The Afghan Campaign

  Suddenly, as if by some signal that everyone can hear except Flag and me, all palaver ceases. Brother and cousins are called forward. They sit, facing me. “Toumah!” bawls an interpreter. “Speak.”

  I do. I address the brother and cousin.

  “Nah! Nah!”

  The master of ceremonies corrects me. I’m supposed to plead my brief to the elders.

  I make my case in Greek, with Ash translating. When I finish, a second round of debate begins. Again the headmen pay no attention. Several actually get up and leave, to relieve themselves I assume, returning to resume their animated converse. The period ends. Now Shinar’s brother Baz gets up to speak.

  I would feel better if he were more angry. Instead, his manner is flinty and dour. He addresses the elders and the tribe, not me. When he gestures in my direction, which he does infrequently, his voice rises in register. I understand enough Pactyan to reckon that he hates me less as an individual, or for any injury I have personally inflicted upon him, than as a representative of the corps of Macedon, the detested invader. I am to him all aliens, all Macks. He hates us with a crimson passion.

  Ash speaks into my ear. “Don’t take this too seriously. The man is good.”

  Baz finishes his harangue to the elders and the tribe. Now he turns to me. In terms of cold and stony truculence, he reads out an indictment that would blanch the mane of Zeus. I make out three words from their repetition: “honor,” “insult,” and “justice.”

  The brother finishes.

  “Now,” prompts Ash, “offer money.”

  Start low, he advises. I do. It’s not working. I ante nearly half my total bonus, three years’ pay. I’m getting nowhere.

  “I add,” I say, “my horse.”

  The congress erupts. Quirts jiggle exuberantly. Tribesmen rap each other with the backs of their right hands (to use the palm, or the left, would constitute a mortal insult). By magic my mare materializes, led by Afghan grooms. The throng surrounds her, five deep. Give these bandits their due; they know horses. From their animated jabbering, it is clear that Snow meets with their approval. I glance to Baz and the cousins. Clansmen are swatting them merrily. It looks good, Flag says. “These sheep-stealers are showing your boy respect.”

  He’s right. Men continue congratulating Baz. Certainly no stain of dishonor remains in their eyes.

  Offering my horse proves a brilliant stroke. Greedy as the Afghan is, gold holds less appeal for him (since he has so few opportunities to spend it) than articles of honor, such as the armor or weapons of an enemy, and more so his warhorse, particularly if that animal is a superb specimen like Snow in the prime of her fighting years. To acquire such a prize is almost as satisfying as murdering the foe himself.

  “Have we got a deal?” I ask Ash.

  Indeed, says he. Except for another hour of haggling over bridle and tack. Ash has taken over; he negotiates for me. “Give them everything,” I say. “Who cares?”

  “Never! They will despise you and the animal if we don’t fight for this.”

  In the end, Ash preserves my armor and weapons.

  Now comes a second meal.

  “Ash,” says Flag. “Get us the fuck out of here.”

  The deal is struck. Shinar’s brother will give up his claim to vengeance under the laws of tor and A’shaara. I will recompense him with my horse and the agreed-upon indemnity.

  I want to get this over with. But the amount I’ve pledged is too big to deliver in gold (I don’t have a tenth of it anyway). It will have to be an army draft, and acquiring that will take all night and most of tomorrow, if I’m lucky, to procure through the Quartermaster.

  We’ll meet, the brother and I agree, tomorrow at the gate of the Pactyan camp, an hour before the military parade forms up.

  Baz does not give me his hand on our understanding; that office is performed by the chief, according to custom. “Good deal!” says the old man in Greek.

  I meet the brother’s eye. “Will this stand with you?”

  “Bring the money and the horse.”

  “If our nations can make peace, surely you and I can.”

  Still Baz will not acknowledge.

  “Leave my country,” says he. “Never come back.”

  54.

  Ash adds one caution as we ride out: I must make absolutely certain, when I deliver them, that the brother takes the money and the horse into his hands. “Once he accepts the bridle, he cannot go back on his oath. Until then, you have nothing but air.”

  I report everything to Shinar as soon as I return. She has known, from the day of the Women’s Festival, of her brother’s presence in camp. Two girls of her village spoke to her there. “They said nothing of him. But I could read their eyes.”

  Ghilla is staying with us. Both women are uneasy. They want to move to a new camp. Now, tonight. They fear that Baz and the cousins, despite their pledges, will come after them here.

  But where can we move? The city is overrun. There’s not a slave’s closet left.

  Stephanos saves us. Through a friend he gets us into the bachelor officers’ compound, the most secure part of the military camp. Macks only. We get a tent with the grooms. It’s not bad. Because of the horses, there’s day-and-night security. Among the scores of camps sprawling over thousands of acres, it’s impossible that Baz could locate us here.

  Dawn lacks only an hour by the time I get the women and infants settled. I’m too frayed to sleep, and besides, I have to present myself early at the Quartermaster’s to apply for the army monetary draft.

  I’m changing into a clean tunic when Stephanos appears with his friend, the captain who got us in to the secure compound. He vows to watch over Shinar and Ghilla. He’ll put three men on the tent, so two will always be awake.

  I should stay myself. I should get Flag and Boxer and squat on the threshold all day, till it’s time for the wedding.

  But I have to get the money.

  I have to seal the contract.

  By noon I have crossed and recrossed the city half a dozen times. Every clerk hands me a different story. The Quartermaster’s office is closed for the wedding. The office is open but it’s been moved across town. The office wants to help me, but the secretary can’t find my service scrolls. The office is closing in twenty minutes.

  Alexander’s wedding has sent the town into hysteria. Every lane is jammed with tailors and laundry-runners. Shoeless urchins dash along army-camp byways, delivering freshly shined boots and just-burnished helmets. I have never seen so many military cloaks so pressed and dazzling. Bronze grommets flash like diadems. At the river’s edge, horses line up flank-to-flank, being lathered and scrubbed by their grooms. The plain must hold a thousand camps. At the margins of each squat natives by the hundred, saddle-soaping tack and wax-buffing bridles and brightwork. To keep the city spotless, our host, the warlord Chorienes, has pledged one copper coin for every gallon of horse droppings scooped from the public way and delivered to his stable stewards. Urchins brawl over turds at every street corner. The city sparkles.

  The third quartermaster shunts me to the Honor Registry. The clerk can’t find my service documents, but does succeed in locating those of my brother Elias. Did I know I have a disbursement coming? Half of Elias’s death benefit (the other half goes to Philip).

  This will save me.

  Can I collect it?

  Indeed. At home in Apollonia, in six months.

  The clerk has to shutter his office. He’s a decent sort, though, and as I turn away, muttering, he hails me. “What about your dowry, Sergeant?”

  The king’s treasury, he reminds me, will today present each wedded couple with a golden cup—easily worth the amount I need.

  The problem is, the gift comes after the wedding.

  “Find an Egyptian,” says the clerk. A payday lender. Someone who’ll advance me cash against my pledge of the dowry.

  I try for two more hours. The bankers’ quarter has been sealed off by security forces. Its lane offers access to the
Citadel; no one gets by except with a pass stamped with the royal seal. Someone tells me the usurers have decamped to temporary quarters; their tables are set up behind the Lane of the Armorers. I get within twenty feet before a procession of priests walls off the way. Zoroastrians, shuffling at a pace that makes a slug look speedy. Ceremonial mace-bearers shield the holy men’s flanks; you can’t cut through or the whole mob will fall on you. I can see the bankers’ tables, though. Each has a line before it, twenty men deep. Every other tapped-out scuff has the same idea I do. By the time I get round the parade, the tables are being taken away. No more shine. The crows have lent it all at double-and-a-half.

  I get back to the bachelor officers’ compound an hour past noon. Ghilla and two other girls are preparing the ritual bath for Shinar. They won’t let me in the tent; it’s bad luck. My pressed cloak hangs on the post. I’m matted in dust. I have failed completely. I don’t have the cash for Baz and there’s no chance of getting it. As I sink onto a bench outside the tent, Flag rides up. He leads his own horse and my Snow, both curried and gleaming, and a third animal for me to ride back.

  “Get the money?”

  I shake my head.

  Flag tosses a leather pouch. It strikes the ground, heavy and jingling.

  “Shut up,” he says, “and take it.”

  He won’t let me thank him.

  “I’ll be back in an hour with Boxer and Little Red.” He means we four will ride out to meet with Baz. “Pack extra iron. In case they disarm us.”

  I nod. “Where’s Ash?”

  “At the Pactyan camp. Or he said he’d be.”

  The site where we are to meet Shinar’s brother and the cousins is about twenty minutes out on the plain. It will take twice that long to get there today, with the throngs packing the roads.

  I dress in five minutes. The remainder of the hour I spend prowling the perimeter of our lane. The captain’s guards stand in place. All our women are accounted for except Jenin, the abortion girl, who is off fetching laundry.

  I repeat Ash’s warning to myself: Get Snow’s bridle into the brother’s hands. That will seal the compact.

  So close now.

  One last turn and we’re in the clear.

  Flag comes back with Boxer and Little Red. He has changed into full formal uniform, for the wedding, including his military cloak, under which he has stashed a Spartan-style gut-cutter (in case Baz and the cousins try to pull something shady) with a khofari knife strapped to his thigh and a pair of throwing daggers tucked in his boots. Boxer and Red wait outside on their horses. I part from Shinar. It takes my mates and me an hour to reach the Pactyan camp. Three thoroughfares converge there; the approach lanes swarm with companies of cavalry, allies, and irregulars, and thousands of festival-goers on foot. The postnoon sun is blistering. Grit kicks up from a hundred heat dusters. “There it is,” says Flag.

  We can see the entry, where our shikari was turned back yesterday. A cluster of tribesmen awaits. Ash paces out front.

  No Baz.

  No cousins.

  I rein before him.

  “Where’s the brother?”

  Ash looks distraught.

  “Where are they?”

  “I knew they’d pull this,” says Flag.

  “Ash…”

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “…what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Flag’s glance scans the onlookers’ faces. They know. They have come to watch us. To enjoy our discomfiture.

  Two Afghans make a grab for my mare. I jerk her clear. “Where is Baz?” I shout in Dari.

  The men lunge to steal Snow. Flag looses his saber; Boxer’s and Red’s lances freeze the pack where they stand. “Ash,” I bawl, “what the fuck is going on?!”

  “Matthias!” Flag points into the crowd looking on.

  Jenin.

  The abortion girl.

  She sees us pointing and takes off like a hare. My spurs dig. In a heartbeat Flag and I are at the gallop. The girl dodges between tents. A crowd blocks our pursuit.

  “The fuckers have skulled us,” Flag calls. Lured us away from our compound. From protecting Shinar and the baby.

  I see Jenin bolt away down a lane of the camp. Ash’s warning from yesterday screams in my ears.

  Fear these wenches, for A’shaara binds them as pitilessly as an eagle’s claw holds a dove.

  55.

  My whip tears discs of flesh from my poor mare’s flanks; my heels pound the cage of her ribs. We have been suckered. Baz has played us false.

  Flag and I tear along the riverfront road, racing back for Shinar and our camp. Three bridges span the stream below Bal Teghrib. All are jammed with pilgrims and wedding-goers. Across the river sprawls the great flat of the parade field and beyond it the stone massif of the citadel. Already we see regiments entering in formation. How can we get round? We’ll never make it over the bridges, and the river is too deep to ford. Our horses will burst their hearts if we swim them and, besides, the far bank is end-to-end with security barricades; the King’s Guards will intercept us in our frenzied state and may even shoot us down. We have no choice but to gallop the mile and a half to the first upstream ford. When our animals finally mount out on the far bank, we can feel their knees coming unstrung.

  The road approaching Bactra City from the west forks at a great copse of tamarisk that houses the shantytowns of the city’s poorest. The south branch becomes the River Road, yokes to the terminus of the southern highway, and enters the town through the Drapsaca Gate. This bottleneck will be crammed with people. We spur left, up the rising slope toward the fortress. My mare is fatiguing but she’s still ten lengths ahead of Flag. I can see the approaches to the western gate; they’re backed up a mile. I rein, letting Flag catch up. “Through there!” We leap the wall at a low point.

  We enter a maze of city lanes. Every artery is choked with revelers. We swim against a tide of thousands, all decked in their plumage. They are so happy. I hate them all. We pound into their mass like riot troops into a front of rebels. Where is our camp? We’re lost. Not even urchins who’ve lived in this labyrinth all their lives can tell us. We keep pounding. Uphill is all I know. The camp is on high ground.

  I know I’m going combat-stupid. When I wipe the sweat from my face, my hand comes away bloody. I have bitten through my lip and don’t even know it.

  Checkpoints seal off street after street. “Don’t stop!” bawls Flag. Can we imagine explaining our haste to some barricade-manning corporal?

  In my mind I conjure our camp’s captain—Stephanos’s friend who swore to shield Shinar and Ghilla. If by screaming I could make him hear, I would bellow such that the city walls would topple. If by desperation alone I could make him know the peril in which our women stand, my skull would explode with the force of my extremity.

  I whip Snow uphill with furious violence, then realize I’m beating my own right leg. I have flayed the flesh to hash.

  Somehow we find the camp. I see it ahead. Deserted, save a skeleton watch. Everyone has vacated for the nuptials. Blood is coming from my mare’s nostrils. She is moments from caving beneath me. Behind, Flag has already loosed his exhausted mount; he trundles on foot.

  Into the camp. No one’s on guard. They’re all gone. Only women remain. My mare stumbles. I leap clear. With my weight off her back, she recovers. I drag her by the reins.

  “Flag…”

  “I’m all right.” He huffs beside me, chest working like a bellows.

  We hear screams ahead. Already I know the worst has happened. We plunge on like the doomed. I recognize the horse pens and the lane of our tent. At its head, women cluster, shrieking in woe. They tear their cheeks; blood sheets down their faces. There’s our captain. He cries something but I can’t hear. His expression is one of abjection. He holds his hands out before him. I see two corporals, our guards. One clutches a half-pike, dirty with blood. The other gapes at me in a state of consternation.

  I tear round t
he corner into the lane. The bodies of Baz and the two cousins sprawl in the dust. A mob of gawkers surrounds them. The crowd sees us. Their eyes dart toward the tent.

  I cling to hope. Maybe the corporals have cut the murderers off. Maybe they intercepted them before they got to Shinar and the baby. I see Ghilla, clutching her own infant. I plunge into the tent with Flag one step behind. Soldiers and grooms pack the interior.

  Overturned is the army chest that had served as a dressing table. A woman’s body lies where the carpet has been thrown back, as if by a struggle. The earth is painted with blood.

  56.

  One look at Shinar tells me she no longer breathes. There is nothing I can do for her. The sensation is like combat. I turn at once to the infant Elias. A corporal whose name I don’t know holds the child. Everyone backs away. A path opens from me to the baby. I take him. His swaddling wrapper is soaked like a sponge. The corporal has tugged a shade-flap over the child’s face. The package is so small. Like a parcel you get in the post. I take my tiny son in both hands.

  Men tell me later that I appear to be out of my head. On the contrary. I am vividly, preternaturally lucid. I know with absolute certainty that more enemy are coming. This is how the Afghan fights. He hits you once, and when you think you’re safe he hits you again.

  I am bawling orders. We have to move, get clear. The grooms stare at me as if I have gone mad.

  Outside, a boy holds my mare. The beast is spent. If I make her take my weight, she’ll cave underneath me. I start off afoot, carrying my little son in the crook of my left arm, beneath the square of my cavalry shield. I can hear the captain behind me. “Someone stick with him.”

  Flag.

  My mate overhauls me. His face drips sweat. Dust coats his dress uniform, from our dash from the Afghan camp. The wedding. I realize that I, too, wear formal kit. It seems ridiculous. “Where are we going?” Flag bawls.