Players of the Game. Graeme Talboys K.

the far side, the road dropped down into a wide valley. It continued to run parallel to the coast and in the distance they could see a broad, shallow river running sluggish through the many wandering islands of a delta. Long before that, however, they turned south onto another road.

      As they headed inland, the column broke into a trot, stretching out as it did so. Jeniche and Alltud had to concentrate. It had been a long time since either of them had ridden and they both took a while to find and keep the rhythm to rise to the trot.

      ‘Going to be sleeping face down tonight, desert girl.’

      ‘And riding on hot coals tomorrow.’

      The deeper they rode into the valley, the greener it became. Trees on the high slopes sheltered small fields and pasture, producing a harvest of dates and figs. Down by the river, strip fields were planted out with vegetables, people working back and forth while it was still cool.

      Hiding between the trees and buried beneath rocky outcrops were the farm buildings and small villages. Several times they passed wagons laden with produce heading down the valley, ignoring the curious stares of the locals. Along the side of the road, there were signs of camp fires, places stripped of brush for fuel, crude latrines swarming with flies, all the detritus people could not help but leave in their wake, especially those a long way from home. They were too close to the city for refugees to think of camping permanently, but they had passed that way.

      Jeniche and Alltud exchanged glances. They had been refugees once, knew what sort of reception the people who made those camps were likely to have received. And the further inland they travelled, the more they could sense unease, wariness, even suspicion in the villagers and farmers they passed.

      Not long after midday, with the horses back to a walk, Tohmarz rode ahead to meet one of the scouts. A few minutes later the troop turned off the road and into the shelter of a stand of trees that grew along the banks of a stream. The horses were stripped of their saddles and bridles, watered and hobbled, allowed to crop the thin grass.

      Once their mounts were settled, Jeniche and Alltud went back down to the stream and sat themselves in a shallow pool of water. There was some laughter, but they didn’t care.

      As they sat and nibbled at their rations, they watched Tohmarz set pickets, check on the state of the horses, and talk with the members of the troop, all the while keeping an eye on them where they sat cooling their backsides.

      ‘I wonder what his history is?’ said Alltud. ‘He looks like a toy soldier; son of a wealthy family given a sinecure.’

      ‘Sleight of hand. It always looks as if someone else might be in charge until you actually look for them. Then you realize it’s that affable young chap who looks like he’d have trouble choosing the right end of his sword to hold.’

      ‘Right up to the moment he slides it through you.’

      ‘And even then you’d probably want to apologize to him for getting it dirty.’

      Dripping, they climbed out of the half full watercourse and found a bit of unoccupied shade close to their horses.

      ‘This is an army, isn’t it,’ said Jeniche, just as Alltud was dozing off.

      ‘Well we aren’t transporting treasure, that’s for sure. Unless Tohmarz has it in his pocket. And we aren’t a diversion, either.’

      They lapsed into a drowsy silence.

      ‘No,’ said Alltud, just as Jeniche closed her eyes. ‘If Dahbeer had wanted to raise an army, he only needed to spread the word. Alboran was packed with young men looking for something to do. Remember that prophet? His lot were recruiting.’

      ‘So what are we doing, then?’

      ‘I have no idea, Jen. At least we aren’t on camels. Yet. But I have a horrible feeling that somewhere along the way this is going to involve mountains. And then a desert.’

       Chapter Six

      ‘Again,’ said Jeniche. ‘That line of scrub along the hilltop directly behind me.’

      She continued to fiddle with a strap on one of the saddlebags, standing close against her horse. Alltud, still mounted, stretched and eased his neck, taking in the view as he did so.

      ‘Can’t see anything,’ he replied. ‘They probably dropped down the other side as soon as you pulled out of the column and dismounted.’

      ‘Anything the matter?’

      Alltud turned where he was sitting and Jeniche peered across the seat of her saddle to see that Tohmarz had come down the line. The last of the troop were passing them on the narrow stony path. The rear guard were further down the slope and had also stopped.

      Jeniche shook her head. ‘Not sure there’s much point in telling you.’

      Tohmarz smiled. ‘If these are the same people you first mentioned four days ago… The scouts have seen no one.’

      ‘One person. Always the same.’

      ‘Really?’

      It was remarkable, thought Jeniche, how Tohmarz managed to sound grateful for the information whilst completely disbelieving it. All in one word.

      ‘If that’s what she said, that’s what she saw.’

      ‘Yes, Alltud, your loyalty is commendable, but I can’t keep sending scouts out hither and yon when the only person who has seen anything is Jeniche here.’

      ‘I’d trust her eyes over anyone else’s.’

      Jeniche watched the two men squaring up. Alltud had become very quiet over the last few days and she couldn’t decide if this was just him testing the defences, as it were, or something deeper.

      ‘Then we must ask her to keep watching on our behalf and if she sees anything more alarming than… a moonstruck boyfriend of one of the riders… let us know.’

      He kicked lightly against the flanks of his horse and carried on downhill to the rear guard. Jeniche mounted her own steed and, once Alltud had persuaded his own to turn round, they carried on up the slope. After a few moments, Alltud twisted in his saddle, thunder clouds still in his face. He dropped an eyelid in a solemn wink and Jeniche grinned.

      She knew how much he wanted to go home. He talked of little else at night when they were camped out under strange skies, each day a little further south, a little further away from that orchard behind the library of the Great College of the Derw on Pengaver, one of the isles of Ynysvron. And when he talked, she thought more and more of Makamba where she had grown from a broken child into a confident young woman.

      Try as she might to keep them suppressed, other memories were inextricably entwined and dragged to the surface. The light of happy times was surrounded by shadow. The misery of growing up in Antar, escaping across the desert to Makamba with little more than her life, the death of friends, the years of wandering after the Occassans appeared. At least Alltud knew his homeland was in safe hands. Jeniche had no homeland and no idea how the one place she had put down tentative roots now fared.

      She shut down her memories and scanned the horizon once more, trying to keep her mind in the here and now. It was no more comforting a place to be. They felt like they had been in the saddle for a year. The dust of the road and the desert was deeply ingrained in their flesh, their food was getting stale and running low, and they smelled of horse. They were stiff, bruised, and bored, constantly wondering what they were really doing and where they were going. But now they knew how the pickets operated at night they were beginning to think seriously of cutting loose.

      When the track widened and they could ride two abreast, Jeniche made sure they were well away from the others and then said, ‘Time, I think, for us to part company with this circus. Make our way home.’

      Alltud nodded,