz, who was older than Frada, down to a couple of brats who still sucked at their wet nurses' breasts. Half brothers-and half sisters under the age of twelve-brawled through the place, together with servants' children, shepherd boys, and whomever else they could drag into their games.
When they weren't in hot pursuit of dragons or evil enchanters or Khamorth bandits, they played Makuraners and Videssians. If Videssos had fallen as easily in reality as in their games, the domains of the King of Kings would have stretched east to the legendary Northern Sea centuries ago.
One of his half brothers, an eight-year-old named Parsuash, dodged around Abivard, thwarting another lad who pursued him. "Can't catch me, can't catch me!" Parsuash jeered. "See, I'm in my fortress and you can't catch me."
"Your fortress is going to the kitchens," Abivard said, and walked off. That gave Rodak, his other half brother, the chance to swoop down for the kill. Parsuash screeched in dismay.
In the kitchens, some flatbread just out of the oven lay cooling on its baking pan. Abivard tore off a chunk of it, then stuck slightly scorched fingers into his mouth. He walked over to a bubbling pot, used the piece of flatbread to scoop out some of the contents, and popped it into his mouth.
"Ground lamb balls and pomegranate seeds," he said happily after he swallowed.
"I thought that was what I smelled. Father will be pleased-it's one of his favorites."
"And what would you have done had it been something else, son of the dihqan?"
one of the cooks asked.
"Eaten it anyhow, I expect," Abivard answered. The cook laughed. Abivard went on, "Since it is what it is, though-" He tore off another piece of flatbread, then raided the pot again. The cook laughed louder.
Still chewing, Abivard left the kitchens and went down the hall that led to his own room. Since he was eldest son of Godarz's principal wife, he had finally got one to himself, which led to envious sighs from his brothers and half brothers. To him, privacy seemed a mixed blessing. He enjoyed having a small place to himself, but had been so long without one that sometimes he felt achingly alone and longed for the warm, squabbling companionship he had known before.
Halfway down the hall, his left sandal started flapping against his foot. He peered down and discovered he had lost the bronze buckle that held a strap around his ankle. He looked around and even got down on his hands and knees, but didn't find it.
"It probably fell into the Void," he muttered under his breath. Moving with an awkward half-skating motion, he made it to his doorway, went into his room, and put on a new pair of sandals.
Then he went out again, damaged sandal in hand. One of Godarz's rules-which, to his credit, he scrupulously followed himself-was that anything that broke had to be set right at once. "Let one thing slide and soon two'll be gone, two lead to four, and four-well, there had better not be four, there had better not," he would say.
Had just a bit of leather fallen off the sandal, Abivard could have gotten some from the stables and made his own rough repair. But to replace a buckle, he had to visit the cobbler in the village that surrounded the stronghold.
Out into the heat again, then. The sun smote him like a club. Sweat sprang out on his face, rolled down his back under his baggy garment. He wished he'd had farther to go; he wouldn't have felt foolish about getting on his horse. But if his father had seen him, he would have made sarcastic noises about Abivard's riding in a sedan chair next time, as if he were a high noble, not just a dihqan's son. Abivard walked.
The gate guards pounded the butts of their spears against the hard ground as he went by. He dipped his head to return the salute. Then he left the stronghold and went into the village, an altogether different world.
Homes and shops straggled down to the base of the hill the stronghold topped and even for a little distance out onto the flat land below. Some were of stone, some of mud brick with widely overhanging thatched roofs to protect the walls from winter storms. Set beside the stronghold, they all seemed like toys.
The hill was steep, the streets winding and full of stones; if you tumbled, you were liable to end up at the bottom with a broken leg. Abivard had been navigating through town since he learned to toddle; he was as sure-footed as a mountain sheep.
Merchants cried their wares in the market square: chickpeas, dates, mutton buzzing with flies, utterances of the Prophets Four on parchment amulets-said to be sovereign against disease, both as prevention and cure; Abivard, whose education had included letters but not logic, failed to wonder why the second would be necessary if the first was efficacious. The calls rose from all around: knives, copper pots and clay ones, jewelry of glass beads and copper wire-those with finer stuff came to sell at the stronghold-and a hundred other things besides. The smells were as loud as the shouts.
A fellow was keeping a pot of baked quinces hot over a dung fire. Abivard haggled him down from five coppers to three; Godarz was not a man who let his sons grow up improvident. The quince was hot. Abivard quickly found a stick on the ground, poked it through the spicy fruit, and ate happily on his way down to the cobbler's shop.
The cobbler bowed low when Abivard came in; he was not near enough in rank to the dihqan's son to present his cheek for a ceremonial kiss, as a couple of the richer merchants might have done. Abivard returned a precise nod and explained what he required.
"Yes, yes," the cobbler said. "Let me see the good sandal, pray, that I may match the buckle as close as may be."
"I'm afraid I didn't bring it." Abivard felt foolish and annoyed with himself. Though Godarz was back in the stronghold, he felt his father's eye on him.
"I'll have to go back and get it."
"Oh, never mind that, your Excellency. Just come here and pick out the one that nearest suits it. They're no two of 'em just alike, anyhow." The cobbler showed him a bowl half full of brass buckles. They jingled as Abivard sorted through them till he found the one he wanted.
The cobbler's fingers deftly fixed it to the sandal. Deft as they were, though, they bore the scars of awl and knife and needle and nail. "No trade is simple," Godarz would say, "though some seem so to simple men." Abivard wondered how much pain the cobbler had gone through to learn his business.
He didn't dicker so hard with the cobbler as he had with the fruit seller. The man's family had been in the village for generations, serving villagers and dihqans alike. He deserved his superiors' support.
Sandal repaired, Abivard could have gone straight back to the stronghold to escape the worst of the heat in the living quarters. Instead, he returned to the bazaar in the marketplace and bought himself another quince. He stood there taking little bites of it and doing his best to seem as if he were thinking about the goods offered for sale. What he was really doing was watching the young women who went from this stall to that dealer in search of what they needed.
Women of the merchant and peasant castes lived under fewer restrictions than those of the nobility. Oh, a few wealthy merchants locked their wives and daughters away in emulation of their betters, but most lower-caste women had to go out and about in the world to help feed their families.
Abivard was betrothed to Roshnani, a daughter of Papak, the dihqan whose stronghold lay a few farsangs south and west of Godarz's. Their parents having judged the match advantageous, they were bound to each other before either of them reached puberty. Abivard had never seen his fiancee. He wouldn't, not till the day they were wed.
When he got the chance, then, he watched girls-the serving women in the stronghold, the girls in the village square here. When one caught his eye, he imagined Roshnani looked like her. When he spotted one he did not find fair, he hoped his betrothed did not resemble her.
He finished nibbling the quince and licked his fingers. He thought about buying yet another one; that would give him an excuse to hang around in the square awhile longer. But he was sensitive to his own dignity and, whenever he forgot to be, Godarz made sure his memory didn't slip for long.
All the same, he still didn't feel like going back to the stronghold. He snapped his slightly sticky fingers in inspiration. Godarz had given him all kinds of interesting news. Why not find out what old Tanshar the fortune-teller made of his future?
An additional inducement to this course was that Tanshar's house lay alongside the market square. Abivard could see that the old man's shutters were thrown wide open. He could go in, have his fortune read, and keep right on eying the women hereabouts, all without doing anything in the least undignified.
The door to Tanshar's house was on the side opposite the square. Like the shutters, it gaped wide, both to show the fortune-teller was open for business and to give him the benefit of whatever breeze the God chose to send.
One thing Tanshar certainly had not done: he had not used the prophetic gift to get rich. His home was astringently neat and clean, but furnished only with a much-battered low table and a couple of wickerwork chairs. Abivard had the idea that he wouldn't have bothered with those had he not needed to keep his clients comfortable.
Only scattered hairs in Tanshar's beard were still black, giving it the look of snow lightly streaked with soot. A cataract clouded the fortune-teller's left eye. The right one, though, still saw clearly. Tanshar bowed low. "Your presence honors my house, son of the dihqan." He waved Abivard to the less disreputable chair, pressed upon him a cup of wine and date cakes sweet with honey and topped by pistachios. Not until Abivard had eaten and drunk did Tanshar ask, "How may I serve you?"
Abivard explained what he had heard from Godarz, then asked, "How shall this news affect my life?"
"Here; let us learn if the God will vouchsafe an answer." Tanshar pulled his own chair close to Abivard's. He pulled up the left sleeve of his caftan, drew off a silver armlet probably worth as much as his house and everything in it put together. He held it out to Abivard. "Take hold of one side whilst I keep a grasp on the other. We shall see whether the Prophets Four grant me a momentary portion of their power."
Busts of the Four Prophets adorned the armlet: young Narseh, his beard barely sprouted; Gimillu the warrior, a strong face seamed with scars; Shivini, who looked like everyone's mother; and Fraortish, eldest of all, his eyes inset with gleaming jet. Though the silver band had just come from Tanshar's arm, it was cool, almost cold, to the touch.
The fortune-teller looked up at the thatched roof of his little cottage. Abivard's gaze followed Tanshar's. All he saw was straw, but he got the odd impression that Tanshar peered straight through the roof and up to the God's home on the far side of the sky.
"Let me see," Tanshar murmured. "May it please you, let me see." His eyes went wide and staring, his body stiffened. Abivard's left hand, the one that held the armlet, tingled as if it had suddenly fallen asleep. He looked down. A little golden light jumped back and forth from one Prophet's image to the next. At last it settled on Fraortish, eldest of all, making his unblinking jet eyes seem for an instant alive as they stared back at Abivard.