Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [250]
'Twas passing strange, in that green wilderness, to see the ruddy stone walls rising around the city by the lake. A sentry looked out from the tower gate, sounding a long blast on a ram's horn. Hanoch ben Hadad raised his hand in acknowledgment and we waited until the wondering guard turned out to question the Sabaean captain.
What he said, I do not know, but it seemed it sufficed. We were admitted to Tisaar.
For near onto twelve years of my life, I had studied the lore and history of the Habiru. Now it seemed as if I had entered one of my own scrolls. Despite the lack of trade, Tisaar was prosperous, the Sabaeans making use to the fullest extent of those resources that abounded in the land. Crops and herds and wild game they had in plenty, and timber and stone. For metal, though, they had only copper and gold.
No iron, and thus no steel; not even tin to render bronze. It explained the great antiquity of their arms, which were handed down from generation to generation, patched and mended, betimes smelted and forged anew, each ounce of metal more precious than gold. What steel there was in Tisaar was a treasured rarity, filtered to Saba through the occasional capture of bandits more successful than the Shamsun we'd encountered. Hanoch's men eyed our weapons with envious wonder. I think they would have seized them if they dared, but the law of hospitality forbade it.
For my part, I stared about me as we rode through the streets of Tisaar, amazed by the sight of wagons built in a style not seen in centuries, the wheel rims made of copper. And the people of Saba stared in turn, their dark faces according strangely with their Habiru tongue and old-fashioned attire, wondering who—and what—we were.
There were no inns in all of Tisaar. Sabaeans who travelled from elsewhere in the land stayed with friends or relatives, or camped outside the city, as Tifari and Bizan and our bearers opted to do, granted six-day passes to come and go within the city, provided they left their arms outside the walls. For Joscelin and Imriel and me, Hanoch ben Hadad secured lodging with his widowed sister, gauging us safe enough. Grudgingly, he allowed Joscelin to keep his arms, although he was forbidden to bear them in the city without a Sabaean military escort.
Hanoch's sister's grown daughter had left her for her husband's household and she lived alone on the ground floor of a spacious house with only a cook and an elderly maidservant. The whole second floor was empty and used only for storage.
"A strange place." Joscelin opened a trunk in the room we'd been allotted, sniffing at the linens stored within it. "Smells of mildew. The whole city seems forgotten by time."
"It nearly is. Don't do that, it's rude." I had liked Hanoch's sister, Yevuneh, who bore her sorrow with gentle grace.
"At three links of gold?" Joscelin raised his brows. "We're entitled."
"You could have bought the house for one of your daggers," I noted.
"True." He closed the lid of the trunk. "Our welcome doesn't bode well. I don't imagine they're going to tell us the Name of God and send us on our way."
"No," I said. "I don't suppose they are."
I slept poorly that night and dreamed for the first time in many months—the old dream, the one that had awoken me in our home inthe City of Elua, trembling and weeping. Once again I stood at the prow of a ship, clutching the railing in vain as the child Hyacinthe stood on the receding shore, arms outstretched, calling my name over and over, desperate and pleading. Only this time, his cries grew louder as the expanse of water broadened, rising and rising to a shriek of pure, unrelenting terror. In the dream, I clapped my hands over my ears, unable to bear it, and sank to the ship's floor.
And even that did not lessen it. 'Twas so deafening that it wrenched me to wakefulness, and only then did I realize the sound of my dream was real.
"Imriel," I murmured, making my way to his pallet in the darkness.