Excerpt: The Burning Ground

The road bends around the shoulder of a hill; a stand of trees rises to block the sun-- and more than trees. A knot of men stand silhouetted at the hill's crest, one standing apart in the very road. Aiabatta's shoulders hunch with tension; one hand goes to his waist, seeking the sword that was lost.

But they press on, towards the guarded crest of the road.

It seems a great many painful steps to that crest. Aiabatta watches the dusty road, keeping his head humbly bowed; he sees the soldiers only in careful sidelong glimpses. Then he stumbles, a surging rage spurring his feet against the knowledge that he must not run, must keep the beggar's face. A gleam of the setting sun has fallen on the man standing apart, surveying all the vista commanded by that hill.

And Aiabatta knows him: Rasha Alrazn, the judge, raised by Aiabatta's hand. His pretty daughter danced with my Deiza at the year-day feast; he exchanged commonplaces, the perfect guest, speaking of the rains and the Empty Days like any other courtier.

And he stopped-- twice, he stopped, to speak with Ufa Nal aside. I had thought it was no more than social pleasantries; they both spoke to many others that night, and ever.

Now he watches the open road with a hand on his sword-hilt, with a half-squad of soldiers at his side, and likely more within call.

Aiabatta fumbles within his cloth-- not for a blade, but for a begging-bowl, the staple of every holy fool abroad on the roads. Many of them, adrift in the Burning Ground, gather but little, except in time of funerals.

One must hope this is no time of funerals.

They are near enough to see faces now. Aiabatta keeps his head lowered, peering up through the folds of his turban. The soldiers jeer-- "There are more lords than one in this valley!" "Hail, king rag-picker!" One stoops for a stone to throw.

Aiabatta trudges on. Not only for his own life-- there is Hanrakim, for one; his responsibility. Paneesh has gone, no one can say whither. And they are unarmed. To attack soldiers, now, will only make their victory complete.

Rasha knocks the stone aside. "Keep to your duty! You know who it is we seek." But his eyes follow the beggars, intent on every motion.

No holy fool would pass such a group without begging, though it earned naught but blows. Soldiers, as much as any other, must be given the chance to be charitable-- and soldiers, and especially lords, sometimes are moved to give.

To beg from a traitor-- to beg, when he is the High Lord of Algharad! The Lord of Rivers and Plains, to whom, and from whom, falls all bounty! To beg, in humility, before such a man...

He stands at the opposite verge from the travelers, silently watching. Aiabatta alters his direction to come level with him-- head humbly bowed, begging bowl raised.

He peers up through the masking turban. Not even for his life can he watch the dirt under Rasha's feet. For a moment they stand, a relief carven against the hillside.

Rasha's hand dips, not to his sword, but to his belt, and he flings a coin-- a brass urchin, the smallest of the realm. "Get you gone. This is no place for fools." His aim is awry; it glances off the bowl and skips away in the dust. Aiabatta follows after it, scrabbling in the dust to receive the bounty.

"A thousand blessings-- the blessings of a thousand gods upon your head." The voice is a rasp, born of thirst and dust and fury. Then he shuffles on, head bent to gaze down-- and behind.

Hanrakim passes their guard without hindrance, also calling blessings in a beggar's thready whisper. They hasten on-- beggars' haste, nothing to a healthy man-- until that hill's crest and the next hill's hide them from the traitors, who do not follow.

Aiabatta turns back, to stare over the crest of the concealing hill. Hanrakim, catching his eye, grimaces with pleasure at the boy's trick, but Aiabatta never sees him.

"For the sake of a coin flung to a beggar, O Rasha-- I spare your life."