Free The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay Page A

do it.”
    â€œNo, that’s fine,” said Velaz quickly. “I’ll go.”
    Jehane had thought that might happen. It was all right. She turned to Velaz. “Go now, then,” she murmured. “If my mother makes a fuss—I’m certain she won’t—we’ll put him in one of the travellers’ inns. Go quickly.”
    She turned back to the two guards and offered her best smile. “Thank you, both of you. I won’t forget this.”
    â€œI’d rather you did,” said Shimon virtuously. “You know how irregular this is.”
    He was being pompous. It was irregular, but not greatly so. Asharites often came quietly into the Quarter, on business or in pursuit of pleasure. The only trick—and not a hard one—was to make sure the wadjis didn’t know about it outside, or the Kindath high priests inside the gates. Jehane didn’t think it was an appropriate time to get into a dispute with Shimon, however.
    Among other things, the longer they talked the more it was possible that he might inquire as to the identity of her patient. And if he asked and she had to tell, he might know that Husari ibn Musa was one of those who was to have been in the castle that day. If Shimon and Bakir discovered this was a man the Muwardi assassins might be seeking there was no way under the moons that Husari would be allowed into the Kindath Quarter.
    She was putting her own people at risk with this, Jehane knew. She was young enough to have decided the risk was an acceptable one. The last Kindath massacres in Al-Rassan had taken place far to the south, in Tudesca and Elvira years before she was born.
    Â 
    Her mother, as expected, raised no objection. Wife and mother of physicians, Eliane bet Danel was long accustomed to adapting her home to the needs of patients. The fact that this disruption was occurring during the most violent day Fezana had known in a long time was not something that would ruffle her. The more so, because in this case Jehane made a point of telling her mother that the patient was ibn Musa. Eliane would have recognized him when he came. Husari had had Ishak as a dinner guest on several occasions and more than once the silk merchant had discreetly entered the Quarter to grace their own table—defying the wadjis and the high priests, both. Fezana was not a particularly devout city.
    Which had probably done nothing but add to the pleasure of the fiercely pious Muwardis as they killed innocent men, Jehane thought. She was standing on the upstairs landing, one hand poised to knock on a door, a burning candle in her other hand.
    For the first time in this long day she trembled, hesitating there, thinking of what she was about to do. She saw the flame waver. There was a tall window at the far end of the corridor, overlooking their inner courtyard. The rays of the setting sun were slanting through, reminding her that time mattered here.
    She had told her mother she would be leaving later that night and had braced herself for the fury of a storm that never came.
    â€œIt is not such a bad time to be out of this city,” Eliane had said calmly after a moment’s thought. She’d looked at her only child thoughtfully. “You will find work elsewhere. Your father always said it was good for a doctor to have experience of different places.” She’d paused, then added, without smiling, “Perhaps you’ll come back married.”
    Jehane had grimaced. This was an old issue. Nearing her thirtieth year she was past prime age for marrying and had essentially made her peace with that. Eliane had not.
    â€œYou’ll be all right?” Jehane had asked, ignoring the last remark.
    â€œI don’t see why not,” her mother had replied briskly. Then her stiffness was eased by the smile that made her beautiful. She had been wed herself, at twenty, to the most brilliant man among the brilliant Kindath community of Silvenes, in the days of