“Money to buy people—and land to feed them.”
“Every man has his price, but a man who can be bought for mere money is no man at all.”
“There we agree perfectly,” Azzad smiled.
“But who can own the land?”
“If it’s got your troops all over it—”
“That is not ownership,” Fadhil said severely. “That is occupancy. Greed—do you mean in the way a child is greedy for sweets?”
“Very like that, yes.”
“But what use is more of everything beyond the sufficiency for living?”
“What use, indeed,” Azzad sighed.
“Did you leave your country—this Rimmal Madar—because you tired of war?”
“No. It would take too long to explain.” And because Fadhil was obviously about to ask him for that explanation, he said, “Did you never go to war with the barbarians?”
“Forgive me, but everyone not Shagara is a barbarian.” Fadhil laughed suddenly. “But you have the makings of a civilized man—if you try very hard.”
“My thanks, Fadhil! I meant the barbarians who believe in a Mother and a Son as their deities. They invade and demand that the people abandon Acuyib and swear to their faith.”
“Oh, them.” Fadhil sounded bored. “There are stories of their coming in great carts that floated on the sea. They were stopped at the fishing villages on the coast. It was a long time ago, and nothing to do with us.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “They rode astride their horses, as well. Is this something your people learned from them?”
“Certainly not!” Azzad had studied history and tactics in futile preparation for joining the Qoundi Ammar— though, in truth, he had been more interested in how fine a figure he would cut in the elegant robes, riding a gorgeous white horse. That had been before Khamsin, naturally. But he recalled the treatises very well, and said, “Their horses weren’t as good as Khamsin. One reason they invaded Rimmal Madar was to steal our horses to improve their own cavalry—troops of riders,” he explained when Fadhil looked blank. “With swords and axes and —”
“What matter this ‘cavalry’ against the Shagara?”
“You mean your good luck charms?” Azzad laughed. He stopped laughing when Fadhil gave him a sidelong look.
“I have discovered,” the boy said, “that you often speak at great length of things you know nothing about. Now I believe you should sleep. You are not accustomed to such exercise. Chal Kabir will not thank me for allowing you to lose what strength you have regained.”
Azzad had to agree with him, and lay back on his carpets. He dreamed of the al-Ma’aliq castle in the northern mountains, where hundreds of swift, long-limbed horses galloped free through the pastures. He woke, hot and sweating, with a curse on his lips for the magnificent animals that now belonged to Sheyqa Nizzira.
Idling around these tents set his feet not one step on his path to revenge. There was no money to be made here, no influence to be gained. Two days, three at the most, and he would thank the Shagara as profoundly as he knew how, ask directions to the nearest substantial town, and leave.
That evening Chal Kabir and Fadhil came in supporting a limp, travel-worn man. Azzad watched in fascination as the man was stripped, washed, and examined, for it was his first chance to observe the brisk efficiency of the Shagara healers.
“What’s wrong with him?”
His question was ignored. Azzad hoped the man had nothing infectious. He wasn’t a Shagara; his skin was darkly tanned, his hair was straight and brown with a reddish sheen by lamplight, and his filthy robe might once have been red.
Kabir mumbled irritably to himself, then sent Fadhil out of the tent. The boy returned a little while later with two clay jugs. One of them he placed on the low table near the sick man’s bedding, and the other he gave to Azzad.
“Qawah?” Azzad asked, trying not to sound dismayed.
“Wine, to strengthen the blood.”
As Kabir and Fadhil bent over the new arrival, Azzad leaned back into his pillows and drank. It was surprisingly good, sharp and dry just as he liked it, with a hint of berries.
In the middle of his dreaming he remembered that he didn’t remember falling asleep. He couldn’t move, not even in his dream. But he could hear, and the voices were feminine and familiar.
“And so, Leyliah, what is your judgment of this man’s sickness?”
“It is of the circulation of the blood,” the younger woman replied with confidence.
“Exactly,” said Challa Meryem. “Very good. Were we to look inside, we would find his blood paths thickened and in some places nearly shut. Now, what is the appropriate treatment for his condition?”
Azzad listened, immobile and mute with the drugged wine. Women as healers. And the Shagara didn’t want him to know. Fadhil had thus far protected him. But if the others thought he knew, they would never let him leave. They would kill him.
There was something basically illogical about that: Why heal a man only to kill him if he discovered the tribe’s secret? Then he thought about the women and how valuable they were. A woman with skill beyond a male physician’s would be well worth abducting. Shocking, this thought, but if the Shagara did not allow their women to marry outside the tribe—and Meryem had said that people came to the Shagara for healing. Wherever they made camp, people would come from great distances. Those thorn fences were not portable, so there must be others well-established in other places. Azzad wondered how many and where.
“I approve the treatment, Leyliah,” said Challa Meryem. “Write it down for Kabir and Fadhil and then go to bed.”
One set of soft footsteps left the tent. Then he heard Meryem’s voice directly over his head—so startling that if he’d been able to move, he would have leaped right out of his skin.
“As well you will be leaving us soon, Azzad al-Ma’aliq,” she murmured. “I do not trust you, nor the looks Leyliah gives you—though one cannot blame her for them.”
He wondered once more whether Leyliah was beautiful. If Grandfather would find her worth the trouble . . . .
Azzad woke suddenly some hours later, wondering what had disturbed him. The eastern wall of the tent was pale, hinting of dawn. Lying on his side, keeping his body still and his breathing soft and regular, he listened carefully.
And heard the barest whisper of a footstep on the floor.
Kabir or Fadhil would simply have walked across the carpets. Meryem or Leyliah would be quieter, lighter, but not stealthy. Not like this.
Another step. Azzad risked slitting one eyelid open, peering through the spider-legs of his lashes. The “sick” man was moving with exquisite slowness toward him. And even in the feeble light the sheen of steel was unmistakable.
Thanks be to Acuyib, the wine had worn off. He tensed and relaxed all his muscles in turn. His hearing was acute, his head clear. He tried to guess: heart or throat? Quiet demanded the latter. It was the more difficult attack—not a straight knife-thrust between the ribs but a grab of the hair and a slice from ear to ear, to make sure the windpipe was severed and no sound could be made, or a brutal thrust right into the throat. A chest was a much larger target. He shut his eyelid, risked giving a sigh and a snort as a sleeping man might, and shifted as if in a dream.
A long silence. Then another step, and another. The man was good at his trade. Azzad again wondered what had awakened him earlier. It did not matter. His shifting had let him place one hand on his chest to block a knife and the other on his belly to strike at the man’s ribs; his right leg sprawled to the side, ready to dig into the bedding for leverage.
Another step. He could hear the man’s breathing.
And then the whisper: “For the honor of the al-Ammarizzad—
