Read Online Hegira by Greg Bear - Free Book Online

own concern.” He let Kiril go and cursed under his breath. “Eat, don't talk.”
    Kiril sat trembling and wild-eyed at the table for a long breath, then stood and walked out. Barthel looked after him sympathetically and suggested the Bey shouldn't have lost his temper.
    “He's young,” Bar-Woten said. “I'll apologize when he's ready but I won't beg forgiveness.”
    Kiril ran to the end of the hall trying not to listen to the sounds that came from a few of the rooms. He walked stiffly down the stairs into the foyer, then stomped through the anteroom and stood in the slushy courtyard, trying to decide what to do. He had had enough of his own insanity.
    The livery boy brought his horse out for him upon request and helped him adjust the saddle. Kiril didn't care if the others were going to be left with fewer provisions. “Let them spend their money on that instead of another debauch!” he whispered harshly to himself. The boy looked up at him with curious eyes. “Vasheesh?” he asked in the Pashkesh tongue — a tip?
    “Mafeesh,” Kiril answered. “My pockets are empty.”
    He spurred his horse forward and left the courtyard.
    Horses were crowding the crest of the road. Kiril stopped short at the bottom of the inclined street. In front of the horses stumbled a party of bloody and tattered men in white uniforms, much like what he had first seen Bar-Woten wearing. The drive was heading in his direction, right for the courtyard. The men on horseback were Mediwevan.
    The purge had crossed the border. The Holy Pontiff was running his quarry to ground even in foreign fields.
    Shouts arose when they spotted him. “Stop!” And a shot rang out. For a long, paralyzed moment he stood his ground, wanting to cry out that he was one of them, that he was a Mediwevan. But he knew it was crazy to face them even as an accomplice. His insanity had come to the only possible end.
    He pulled his horse around and galloped back into the courtyard. “Bar-Woten!” he called. “Barthel! Mount up! They're here!”
    He saw the Ibisian's face in a small window on the second floor. He disappeared. Barthel replaced him. “Bring out the other horse!” the Khemite ordered.
    Kiril dismounted and stopped. How long would it take the soldiers to get to the bottom of the street with men running before them? “Kristos!” he panted. He ran to the stables, pushed the boy aside, and knocked his hand on the beam beside each stall, trying to find the other horse. It was still blanketed but unsaddled. “The saddle!” he shouted to the boy. “The saddle!”
    “Mafeesh,” the boy answered in a falsetto, waggling his hips. “Bastardi!”
    Kiril threw open the stall door and avoided the animal's tentative back-kick, whapping it across the nose with the flat of his hand to make it behave. He pushed it out of the stall and breathed his thanks it was still haltered. The Ibisian ran into the stables with clothes dangling and took the horse from him. Kiril spied the saddle on a rack, whipped it off with surprising strength, and tossed it on the ground beside the horse. “Is there time?” Bar-Woten asked.
    “How the hell should I know?” Kiril shouted.
    He walked backward from the stable trying to keep his eyes on all things at once — the saddling, the courtyard, the frightened-looking stable boy who had stepped into more trouble than he'd expected. Kiril stumbled in his crabwise gait and fell on his side and hands, scraping himself and wetting his clothes. Cursing, he stood up again and ran into the doorway of the brothel. Girls and old men and women were flooding the anteroom. He couldn't break through the crowd. “I have the bags!” Barthel called from the other side.
    “Then come this side with them for God's sake!”
    The Khemite pushed and kicked his way through. He emerged with the leather pouches and they turned to the courtyard. They were just in time to see the chained Ibisians being shoved ahead of the mounted troops. The press of the