“Give me an hour,” Caspar said.
“Lie down,” he pointed to one of the couches, hardly ever used nowadays.
“Rest yourself while you may. I will go about my preparations.“He went out and sent for Kalim, Lakma and a third man, Temur, his three most trusted comrades. He told them that there was something to the West that he wanted to look into, that he was leaving in an hour and could not foretell the time of his return. He left Jexal to them, he said, and would not insult them by giving orders; they knew the rules as well as he did; trivial matters they three could deal with; things of importance must be discussed by the Five Hundred in solemn session, each man speaking in turn.
Their absolute trust in him was evidenced by the lack of protest, of questions. He had always led them successfully and this proposed absence fell neatly into pattern with his behaviour in the past. To the West they knew lay many petty kingdoms, similar to that of Jexal: another raid in the Spring, perhaps; or maybe at last he had taken note of their many hints, and was going to look for a wife.
“Go in peace and come back with joy,” they said.
When he came back he would find everything as he had left it; they were his brothers, bound to him by that which the boy Malchus had, in his flowery, Jexalian way put into words, ‘the loyalty of the heart’.
When all was ready, the camels already kneeling in the courtyard, Caspar went to rouse Melchior; he did it by taking the old man by the shoulder and was almost shocked to feel the bones so prominent under the faded blue robe, and the bones themselves so frail and light. Melchior, accustomed to sleeping lightly and brokenly, was awake at once, on his feet and ready to go.
“There is one thing,” Caspar said.
“Of Kings and courts I am ignorant, but I think that if we visit this Herod he might expect gifts. What shall I bring?”
“My gift I carry in my head,” Melchior said.
“And I also am ignorant of Kings. But all men like gold.”
Caspar had a pouchful of it, but that he might need for the journey. However, he knew the very thing—the crown that had rolled from the dead head of the old King; the crown which, before they understood his mind, some of his followers had wished to see on Caspar’s head.
“It would impress people,” they had said, and he had retorted that he could impress people in his own hat, or know why not.
“Wait here. Eat again,” he said, remembering the bones; and he strode along to the bedchamber where, unwillingly,he had slept to defy the rumour that he was afraid. The King of Jexal had died there, by his own hand—which showed, Caspar had always thought, what manner of man he was. Seeing the battle go against him he had run to his room and stabbed himself, and the crown had fallen from his head and rolled into a corner. It and all the other pretty, womanish things he had worn, rings and necklets, armlets, jewelled pins, had been put into a chest into which Caspar now thrust a hasty hand and brought out a crown. It consisted of three golden circlets, the largest just the size of a man’s skull, the others smaller, linked by curved struts; circlets and struts were set with jewels, rubies, sapphires, emeralds. The triple crown of Jexal. A pretty thing, but no wear for a man. Now the other … Caspar wasted a moment looking at the Queen’s crown, a filigree coronet, all set with pearls, was the right wear for a woman; at least for some women; it was difficult to imagine it upon the head of any woman he had ever seen in the market. It was difficult, in fact, to imagine it upon any but one woman! Upon that thought he let the lid of the chest fall with a crash. The triple crown he slipped into a soft leather bag and tightened the thong. He was ready.
It was, by this time, not much more than an hour, before sunset, and as they rode towards the western gate, called the Water Gate, Caspar looked towards the mountains, measuring what remained of daylight, and because he had as yet no experience of Melchior’s method of travelling, thought that really they might as well have waited until morning. But he did not resent the early start, for already he felt an up rush of relief at leaving the Palace and the city, and all that they meant, behind him.
The wide street that led towards the Water Gate was not a busy thoroughfare at this season and the people who were in it were all women, walking purposefully. Caspar scowled at them; he knew where
they were going—to the temple whichstood just within the city wall. In Jexal there were nine temples, dedicated to various gods and goddesses, and Caspar regarded them all with distrust and suspicion; but he had never issued an order that they should be closed. What he had done was to inculcate and foster the idea that no man worth the name would go running, trying, to placate an irate, or cajole a friendly, god, and his policy had worked so well that nowadays only women and a few old men frequented the temples. This had made priesthood an unremunerative occupation, not attractive to recruits. The time would come, Caspar told himself, when this superstitious thing, conducive to fear and the shuffling off of responsibility, would die out of its own accord. Already in Jexal it was fashionable to swear by the Sun, and to be married by the mingling of blood.
He was thinking this, not without complacency, when he recognised, in one of the women, the girl Ilya. Her walk was unmistakable. He intended to ride past without turning his head and he almost managed it, but in the last second the temptation to look, to see whether she was as lovely as his memory of her, was too much. So he turned and once again they looked into one another’s eyes.
She made a little sound of astonishment, recognising him in his stiff felt hat, leather jerkin and baggy trousers, the horseman, mounted on a camel; then she began to move more swiftly, almost running beside him, and lifting her face. She said the word he had forbidden : “Lord,” she said, “Lord!”
And because he wished to conceal from Melchior, who up to this moment had regarded him, he was sure, simply as a wealthy and charitable man, his real identity, he checked his camel’s pace; and because being obliged to do so angered him he said gruffly, “What do you want with me?”
“To thank you,” she said.
“To thank you from my heart for what you have done for Malchus. He is so happy now.”
She spoke the true Jexalian tongue, removed from his own by the softening, refining influence of a thousand years; Malchus, who had worked with common men in the smithy, had seemed to lisp, and there were times when Caspar was obliged to ask the Vizier to repeat himself; upon Caspar’s ear what she said fell with all the appeal of a woman speaking with a lilt, an intonation, just understandable and no more.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said.
“Happy soldiers are good soldiers, as a rule.” Then he added the little extra, “Temur speaks well of him.”
Something flashed in her eyes. It said—if he read it rightly and he thought that he did—Because I thanked you for breaking a rule on my brother’s behalf, don’t imagine that I value Temur’s good word!
Then she said, “You go a journey?” and she looked at the camel, comparing it, he knew, with the horse he ordinarily rode.
“I go a journey,” he said.
“Then take this,” she said, ‘to preserve your most precious health in evil-smelling places.” She reached up and thrust into his hand a little package, wrapped in linen.
“Ishtar will not grudge it,” she said. She stood back and raised her hand, in perfect imitation of a member of the Five Hundred taking leave.
“Go in peace and return in joy,” she said.
He was having his first experience with camels; they were more gregarious, less near-to-human than; horses. The one he rode and the one Melchior rode had always been a pair, measuring their paces. His, held back, fretted and fidgeted, and Melchior’s ridden forward, was fretting and fidgeting too. In one wild moment of confusion, the package in his hand, the camel restive, the mockery of her leave-taking and his need to take one last look at her, all mingling, he could do no more than call back the traditional, tribal response to the leave-taking:
“Stay in peace; I shall return.”