that would awe the credulous one day. Among his simple tools was a peashooter. He could conceal it within a fist and, with a faked cough, blow a pellet into a campfire or a dart at an unsuspecting enemy.
Haroun chose a dart, and put it into the white horse’s flank.
She reared and screamed. El Murid fell at Haroun’s feet. They locked gazes. El Murid looked puzzled. When he tried to stand, he fell. He had broken an ankle.
Haroun’s brothers and cousins began mocking the injured youth.
A quick-witted priest shouted, “An omen! False prophets inevitably fall.”
Others took it up. They had been lying in wait, hoping for a chance to embarrass El Murid. Pushing and shoving started between factions.
Haroun and El Murid still stared at one another, as if seeing the future, and seeing it grim.
Nassef spied the peashooter. His sword rang as it cleared his scabbard. Its tip cut a shallow slice an inch above Haroun’s right eye. The boy would have died but for Radetic’s quick action.
Royalist partisans roared. Weapons materialized. “It’s going to get ugly. You little fool. Come up here.” Radetic yanked Haroun off the ground and threw him over his shoulder, then hurried toward his employer’s tent. During Disharhun everyone, whether making the pilgrimage to Al Rhemish or not, lived the week in tents.
Fuad met them in the street. He had heard a swift-winged rumor of murder. He was angry. A huge man with a savage reputation, Fuad in a rage was a ferocious spectacle. He had his war blade in hand. It looked big enough to behead an ox with a single blow.
“What happened, teacher? Is he all right?”
“Mostly scared. I’d better talk to Yousif.” He tried hiding the bleeding. Fuad had less self-control than the usual volatile native.
“He’s waiting.”
“I should find an injured child every time I want to talk to him.”
Fuad gave him a poisonous look.
The shouting and blade waving around El Murid had turned ugly. Fighting was forbidden during Disharhun, but the Children of Hammad al Nakir were not ones to let laws restrict their emotions.
Horsemen bearing round black shields emblazoned with the crude red eagle of the Royal Household descended on the trouble spot.
Radetic hurried on to his employer’s quarters.
“What happened?” Yousif demanded as soon as he had determined that Haroun’s wound was minor. He had cleared his tent of the usual hangers-on. “Haroun, you tell it first.”
The boy was too frightened to stretch the truth. “I... I used my blow tube. To hit his horse. I didn’t know he would get hurt.”
“Megelin?”
“That’s the gist of it. A practical joke, in poor taste. I’d blame the examples set by his elders. I did, however, hear mention of Sabbah i Hassan beforehand.”
“How so?”
“In the context, I believe, of a similar stunt. Your children, you know, are even more primitive and literal- minded than the rest of you.”
“Haroun? Is that true?”
“Huh?”
“Did you do the same thing to Sabbah i Hassan?”
Radetic smiled thinly as he watched the boy struggle with the lie trying to break out of the prison of his mouth. “Yes, Father.”
Fuad returned to the tent. He seemed to have calmed down.
“Teacher?”
“Wahlig?”
“What the hell were they doing running the streets? They were supposed to be in class.”
“Be serious, Yousif,” Fuad interjected. “Don’t tell me you’re already too old to remember being young.” The Wahlig was forty-one. “It’s Disharhun. The woman wore no veil. You think the man is a miracle worker?”
Radetic was amazed. Fuad had made it plain that he thought any teacher who did not teach the use of weapons was superfluous. A warrior chieftain needed no other education. Scribes and accountants could be enslaved.
Moreover, he disliked Radetic personally.
What had put him into so good a mood? It worried Radetic.
“Haroun.”
The boy approached his father reluctantly, took his spanking without crying. And without contrition.
Yousif was angry. He never punished his children before outsiders. And yet... Radetic suspected that his employer was not entirely displeased.
“Now go find your brothers. Tell them to get back here and stay out of trouble.”
