Guy Kay - The Lions of Al-Rassan

There came a new sound below them. Both armies reacting to something. Loud cries, a banging of swords on shields.

From opposite directions, north and south, two men were riding towards each other across the ground west of Silvenes.

No one escorted either man, so no one knew what it was that Rodrigo Belmonte and Ammar ibn Khairan said to each other when they stopped their horses a little distance apart, alone in the world.

Each man dismounted, however, after a moment, and each turned his horse and sent it cantering back the way he had come across the grass. Then they faced each other again and Jehane could see Ammar say one last thing, and Rodrigo reply. Then they lowered their helms.

On that watching height at day's windy end, she saw each of them take a round shield from where it hung upon his back and then each of them drew his sword.

There would be an eagle on Rodrigo's helm; Ammar's had a pattern of vine leaves. These were things she knew but could not see: she was too far away on this hill and the sun was wrong, behind the two men, and low. They were almost silhouettes against the light, standing alone. Even the horses had finished running away from them.

Is it wrong to love two men, she had asked the summer before, in darkness by the river.

Without taking her eyes from the plain below, Miranda crossed her arms over her breast as if holding tightly to something there. Jehane had seen Rodrigo use that same gesture, exactly, in the moonlight of Orvilla a year ago. She wondered, if she and Ammar were granted enough time, would they, too, come to share gestures like that? And would they ever make a child to be loved as much as the woman beside her and the man below loved their sons?

There will never be enough time, she had said to Ammar.

Looking towards the sun, she saw Rodrigo feint and then swing his blade, hard, back the other way and she watched Ammar parry that blow with a movement of his own sword, smooth as Husari's silk, as a line of verse, as a good wine tasted at the end of day. He turned the parry, seamlessly, into a driving thrust, low, and Rodrigo—fast as a dream of a hunting cat—pushed down his shield and blocked it.

The two men stepped back. They stood looking at each other from beneath their helms, motionless. It had begun. Jehane closed her eyes.

A heavy sound arose from the armies: hungry, needing, enthralled.

Opening her eyes again, Jehane saw that Husari had come to stand beside her. He was crying, without concealment or pretense.

She looked at him, and then away, without speaking. She was afraid to attempt to say anything. She had made a promise to herself. Had sworn she would not weep. Until it was over. Until time had run away from them like those horses on the plain.

They were a match. Both of them had always known it. In a way, the desperate exigencies required to stay alive now were a good thing: they made it harder for the heart to intervene and cripple with its sorrow.

There were reasons for staying alive. There was a woman on a hilltop east of them. There was love. He blocked a low thrust, barely, cut forward with the motion—a difficult thing—and was parried, elegantly. Never a swordsman like this before. Never a match. Could it be called a dance? Should they embrace? Were they not?

One let the body rule here, faster than thought; movements not even imagined, a blurring engaged by the same when blades met. The mind floating just above, out of the way except when it noticed something. A weakness, a faltering.

No faltering here at red sunset. He hadn't thought there would be.

On that hilltop to the east there was love.

Once, during their campaign for Ragosa, when they'd lured the old bandit ibn Hassan into ambushing the parias party for them, Jehane had joined the company by the fire one night, and had offered a Kindath song.

Who knows love?

Who says he knows love?

What is love, tell me.

"I know love,"

Says the littlest one.

"Love is like a tall oak tree."

"Why is love a tall oak tree? Little one tell me."

"Love is a tree

For the shelter it gives

In sunshine or in storm."

He stumbled unexpectedly as an attack pushed him back; swore as he felt himself falling. Too careless, distracted. He had seen that rock, had thought of using it.

Twisting desperately, he released his shield—behind him, the grip upwards—and blocked his fall with his freed left arm, palm braced hard on the grass, sword sweeping into position to take the other man's descending blade and turn it away.

He let himself roll with the weight of that blow to the necessary place, reclaimed the shield and was up again—all in the same smooth motion. In time to blunt the swift second stroke. Dropped to a knee then and slashed across, faster than he should have been able to. Almost got through with that one; almost buried his sword. Didn't. They were a match. Both of them had known. From first meeting in Ragosa. That garden with the tame stream.

Who knows love?

Who says he knows love?

What is love, tell me.

"I know love," Says the littlest one. "Love is like a flower."

"Why is love a flower? Little one tell me."

"Love is a flower

For the sweetness it gives

Before it dies away."

It would have been pleasant, the thought came to him, to be able to lay down their weapons on the darkening grass. To walk away from this place, from what they were being made to do, past the ruins, along the river and into the woods beyond. To find a forest pool, wash their wounds and drink from the cool water and then sit beneath the trees, out of the wind, silent as the summer night came down.

Not in this life.

He thought, then, of something he could do with his shield.

It would have been so much better had she been able to hate the man trying to kill Rodrigo. It was this man, though, who had given the warning that saved Diego's life. He hadn't had to do that. He was Asharite. He was now the commander of their army, the ka'id.

But she had never, ever heard Rodrigo speak of another man—not even Raimundo, who had died so long ago—the way he'd talked about Ammar ibn Khairan during the long, waiting winter just past. The way the man sat a horse, handled a blade, a bow, devised strategies, jested, spoke of history, geography, the properties of good wine. Even the way he wrote poetry.

" Poetry? " Miranda could remember saying to this last, in the voice she reserved for her most withering sarcasm.

Rodrigo had a liking for verse, an ear for what he heard. She did not, and he knew it. He used to torment her with snatches of lyrics in bed. She'd cover her head with pillows.

"Are you in love with this man?" she'd asked her husband once in Fezana that winter—more than half jealous, if truth were told.

"I suppose I am, in a way," Rodrigo had replied after a moment. "Isn't it odd?"

It wasn't, really, Miranda thought, on that hill by Silvenes. The low sun was making it difficult to see the two of them now. There were moments when she found it impossible to tell them apart. She would have thought she'd know Rodrigo beside any man on earth, but he was in armor now, and far away, a moving shadow against red light, and the two men would come together, circle and turn, very close, before disengaging. It was easy to confuse them in these movements leading to a death.

She wasn't ready to lose him. To be alone.

It was the wind that was bringing tears to her eyes. She wiped at them with the back of a hand, glancing sidelong at the other woman. Jehane bet Ishak stood dry-eyed, white-faced, never moving her gaze from what was happening below. Miranda thought suddenly: We have had our years. I know what it is I will lose. She hasn't even had time to gather memories against the dark.