“Not a grievance,” Çeda said, “but many.”
“Who is the accused?”
“Hamid Malahin’ava.” She purposefully left off the name of their tribe, Khiyanat, an indication she considered him an outsider, a pretender. And the jab worked. Hamid’s eyes flared with anger.
“Your claim?” Dayan continued.
Çeda stared directly into Hamid’s cold, half-lidded eyes. “That he tried to murder one of his own tribesman, Emre Aykana’ava. That he fled justice, leaving a duel to the death unfinished. That he betrayed his tribe, murdering more than a dozen in Mazandir during a parley with Queen Meryam. That he willingly gave our shaikh, Macide Ishaq’ava, to the Qaimiri queen so that she could use him in a ritual do destroy the thirteenth tribe.”
Each claim saw the flush in Hamid’s face deepen. “Lies!” he shouted. “All lies!”
Dayan raised his hand. “We agreed this was neither the time to argue nor present evidence.”
“You agreed that,” Hamid said. “I am the shaikh of Tribe Khiyanat, and I acted to protect the tribe from Macide and Çeda and their betrayal of all we stand for.”
Dayan’s pleasant face turned severe. “No trial has begun. Are you saying you wish it to begin now?”
“They treated with the Kings!”
“Enough!”
This came from Shaikh Zaghran, whose look was steely. Çeda hardly knew him—they had only spoken once, in the moments before his ships had attacked hers—but he seemed the sort who embraced convention, who would be easily angered at the brashness of a man like Hamid.
Shaikh Dayan settled himself like an amberlark preparing to nest. The entire assemblage seemed to give Zaghran a fair amount of respect, which Çeda noted with interest.
“Proceed, Dayan,” Zaghran said at last.
Dayan tipped his head in deference, then regarded Çeda anew. “You are aware that two patrons are required before a vote can be taken.”
“I am,” she said, hoping she sounded confident.
“Who is your first?”
“I am.” This came from Aríz.
Dayan cast an expectant gaze over the gathering. “Do we have a second?”
“Yes.”
This came from the alluring Shaikh Elazad, a woman whose people, Tribe Salmük, had suffered greatly under the rule of King Onur. When Onur fell to Çeda, Elazad herself had expressed her gratitude.
Hamid rolled his eyes, clearly struggling not to speak.
Shaikh Dayan, meanwhile, nodded. “We’ll put it to a vote, then. Who wishes for the tribunal to be convened to take up this matter?”
Aríz, Dayan, and Elazad raised their hands immediately.
Çeda held her breath as the shaikh of Tribe Narazid, a portly man who reminded her of the rotund Malasani god, Ranrika, did so as well. Shaikh Neylana of Tribe Kenan raised her hand next, followed by the wrinkled, weatherworn shaikh of Tribe Rafik.
Moments passed in which no others raised their hands. She had six votes so far. The seventh, the man Aríz had promised so much to, was Valtim, the baby-faced shaikh of Tribe Ebros.
Oh gods, Çeda thought, he’s changed his mind.
Valtim had worn a severe look when Çeda entered. Now he wouldn’t even meet her eye.
Dayan frowned. “Are there no more?”
“You’ve called for a vote”—Hamid, a smug look on his face, spread his arms wide—“and now you have your answer.”
It was Hamid, Çeda realized. Somehow he’d learned of their efforts. Through bribery or threats, he’d convinced Valtim to withhold his assent.
“Are there any others?” Dayan repeated, louder. “One more is needed for the tribunal to convene.”
A long breath passed in silence. Hamid laughed and waved one hand to the assemblage. “Your answer lies before you.”
Before Dayan could say another word, Çeda stood in a rush. “Are there none among you who will fight for justice?” She regarded those who’d abstained, letting her gaze fall on Shaikh Valtim last. He looked defensive, embarrassed. “Are there none among you brave enough to stand up to one of your own?”
“Enough.” Hamid stood as well and stabbed a finger at her. “I move that Çeda and those on her ships be given to me for judgment.”
“They came under the sign of truce,” Aríz said.
“They came to sue for a tribunal and to slander me. It was a sham from the beginning, a gambit that failed miserably. They were granted peace only so long as their claims were upheld, and they haven’t been.”
Çeda only had seconds in which to act. She was tempted to appeal to Shaikh Valtim, but in the end decided whatever Hamid had promised him would be too much to overcome, especially as he’d already made his intentions clear. She let her gaze fall on Shaikh Zaghran, instead. “Are you afraid of the truth?”
“Sit down, you dog,” said his wife, Tanzi.
Hamid took half a step forward, tried to intimidate her with his presence, but she refused to be cowed. She kept her eyes fixed on Zaghran while stabbing a finger at Hamid. “Are you afraid of him?”
“I said—” Tanzi began.
But she fell silent when Zaghran raised a wrinkled, sunspot-covered hand. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he said evenly.
“Then support the tribunal,” Çeda said.
Zaghran weighed her. “Why?”
“Because you’re an astute man. Because you sense, as I do, that following Hamid’s plans will lead to ruin for the desert tribes. Because if you don’t learn the truth of it now, you’ll regret it forever.”
Tanzi levered herself to a stand and faced Çeda. “You are a traitor to your own people!”
She raised a quavering hand as if preparing to strike Çeda, but Zaghran snatched her opposite wrist and tugged her arm until she’d retaken her pillow. Only when Tanzi had settled herself, red-faced, did Zaghran speak.
“How can you convince us,” he said evenly, “when it’s your word against his?”
Çeda pointed to the canvas wall. She hadn’t wanted to go down this road because the outcome was so uncertain, but there was no choice now. “Through the acacia.”
The gathering seemed rattled by this.
“The acacia?” Zaghran repeated.
“Just so,” Çeda said. “The tree grants visions. They’re often visions of the future, but sometimes they’re visions of the past.”
Zaghran’s bushy eyebrows pinched. His eyes grew dark. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the acacia can show you the truth of my words. All of you can see it for yourself.”
Hamid’s gaze swept over the entire assemblage. For one brief moment he seemed afraid. Then the look was gone, replaced by one of righteous indignation. “This is ridiculous. You can’t let her—”
His words trailed off as Zaghran raised a hand to him. “The acacia can show us this?” he asked, focusing his attention on Çeda once more.
“Yes.”
“Then prove it.” He stood and took a step forward so that he and Çeda were face to face. “Prove it, and you have my vote.”
“Very well—”
“But should you fail,” he went on, “we will grant Hamid’s request.” He waved to Çeda, Emre, Shal’alara, and Sümeya. “You and your people will surrender to him for judgment, as is the right of any shaikh with the people of his own tribe.”
“I will not bargain with the lives of others, but I willingly offer my own.”
“It’s all four or I withhold my consent.”
Hamid looked smug. Çeda felt caught in a trap. They couldn’t afford any delays—Sharakhai’s fate depended on what happened in the valley—but she meant what she’d said. She wouldn’t gamble with Emre’s life, nor Shal’alara’s nor Sümeya’s.
Emre was suddenly by her side, his warm hand on her elbow. She turned to him, certain he
was going to say it was time to leave, to find another way, but he didn’t. He merely nodded, giving her his permission to accept. Behind him, Shala’ara did the same. Sümeya paused. In a way, this wasn’t her fight, but then she nodded as well.
The very thought that they might pay for her failure with their lives was nearly enough to make Çeda decline. But they couldn’t walk away now. She couldn’t allow the Alliance to be subverted by Hamid. She had to trust in the powers of the tree, a thing created by the hand of Nalamae herself.
“Very well,” she said to Zaghran. “Come with me.”
Zaghran looked anxious, but he followed Çeda from the pavilion, as the others rose to trail after them. Soon the entire assemblage was headed over the grass toward the acacia.
Once they were gathered, Çeda motioned to the tree. “The tree grants visions—”
“To Nalamae,” Zaghran said.
“To anyone who asks for them.” Çeda recalled one of her first visits to Nalamae, who’d gone by the name of Saliah then. At the time, Çeda had thought her a desert witch, not a goddess in disguise. She’d been only a child, but Nalamae had bid her to summon a vision from the tree. “Come,” Çeda said to Zaghran, using the same words Nalamae has used with her, “see if the acacia will speak to you.”
Although curious moments ago, Zaghran now seemed unsure of himself. He’d no doubt heard the stories of Nalamae communing with the tree, collecting memories of her past incarnations. Heard how she’d pieced herself together bit by bit over the course of many long days.
“This is ridiculous,” Tanzi said, and took her husband’s arm in hopes of leading him away.
But Zaghran wouldn’t be moved. He freed his arm from her, then stepped forward with an expression Çeda could only describe as wary reverence. Hands held before him, his fingertips touching, mirrorlike, he stared up into the branches. He took in the colored pieces of glass hanging by threads of gold. He walked around the trunk, considering the tree from different angles. He completed one circuit, then another.
“You see?” Hamid groused. “Nothing. It’s time we—”
“You will remain quiet,” Shaikh Dayan said evenly. His tone was pleasant, but the threat was clear.
Hamid looked like he was about to complain but stopped when Rasime, his co-conspirator in Macide’s betrayal, put a hand on his forearm and shook her head. She’d sailed the southern sands many times, and knew the tales of Dayan’s mercurial nature, even if Hamid didn’t.
Hamid’s expression grew dark as Zaghran completed a third circuit. Çeda was becoming even more convinced she’d failed. And that for whatever reason, the tree had chosen to withhold its power from him. Or perhaps Zaghran was only feigning interest so that he could justify abandoning Çeda and the others.
Tanzi was growing more and more anxious. She wrung her hands. Her lips were pressed into a thin line. Her forehead pinched, distorting the starburst tattoo across her brow.
She was just stepping forward, her patience apparently run out, when Zaghran’s head jerked back. His eyes grew wide and filled with wonder and no small amount of fear. His hands shook as they gathered at his breast. Blinking fiercely, he drew his gaze away. How small he suddenly seemed, how haunted, as if he’d witnessed his own death.
As though still lost in the vision, he drew his gaze slowly but surely to Çeda. Suddenly he blinked and took in the rest of the assemblage, as if he’d just remembered they were there. He seemed embarrassed, as if he feared everyone had shared in the vision the acacia had granted him.
Then, with a hard look to Shaikh Dayan, he said, “The tribunal may convene.” His gaze slid to Çeda. “You have one day to prepare.”
Chapter 19
Shortly after dawn, five days after the surprise attack by the qirin warriors, Ihsan walked along the quays of Sharakhai’s poor, western harbor. Tolovan, Ihsan’s old vizir and most trusted servant, led him along the quays toward The Harp and Hare, a small shisha den all but indistinguishable from the dozens of others sprinkled throughout the city’s western reaches. Most such dens would be shuttered this early, but the mousy proprietor of The Harp and Hare was up and sweeping the floor free of the sand and dust that had collected during the night. He nodded to Tolovan and Ihsan as they entered.
“Leave,” Tolovan said, and sent a golden coin arcing through the air.
The proprietor deftly snatched the rahl and left, closing the front door behind him. Tolovan led Ihsan past the shishas and the piles of pillows into a small storeroom. On the shelves along one wall were dirty shishas, a collection of mismatched tea cups, and a variety of wooden crates filled with tea and tabbaq. Near the back wall, a man with a greasy pate was tied to a chair. He stared at them. A red vest and sweat-stained shirt covered his ample belly. His peppery beard was tangled and messy as a half-finished hawser. He had a bruise below one eye, and at its center was a weeping cut.
Near the man stood two women, both dressed in drab, west end garb. Both had shamshirs at their sides and wore turbans with veils drawn across their faces. They were Blade Maidens, assigned to Ihsan for the duration of his mission into the city. When Ihsan waved to them, they bowed their heads and headed into the front room.
Ihsan grabbed a nearby stool, set it down with a thump in front of the man, and sat. “You’re Yosef.”
“Yes, my lord, and there’s been a terrible mistake.”
Ihsan smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that.” He raised his hand as Yosef started to protest. “This won’t take long, and no ill will befall you if you answer a few simple questions with all the candor you can muster.”
“Of course, my lord, of course! I would think of nothing—”
When Ihsan raised his hand again, Yosef glanced uneasily at Tolovan’s bloody knuckles, and fell silent.
“A Qaimiri woman named Meryam came to you several weeks ago about a ship.” Ihsan wiped a spot of dust off the knee of his ivory thawb. “Tell me about her.”
Yosef shrugged. “I thought she wanted the ship, but when she arrived, all she was interested in was the ship’s maps and Adzin’s logs.”
“Toward what purpose?”
“I’ve no idea, my lord.”
“Then why the change of heart? Why buy a ship when she’d come looking for maps and logs?” Yosef opened his mouth to speak, but Ihsan talked over him. “Take care with your answer, Yosef of the Red Crescent. I know much about this particular woman.”
Yosef sobered at that. When he spoke again, his words had lost the veneer of a grifter salesman. He sounded, in fact, perfectly earnest. “My cousin Adzin was a soothsayer. When she found messages written in the curiosities aboard his ship, she became determined to buy the entire ship. She didn’t so much as bat an eye when I named my price, which was twenty percent higher than what I had been asking. I was angry I didn’t double the price.”
“Why the interest in your cousin’s messages?” Ihsan’s mouth ached as he leeched power into his voice. “What was she searching for?”
Yosef’s cheeks flushed, but beyond this Ihsan couldn’t tell if his power was working or not. “I’d tell you if I knew, my lord, but I don’t.”
Ihsan added more power. His eyes watered from the pain it brought on. “You must have some clue.”
“Not a one. I didn’t ask her purpose. Why would I? I’d had that cursed ship for months. I just wanted to be rid of it.” When Tolovan cracked his knuckles and pushed himself off the wall, Yosef’s eyes went wide. “I swear! She asked of Adzin’s forays into the desert, the places he visited to gather magic. She must have wanted to visit them. Why else would she have wanted his maps? But what do I know of such things? I was Adzin’s cousin, not his bloody keeper!”
“And where, precisely, did your cousin go to gather his magic?”
Yosef’s look was half innocence, half impotence. “I might have been able to tell you if I’d kept the maps, but I didn’t. She wanted them all
.”
“You kept none of them?”
“Not a scrap!”
“Did you hear of her movements afterward? Any rumors of her around the quays?”
Yosef seemed relieved by the new line of questioning. “You’ve heard of Ibrahim the storyteller?”
“I have,” Ihsan said.
“I bought him a drink one night and he told me a story. He said he was out walking one night beyond the mouth of the harbor. Said he saw a yacht anchored beside The Gray Gull. A crew of men were using a sleigh to transfer something big between the ships. A dead ehrekh, if you can believe it.”
No ehrekh, Ihsan mused, but Goezhen himself. “Did he say what Meryam meant to do with it?”
“If Ibrahim knew, he didn’t tell me.”
It was clear Yosef was trying to pawn Ihsan off on Ibrahim, but that didn’t mean he was lying.
“Tell me now, Yosef”—for the third time, Ihsan tried using the power given to him by the desert gods—“has all you’ve told me been true?”
“Of course, yes!”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about Meryam or her purpose?”
“No! Nothing!”
Ihsan nearly ordered Tolovan to beat Yosef until he was certain he was telling the truth, but doing so was tantamount to admitting his power was failing. Its strength had always waned when he used it repeatedly, and there had always been those who could resist his commands, particularly those with blood of the thirteenth tribe running through their veins, but this was different. Ever since Cahil had helped him regrow his tongue, the power had been unreliable. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if it was working at all. That was the case now. His power might have affected Yosef. Then again, it might not have. It was somehow more terrifying than when he’d lost his tongue. At least then he’d had the hope of one day regaining it. Now it felt like his power was waning and that, when it was gone, it would be gone for good.
“My lord?” Tolovan was staring down at Ihsan with a concerned look.
Yosef, meanwhile, looked terrified, as if he thought Ihsan was debating whether to kill him. “By the gods who breathe, I swear I’m telling the truth!”
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