Gawain, p.3
Gawain, page 3
“When you said war machine, I had a vision of a tank like the armies used to use,” she said in a hushed voice.
“The Americans had as much money as they desired, when it came time to build the machines of death, Sayyida,” Yasmin replied with a touch of a grin.
“Call me Nahal,” Ghorbani replied. “That will not even be able to enter to drill.”
“No, but he could drill a well just outside the gates, off to one side,” Yasmin offered instead. “Cap it there and let you run power out to a pump so that any might come for water, but you retain some control. Or you could extend your walls to enclose it. That will be your choice later. Behrooz Esfandiari the Kurd wants trade.”
“I see.” She turned back to the mighty beast crawling noisily across the desert floor.
Yasmin could see Grandfather atop the beast, standing on her left beside the forward crane, where he could exit the greenhouse and hop down to the ground like a man forty years younger.
The villagers fell silent, but hands were on weapons now, none of them actually pointed at her or the war machine.
“Where would you like a well drilled?” Yasmin said loud enough that many heads turned towards her.
Nahal blinked several times, processing, and then her eyes turned dark and serious again. She studied Yasmin.
“You would give them orders?” she asked quietly.
“We come as friends,” Yasmin replied.
Nahal nodded. She pointed to a spot on the right, where the slope of the mountain ascended sharply.
“We think the water is shallowest there,” she said.
Yasmin nodded in turn and keyed the microphone.
“Behrooz, Nahal would ask if you could place a water well on my right, as close to the rock face as possible and near the walls.”
“Stand by,” he replied over the line.
They waited.
“Sensors say it is actually out about one hundred meters,” Behrooz said. “There is river under the sand and stone with fresh water flowing now, according to the radar. I will center there and your friends can confirm.”
“Thank you, Behrooz,” Yasmin smiled. She turned to Nahal. “Shall we go meet them?”
The older woman nodded and Yasmin followed her down to the gate, open now and idling nicely, once the mechanics had gotten things cleaned up.
No others accompanied the two of them outside as they turned and walked close to the rock wall, watching the enormous machine rumble slowly forward, as though delicately placing each tread.
It came to rest finally and Yasmin watched Ardashir scramble down the side in his ancient robes. He had left her rifle inside, but Yasmin had no doubt that the man had a pistol or two on him. Plus several knives. And Ardashir Shir-Del was still the equal of most people in close combat.
“Nahal Ghorbani Sayyida, may I present my Grandfather, Ardashir Shir-Del?” Yasmin said as the old man bounced up close.
Normally, her grandfather moved with calm, quiet deliberation, so Yasmin wondered what he was up to, looking so spry. But she supposed that others might see only the age and the eyes that had gone dim. The slight hunch when he stood. The liver spots on his hands and the valleys carved into his face and the scraggly white beard.
They would miss much.
He must have decided he would like this stranger, if Yasmin did.
Nahal bowed semi-formal to the man.
“Greetings and welcome,” Nahal said.
“Does this village have a name?” Grandfather asked.
“It was once a pumping station,” Nahal said. “Refugees came from all directions as the wars faded, so we never came from a single place.”
“Let us look at the wellhead,” Yasmin interrupted, motioning both of them towards the front where the cranes were lifting and groaning.
A drill bit was dropping and touched a spot on the dirt as they moved close.
“Yasmin, this is probably the best spot,” Behrooz said over the radio. “Centered on the flow and I can go deep in the channel here.”
She turned to the woman in charge of the village.
Nahal turned in place, spotting against the mountain and the walls, before she nodded mutely.
“This is good, Behrooz,” Yasmin said. “Go ahead.”
“Everyone please step back a safe distance,” Behrooz said.
Yasmin understood what would happen and guided Nahal back towards the gate, Grandfather in tow as they went.
Behind, she could hear the massive drill bit tear into the soil.
As they got close to the gate, Nahal turned to Ardashir, careful to keep Yasmin on the third point of a triangle.
“You bring trade?” she asked.
Grandfather grinned.
“Behrooz brings trade,” he said. “I am simply along to offer whatever wit and wisdom I might on the journey.”
Nahal frowned slightly.
“Yasmin said you trained her,” the older woman said.
“Yes,” Ardashir agreed. “She is not as good as I was at my best, but much better than I was at her age.”
“She plans to go after Dehkordi and his marauders,” Nahal said.
He turned and looked at her and Yasmin nodded simply.
“Then they are dead men,” Ardashir noted, turning back to Nahal.
“You would not stop her?”
“It is Yasmin’s world to build, young lady,” Ardashir rose now to his full height from that slight slouch. “My generation destroyed it. Yours had to live with it. Hers will fix it.”
“Just like that?” Nahal asked, turning to include both of them in her gaze.
“Yes,” Yasmin agreed. “Just like that.”
Yasmin was in her bunk aboard ibn Rustah. The Sayyida had offered to put them up inside the walls, but Yasmin had declined. Sleeping in her own bed was one of the things she looked forward to. Plus, as much as she liked the woman, they were still outsiders to the villagers. That was evident in the way they stood. The looks they gave.
It would take time to build trust.
The war machine had ceased drilling a while ago. Another section of spare pipe had been rammed down into the ground to provide a well, with pumps and pipes run. Behrooz had an entire room filled with old pumps he had salvaged from somewhere, topped up even more at the American weapons depot. Wire and pipe as well.
He could, if he chose, drop wells every day or two all the way to Herat, although he had not done that so far. Just places where the water was shallow enough to not use up all the well casing pipes he had brought and where the radiation had begun to fade. And again, the Americans had left behind a tremendous amount of material, if you had a crane and a spydermech strong enough to lift it.
He claimed that the wells would eventually form the nucleus of new villages. Or expansions for existing ones like this and Aynalo.
Yasmin sat and meditated, trying to envision the world she wanted to create.
A rap on the frame of her door opened her eyes.
Behrooz. Smiling.
She was on her bunk, lotus-style. Her robes were hung nearby, but she still wore her hijab.
He was uncomfortable, holding a piece of folded, green cloth in his hands.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked.
Yasmin noted that he didn’t ask about intruding, because he was carefully outside her open door in the hallway, even though there was space for him inside. The room had been originally built for four soldiers, with fold-down bunks and space for foot lockers underneath, but only one bunk remained. It felt positively decadent, considering what she had grown up with, sharing space with her younger brother.
Nor had she added a chair, because she rose each morning, showered, dressed, and did not return to this room but to sleep, most days. Even more so since she spent her days scouting with Gawain.
“I was meditating,” she replied with a smile.
“About?”
“Trying to see the future,” Yasmin said. “Something Grandfather said today to Nahal, about how my generation, including you, would be responsible for fixing the world.”
“To be sure,” he agreed. “I found her to be a most interesting woman.”
Yasmin felt a twinge of jealousy at his words, but squelched it.
Nahal Ghorbani Sayyida was an interesting woman. Mature, dominant, respected. The people were more protective of her than suspicious of the strangers.
“So where do your visions lead you?” Behrooz asked, still standing carefully in the hall.
Yasmin felt a twinge of pique now. At how uncomfortable they both were. How constrained by circumstances and the social mores of people not here to judge them.
She shifted to move herself to the head of her bunk and pointed at the foot.
“Sit,” she ordered the man.
Behrooz moved like she might be venomous, coming to rest only barely on the bed, more than a meter away still.
“Persia requires a symbol,” she began haltingly, trying to find the right words. “I must embody that somehow. I was thinking back to my histories to find something.”
Behrooz nodded. He had heard the stories of the raid, told by Nahal and others inside the wall, as well as Yasmin’s arrival and the surprise rout that drove those dogs from the desert floor.
“Something you said caught my attention, Yasmin,” he replied as she fell silent.
“Oh?”
Instead of speaking, he lifted the cloth bundle and handed it to her.
She took it, feeling the heavy cotton cloth.
The color was that pale green associated from time immemorial with Islam. Yasmin unfolded it and found that it was a triangular flag, what might be called a pennon, she thought. In the center was a crescent moon, sewn out of a gold cloth that shimmered as she touched it.
“What is it?” she whispered, looking up at the man.
He remained clear at the other end of the bed from her, as if nervous.
More nervous that just being in her room, seated on her bunk.
While they were alone.
“I thought about the Japanese engineers who built much of ibn Rustah,” he said. “They also designed and built the Excaliburs and other American mechanoids.”
“Samurai,” Yasmin nodded. She had felt that same connection, walking in Gawain, because so much of both American and Japanese cultures revolved around the samurai/cowboy archetype.
The Hero. Like Arthur.
“Yes. They had a particular brand of warriors, the Japanese,” he continued. “Important, noble warriors who were said to be grouped at the base of the flag, meaning in direct service to the Shogun himself. The world is hatamoto, and can be translated as bannerman. That got me to thinking that you needed a flag. A banner.”
Yasmin studied the green and gold flag, the pennon on her lap. Triangular, with two loops of cloth at the top for hanging it, coming down to a point at the bottom.
“Why is it so long?” she asked.
Overall, it looked to be nearly two meters, or taller than her.
“You’ll hang it from a flagpole I’ll attach to Gawain’s backpack,” he said simply. “Crossbar for the loops, with hooks to keep it in place.”
She saw the samurai warriors with such a thing. The Polish hussars as well. It was an ancient image that had been important to many cultures.
“Green for Islam,” she said pointedly.
“And gold for kings like Arthur,” he nodded, gesturing to the crescent.
Yasmin caught her breath at the implications. He saw her as a Shogun? A King? A Shah or Padishah?
But then, that was what it meant to take up the sword, wasn’t it?
She studied the man now.
Serious eyes, dark like hers. Clean chin from where he used a straight razor every morning.
Behrooz wore his black hair short and uncovered, except when he went outside, then he wore a kepi rather than a shemagh or keffiyeh when he did.
What did it mean that she might be a king? What would change between them?
Yasmin had always assumed that they would end up together at some point. Certainly Grandfather barely spent any time doing anything remotely like chaperoning his seventeen-year-old charge.
Because he trusted her to make the right decisions.
She just had no idea what that might be right now.
According to Ardashir, that generally meant one should leave things be for now, and let them simmer for a time yet.
Not everything had to be handled today. Another useful lesson.
Yasmin had years to figure out what she wanted from Behrooz Esfandiari.
“I have to go after them,” she said simply.
“I know,” he replied. “But you need to be a symbol for all of Persia now. And there’s not much more I can do to help. Nor Ardashir, except support you and be ready when you are done.”
She could see more words in his eyes, but he blushed and lowered his face.
The man rose suddenly and stepped to the door, retreating outside it before things got heated.
Or out of control.
She didn’t want that right now.
Did she?
That decision was out of her hands, unless she called him back now.
“Tomorrow?” he asked, safely out of reach.
“Tomorrow,” Yasmin agreed.
Wasn’t that how it worked? That thing you wanted, but you couldn’t have today?
Hopefully tomorrow.
The morning was not yet risen when Yasmin approached the back of Gawain, with Behrooz and the others accompanying her to lock the plates. Still too dark to tell a white thread from a black thread, but she’d already said her prayers after waking early this morning, preparing like the warriors in all the literature she had consumed when the technical manuals were reserved for the boys.
She still felt naked, removing her robes and shoes in the presence of a man, but Behrooz just waited as she did. Held them as she stripped down to a uniform of T-shirt and the skinny pants she normally wore, calf length to tuck into her boots.
The hijab came off last, letting her braided hair swirl a little in the breeze.
Ardashir and Nahal watched from a small distance, as if by unspoken agreement to let the youngsters have a moment of privacy. Beyond them, many of the men and women she had met last night, armed, but not as nervous today.
Behrooz had been up long after she slept, attaching the new flagpole overhead in such a way that her sword would not catch on it when she drew. The flag hung limply in the still air, much like that red flag the attackers had traveled under yesterday.
Only yesterday?
Hopefully, they hadn’t gone far. And weren’t immediately set to return this morning and attack at first light. They would have sent scouts to see the war machine, so it might have scared them off entirely and they’d be fleeing from her now.
Yasmin studied the horizon where the sun was just turning the morning sky red in the southeast. Gawain had tracked them that direction, and their tire tracks would give them away.
Silence had fallen.
She looked back and all eyes were on her.
Inwardly, she quailed for a moment, but understood that this was what it meant to fly that flag.
To inspire people with her deeds and her words.
Behrooz just stood there, as if frozen, watching her.
Yasmin turned to enter the machine, then stopped and turned back.
She reached out a hand and caught the front of his robes, pulling the surprised and unresisting man closer.
It wasn’t much of a kiss. She had no idea how, but she didn’t want to wait for another tomorrow to find out.
He did not move to embrace her, and that was okay for now. His kiss was enough.
Yasmin stepped back, blushing hard enough to light up the entire sky, and climbed into Gawain’s back without a word.
Overhead bar for her hands. Lift so she could slide her legs into the sockets. Step forward into the compartment and slip her arms into the sleeves and gauntlets.
She turned to grab her helmet but it was gone. Turning more, Behrooz held it, stepping close now and slipping it onto her head and adding his own kiss after he buckled her chin.
More blush.
No words.
No promises nor regrets.
But he smiled.
She smiled.
Behrooz stepped back and brought the clamshell plates together with a hard thunk.
Yasmin brought Gawain to life.
All systems green. Fuel tank topped off. Fresh snacks and cold tea in the locker for a long day, resting atop the medkit she hoped she would never need.
Damage sufficient to penetrate the fighting compartment would have likely killed her, so she would be dead before she knew it.
At least she hoped so. Dying slowly, bleeding to death while trapped inside an iron coffin, figured high in her nightmares right now.
“All systems ready,” the system spoke in a calm, woman’s voice now.
Yasmin nodded and took a half step forward, turning Gawain in place until she was facing Nahal, with the two men at her side.
“I will depart now,” Yasmin said quietly over the speakers. “Behrooz and Ardashir will follow, in case I need them, but we will be back after we chase off or destroy those bandits.”
“Be safe,” Nahal replied.
Yasmin nodded and turned as the gate truck rumbled to life and opened.
It was quick work to exit the village. No raiders had returned this morning, so she paused and studied the place from the outside, as she had yesterday.
She jolted with surprise when she realized that someone had painted a green square on the outside of the wall, then added a golden crescent in the center.
That had not been there yesterday.
It begins.
Yasmin took a steadying breath and turned into the morning darkness.
Somewhere, Dehkordi and his dogs awaited.
Yasmin watched the map screen as she moved. Gawain was at a hard jog, but she had built up the muscles and endurance to do this by running up and down stairs at Aynalo, and then traversing the blasted, radioactive wilderness that had once been paradise on Earth.
The wheels had torn up an easy path in the dirt for her to follow.
Idly, Yasmin wondered if the marauders were too arrogant to believe that someone else might come hunting them.
