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She had only one man with her now, but he was worth a hundred and fifty, by one measure.
He was worth infinitely more than that, by the measuring of her heart.
It was ten days' hard ride from what remained of Orvilla to Ragosa. And while those days were wrapped in deadly urgency, they were also ten days in which the two of them were simply Jehane and Ammar, a woman and a man outside of their disparate faiths, outside of their accomplishments and professions, outside of expectation. They rode hard into the western wind and spoke little during the day, with reminders to rest or eat conveyed with little more than a gesture after so long in each others' company, in the company of their exceptional, painfully temporary mercenary band.
Jehane missed Rodrigo like a limb. She missed Alvar and Husari. She second-guessed her decision to leave her parents in Rodrigo's protection almost hourly. The loss of Velaz still sat in her stomach like a stone. She saw matching regrets in Ammar's face, unguarded as he was on their long rides.
Every night, they would make their small camp, and Jehane would find in herself a desperate need for Ammar's touch. She was weary, but her need to pull Ammar into her, to heal their hearts, energized her with a passion she hadn't known she possessed.
At first he was a tender, experienced lover, taking control of their pleasure with an expert touch. She had expected that. They weren't children. She found that he liked it when she took control, which pleased her as well, for it was rare in a man. In such a man.
She forgot sometimes. In the classless exigencies of trail bread and lukewarm canteen water, in caring for the horses, in carefully building a fire that would neither die nor burn too bright -- she forgot. The man beside her was Ammar ibn Khairan, who had killed two khalifs and mourned them both with poetry that would live for generations. He was only Ammar, her lover, who sighed in pleasure whenever she pushed him into their makeshift pallet and held him by the wrists.
***
It seemed to her that they travelled a little more slowly every day. Made camp just a few minutes earlier. It was nothing noticeable, unless you looked for it. They were both stretching out this little time before they reached Ragosa, before Ammar's defection became a reality. Here, in this liminal space, they were just a man and a woman -- perhaps of some learning and wit, certainly with some passionate connection for each other, possibly trail-hardened and used to each other's company. Jehane felt she could travel a hundred years with this man and not tire of it, were they not traveling to the end of their former road. Perhaps to the ending of all their roads.
Would the wadjis already be established at Almalik's court? Unlikely, said Ammar, but Jehane knew even better than he how the fire of faith could burn beyond planning or control. Would they permit Almalik to suffer the decadent Ammar ibn Khairan, now armed with his Kindath concubine?
Did Jehane want to be Ammar ibn Khairan's Kindath concubine? The duties of the position were very agreeable, she had to admit; it was the title that dismayed her. And the fact that it made of her a target -- another foible Ammar would have to beg of his king, and which could be easily taken away.
"You're thinking too many steps ahead," Ammar said, observing her. "You get this little twist to your mouth. It's quite fetching, but you need to stop worrying ahead of time."
"When, exactly, would be the proper time? Right at the last minute? We need a plan. We can't just rely on charm and luck in this, for yours has nearly run out, and I've never had much of either."
Ammar knelt beside her, took over building the fire. "Says the woman whose first field surgery was a successful amputation. And I assure you you are very charming. Ben Avren couldn't look away from you for months."
She broke into their store of trail bread and hard cheese. "I didn't sleep with him," she said. "He couldn't write me off as a conquest. I think it intrigued him."
"You must know that bets were laid."
Jehane rolled her eyes. "Of course. How did you wager?"
"I refused to, actually." Ammar gave a half-shrug. "I didn't like to think about you being with him, so I avoided the subject."
This answer heartened her, unaccountably. It wasn't like it really would have mattered, one way or another. She had accepted the man's gifts, his company, the gossip inherent in these. But she had held back. Waiting for a better offer? Valuing herself too highly? Uncomfortable with Mazur's age, his station? She couldn't quite diagnose her reasons, but she was quite, quite certain that she was at peace with the effect her past decision had made on her present circumstance. For if she had been Mazur ben Avram's lover, would Rodrigo have even pushed for her to leave Ragosa? Would Ammar have taken note of yet another Kindath woman falling into the old chancellor's bed?
"Your face has changed," Ammar said. "I don't know that one."
"Whatever the opposite of regret is," Jehane said, and kissed him.
***
They lay on their pallet together, the sun setting low in the west, and Ammar had found some fascination with her hair. "Did you ever...?" Ammar asked.
Jehane frowned. "With Mazur? I told you I didn't."
"No." Ammar's eyes looked dark; she could feel the sadness there. "Rodrigo."
"Alas, no," she said with a sigh. She peered at Ammar, remembered rumors she had heard. "Why, did you?"
"Alas," said Ammar, sighing a little, and then both of them laughed aloud. "He truly does love his wife, and I'm not a man for moustaches at any rate."
"They tickle," Jehane said. "It's not unpleasant."
"I don't think he cares for men, honestly, or I might well have tried. Were it not for Miranda Belmonte."
Jehane thought about that, imagined Ammar's tenderness and ferocity, added to Rodrigo's own. "You love him well."
"As do you." Ammar laid a kiss on her brow. "I think he is the one man with whom I would be content to share you."
"I am not a bottle of wine or a good horse," Jehane said tartly.
"Allow me to rephrase," said Ammar. "I should have liked to be the man the two of you shared between you."
Ah, thought Jehane. The teasing they would have had. Jehane gently teaching Rodrigo his way around another man's body, wrapping herself between the two men closest to her heart. She could imagine Rodrigo's laughter, his eagerness, the cleverness of his hands. The certainty, she knew now, of Ammar's submission, all the more powerful because of the man that he was.
She thought of how Rodrigo had begged Ammar to stay, had been ready to give Ammar anything. If either of them could set down their stubborn notion of honor. She wondered again if their reunion would ever be -- or if the two best men she had ever known would be forced one day to stand against each other. In the face of their own love, in the face of everything they could have built together? It made her heart want to weep. She wanted to walk up to the God and his sisters and shake them for creating two such stubborn, brilliant, honorable men.
But if their parting had been spared, at the price of that honor, would Ammar still be the man she loved? Would Rodrigo, come to that?
"Well," she said. "It's a pretty picture, I admit." Ammar smiled, and nestled himself between her breasts, content. "But I shouldn't like to compete with Miranda Belmonte for the same hair ribbon, much less steal her husband. Especially just so I could add him to your bed. You are greedy, ibn Khairan."
"I know it well," Ammar replied. "I took you, didn't I?"
"You need to learn," Jehane said, sighing. She rolled over on top of Ammar and seized him again. "You never take me anywhere. I go where I please."
"Of course," he murmured. "I apologize."
"You had better," said Jehane, and kissed him, without regret, under the twinned moons and the stars.