7
Azzad al-Ma’aliq slouched in his chair, glaring at the ledger on his desk. The rulers of Hazganni, that celebrated city on the plain, had managed to kill every single one of the trees he’d sent from Sihabbah. Now they were demanding either repayment or a hundred more trees to replace those dead of their neglect.
“We sent them instructions,” Azzad muttered aloud. “We sent them the correct fertilizer. We even sent them hazziri to plant with the trees, Acuyib witness it! Ayia, I want to see these dead trees for myself, to see if they really are dead—and to prove that stupidity killed them.”
Fadhil looked up from a book. “So we go to Hazganni again? That’s three times in two moons. Perhaps it’s not the trees that draw you there.”
The entrance of an al-Gallidh servant to light the lamps kept Azzad silent. Bazir’s maqtabba gradually began to glow with a golden shimmer, the paper-thin alabaster shades diffusing the tiny flames. When the servant had departed, Azzad said, “It’s a pretty journey—as well as much faster, now that you’ve mastered riding.”
“I speak of your eagerness to visit Hazganni, not your enjoyment of the trip.”
He shrugged. “I grew up in a large city, so naturally I feel comfortable there. Especially in the zouqs—my aunts and sisters were dedicated shoppers, Acuyib delight their souls!”
“Ah, now we come to it.”
“Come to what?”
“It.”
Azzad eyed his friend. “Make sense, Fadhil, I beg. What ‘it’ have we arrived at, and why did I not know we were going there?”
Fadhil grinned over at him. “Women. More particularly, ladies. Most particularly,
Azzad searched his mind and memories. In the year and a half since Bazir al-Gallidh and his family had moved permanently to Hazganni, Azzad had visited many lovely ladies, some of them more than once. A few were as beautiful as Ashiyah, but he’d found none he would gift with her pearls. And he’d found none as agreeable in bed—or as interesting to converse with, truth be told—as Bindta Feyrah up on the mountainside.
“Which lady?” he asked Fadhil, genuinely curious.
“If you don’t yet know, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Ayia, I think perhaps
“Not one—four,” Fadhil replied serenely.
“Shameless,” Azzad intoned, shaking his head, secretly disappointed that the ring had not done its work.
“On the contrary. Each is so thoroughly in love with me that to choose one above the others would break their hearts.” He paused, then closed his book and went to the window. “What commotion is this?”
Azzad joined him, peering into the dusky gloom. His jaw dropped open; in the next instant he nearly laughed at himself. Had it been so long since he’d left Rimmal Madar that the sight of four men on horseback shocked him so?
“Acuyib’s Glory—that’s Challa Meryem!” Fadhil exclaimed, and raced from the maqtabba. Azzad followed, running out into the courtyard where Meryem had dismounted a young mare. She embraced Fadhil, took off her gloves, and regarded Azzad with a whimsical smile.
“As Challi Dawa’an, I prescribe for myself a long, hot bath! You never said riding would be so difficult on the muscles, Azzad!”
“A bath with soothing salts, as hot as you can stand it,” Azzad told her. “You are welcome to Sihabbah, in the name of al-Gallidh.”
With Meryem had come two young male cousins and Razhid Harirri’s uncle—a dignified man of fifty or so who had a tale to tell. When they were all seated in Bazir’s maqtabba while baths were prepared, Ba’adem began to speak.
“When it was learned that Challa Leyliah would honor the Harirri with marriage to my nephew, there was great rejoicing in our tents. And, in the way of the desert, word carried to other tribes. One of these was the Ammarad.” He scowled, heavy brows darkening his eyes. “They sent four Geysh Dushann! We did not know it at the time, for they presented themselves as members only of their tribe, not of the order to which they belong. They wished to know all about the wedding, and what gifts the Shagara would favor, and suchlike.”
“It was their way of conniving an invitation,” Meryem said. “Evidently they thought that perhaps you would come to the wedding, Azzad.” She gave a shrug. “Perhaps they are more confident, working their wickedness in the desert.”
“And so,” Ba’adem went on, after taking a long swallow of qawah, “to our shame, we told them of the plans. But my nephew—”
“—did not trust them, having learned from Leyliah the facts of the matter. So he followed them with his brothers and myself, and at the first water outside our camp we overheard their plots. They tended to their knives and their potions for poisoning. We knew them then for Geysh Dushann. And we killed them.”
Azzad had the feeling there was much more to the story than this simple statement. “You have courage, Ba’adem Harirri, and I thank you for your good work.”
One hand waved dismissively. “It is surprisingly easy to kill men who think they are better at killing than anyone else. We burned them in the desert and took their horses. Razhid had also learned from Leyliah that your Khamsin had sired foals on Shagara mares, and so we bred the stallions to our own mares, just to see what would happen. Five fine colts, which we ask now if we may keep, to breed riding horses for the Harirri.”
“He asks,” Meryem said, “because Razhid gave the horses to Leyliah as his marriage price, and Leyliah now gives them to you. So the foals are now half yours.”
Azzad sat back, stunned. He had fifteen of Khamsin’s get here in Sihabbah, and now they were telling him there were five more colts sired by studs other than Khamsin, which meant that in time they could be bred to Khamsin’s line—
“We also bred the studs to several of our own mares before we came here,” Meryem added. “So you own half of those foals as well.”
His brain spun within his skull. And all at once he remembered a conversation with Fadhil, when he had first sojourned with the Shagara:
To accept all these horses would be sheer greed. It would go a long way toward sinking him to the same level as Sheyqa Nizzira al-Ammarizzad, rapacious and ruthless. So he shook his head. “No. I thank you with all my heart, but the foals are yours. My only caution is that the mares should not be bred to your stallions, for they are too small to carry such large foals. Other than that, all these horses are yours to do with as you please.”
“Just make sure the town of Sihabbah gets all the contracts for making saddles and bridles and riding boots,” Fadhil added with a smile. “And now I think it’s time for those hot baths.” When the two young cousins nodded emphatic agreement, he laughed aloud. “I have a thing or two in my medicine case that will help. Come with
