“You did not realize?” Baksheesh stopped in his tracks. “How is that possible? I thought you knew. I myself saw immediately she was a maiden. It strikes the eye.

“Her voice, her gait, her bearing. Her beard—of which she has not the slightest trace. Her delicacy of features. And other details perhaps unfamiliar to you.”

Taken aback, I answered that when we met she was wearing several layers of grime.

Baksheesh shook his head, wonder-struck. “Tell me, O Fledgling Eagle, have you been much out in the world?”

“Only recently,” I said.

“That would account for it. I must reveal these mysteries to you another time.”

Baksheesh conducted me down the stairs. Since I had paid some days in advance, he took on the duty of haggling with the innkeeper regarding what I had overpaid, and slipped the difference into one of his pockets.

From the main building of the inn, we crossed the courtyard and headed for the stables. Shira—I was still used to thinking of her as Rabbit—would meet us there. Baksheesh had shouldered the bundle; but no sooner had we gone a few paces than he began groaning pitifully.

“It is nothing,” he said when I asked what the trouble was. “In my efforts to gather all you needed, I may have done my back a small injury. Pay no mind. The pain—ah, the pain bites like a tooth! But it is worth the joy of serving you. It will pass. Sooner or later.”

Baksheesh limped and moaned in such agony that I took the bundle and carried it myself.

“Blessings on you, O Tower of Strength,” he said, recovering instantly. “I shall be entirely fit once we are on our way.”

Something, however, puzzled me. If the Road of Golden Dreams was so harsh and perilous, why would a young woman wish to travel it?

“As you know, Excellence, it is not my nature to pry into other people’s business. That is her affair, not mine.

“I can only tell you she has been a month or so in Sidya, hoping to find work with a caravan. But the caravan masters will not hire a girl. She desires most urgently to reach her home, far east of Marakand.

“With the pittance she earns, how long would it take to save enough to buy a place on even the smallest caravan? And so it falls out profitably for all of us. Best yet, she assures me she has no interest in the fortune we seek.”

“She knows?” I burst out. “Wretch, you told her—”

“No, no, I mentioned it only vaguely in passing,” Baksheesh protested, “and that was before you swore me to silence. Henceforth, I am the soul of discretion.”

At the stables, I saw a rawboned donkey, his rough coat gray as dishwater, tethered to the railing. The animal’s ribs jutted like a pair of washboards. Instead of a saddle, a patch of carpet had been strapped to his back. He swung up his head and turned melancholy eyes upon us.

Baksheesh stepped toward him. “Worthiness, behold your steed.”

“That’s no camel,” I said.

“O Marvel of Perception, it is not,” said Baksheesh. “I promised you a camel would be available, and it will be. In Marakand, we must determine what route we should follow, and whether a donkey, horse, or camel is most suitable.

“Until then, he will serve us well,” he added. “He comes from an ancient bloodline, a creature of spirit.”

Of ancient bloodline, I had no doubt. My substitute camel looked old enough to have been foaled at the dawn of time. His spirit I judged to be that of despondency.

“You are skilled, O Splendid One, in the art of riding? No?” said Baksheesh when I shook my head. “Have no fear. You will take to it as a fish to water.”

I put down the bundle—dropped it, rather. Around the corner came the former Rabbit and present assistant camel-puller. I had never seen anyone like her. Not in the way of costume, for she was dressed not much differently from myself. I guessed she had picked through the innkeeper’s bag of castoffs.

No, not her garb, but all the rest of her. She wore a head cloth loosely tied around hair dark and touched with glints of deep red like our Serrano plums; so dark it shone purple when the light struck it a certain way, like our eggplants. Her complexion was the sun-washed gold of our vineyards’ sweetest grapes. I was sorry to fall back on fruit and vegetable comparisons, but I had no better resources. Her eyes, I could only call them almond-shaped, and blue-green as the sea in Magenta Harbor.

I admit she surprised me, and more than that. I meant to offer a graceful, well-turned compliment. I cursed myself for a chooch at what actually stumbled from my mouth.

“Signorina—Dushizéh Shira,” I said, “you look very clean this morning.”

“And you, mirza,” she said, pleasantly enough, “you look better with your clothes on.”

Baksheesh insisted it was only fitting and proper for me— as caravan master, so to speak, to have the honor of riding our donkey. I swung aboard, not as gracefully as I would have liked, with Shira observing my efforts. The two of them loaded on as much of our baggage as the donkey could bear, and shouldered the remainder themselves, including a sack of provender Shira had acquired to feed all of us until we reached Marakand.

And so we headed northward from the inn yard and past the town limits, which greatly relieved Baksheesh—and me, as he assured me we were no longer in danger of being skewered like a pair of kebabs. With Baksheesh leading the donkey by a rope halter, Shira walked alongside. My place of honor was to be squeezed fore and aft between the bundles. I kept lurching from one side to the other. As for honor, I would have called it more the case of a chooch trying to sit on a chooch.

We were an hour or so out of Sidya when we slowed to a snail’s pace. Baksheesh, gasping in anguish, began lamenting the condition of his knees.

“An old rheumatism that comes upon me from time to time,” he moaned. “I beg you, O Compassionate One, let us halt for the day. Unspeakable misery—my enemies should have this affliction!—perhaps it will ease by morning.”

This, I was reluctant to do. It seemed to me we were stopping when we had scarcely begun. Baksheesh gave out such piercing cries that the donkey laid back his ears to escape hearing them.

I saw only one good solution. I climbed off and urged Baksheesh to take my place.

More than willing, he showered me with blessings. All undeserved. My muscles ached from unaccustomed jolting. I was glad to give him my seat in exchange for carrying his baggage. And, yes, it gave me a chance to walk with Shira.

My good deed proved to be a miraculous remedy. Baksheesh dropped off to sleep instantly, chin on his breast, wheezing as much as the donkey.

And so, free of his eavesdropping, I tramped along beside Shira. With no idea what next to do. Leading the donkey, hardly glancing at me, she stayed silent, caught up in her own thoughts. I had an irresistible urge to take her hand. I resisted it.

Nevertheless, after a time, I ventured to make conversation of some sort. I said I was glad to be of help, since Baksheesh had told me she wished to travel in our same direction.

I added that Baksheesh was an eager gossip; and, I gathered, he also told her I had in mind to seek out a fortune.

“As do you all, mirza,” she said.

My reason, I began to explain, was different from that of the usual travelers.

“Does it matter?” she said. “One reason is as good as another. They come to the same, in the end. The Road of Golden Dreams?—Do you know, mirza, who travels it?”

“Merchants, of course,” I said. “Who other?”

Shira nodded. “Merchants, yes. For the most part. Serious men. Honest, more or less. Their business is business. The silks, the spices. For their profit and the pleasure of you ferenghis.

“But there are other goods to be traded, and others to do it. Those not on the best terms with the law. With a price on their head in their own countries. Men with no past, or too much past. Those with something to forget, or things they choose not to remember. Adventurers for the sake of adventure. Criminals. Landgoing pirates.”

“You seem to know them well, dushizéh,” I said.

“Some, very well,” she answered. “Some, all too well.” She turned those marvelous sea-tinted eyes on me. “And you, mirza? Which are you?”

I said I didn’t think I was any of them.

“Or you have yet to find out.”

I laughed and answered that I was hardly a criminal or a pirate.

She smiled a little. “Why else are you here?”

And so I told her. If I had accused Baksheesh of being a gossip, I was a worse one. Without making myself look too big a chooch, I explained about the book, the map, Uncle Evariste, the work I hated—I realized I was prattling on and on. I couldn’t help it. And didn’t want to.

“At heart,” she said, after I ran out of breath and stopped babbling, “you wish to go home. With your treasure, if you find it. But your home, nevertheless, is what you truly seek.”

I had never thought of it quite that way. I admitted she was right. I had no intention of ever again setting foot in Keshavar. I would return westward, she would return eastward.

“And yet, dushizéh,” I said, “we both want the same. Only in different places.”

I must have spoken amiss. Her face clouded. After a moment, she answered:

“No, mirza, not the same. You hope to go back happily. I go to find what I fear most.”

I pressed to know more. She said nothing after that.

We kept silently on our path for much of the day. Baksheesh still slept astride the donkey. I was beginning to believe more than ever that his tales were wild fancies. Our road, thus far, was hard-packed, well-trodden, and, in most parts, smooth. The hills on either side rose green with vegetation and groves of massive trees with wide-spreading branches. The air, light and fragrant, turned pleasantly cool as we went farther upland.

Late in the afternoon, Shira advised halting. It was not wise, she explained, to be on the road after nightfall. If we ate and slept now, we could start again at dawn and reach Marakand by midday.

We drew up at a clearing by the roadside. I shook Baksheesh awake. Yawning cavernously, he clambered off the donkey and blinked around.

“What a relief,” he declared, scratching happily. “It’s done wonders for my rheumatism. Stopping so soon? I could easily have gone a few leagues more.”

Close by, a handful of travelers squatted on the ground. They had finished their meal, the small cook fire was dying to ashes. A couple of them, wrapped in hooded cloaks, had already stretched out to sleep.

A stocky man, thick-necked, with reddish hair cropped close to his skull, stood up and sauntered over to us. I dimly recognized him from the Joyful Garden of Happy Travelers.

“All friends here.” He motioned for us to join them.

He gave Shira a good long glance and grinned at me. He had very bad teeth.

“Brought your girl, have you?” he said. “There’s a comfort, eh? Well, fetch her along. We’re good fellows. It’s share and share alike with us.”

“Not his girl.” Shira’s chin went up.

“Oh? What are you, then?” The trader gave a snorting laugh. “His slave?”

Shira looked squarely at him. “Nor that.”

“So much the better. Come, I’ll let you be mine.”

He reached for her.

She swung up her arm. With all her might, she struck him backhanded across the face.