Heir of Iron

Chapter 19

(The image above is of a village in Bangladesh, originally found at http://nijhoom.com/bangladesh-village-picture/)

Ghatmi was a real town, which made for a change of pace after the weeks trudging through the hamlets in the toes of the mountains. There was a market square, surrounded by a honeycomb of warehouses holding cotton, dyes, rice, and wool, a temple whose painted stone spires glowered over the mud-brick houses crowding up around it, and a three-story estate at the far side of the village which housed the majakhadir. Its entrance hall was a modest, dimly-lit room that smelled of rosewater and wet wool. Mandhi asked the little girl who met them there to bring the khadir, and a moment a short, fat man with a slick mustache appeared. He glanced disdainfully at the seals they had brought from Sujaur.

"You've brought these from Daijasthi? What in the world made you go that far west?"

"We were running, Padna-kha," Mandhi said.

"And if you ran that far, why did you come back?"

"We have to return to Jaitha eventually," she said with a demure blush. "But we had to escape from the debt slavers first."

"Debt slavers!" Padna made a noise of disgust and threw the seal onto the rug, where Gocam knelt to pick it up. "The last thing I need running through here. I just got rid of the Red Men."

"The Red Men were here?" Navran broke in. Mandhi hissed for him to be quiet. Padna seemed not to notice.

"They were, like a thorn in a lamb's hoof. Fortunately, they left two days ago."

"Where did they march to?" Navran asked.

Padna waved vaguely to the south-east. "Off to Jaitha. If you hurry, you might catch up with them---walking behind a company of Red Men would be safer than much else on the road."

Mandhi gave Navran a look which suggested that she would murder him if he said another word. Then she turned to Padna and asked, "We are very poor, as Sujaur-kha mentioned. We beg for your mercy, my lord, just as Sujaur-kha gave us."

"Thikram's blessing," Padna said, though without the least hint of piety in his voice. "I have a room which you can use for the night. You're going back to Jaitha?"

"Yes."

"I can give you roti which will last you most of the way there."

"Padna-kha, you impress us with your hospitality."

"Thikram's blessing," he said again. "Chaludi! Come and help these three into the guest room." The little girl who had met them when they entered reappeared and approached Mandhi with her hands held timidly behind her back.

"You really should try to catch up with the Red Men," Padna said as they left. "Much safer on the roads that way. I'm surprised you haven't run into bandits already."

#

"Not Jaitha," Navran said. "The other way. Any other way." He paced back and forth along the south wall of the little guest room. The lamp hanging on a chain on the far side of the room cast his shadow on the wall in shifting, titanic proportions.

"We have to go through Jaitha," Mandhi said, crossing her arms and leaning against a cushion. "We cannot reach Virnas before the monsoon, but we might reach Jaitha. And how else will we cross the Amsadhu?"

"Red Men are in Jaitha. I am not going there. We go south until we meet the river. Boats cross it every day."

"Not once the monsoon starts."

Navran spoke in a low, even voice, attempting to hide the panic in his gut. "Then we get there before the monsoon."

"And after that? Where will we stay? There are many Uluriya in Jaitha---"