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.Edene lifted the first layer of woven cotton and found a small silk pouch embroidered in Song style just below.It lay flat, as if empty or nearly so.When she lifted it, she could feel a smooth, hard round within, so heavy it startled her.Now her hands trembled as the tugged at the drawstrings.They shook so much when she tried to reach inside the pouch that she gave in and upended the contents into her palm.A ring.Plain and stark as the room she squatted in, crudely hammered so it barely shone, its only beauty was in the metal.She’d never seen metal quite this color; not green and also not not-green, exactly, but more the color a leaf would be if a plant grew gold.She held it in her palm.It was cold.She lifted it to her eye.When her breath blew across it, the metal misted.It was made of one continuous piece that must have been cast that way, or pierced and stretched.There was no inscription within or without, no symbols etched into the band.Just hammer marks.It weighed more, she thought, than even gold should weigh.She stood up, aware as always of late how her balance had shifted from the day before, aware of how the life inside her changed her body.Trembling still, she slipped the ring onto her finger.Her hand vanished before her eyes, as if a layer of soft dust blew across it.* * *It was not land Samarkar found at last, but a ship.A ship full of men very surprised to pull a naked woman from the sea.But they wrapped her in blankets and gave her boiled coffee on the brazier, so sugared she would normally have found it undrinkable.She hadn’t had coffee since she lived in Song, and the burnt astringency and syrupy sweetness seared through her fast and hard.It stopped her shivering, though, and gave her empty stomach something to cramp around.The deck of the ship pitched beneath her, all its instability feeling peculiarly solid after so long in the sea.The crew clustered around her until one—the captain?—yelled at them to get back to work.Samarkar watched the bustle in awe.It seemed to require a lot of constant effort to keep the square sails doing what they should.The presumptive captain alone approached her.“Do you speak human?” he asked in Uthman.She blinked, only then realizing that the whole time they hauled her from the sea, she had not spoken a word.“I do,” she said, her voice creaky with disuse.She coughed and sipped more syrupy coffee.“I need your help.I want to pay you to carry some passengers from the far shore to Asitaneh.”“Pay us?” he laughed.“With what?”Silently, she untied the sling from around her waist and began counting out heavy, hammer-struck coins of Rasan gold.“There’s more on the far shore,” she said.“And Rasan salt.And Ato Tesafahun will no doubt reward you for our rescue as well.”The name, as she had hoped, was one to conjure with.She spoke it, and suddenly men moved to wrap her in still more dry blankets and replace her empty cup with one filled with a gruel of beef and grain.* * *Temur found to his surprise that the boat suited him well.It was like a mare of the sea.Brother Hsiung did not enjoy the rocking motion, however, and Samarkar was kept busy treating him for nausea.Samarkar: Temur would never forget how she had looked, waving to him from the prow of a longboat in sailors’ borrowed clothes.The way his heart had leaped up to see her.After all their adventures, it seemed a little ridiculous how easy it was to reach Temur’s grandfather.The hardest part was getting Bansh on and off the ship, and the crew had slings and tackle they seemed accustomed to using for just such a process.Samarkar swam out with the mare and dove under her belly to secure the sling, while Temur waited unsettled for her on the deck and called down encouragement and praise.Temur was grateful that it was Bansh who had to be so treated, and not Buldshak.The passage was quick and uneventful.After less than a day, Asitaneh came into view—the fabled city of red stone and onion-topped towers that guarded the strait.The ship docked, its captain and men much the richer.They led Bansh down the gangplank, Temur first having muffled her hooves in sacking so the hollow ring of the wood underfoot would not frighten her.Deep in his heart, he suspected that it was more to comfort him than because she needed the reassurance.And Hrahima—after sending a runner ahead with a message to expect them—simply brought them through the crowded, bustling streets as if it were of no more consequence than bringing the flock in for shearing.Temur had seen cities before, of course—but nothing quite like Asitaneh.Its streets were paved, with the same red stone of which its walls were built, and some of its towers were six stories or more [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]