As the whole tribe called out farewells, he put out a hand to soothe the stallion. He needn’t have bothered: Khamsin thought the praise was for him. He arched his neck and pranced after Azzad mounted, and without being signaled to do so reared to show off the thin streak of white on his belly.
“Flaunt it for the mares some other time,” Azzad advised him, waved to the crowd, and rode away.
It wasn’t until that evening, when he unsaddled Khamsin, that he realized the charms were not tin but silver, and the pectoral about his own neck was not polished brass but solid gold.
The next five days passed placidly enough. There was a trail and a rock shelter the first night, and more trail and a fencing of thorns on the second. The Shagara had even taken into account the time he would make riding a horse rather than sitting in a wagon.
The trail he followed was a double rut in the rocky desert, distinguishable as a trail only because it had slightly fewer stones than the surrounding wasteland. The third night he reached the skirts of some low mountains and camped beside a trickle of water below a cliff, staring up at the extravagant stars. He missed the soft sounds of the Shagara camp, the gentle music of the wind chimes. But on the fourth day, even with the silver on Khamsin’s saddle and the gold on his own breast to remind him, the time spent with the Shagara began to seem dreamlike. An eighteen-year-old boy called “Father” who ruled a whole tribe. Trinkets guaranteed to turn aside arrows and swords.
Absurd.
On the fifth afternoon he caught up with a family returning from a visit to their nomadic relations. Parents, two sons and their wives, an unwed daughter, and six squalling toddlers were all happy to be going home to civilization.
“Bayyid Qarhia is not a great city, not like Beit Za’ara,” said the father, “but it’s certainly better than the squalor of my uncle’s tents! Of course,” he laughed, “my uncle would slit his own throat before he’d set foot in any town.”
Azzad surmised that this Beit Za’ara was the largest community in this man’s experience. Two hundred inhabitants at the most, he decided. In Dayira Azreyq there lived two hundred times that number.
But where there was a town, there was money. Probably not a lot of money, but enough to get him started. Precisely what he intended to start was as yet unclear. But from the way the young men eyed Khamsin with that combination of fascination and wariness that Azzad was coming to expect, it would have something to do with the stallion.
The women and children rode in a large wagon drawn by two of those monstrous horses. Azzad could not believe that there was so little contact with eastern lands that Khamsin’s breed was unknown to them. But the Shagara had never heard of Rimmal Madar, just as Azzad had never heard of the Shagara. Though nothing more formidable than The Steeps lay between the two lands, he had begun to think that there were reasons why the peoples had never mingled. These possible reasons occupied his thoughts for long stretches of the road, and eventually he thought he might have an answer. If the sheyqas had an agreement with their desert-dwelling cousins that The Steeps were the border, none would pass through that were not approved. The Ammarad would keep to their side out of habit, preference, and understanding with their royal kin. And they would keep everyone else out of Rimmal Madar, as well.
Further, Azzad speculated, the sheyqas would not wish the Geysh Dushann generally known—or, indeed, known at all. What better assassins than one’s own blood relations, whom nobody had ever even heard of? And Azzad was abruptly, bitterly certain that just such assassins had advised Nizzira on which poison to use on the al- Ma’aliq men and where to set the fires at Beit Ma’aliq.
Dragging his mind from the past, he patted Khamsin’s neck and compared him point by point with the huge desert horses. They were taller, broader, tougher, stronger. Logic dictated that they must be able to survive long periods without much food or water. Yet when they did feed, they must devour half a man’s monthly earnings. They were hardier than Khamsin, but slower; more powerful, but more expensive; and the evil gleam in their eyes boded ill for those who trained them.
Old ways died hard; even if lighter, swifter, sweeter-tempered horses were available, few would wish to exchange the wagon for the saddle. A horse that could not be placed between shafts was no good as a horse. The idea that Azzad could convince them otherwise was ludicrous, and he knew it. Expert rider though he was, he wouldn’t have tried to sit one of these monsters if his life depended on it.
The family was not wealthy. They rented a stall in Bayyid Qarhia’s zouq, selling blankets and cloaks woven by their tribal relatives. But something else besides gathering new goods had happened on this trip. To judge by the red-rimmed eyes of the daughter and her mother’s black anger whenever she addressed her—as “La’a-tzawaq,” unwed—there had been an unsuccessful attempt to find her a husband. To Azzad’s exacting eye, the girl’s looks were minimal, her feminine allure negligible, and her intelligence doubtful. Possessing one of these three she might have made a match, even at her age—at least nineteen—but lacking any, her prospects were not good.
That evening they made camp, and from his provisions Azzad shared spices to enliven a bland stew. Afterward they all sat around the fire listening to the young wives sing. Their voices were high and sweet, putting him in mind of his sisters. Half-closing his eyes, he could almost imagine himself back at home . . .
Azzad rose abruptly to his feet, unable to bear the music any longer. He paced to the rocks where he’d tethered Khamsin, buried his face in the satinsoft neck, and, for the first time since that terrible night in Rimmal Madar, wept.
Late that night, snug in a blanket near the glowing embers of the fire, he woke abruptly, his heart pounding. No dream lingered to disturb his mind, but neither was there any sound in the starlit darkness to alert his ears. A year ago he would have considered it tiresome, all this jolting awake in the middle of the night. But other times he’d woken thus he’d either learned something useful or saved his own life. He paid heed to the night and the desert around him, listening intently and slitting his eyes open.
The mother, father, daughter, wives, and children occupied the wagon; the two sons had curled up in blankets near Azzad by the fire. These blankets were now empty. Azzad eased over onto his back, raising his head slightly. The wagon was still here.
Was Khamsin? The stallion would scream his outrage if anyone came near. But suddenly Azzad could not get it out of his mind that something threatened their freedom.
About to rise and investigate, he suddenly heard what must have awakened him: a feminine giggle, muffled as if in a man’s shoulder. Azzad grinned at his own foolishness and relaxed. Of course; the brothers had gone off with their wives for a little midnight gratification.
A few moments later he heard a soft footstep. Scarce had he opened his eyes when a woman’s voice whispered, “Lie still—I mean you no harm.”
The plain, dull-witted, unalluring daughter nudged aside Azzad’s blanket and slithered down beside him. She was clad only in her waist-length black hair. He scrambled away from her, throwing the wool blanket over her body.
“Lady, what are you doing?” He kept his voice low; if her father and brothers caught them here, he’d be dead.
Or married.
Which, he realized as she smiled nervously up at him, was precisely her intention. He was young, handsome, and though he had no family they knew of and no prospects they could see, any husband was better than no
