Through the Darkness

“Oh, without a doubt, my dear fellow,” Hajjaj replied. “That made it no more pleasant to be his subject, though. And another Unkerlanter grand duke lorded it over one half of Forthweg, and an Algarvian prince over the other. And the Forthwegians hated them both impartially.”

His secretary nodded thoughtfully. “What you say makes a good deal of sense, your Excellency--as it has a way of doing. But tell me this: In the days before the Six Years’ War, would anyone have used the Kaunians as King Mezentio is using them now--or as King Swemmel is using his own people?”

“No,” Hajjaj said at once. “In that you are right. Mezentio’s father--and Swemmel’s, too--would sooner have leapt off a cliff than ordered such a slaughter.”

He tossed back the rest of the wine in his cup at a gulp, then slammed it down on the little table in front of him. A moment later, the ley-line caravan came up over the top of a little rise. Qutuz pointed eastward. “You can spy the sea from here, your Excellency. We are almost arrived.”

A little reluctantly, Hajjaj turned to look. Sure enough, deeper blue lay between the yellow-gray of sand and stone and the hot blue bowl of the sky above them. The Zuwayzi foreign minister narrowed his eyes to see if he could spy any boats afloat on that deep blue sea. He saw none, but knew that did not signify. Whether he could spy them at this moment or not, they would be out there.

A few minutes later, the caravan glided to a halt in the depot of a little town called Najran, which existed for no other reason than that the ley line ran into the sea there. It wasn’t a proper port; nothing protected it from the great storms that blew in during spring and fall. But boats could go in and out, and what they brought could head straight for Bishah. Thus, Najran.

And thus, too, the camel-hair tents that had sprouted around the handful of permanent buildings Najran boasted. Thus the Zuwayzi soldiers, naked between wide hats and sandals, who patrolled the area. Their commander, a portly colonel named Saadun, bowed low before Hajjaj. “Welcome, welcome, thrice welcome,” the officer said. “And I assure you, your Excellency, that welcome comes not only from my men and me but also from those we guard.”

Bowing in return--not quite so deeply--Hajjaj replied, “They are welcome here, as I have come to make plain to them. I bring no news-sheet scribes with me, for I would not embarrass our allies, but I will not pretend these folk do not exist. Too many people have been doing that for too long.”

“Either pretending they don’t exist or trying to make sure they don’t exist,” Saadun said.

“Even so.” Hajjaj echoed Qutuz. “Take me to them, Colonel, if you would be so kind.”

“Aye.” Saadun bowed again. “Come with me, then.”

As Hajjaj followed him through the streets of Najran, the local Zuwayzin came out of their shops to stare. Till the war, few strangers had come to their hamlet. Who would have wanted to, so long as he had other choices? The folk in the camel-hair tents had none. Had they not come to Najran, Hajjaj wouldn’t have, either.

Somebody in one of those tents stuck out his head. His unkempt golden beard gleamed in the merciless sunlight. When he saw Saadun and Hajjaj approaching, he exclaimed and came all the way out of the tent. More blonds--men, women, and children--spilled from the rest of those makeshift shelters. They still wore whatever clothes they’d had on when they got to Zuwayza. Most of those clothes were tattered, but they’d been mended and were almost painfully clean.

As one, the Kaunian refugees bowed low when Hajjaj walked up to them. The Zuwayzi foreign minister glanced over toward Colonel Saadun. Saadun nodded back, unabashed. “They know who you are, your Excellency. Is it not fitting that they should show their gratitude?”

“I do not see that I did anything particularly requiring gratitude--only what any decent man would do,” Hajjaj said. Saadun’s mouth narrowed as if he were about to speak, but he didn’t. After another few steps, Hajjaj sighed. “With things as they are in the world these days, maybe common decency does rate gratitude. But the world’s a sorry place if it does.”

“The world’s a sorry place, all right,” Saadun said, and said no more.

Before Hajjaj could find an answer, the Kaunians streamed toward him. Despite their clothes, despite the wide straw hats they’d got here in Najran, many of them were badly sunburned. No wonder that, in the days of the Kaunian Empire, the ancestors of these blonds had traded with the dusky nomads who roamed Zuwayza, but had never tried to make it into an imperial province.

“Powers above bless you, your Excellency!” exclaimed the man who’d first peered out of his tent and spied Hajjaj.