At the stable the horses were undisturbed. Saddling two and putting halters on the others, I tied Safia into her saddle and led the horses outside, closing the door behind me.
The night was cool, almost cold. The great arches of the aqueduct threw shadows upon the pavement. Tonight I would leave Córdoba. Would I ever return? It was a city I loved, and although it had taken much from me, it had given more.
The ride would be brutal. It might kill Safia, but we had no choice. Riding in the shadows, I went to the postern gate. As I had hoped, there was no guard. Ignoring her moaning as she became conscious, I rode for the hills, stopping for nothing. What Safia had done to warrant the torture I neither knew nor cared. Whatever it was had ended disastrously.
Before daylight I found a hollow beside a small stream. Taking Safia from her horse, I went to work. Not for nothing had I read the Canon of Avicenna and other great teachers of medicine. I bathed her wounds, using what medicines I had in my own small kit. Treating her lacerated back, I bound up her wounds.
She had lost blood and was unconscious while I treated her. The sight of her feet horrified me. It had taken more courage than a person had a right to possess for her to come to warn me on such feet. The sun was high in the sky before I ceased to work, nor was there any way of judging how successful I had been. Now all rested in the lap of Allah.
Safia was drawn and pale, and when her eyes opened, it was only to stare wildly about and plead for water. There was grass for the horses, and water, but we could not long remain here. Toward nightfall she became conscious, so I could feed her some soup.
Once more I tied her in the saddle. I was taking her by a roundabout route to the cave where long ago I had fought the Visigoth. It was a lonely place, but the cave was hidden, and there was water. We could hide there until Safia was well or until she died.
At daylight, after concealing the horses on some grass among the willows, and while Safia slept, I took my sword and bow to prowl about. In a small copse I found a few of Akim’s sheep banded together with one big old ram for protection. I put an arrow into a lamb that strayed from the flock and, butchering it, carried the meat back to the cave. Later, following the stream, I found another cave, larger, roomier, still better hidden, so I moved us there.
Treating Safia was the first test of my medical knowledge and a severe test for a more experienced man than I. However, Safia began, slowly, to recover. First, hers was a struggle for life, then for health, and mine was a struggle for our very existence. The food kept with the horses was soon gone, but the sheep seemed glad to have me about. If they noticed the inroads upon their number, it was no more than they expected.
Some of Akim’s crops had seeded themselves, and I found a little barley, some fruit the birds had not eaten, and once I killed a wild boar. Several parties of riders appeared, and one rode to the ruins of Akim’s place, but I had erased all evidence, and they found nothing.
When Safia could sit up and fend for herself, it became easier, for I could go further afield to forage for food and the herbs needed to treat her.
Trouble came without warning. Three mercenary soldiers rode up to the cave just as I was mounted to ride away. I saw them the instant before they saw me and drew my sword, keeping the left side of my horse toward them, my sword resting on my knee, point forward.
No doubt they thought me some peasant, easily frightened, for when they rode up one said, “Get off that horse, or you will have a split skull.”
The third man who held back somewhat said, “Rig, see what’s in the cave. I think we’ve found ourselves a woman.”
Unmoving, I sat my horse, and the first speaker started for me just as Rig started to swing down. Touching a spur to my Arab, I leaped the horse at him, knocking him to the ground. At the same time my sword came from behind the barrel of my horse.
My sudden lunge at the dismounting soldier had brought me up on the left of the first man. He threw up his arm, and he had no shield, and the edge of my blade cut deep into his arm and shoulder. Our horses were pressed together, and commanding my horse with my knees, I thrust my sword into his side.
The third man was fleeing, but sheathing my sword, I leaped my Arab after him, bringing up my bow with an arrow ready. His heavier, slower horse was no match for mine, and I overtook him swiftly, unleashing an arrow that shot him through. Catching up his horse, I despoiled him of armor and weapons and returned to the cave.
The man whom I had knocked down was no longer in sight, but I had no doubt where he was. Dismounting, sword in hand, I entered the cave.
Safia was against the wall, her dagger in her hand. “You are a fool,” she was saying. “He will kill you!”
“Maybe, but I shall have you first.” He leaped at her, but instead of using the dagger as he expected, she struck him across the face with a brand from the fire. His attention had been concentrated on the knife, and he had not seen the glowing stick she held down beside her. The swing through the air ignited flame, and he sprang back. It was not my fault that he fell against the point of my sword, although maybe I did push, just a little. If a man is determined to die, who am I to fly in the face of destiny?
“We were lucky,” I said.
“Yes,” she admitted, “but you have skill, also.” Our venture of the morning had been rewarding. We now had three more horses, three helmets, two coats of mail and a breastplate, daggers, swords, and some other gear. There were only four dinars between them, but we had money of our own. Yet it was time to move.
During the long days in the cave Safia had taught me more Persian than the little I had learned, and also some Hindi. Born in Basra, daughter of an emir by a slave girl, she had been given a fine education and betrothed to a Bengali prince. His death left her alone, but in Baghdad she married one of the old Abbasid dynasty and engaged in intrigue to seize the caliphate of Córdoba for him. Failing in that, she had become a spy, selling information to all who could pay.
It was now four months since our flight from Córdoba, and although her body was wasted from the long illness, she was now fit to ride. The soles of her feet remained so tender she could walk only a few steps. Often when bathing in the pool or prowling the ruins of Akim’s farm I wondered how Sharasa fared. Had she done well? Where was she now?
Resuming the battered armor of a mercenary, but armed better than before, I led back to the road, but this time we traveled away from Córdoba. “There is a man in Constantinople,” Safia said, “who might know of your father. It is he you must find.”
We sold our captured horses as well as the armor and weapons. The four horses Safia had acquired originally we kept. We were not apt to find their equal.
Safia had given me her jewels to store safely back in Córdoba, and I had remembered to bring them, but we hoped not to touch them. Riding in the fresh, clean air was raising color in her cheeks, and the dead, lackluster expression of her eyes was gone. Outside Toledo we met a group of travelers and joined our force to theirs. Now that we would be traveling beyond the areas controlled by the Moslems, we would be in even greater danger. Banditry existed in Moslem territories now, too, since the breakup into many small taifas.
It was in Zaragoza that we met Rupert von Gilderstern, a mountain of a man, at least two inches taller than I and many pounds heavier. His huge face both long and wide, possessed a beak of a nose and two chins. Although he looked fat, he gave no impression of softness, and despite his massive size he moved with ease and grace. He spoke with the voice of an oracle and the commanding presence of a god.