one did not berate her for abandoning her people. This one letter, from an elderly aunt, told her that if she needed a place to go, there was a valley three days from the great river, a box canyon where no one lived because it was useless for farming or cutting lumber or indeed anything but hiding in. It was to this lonely place that Qamar, Solanna, all the Haddiyat boys under the age of fifteen, and their mothers were preparing to go.
At least, this was what they told everyone. Qamar was under no illusions about what would happen to any Shagara left alive in the fortress after Nizhria’s ballisdas had demolished it and her troops had overrun it. When they talked—and they
The only person who knew where they would really go was Miqelo. Twenty-five years of roaming these lands, first with his father and now with his son, had made him a living map. He assured Qamar that there were several places he had in mind, and he would decide only when they were at least three days away from the fortress.
Qamar walked back through the zoqallos, the green leather book cradled to his chest. The Shagara were learning why their forebears in the desert traveled light. He walked past buildings where paper was made, and ink, schoolrooms and forges, storehouses and binderies and the healer’s quarter—each little street and narrow alley was congested with people doing one of three things. They carried items that would be taken out of the fortress, or ones to be hidden in hopes that they would survive, or ones that must be destroyed rather than fall into the hands of the Sheyqa. Qamar could always tell when someone had been assigned to that task: Their faces were either grim with purpose or bleak with sorrow.
There were armfuls of paper to be dumped into the slurry, even though no new sheets would be made from them. Metal dies to be melted in the white-hot forges, never to stamp talishann into tin or brass again. Crates of glass bottles and ceramic flasks to be emptied outside the walls and the containers smashed, some containing medicines, others full of inks. Bins and baskets of herbs, flowers, leaves, all the tools this land had given to the healers, burned.
And books. Beautiful, precious books, some of them as old as the Shagara’s time here, many more made and bound since. Qamar held to his chest an empty book, and vowed to Acuyib that he would fill it.
They left at dawn two days later. Three wagons laden with food and other supplies followed thirty-seven horses carrying fifty people—most of the boys were small and light, and so could double up on horseback. The women rode in and sometimes drove the wagons. Tanielo and Solanna led the way out the gates. Miqelo and Qamar left last.
Yberrio saw them off. “Miqelo, my brother, we will not meet again this side of Acuyib’s Great Garden, but it had better be many long years before I welcome you there. As for him—” He glanced up at Qamar, then at his brother once more, fiercely. “Miqelo, make sure this man lives.”
Qamar was still thinking about those words when they made a rough camp that evening. Saddle sore after so many years when riding was only an occasional recreation, he came close to breaking his vow and asking for a flask of wine. But all he drank was strong, bitter qawah, and for the first time in a long time considered what life had made of the youngest and favorite son of an Empress, a Sheyqir of Tza’ab Rih.
“How delightful to hear you laughing,” Solanna said in sour tones as she sat down beside him at the small fire.
“Qarassia,” he said, slipping an arm around her, “there is laughing, and then there is laughter. Just as there are women, but only one woman.”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t understand you,” she replied, nestling close to him.
He tilted his head to look her in the eyes. “You know what my name means in my language. I know the meaning of yours. I always found this significant.” When her brows quirked, he told her, “The moon has no light of its own. By itself, it’s all in darkness. It’s the sun’s light that makes the moon shine.”
Solanna’s eyes filled with tears. “Qamar—”
“Ayia, none of that,” he whispered, pulling her nearer again. “I will finish the work, and you will help me. When all his family died by poison or the sword or fire, Azzad yet lived. When his father was betrayed and murdered and his mother and sisters and brothers burned alive, Alessid yet lived. I—”
“Azzad was spared to wreak vengeance,” she said tightly, “so that the souls of his family could be at peace. Alessid—”
“—threw out the usurpers and built a nation so that his family could never be destroyed again,” he finished for her. “Think who it was who saved the lives of Azzad and Alessid. Shagara. They have done the same for me. I am in their debt, and they have told me how I must repay it. But I have been given what my forefathers did not have. And it is this land that has given it to me, given me you.” Pressing his mouth to her fragrant hair, he finished, “I would truly be lost in darkness without you.”
Miqelo, his son Tanielo, and four young men who regularly guarded them on trading journeys: These were all that stood between the Shagara and anyone who wanted a look at what might be in their wagons. The women, some of whom had never been farther from the fortress than the riverbank, wept or fretted or rode in stoic silence as their characters prompted. The boys, resentful at first that they were not allowed to stay and fight the invaders, awoke to the unaccustomed freedom of travel and could barely be restrained from galloping off in all directions. Qamar and Tanielo spent a lot of time chasing after them.
On the fourth day—one day after the proposed day of decision about their destination—Miqelo approached Qamar and Solanna very early in the morning and asked them to walk with him for a way.
“The more I think about it, the less I like it,” he said. “We all know what will happen to those we left at the fortress. We have with us the hope of the Shagara. Those boys must be protected at all costs.”
“I recommend poppy syrup in their morning qawah,” Solanna said. “It’ll make it easier to throw them in the wagons.”
“I’ve been tempted,” he replied with a brief smile. “But it seems to me that we have two separate aims. First is to keep these boys and their mothers safe. The other is the work you must do, Qamar. I think we must divide our group in different directions.”
It was decided that the women and boys would travel as far and as fast as possible, find a place to hide— though not the box canyon recommended by Solanna’s aunt—and wait until it was safe to return to Cazdeyya. The guards and Tanielo would go with them. All of them, schooled by Solanna in the basics of the family, would call themselves “Grijalva.”
“Our tile makers have gone to many places,” she explained. “Some of them came home, some stayed. You will be refugees from the conflict, returning to our native villages for safety. They will take you in. Your Shagara coloring can be explained by a generation or so of marriages in foreign towns.” But they were never to mention her name, for the letters she had written earlier in the year had yielded no help they could actually use.
That left Qamar, Solanna, Miqelo, and a woman named Leisha, who volunteered to assist Solanna, and her thirteen-year-old son, Nassim, to assist Qamar. Leisha was quite frank about her reasons: she was convinced that she and her son would have a much better chance of survival with Qamar.
“I think,” she said, “that Miqelo will work very, very hard to be sure you are not found.”
The fourth day was spent making arrangements. Wagons were unloaded, the goods sorted evenly, and packed again. By sundown all was complete, and Miqelo recommended that everyone sleep soundly, for the next days would be difficult.
Qamar sat cross-legged in the dirt beside a small cookfire, listening to the sounds of the camp settling. Familiar to him from his year in the desert, yet there were differences—primary among them being the rustle and slur of the tall pine trees. He reached over to stir the pot of qawah, pleased to find there was still some left for Miqelo, who came to talk with him every night before rolling himself in a blanket to sleep.
Solanna joined Qamar by the fire, kneeling at his side. She had abandoned long skirts, as most of the other women had done, for riding clothes: snug trousers beneath a tunic that fell to midthigh, cut almost like a workingman’s smock. The outfit concealed all feminine curves, and she had concealed her hair within a scarf to protect it from the dust of the road. For all her blonde hair, she looked like a woman of Tza’ab Rih.
Miqelo crouched down on the other side of the fire, not looking at either of them. Qamar was about to offer hot qawah when all at once Miqelo tossed a little woolen pouch into the heart of the fire. His dark eyes fixed on Solanna’s face with a piercing intensity. Smoke billowed up from the fire, as fragrant as it was stinging. Qamar
