and mending boots and suchlike with quiet efficiency. It was altogether unlike the raucous streets of Dayira Azreyq, where men did nothing without discussion, speculation, argument, and commentary—usually at the top of their lungs.
The one familiarity was unexpected: the sound of hammers working metal, just as in Zoqalo Zaffiha at home. Sure enough, Fadhil led him around a cluster of tents to workshops set up beneath wool awnings. Thirty or so men sat cross-legged in the shade, each whispering under his breath, pounding designs into brass, copper, and tin. Some of the men were as ancient as Chal Kabir; others were Fadhil’s age. The polished metal bowls, goblets, plates, armbands, finger rings, earrings, and pendants—dazzling even in the shadows of the awning—made Azzad blink. Nearby, beneath another pale woolen roof, a group of boys about fourteen years old watched a very old woman trace a symbol into a large clay tablet propped on a stand so all could see.
“Here you see the talishann for ‘wealth of sheep.’ Note its difference from that for ‘wealth of sons’—and remember that a man will not be pleased if his ewes bear dozens of woolly lambs when he is expecting his wife to have lots of little boys!”
The children laughed as they copied the device onto their own clay tablets, which were then held up for the mouallima’s inspection. After a few corrective comments, she moved on to the next talishann.
As they continued past the school session, Azzad said to Fadhil, “That is the most interesting madraza I’ve ever seen. They’re making good luck charms, I take it?”
“For sale at the zouqs. I should mention that one of the master crafters has expressed an interest in making something for your stallion’s saddle.”
“That’s extremely kind, but I have no means of payment.” He thought of the pearls, but they were to provide money for a new start. Come to think of it, he had no idea where the pearls were at the moment, but didn’t suspect for even a fraction of an instant that they were anything other than perfectly safe and waiting for him to claim them. Traditions of hospitality aside, the Shagara would never steal anything so useless to them as a few dozen pearls.
“Ayia, no matter,” Fadhil was saying. “He wants no payment. He says he’s never made anything to protect a riding horse before, and the experience would be worth the work.” He sounded as if he truly believed that a piece of brass or tin or copper could give a man many sons—or many sheep. Azzad hid a smile.
Khamsin was alone in a chest-high pen of thorny rails, with scarcely enough room to turn around. No wonder he was fractious, Azzad thought angrily, reaching through dagger-long spikes to offer a caressing hand.
Khamsin snapped at him.
“Well, yes, I know you’re unhappy,” Azzad soothed. “But I do still have need of those fingers. Fadhil,” he said over his shoulder, “he needs exercise. Where’s my saddle?”
“So beautiful an animal. Why would you wish to put a seat on him and ride him like a donkey?”
“Donkey!” Only children rode donkeys, and then only for their first riding lessons. The picture of a grown man with his legs dangling to the ground was too insulting to contemplate. But he realized something about the Shagara then and perhaps about the rest of the people in this strange country that as yet had no name—and in truth seemed not to be a country at all. Horses were for hauling and donkeys were for riding, no matter how ridiculous one looked. There was an idea in there somewhere, if he could but find it.
Fadhil was eyeing Khamsin warily. “He’s so tall! A donkey is close to the ground, with nowhere much to go if you fall off. Of course, your Khamsin is not so big as our own horses, but still—”
“Show them to me,” Azzad said. When the young man arched a satirical eyebrow, he recognized the peremptory tone—for the first time in his life, it must be said—and added rather gracelessly, “Please.”
A long walk around the perimeter of the camp—much larger than he’d thought, more than a hundred tents— led them to the thorn-guarded pen for the Shagara horses. Azzad saw immediately why no one rode these monstrous beasts. Half again Khamsin’s bulk, at least two hands taller at the shoulder, with backs wide enough for a man to sleep on and legs the size of young tree trunks—he gaped at dozens of mares, colts, and fillies whose muscles shifted powerfully beneath glossy hides. The colors of sand and clouds, they were, with thick white manes and tails. Their eyes, huge and dark with lashes long as a man’s thumb, held a warning glint of dangerous temper. Azzad had to admit these horses were beautiful in their massive way, but his thighs ached at the very thought of riding one.
Again the half-formed idea teased at him. Again Fadhil interrupted his thoughts. “The stallions are kept apart, as Khamsin is. Our wallad izzahni are careful about bloodlines.”
“The boys who tend your horses are to be commended,” Azzad replied, frowning. A good thing this pen was downwind from Khamsin; several of the mares were ready to be bred.
“Perhaps if your stallion requires exercise, you can do as we do—run him at the end of a long rope.”
Khamsin wouldn’t like it—he’d graduated from that training exercise years ago—but it was better than nothing. The rest of the morning was spent thus, with Khamsin galloping in circles and every so often testing the rope’s strength with a lunge. At the end of the exercise session the muscles of Azzad’s back were stretched to breaking, and his arms felt ready to pop out of their shoulder sockets. But he walked Khamsin until the horse cooled, then rubbed him down with handfuls of dry fodder.
On the way back to the dawa’an sheymma, they passed a tent where a very young man dressed for travel stood among a knot of women. Some of them were crying as the youth embraced and kissed them.
Recalling his own spurious excuse for the welts left by the sand-tiger—completely healed now by the Shagara—Azzad asked, “Is he off to prove his manhood?”
“To do
“With a dangerous hunt, or a journey through perilous territory, or something of the sort,” Azzad explained, wondering why he had to clarify. All the wilderness tribes he’d ever heard tales of required some sort of test to initiate a boy into full male status within the group. All the northern tribes, anyway. “Proving his courage and resourcefulness, his ability to survive.”
“We need no such proof that a boy has become a man. Except,” Fadhil added with a shrug, “fathering a child. No, he will marry next month, and today goes to join his wife’s tribe. We keep our women here.”
“And bring husbands from other tribes into the Shagara?” No wonder these people were so poor. With no competition for the smartest, cleverest young girls to marry into a family and become designers and guardians of its wealth—but perhaps such competition occurred over the men instead. In Rimmal Madar, the best of the sons were kept in the family to attract the best of the daughters from other families. One of Za’avedra al-Ibrafidia’s main complaints about Azzad had been his spectacular unwillingness to use his looks and his charm to secure in marriage a brilliant girl who might eventually take her place. The Shagara did things backward, it seemed to Azzad. He worked his mind around this new eccentricity, and at length he asked, “Will you be married outside the Shagara one day?”
“No.”
“Why not?” He paused, then added, “If I may ask.”
“A student of Chal Kabir is of more value than he would bring in a husband-price.”
At least this began to make sense. Of a Shagara kind, anyway. “The other tribes pay to marry your men?”
“Of course. We are Shagara.” As if that explained everything.
The midday meal was waiting. Azzad fell on the food, and when his hunger was satisfied, he returned to his questioning. Fadhil sighed quietly and answered as best he could.
“Will that young man go to his wife’s tribe alone? No servants, no friends?”
“He will go with one of his brothers, who will stay until the wedding—and perhaps longer, if one of the maidens finds him pleasing. There are few tribes who can boast Shagara husbands. The Tallib, the Tariq, the Azwadh, the Tabbor, the Harirri, the Ammal—these are the Za’aba Izim, the Seven Names, the people we marry. There are other tribes—the al-Kassira, who rule that city, for instance—but we do not marry them. They are not allied to us in peace and war.”
“War? Over what?” He gestured to the stony desert beyond the open tent flap.
Fadhil mimicked his outswept arm. “Water.”
“Of course. That was stupid of me. My people make war over other things.” He considered Sheyqa Nizzira. “Power. Envy. Money. Land. Greed.”
“Here, water is all. It is power over death. I can understand envy,” he mused, “for those who have little water must desire more. Money I do not understand, and land even less so.”
