Why it did, I'll never know, but the rhinoceros thought better of it. It shook itself, for all the world like a massive dog, and turned, trotting toward the river, plowing through the thornbushes and leaving us.
"You idiot!" I shouted at Joscelin, finding my voice. "You could have been killed! What in Elua's name were you thinking?"
He laughed out loud, spinning in a giddy circle, his blade carving a silver line in the air. "I struck true, Phèdre! Did you see? I can still do it. I can still do it!"
I opened my mouth and closed it. "You could have been killed," I repeated with more restraint. "Joscelin, if you need to test your skills, pick something that's not nearly the size of an oliphaunt, with hide like cured leather. You can't kill such a beast on foot, with a naked blade."
"You can if you cut their hamstrings." In a calmer humor, he sheathed his sword behind his back. "Tifari Amu told me; it's how they hunt oliphaunt. It takes precision, that's all. I'm sorry if I frightened you."
I gave him a look and had no time for aught else, for by then, Tifari and Bizan returned, with Bizan's horse pulling up lame, having strained a foreleg, and our bearer Nkuku had to be extricated from the thorns. He was badly scratched and shaken, and two of the donkeys entangled as well, having been scattered by the rhinoceros' charge. Those acacia thorns are like nothing I have ever seen; finger-length and sharper than a fishhook. There were wounds to be tended, human and animal alike, and a pair of water-skins slashed to shreds, good for naught but patch-leather. Tifari Amu opined that the beast must have been ill, and sought only to gain the river. Mayhap it was so, but it wrought a fair amount of damage! 'Twas a mercy Imriel had thought to grab the reins of Joscelin's mount, else we'd have had a job chasing it down, too.
Nonetheless, we needed to regroup, and so it was that Tifari scouted upriver, finding us a pleasant site. Here we would make our camp, until we were fit to travel.
The site was situated at a bend of the river, which flowed smooth over a pebbled bed, swirling and eddying as it turned. At one point a natural spring gave rise to a deep, secluded pool, emptying in a rivulet which meandered off on its own, burbling over rocks to feed the Tabara River. It was a perfect place to bathe or wash clothing without fear of crocodiles or hippopotami intruding, and for that alone I was grateful. We pitched our tents on the grass near the river's bend, lush as green sward and ample fodder for horses and donkeys alike, and Yedo, an other of the bearers, carved out a passage through the underbrush to the bathing-pool.
We spent four days there, all told, letting strains and thorn-gouges heal, while Tifari and Bizan hunted gazelle—not only to replenish our supply of meat, but to replace our water-skins, for they used the hides scraped clean and laid to cure, burying them in hot sand and shale away from the green swathe cut by the river. When it was done, the hides would be tied by the four legs and laced tight with leather thong woven from the remnants of the old water-skins, and these, Tifari assured us, would serve us well in the last portion of our journey, where we must depart from the river and again traverse the highlands.
After that, we would reach the Great Falls, and enter Sabaean lands.
I did not know, until we had it, how much we needed that respite.
Thanks to the generosity of the Lugal of Khebbel-im-Akkad and Ras Lijasu of Meroë, while we did not travel in state, we travelled in comfort, as much as one might attain in the wilds of Jebe-Barkal. Millet we had in plenty, for cooking the flat, spongy bread of the Jebeans, and spices as well, and dried dates and figs. Our tents were well made and spacious, and we had all of us adopted the Jebean custom of sleeping on hide cots, stretchers that disassembled easily and raised one off the ground, where scorpions and other insects were wont to be found.
I even had a three-legged stool slung with a leathern seat, and an ample supply of ink and parchment to record our journey. And that I did, sitting before our tent and musing over the activities of our en campment, setting in writing the stories that Shoanete of Debeho had told me; yes, and our own travels as well, and the hunting-songs of Tifari Amu and Bizan, and the workmen's chants of our bearers, that no one had ever recorded. Would that I'd had such luxury in Skaldia! Near as it was, it was a culture no less exotic to those of D'Angeline blood. For a long time, I had wished only to forget it. Now, I thought of the hearth-songs I'd sung to poor Erich in the zenana, and wished I remembered more, and had them written down.
To think, I'd sung the Master of the Straits to calm with such a song.
His mortal mother had sung him songs.
I pondered our neat campsite, the dark skins and exotic features of our comrades, Joscelin and Imriel clad in Jebean attire, the splendid vista of the lowlands flanked by green mountains, the vast blue sky that arched over it all. We were a long way from the grey waters of the Straits, from that rocky, lonely isle.
Hyacinthe. I never forgot.
It was on the third day of our respite that Joscelin caught his fish, although that was not how I would remember that day. To be sure, he'd caught fish before, and a fair number of them, some weighing ten to fifteen pounds. I do not know what species they were—cowfish, the Jebeans called them—but they were a salmon hue, with many-rayed dorsal fins and small heads. When cooked, the flesh resembled trout and was quite agreeable.
Joscelin was after bigger game.
He pointed them out to me, he and Imriel; vast shadows lurking in the pebbled depths of the river. I nodded, listening politely as Imriel explained how they meant to use smaller fish as bait, showing me how the treble hooks were strung. And then I retreated to sit upon my stool and pore over my journal, watching the river's edge with half an eye and thinking about how I was to convince the Sabaeans—the Mele-hakim, Shoanete had called them—that they should reveal to me the Name of God that they had hidden from Adonai Himself.
It was the shouting that caught my ear, and at that I had to go and see.
Joscelin stood knee-deep in the rushing waters, clad only in a pair of white Jebean breeches. Sunlight gleamed on his loose, damp hair, the muscles working in his arms as he played out the line, hand over hand. Downstream, the mighty fish he'd hooked fought him, bucking and leaping, its sides flashing silver. I will own, I gasped when I saw the size of it.
And on a sandbar in the middle of the river, Imriel jumped up and down with excitement, shouting instructions, clutching a stout branch in one hand. His black hair was plastered to his cheeks in coils and he had stripped to his sodden breeches.
I laughed. I couldn't help it. 'Twas an epic battle in its own way, though unfit for any poet's tale. When the line was played, Joscelin began drawing it back in, fighting the fish for every inch of it. And how that fish fought! I saw it when it broke the water, silver-sided with a green back shading to black, fierce and vigorous, a true giant of the river. Imriel floundered into the depths, beating ineffectually at the wa ters with his club, and Joscelin shouted him back, still hauling on the line. I'd have worried about crocodiles, if I wasn't laughing so hard.
And somewhere, in the midst of it, my heart swelled to aching with love.
Somehow, by main strength, Joscelin hauled the thrashing fish onto the sandbar and Imriel landed it, striking it hard with his club and falling on it, struggling to hook his fingers in its gills. It heaved wildly under him, and boy and fish wrestled in the shallow waters, skin and scales wet and shining. He succeeded, too, though the fish was nearly as large as he was. Once it was subdued, Joscelin had to wade into the river to retrieve it, carrying the massive thing overhanging his arms. It must have weighed fifty pounds. He sloshed ashore, Imriel splashing alongside him, alight with glee.
"What do you think?" Joscelin asked laughing, tossing the fish at my feet where it landed with an audible thud, wriggling and twitching on the greensward.
I took two steps forward, grabbed his hair and kissed him.
For a moment, I think, he was too startled to react, and then— Elua! His arms came hard around me and he returned my kiss, hard, hands sliding along my back, following the path of my marque. It was like the torch igniting the Sacred Fires in the festal hall.
We parted breathless and staring at one another.
"I think," I said unsteadily, "you should bring me fish more often."
"I think I will," Joscelin replied, sounding bemused. He glanced down. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing." Imriel was hugging himself, grinning fit to split his face, shifting from foot to foot. "You should take a bath, Joscelin; you're all over fish."
"So are you," he said to Imriel, then blinked at me. "And so are you, now. I should ... I should clean the fish, first."
"I can do it." Imriel wedged his fingers under the gills and dragged the fish a foot, rolling it onto its back to expose the pale belly. "See?" He traced a line with one damp forefinger. "I cut here to begin. You said I made a good job of it, remember? It's bigger than the others, that's all. Yedo can help me."
Joscelin raised his eyebrows at me.
"Well?" I said. "Imri's right, you're all over fish. Go take a bath, Joscelin."
He went, gathering dry clothing, a lump of precious soap and a reasonably clean towel of Menekhetan cotton.
Imriel gloated over his fish, and looked at me sidelong. "I will tell Yedo not to let anyone use the bathing-pool," he said, all innocence. "If you want to go, and wash your gown."
"You think I should?" I touched his river-damp hair. Imriel looked down and nodded fiercely, the matter suddenly too great for words. I wondered why it meant so much to him. "All right," I said. "I'll go."
The passage to the bathing-pool was like a green tunnel, mimosa bushes crowding inward to filter the light, pungent sap weeping from the new-cut branches. Clusters of small yellow flowers brushed my gown as I passed, dusting the fabric with pollen. I felt strange in my own skin, sensitive to every breath of air, my heart beating too fast with uncertainty.
And aching, still.
The passage opened onto the bathing-pool, where Joscelin stood, not quite waist-deep. Since he had not seen me, I went to sit on the sun-warmed rocks at the water's edge and watched him as he dunked his head and flung it back, water spraying in a glittering arc. Dappled light played over his skin, the muscles gliding beneath it. Pale scars marred his flesh and a few new ones, still pink. I knew the old scars by touch. Along his ribs was the curving gash he'd taken in Skaldia. That one, I'd sewn myself, in a cavern marked by the sigil of Blessed Elua, where we'd taken shelter from a blizzard.
